告訴我，我們為了什麼而藝術？ 你為了什麼而聽音樂，為了什麼而陶醉於王家偉的電影裡？
你吸收咁多 arts，share 咁多條超靚超形超勁超有創意 YouTube 片又為咗啲乜？睇戲又為咗啲乜？
我有陣時好討厭 d 藝術仔(包括扮晒嘢嘅自己）不停咁吸收。好似不停咁鉋一支鉛筆咁。 鉋呀鉋，鉋呀鉋，有一日就鉋到無晒。
但係鉛筆係用來寫字同畫畫的。
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朋友借了一套叫《東京奏鳴曲》的電影給我。故事是講述一個日本家庭內，因爸爸失業而所帶出的各種問題。
其實戲整體上無俾我太大感覺，佢只令我諗到類似的其他“mid-life crisis”電影。但係電影令到我想到其實很多時藝術嘅目標係要照明(highlight)一啲社會上嘅問題。《東京奏鳴曲》的頭一段就對日本嘅失業就描述得好好。帶出那是日本面對全球一體化、社會年輕化、和傳統思想所帶出的 conflict 。
就好像畢家索的 Guernica，是一份有思考的藝術。
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當然，藝術不一定要有社會性的思考。也可以是其他反省。但作為 audience，我覺得要知道發生什麼事。我討厭做一個 hea 爆的 consumer。吃過就算。右腦刺激過一番以後就繼續再找刺激。今年聽了幾十隻碟，下年再來過，但是我 iTunes 已經有 40 Gig。
夠了。我討厭這種感覺到死。我不想再吸收。我的靈魂像似飽到嘔。鉛筆鉋尖了就不要再鉋。
在一個 media overloadad 的時代裡成長，我們要學習的是 the art of silence 。
從吃過的 media 中，消化，化成力量和一套價值觀。要在生活中活出來，去做一個好的未來。
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我覺得這套戲是西方社會的《麥兜》。
雖然它沒有《麥兜》的攪笑，社會角度和集體回憶，但其實兩套戲的靈魂都有點相似。
I was at a Christian retreat camp this weekend, and at the Sunday worship, the leader led us in a baptism renewal service. As part of the service and according to tradition, we would denounce sins and the devil by facing the west (a direction that symbolizes darkness), and then turn around and proclaim our acceptance of Jesus by facing the east (symbolizing light).
On paper, this ritual sounds quite meaningless: why would it matter where you face? But I found the action very moving. It’s as if our choices of good and evil are not mere rational, moral, and spiritual choices. It’s physical too. It’s what we do, where we face, and where we go as well. You turn around, and you feel your peers turning with you in unison. You look up. And you can’t help but notice a bit of light peeking out from the East.
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I saw The Dark Knight at IMAX last week, and I guess I was impressed as everyone else, but I couldn’t help but feel an unexplainable sense of disappointment with it.
Perhaps it was the hype? Or perhaps it was my high expectations?
Sure, the Dark Knight does a great job of exploring the nature of evil:
Is evil in the Joker’s bestial appetite for chaos? Is evil in Harvey Dent’s hopeless, perverted sense of justice? Or perhaps evil is when we say that our lives are worth more than others’? The movie is full of questions like that – plus it’s well-acted, and the action scenes are gee-golly awesome. So I guess I’m supposed to love it.
But I don’t. At the end of the day, for all of its ruminations on evil and terror, it’s still just a comic book adventure. Sure, it dives down further than other comic book movies, but it does not lift up. Batman is not the light to Gotham’s tunnel.
Exiting the theatre, I felt a knot in my chest. I had gone for an exciting ride, and I saw some semblance of a hero in action, but the victory felt cheap, incomplete, temporary… Hopeless.
My friend looked over to me and said: “Oh, that was pretty good. I wonder how they will do the next one?”
Extended reading:
[Wikipedia] Batman: The Killing Joke
[Becoming] Darker than The Dark Knight
[Ben Witherington] The Dark Knight’s Dark Night of the Soul
So, um, are you getting an iPhone 3G?
In the English language, there are these things called “loanwords” – words taken from other languages without the word being translated. The German word “Zeitgeist” is an example of a loanword. It’s a word that means “the spirit of the age”, or the intellectual and cultural climate of an era. When we’re talking our lovely decade, with the purveyance of our iPods, our glorious Web 2.0, and our Inconvenient Truths, some of the major ideas in our current zeitgeist must have to do with technology, the environment, connectivity and consumerism. Watching Pixar/Disney’s latest movie – Wall•E – I was utterly blown away by how a mainstream animation was able to talk about these big ideas beautifully and tap into our current zeitgeist.
The film tackles all these by being bold and making different choices. In movies like Finding Nemo, A Bug’s Life or last year’s Ratatouille, they open with happy green pastures; but in Wall•E, the movie opens with desolation. The opening scene looks like a mix between Hong Kong and a desert, with garbage cubes replacing the IFC building. It is a harsh and scary preview at our unchecked consumerism. And it is against this backdrop that we meet Wall•E. Wall•E is the last remaining clean-up robot on Earth, and he has somehow developed a personality. (more…)
剛剛看完電影「我的最愛」. 這是繼「十分愛」後, 葉念琛拍的另一套愛情片.
這是一部關預謊言的故事. 我不會影評, 不過如果葉念琛想要讓看完的人被謊言嚇怕的話, 我覺得他很成功.
上次看完「十分愛」後我有差不多兩天都被那不電影裡所帶出的信息而困擾著. 這次我看完「我的最愛」後,恐怕我又要睡不著了.
因為我發現世界上最可怕的, 不是鬼, 不是怪獸或著死亡, 而是謊言.
看著故事美麗的發生, 一切順利, 最後有著完美的結果. 但是當發現故事背後其實有著很多不可告人的事情時, 發現原來這些美麗的情節背後原來都是有著一大堆謊言來支撐著時, 才發現原來我們看到的只不過是整個故事的十分之一. 原來這些美麗是假的.原來那些山盟海誓都是假的. 原來每一個人都在說謊. 原來男朋友有著另一位情人, 原來那個情人就是你的好朋友, 原來大家都在互相欺騙著.
而就是因為表面上看起來是這麼的完美無暇, 我們才會背後的故事嚇怕. 為什麼那麼美麗的畫面原來是假的? 怎麼這些看起來是好的和真心的人原來都很有目的呢? 原來人真是那麼醜陋的.
我不知道怎麼去形容我的心情, 我覺得很可怕, 我覺得原來人性醜陋的那一面原來是這麼恐怖的. 我的心立刻「寒」了起來.
事情是否真實其實我們永遠都不會知道的. 因為就算你去問個明白, 就算你去調查真相, 你也不會知道最後你找到的答案到底是不是真的. 到最後你找到了, 你也要相信那個答案才行的. 所以關鍵並不在於找不找出事實的真相, 因為最算你再怎麼樣去找出真相, 也無法知道到底那個所謂的「真相」是不是真的.
相信就是相信, 如果你相信那個人, 你就不會在意找不找出真相這一回事了.
因為就算找出「真相」, 你也要相信那個人, 來相信那個真相.
也就是說, 很多時候我們執著的去問個究竟, 去找出真相, 但其實那並不實重點, 因為就算找到了, 你真的問到了真相,你也不會知道那是不是真的.
「我想做回自己． 很多年前，有個人叫我去做，但是我做不到．最近我遇到另外一個人，她說我可以的，所以我想試試看．」
「師父，你談戀愛嗎?你說話很像張小嫻．不過看你樣子也不會追到的」
「就算我喜歡她, 也不代表我要去追求她. 她需要的生活, 我並沒有能力給她. 沒有了我, 她會比較快樂」(阿強)
「這是我們在一起那一年我的生日時他送給我的生日卡．他說我永遠都是他的最愛，但是其實他的最愛根本就有很多．就好像電腦一樣，喜歡的時候就看一下我，不喜歡的時候就delete．根本就是騙人的」(阿寶)
Explosions.
Robots.
Flying.
Cartoon plot.
Good acting.
Iron Man is a great movie for 15-year-old boys.
Yup, that’s my review.
Juno is a nice film. It’s light, charming, mostly well-acted, and I like the soundtrack. It’s poignant in showing the chasm between the idealistic teenage world and the complicated (and sometimes ugly) adult life. It’s a film with a particular world view: about being forced to grow up and making choices for ourselves. I disagree with parts of it, but it does not make the film less cute and moving.
I do think the movie is flawed, though, as the story is skewed by centering on Juno. And I think they traded some charm at the expense of reality. I’ve read somewhere that the movie is remarkable because Juno’s character is not a stereotype. I’m not too sure about that, since it’s as if she’s the opposite kind of stereotype: Indie, sarcastic, sounds-like-she’s-30-years-old. And in trying to be light-hearted and focused, they skip out on some of the painful realities of pregnancy. I also think that the film avoided details about the supporting cast, and it seems that it’s an effort from allowing us to identifying too much with them. Was that a deliberate effort to cut us off, or a simple edit for a stronger narrative? I don’t know – but what is clear that there is a world view that emerged from this movie as a result of this skew. As light and delightful as the movie was, I think this is a pattern that is worth our consideration.
