procrastination... is not a pretty thing.
I have all day free and what do I do? First I let Isabella watch a Dinosaur movie 3! times, the bullet part (about which I have tried to engage her in dialogue - the fact that what she calls bullets are really meteors, and that as they fall through earth's atmosphere they are burned, ending in smaller versions of themselves, and perhaps seeming like bullets in her limited frame of reference) was frightening and so she said: "Mommy bring your computer upstairs and snuggle!" What a happy trio we have been, Isabella, my computer and me. She wrapped herself around me, like a kitten and hid, of course she then put the movie back on, scaring herself, once again... Morbid sense of curiosity...
I watched "City of God" last night, not sure how long it has been out in video, I have been sort of out of the loop lately, and if it came out while I was living in NH, I have a legitimate excuse. The camerawork was excellent IMHO, and recalled the very clear and very street-wise shooting, (playing with POV) in Amores Perros, of course the Rio slums don't look or feel the way the ciudades perdidas in DF feel, but the edginess was similar. The scary part, though, was the psychotic gleam in the eye of L'il Dice (renamed L'il Zé). It is frightening to think what economic marginalization does to the psyche of a child, coupled with the lore of "shoot 'em up" heroes. For some reason, I was remitted to the rude boys of Jamaica and "The Harder They Come" especially because of the ultimate futility and destruction with which the film ends. It is, in the end, a story of the "one that got away", like Frank McCourt's memoirs or Sandra Cisneros' "House on Mango Street". The shining moment where one person, of how many thousands?, transcends the misery and violence to creatively transfer it into writing or silver print or moving picures... and finally complete the circle, coming home without ever really being able to go back.
I loved the meta-discourse and the self-awareness of its own construction as an act of "fiction" even though, at the end, it slyly winks at us - "based on a true story". How much fiction is truly not based on a true story? Nonetheless, it requires of the viewer a personal ownership of her/his participation in the reality of the manifested economic marginalization and corruption, forcing a reflection that isn't purely superficial. That is, un-like the ultra-violence of the 90's noir films in the US, we are to understand that this violence does not just exist in a fictional (violently utopic) space, but rather is still *really* going on in the Rio slums. The ingenuous point of view, the romanticizing of the drug trade by the film's protagonist -Rocket- does not lead the viewer down the path of glorifying the criminal circumstances, and yet, the film does not moralize either.
The only bothersome element is a purely formal complaint, and in fact may have to do with the viewing format as opposed to a real problem. The headers that preceeded each dis-jointed section were way too small, and in white lettering, they were on the screen for too short of a time to really process the information being offered. Again, quite possibly this was different in a full-screen viewing, but having missed my opportunity, I will nonetheless complain. Also, the sense of page lay-out, which should have tied so nicely to the sub-plot of Rocket on his quest to become a photo-journalist, was decidedly lacking. I will, however, forgive this, for its perhaps minute's worth of air-time with relation to the whole.
Excellent film. Terrible grief about all that is wrong with sub-developed, over-industrialized societies. Where is the green?!There was a film I saw several months ago, which dealt with similar issues, of bands of street children in Iran (I want to say, but my memory often fails me) called Ali Z'ouwa (not exact- transliteration from semitic languages, of course, never is, but this is just wrong, but the best approximation I can come up with, w/o looking it up). I was also reminded of the decidedly less successful attempts in Mexican film "Lolo" (early 90's I think- it tried, but ultimately failed) and "De la Calle" and "Perfume de violetas" both of these latter movies, made within the last 5 years, aren't bad, per se, but following the mastery of both subject and object in "Amores Perros" they left quite a bit to be desired, romanticizing and glossing over at times, and at others falling into over knee-jerk sensationalism, when referring to the harsh reality of the urban space.
This is my reflection for the afternoon, and maybe now, I will separate myself from one computer (the pleasureable one) to go to another (the non-pleasureable ie - work is calling me - one).
I watched "City of God" last night, not sure how long it has been out in video, I have been sort of out of the loop lately, and if it came out while I was living in NH, I have a legitimate excuse. The camerawork was excellent IMHO, and recalled the very clear and very street-wise shooting, (playing with POV) in Amores Perros, of course the Rio slums don't look or feel the way the ciudades perdidas in DF feel, but the edginess was similar. The scary part, though, was the psychotic gleam in the eye of L'il Dice (renamed L'il Zé). It is frightening to think what economic marginalization does to the psyche of a child, coupled with the lore of "shoot 'em up" heroes. For some reason, I was remitted to the rude boys of Jamaica and "The Harder They Come" especially because of the ultimate futility and destruction with which the film ends. It is, in the end, a story of the "one that got away", like Frank McCourt's memoirs or Sandra Cisneros' "House on Mango Street". The shining moment where one person, of how many thousands?, transcends the misery and violence to creatively transfer it into writing or silver print or moving picures... and finally complete the circle, coming home without ever really being able to go back.
I loved the meta-discourse and the self-awareness of its own construction as an act of "fiction" even though, at the end, it slyly winks at us - "based on a true story". How much fiction is truly not based on a true story? Nonetheless, it requires of the viewer a personal ownership of her/his participation in the reality of the manifested economic marginalization and corruption, forcing a reflection that isn't purely superficial. That is, un-like the ultra-violence of the 90's noir films in the US, we are to understand that this violence does not just exist in a fictional (violently utopic) space, but rather is still *really* going on in the Rio slums. The ingenuous point of view, the romanticizing of the drug trade by the film's protagonist -Rocket- does not lead the viewer down the path of glorifying the criminal circumstances, and yet, the film does not moralize either.
The only bothersome element is a purely formal complaint, and in fact may have to do with the viewing format as opposed to a real problem. The headers that preceeded each dis-jointed section were way too small, and in white lettering, they were on the screen for too short of a time to really process the information being offered. Again, quite possibly this was different in a full-screen viewing, but having missed my opportunity, I will nonetheless complain. Also, the sense of page lay-out, which should have tied so nicely to the sub-plot of Rocket on his quest to become a photo-journalist, was decidedly lacking. I will, however, forgive this, for its perhaps minute's worth of air-time with relation to the whole.
Excellent film. Terrible grief about all that is wrong with sub-developed, over-industrialized societies. Where is the green?!There was a film I saw several months ago, which dealt with similar issues, of bands of street children in Iran (I want to say, but my memory often fails me) called Ali Z'ouwa (not exact- transliteration from semitic languages, of course, never is, but this is just wrong, but the best approximation I can come up with, w/o looking it up). I was also reminded of the decidedly less successful attempts in Mexican film "Lolo" (early 90's I think- it tried, but ultimately failed) and "De la Calle" and "Perfume de violetas" both of these latter movies, made within the last 5 years, aren't bad, per se, but following the mastery of both subject and object in "Amores Perros" they left quite a bit to be desired, romanticizing and glossing over at times, and at others falling into over knee-jerk sensationalism, when referring to the harsh reality of the urban space.
This is my reflection for the afternoon, and maybe now, I will separate myself from one computer (the pleasureable one) to go to another (the non-pleasureable ie - work is calling me - one).
posted by ilana at 1:05 p.m.
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