Dark City

DARK CITY

On week 7, we watched Dark City in the class, and we learned about the theory of German Expressionism. Dark City is directed by Alex Proyas in the 1998, the film consists of several genres and is categorized as the Postmodernism Film, but the main goal of this essay is to talk about the German Expressionism approach towards the film.

German Expressionism refers to a creative movements which was beginning in Germany before the First World War that reached a peak in Berlin during the 1920s. It was influenced by the Expressionist movement in modern art of early 1900s. The theme of the movement of German Expressionism are often contain of self-analysis, madness and primitive, sexual savagery. These developments in Germany were part of a larger Expressionist movement in Europe culture in fields such as architecture, dance, painting, sculpture, as well as film. It also spread into cinema in terms of narrative, set and Mise‐en‐scene. It is most apparent in set design and chiaroscuro lighting in order word low key lighting. The style of German Expressionism includes oblique camera angle, distorted bodies and shapes, gothic style in looking and framing, high contrast lighting that creates dramatic shadows, and the content is usually about surreal and gothic, unnatural acts or realities. All these style of German Expressionism is to deliver the sense of fear, anxiety and mystery to the audience which influenced a lot of horror movie. The theme of revolt is found through the character Dr. Schreber when he rival against The Strangers by re-imprinted John’s memory in order to reset the world. He believes that with John Murdoch’s abilities in tuning can make his revolution a success. Self-analysis is when the character trying to find or figure it out who he or she really is by finding details and information about it. Besides Dark City, another best example for German Expressionism on film is The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Vampyr.

The story started in a scene where the main character, John Murdoch woke up in a hotel bathtub, and found himself could not recall or remember any memories. Soon, he realized that he was wanted for the suspect of murder crime. As he escape from a group of bald and distorted body proportion people who are called “The Strangers”. Murdoch is the only human that wakes up during the Tuning, because he has the power of tuning. The city was in the blend of reality and took ever by The Strangers to study human’s personality and mentality. They believed the outcome of experiment will help them to resolve the extinction crisis of their species. With the help of Dr. Schreber, Murdoch manages to jigsaws together puzzle of his past memories of his childhood, his love for Emma, and key of murders. At the end, he rival against The Strangers and reform the world to brightness.

There are some German Expressionism elements that we can found in this film. The chiaroscuro lighting is one of the important element in this film. So that it can create the mood of thrilling to the audience. In the film, the Strangers always appeal in dark and silhouette lighting, it kind of give the audience the feel of horrific element of monster. Self-analysis can easily been found in the beginning of the film where John Murdoch woke up in a hotel bathtub, found himself naked and unable to recall or remember any memories. He wondered around the hotel, hoping that he could find details or information about himself, then he found out that he was wanted for suspect of murder case, which is why he tested his killing desire by bumping into a prostitute. Dark City also show us the theme of primitive sexual savagery through the series of murder cases. Which is, prostitute was naked and was killed brutally and their bodies were drawn with circular lines, this shows the primitive behavior of The Strangers. Moreover, German Expressionism also talked about the distorted body proportion. The character has been set in different pattern of physical body movements and face movements to highlight the style of character. For example, Dr. Schreber walks with crippling leg and the weird movement of strangers to show the difference between them and from the human.

In conclusion, German Expressionism is an innovative film movement and it has inspired a lot of filmmakers. This movie has used the techniques and concept of the film movement, and extends it in terms of genre, narration, and Mise-en-scene. The lighting shows the contras of light and dark. Which is why the movement inspired a lot of filmmakers to create horror and noir film. Overall it was a pretty nice film, because I personally like the dark and gloomy style of film, which are shown in the film most of the time and the interesting concept of storyline, where it kind of make us thinks that what if the real world is not real.

Up

UP

On the Hari Raya week, we are supposed to write about any film that we watched in that week. I decided to watch Up as it was one of my favourite movie back when I was still a teenager. Up is a 3D animation film, which the main genre was Comedy-Drama. The film focus on an elderly widower named Carl Fredricksen (Ed Asner) and a young boy named Russell (Jordan Nagai) who is a Wilderness Explorer Member. Then in the journey they met a bird who was named by Russell call Kevin and they also met a loyalty dog named as Dug.

The semantic and syntactic in this film is well thought through, semantic include such as location, characters and props. These are what usually give a film their generic genre traits. For example, in this film since it is also a family film, the scene when it shows colorful lighting and background give the audience the mood of happy, but when bad things is going to happen they will show the dark and gray scene to enhance the mood of sad and scare, because it is a drama based genre, when it comes to bad things happen they often show rain scene. For example, the scene where Carl flying his house going to the South Africa, he face through storm and the scene where Carl, Russell, Kevin and Dug was sleeping, they were also facing rains too, it is because they want to enhance the sadness and make the film mood very dramatic.

Comedy is a genre that intended to humor the audience by using sense of humor, jokes and etc. In this film, there are quite a few scenes that falls under the genre of comedy. The first one is Slapstick, slapstick is a sense of humor by performing physical and gestures movement to make the audience laugh, for example the scene where Carl and Russell was stuck under house which the only way they can go up is using the hose, Russell is the only one who can climb since Carl is too old for it, the scene show a close up of Carl waiting Russell to climb up and Russell making a lot of groaning but when Carl looks up Russell was just a little bit on top of Carl. Another humorous scene is when Russell saw a silhouette of a dog, but it is actually a real dog, and he order him to sit and shake then he order the dog to speak and it actually really speaks. In this film we can see numerous of scene of dogs performing humorously to the audience, for example, the dogs really hate squirrels and also really like the tennis ball.

Road film is a genre that is about the main character leaves the home and went on a journey, on the way the character changes, grows, and improves during the journey. In this film we can easily identify that Carl was a stubborn old man after his wife pass away, then he faces these obstacle and in the end Carl looks through Ellie's childhood scrapbook, and is surprised to find that she has filled in the blank pages with photos of their marriage, along with a note thanking him for the "adventure" and encouraging him to go have a new one, and he then changes his personality of stubborn. The film also us that the journey of Carl working his way toward the Paradise Fall by walking, he faces many obstacle and he began to bond the relationship with Russell Kevin and Dug. Which is why the film has contain the sub-genre of road film.

In conclusion, Up main genre is Comedy-Drama film and mixed with other sub-genre to support the main genre. The film also show us the moral value of don’t be stubborn and stay in the comfort zone instead of going out and find a new life.

Paranorman

PARANORMAN

On week 5, we watched "Paranorman" in the class, the goal of this review is to analyze the mix genres, how post modernism affect this film, and semantic and syntactic. Paranorman is a 3D stop-motion film, which uses 3D printer to print the expressions of the character and physically animate it. The main genre of this film is Horror-Comedy genre, it is a genre which combines the elements of comedy and horror, which in this it often come across the black comedy and this film is more toward comedy genre because it is also a family film genre. 

The semantic and syntactic in this film is well thought through, semantic include such as location, characters and props. These are what usually give a film their generic genre traits. For example, in this film since it is also under the category of horror, the lighting of this film was set to low lighting to show the mood of the film to the audience such as fear, disgust, anxiety etc. Syntactic approach to the elements in the narrative or ideology of the genre. Which depends on the types of characters, heroes vs antiheroes, Ideologies and structures (themes and conventions found in the film). Horror is intended to make the audience or viewer to feel frighten, scare or disgust making the audience to feel terror or horror. There various kinds of sub-genre under the Horror genre. In this film, the sub genre is unnatural horror which include zombie, witch and ghost. Comedy is a genre that intended to humor the audience by using sense of humor, jokes and etc. In Paranorman we can identify that there are some actions and jokes which are the sub-genre of the comedy which are dark comedy. Action film is a genre which is about storytelling through the physical action. The story usually is about a hero that has a goal, but is facing incredible obstacles in order to achieve it. The film will often have many motions and actions which include physical stunts, pursuit, fights, and battles. Which in this film is how Norman overcome obstacles and resolve the problems and put the witch in peace. Post modernism is to subvert the mainstream of structure and characterization to tests the audience's delay of disbelief. 

The film start off with a young boy called Norman who has the ability to see the dead and able to communicate with them too. The people in the town and his family didn't believe him and think that he is a freak, but Neil, one of his classmates thinks that he is different and he become friend with Norman. Mr. Prenderghast told Norman that he is given the role of telling a bedtime story to the witch in order to put her into sleep for another year to stop the curse of the living dead. Norman thinks that the way people been doing for the past few years is not solving the problem, so he went to talk with the witch to find the solution. The witch is actually a little girl who was killed by the villager as she contain the same ability as Norman and they were afraid of her so they killed her. Norman talked to her and calmed her to made her remember the good memories with her mom, she was in peace and the curse was gone.

Analysis of the film, horror scene example, Where Norman go to Mr Prenderghast's house to find the book, in the scene where Norman walks across the room then he falls down then he was lying right next to Mr Prenderghast. Black comedy scene example, the others was trap inside the town hall where burning timber fall over them, after they find covers ,Courtney says If we die tonight, this may be the last chance I get to tell you how I feel

Mitch: Well, no unless we get brought back as zombies. Technically, you’ll have longer. Comedy scene example, where a guy buying snacks from the vending machine and he saw the zombies are coming, he was having hard time to decide whether to run or wait for the snack, as the zombies got close he decided to run away but the snack has drop down from the vending machine and he come back to grab it and run away again. Action scene example, when Norman and the others being car chased by the police at the same time have to deal with one of the zombie which are on the car. Postmodernism base on my understanding is to break the mainstream structure example, hero vs villain. In this film it kinda didn't show who is the real enemy, example, the zombie are actually mean no harm and the witch was actually a victim. Family film example, at the ending scene where Norman and all his family sit together and watch movie together.

In conclusion, Paranorman main genre is Comedy-Horror film and mixed with other sub genre to support the main genre. Postmodernism  also shows how to break the mainstream structure to make the film interesting. And the movie also show the moral value of don't judge the others try and step in their shoes and see what's their point of view. I also like the film using 3D printer to create the character.

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Zombieland Part 2

ZOMBIELAND

Continue from the last week review of Zombieland, which will discuss the rest of the genre in this film. Just a recap last week genre is Comedy, Horror and Romance, this week we are going to talk about the Sci-Fi, Action and Road Trip genre.

Sci-fi

It is a genre that are about fictional ideas which are created based on the technology or science theories. For example, Virus causes people to mutate, time travel, Alien Invasion, parallel universe and etc. So in the film we can find that it is counted as a Sci-Fi films because of the zombie apocalypse is caused by the "mad zombie disease" the idea was based on mutation concepts which is why the film has the genre of Sci-Fi. There is also Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction in this film, a sub genre which is about the end of civilization causes by disasters, which in this film it's the "mad cow disease".

Action

Action film is a genre which is about storytelling through the physical action. The story usually is about a hero that has a goal, but is facing incredible obstacles in order to achieve it. The film will often have many motions and actions which include physical stunts, pursuit, fights, and battles. Which in Zombieland is Columbus was a coward and nerdy guy, who has set many strategic rules for himself in order to survive from the zombie apocalypse which one of them is "Don't Be A Hero", but in the end he broke the rules and fight the zombies in order to save Wichita and Little Rock. There is also a sub genre can be found in this film which is Action-Comedy is depending on the characters to bring out the humors, while the action scenes tend to be less intense than other traditional action movie. In Zombieland which is the "Double Tap" performed by the 4 characters with many kinds of way, for example The scene where Tallahassee killed the zombies and drive over them in order to make sure they are dead, another example is that Tallahassee opens the car door and hit the zombies when they are on the journey to Columbus nearly at the beginning of the film.

Roadfilm

Road film its a genre that is about the main character leaves the home and went on a journey,  on the way the character changes, grows, and improves during the journey. In Zombieland, we can find that Columbus was actually away from home, and he wanted to head home to find his family. There is a short scene, where Columbus and Tallahassee's car was being robbed by Wichita and Little Rock and forced them to walk on their journey. Another very obvious scene is that, when the 4 characters on the journey to the Pacific Playland, they take turns staying up and drive, shot where is just showing the 4 characters in the car bonding their relationships and get to know each other better. 

Will I Recommend it?

Yes, because its a very great example of mixtures of genre in just one movie. And I also love the humors of the rules set by Columbus in the film. 

Zombieland

ZOMBIELAND

On week 3, we watched "Zombieland" in the class and learned a lot about the genre, the main genre of the film is horror and comedy but there is other sub genre can be identify in the film. Zombieland is a zombie comedy film directed by Ruben Fleischer, the story is about the "mad cow disease" has become "mad person disease" then finally become "mad zombie disease" that overrun the whole world and turning people into zombies. 

The film start off with a geeky college student who are a shut in guy which he always play game at his own room and unsocial, who is a survivor by setting a lot of rules in order to survive the zombie apocalypse. He was a survivor who are from Austin, Texas and making his way to Ohio, Columbus, hoping that his parents are survived from the zombie apocalypse. In his adventure journey he met a guy called Tallahassee, a guy who are expert in killing zombies but he has a weakness which is strong desire to get Twinkies. Together then they met two girl Wichita and Little Rock both of them are sisters. Four of them going on a journey to the zombie free land (Pacific Playland).

Genre

Genre is a simple way to categorize the film based on my own knowledge, but in class there is much more to learn in the term of "Genre". In the class we learned about Semantic and Syntactic, with these two terms we can understand and identify genre more easily.

Semantic

Semantic include such as location, characters and props. These are what usually give a film their generic genre traits. For example, in horror film it often have low lighting is used, whether it's night time, bad weather or no light area (no lights on in the house). To show the mood of the film to the audience fear, disgust, anxiety etc.

Syntactic

Syntactic approach to the elements in the narrative or ideology of the genre. Which depends on the types of characters, heroes vs antiheroes, Ideologies and structures (themes and conventions found in the film).

Horror

Horror is intended to make the audience or viewer to feel frighten, scare or disgust making the audience to feel terror or horror. There various kinds of sub-genre under the Horror genre. Under the category of unnatural horror there is bodily mutilations or mutations which is referring to zombie bites and causes the infection. Psychological horror is aim for discomfort the audience, for example characters face perverse situations, most of the times involving the supernatural, immorality and conspiracy. While other horror media emphasize on fantasy situations such as attacks by monsters. Massacre/Slasher Flicks horror which contains of blood and gore, phallic weapons, in this film the scene where Tallahassee and Columbus enter a grocery stall where Tallahassee uses phallic weapons to kill the zombies, example the baseball bat, gardening scissors and etc.  For Zombieland one of the example is that the mutation virus from the mad cow disease to mad zombie disease and causes the people to become zombies. There is some jump scares scene in the film, which most of the horror film uses, for example the scene when Columbus fall asleep besides 406 in his room (it is calm and quiet) and then the moment when he wakes up and realize that 406 has become a zombie (406 suddenly come close to Columbus face, and with a lot noise to scare the viewers). With blood and gore and also the make up of the actors the film was able to deliver the feel of disgust to the viewers, for me it was nothing because I have watched film and games much more worse than this. 

Comedy
Comedy is a genre that intended to humor the audience by using sense of humor, jokes and etc. In Zombieland we can easily identify many actions and jokes which are the sub-genre of the comedy, dark comedy, slapstick and parody. Dark/Black comedy is a humor that make the audience laugh which deals with dark subjects such as death, drugs, terrorism, rape, and war. In the film the scene where Bill Murray acted as a zombie trying to scare Columbus and Little Rock (which he does), which causes him get shot by Columbus, before Bill die everyone thought that was his last breath but actually it was way longer than they thought, which causes that Wichita to laugh even though she feels sad but also funny at the same time. Slapstick sense of humor by performing physical and gestures movement to make the audience laugh, for example the scene where Columbus is going to separate with Tallahassee and try to be hero and go to save Wichita and Little Rock, Columbus has made his decision and say farewell to Tallahassee, he ride onto the motorcycle and set off but falls right off immediately. Parody is a sense of humor that make fun of or comment on a original work, in the film where they were high after they inhaled some shisha three of them(Wichita, Tallahassee and Bill Murray) acted that they are like catching a ghost in the room that are on the chandelier using the vacuum cleaner. There is also a scene where Bill Murray make fun of Garfield (Little Rock: So do you have any regrets? , Bill Murray: "Garfield," maybe.). Also a scene where Wichita talks about the Anaconda film (Wichita: Yeah! 1997 was a great year! I saw my first R-rated movie... Anaconda. Got my first tattoo, a porpoise. Fake. Had my first kiss... Scotty Lynch.). And last but not least the "double tap" and some of the rules made by Columbus is actually a parody of making fun of many zombies movie, when zombie being shot but coming back up again after being shot.

Romance
Romance is a genre which are focuses on love, emotions and the relationship between the character. In the film, Columbus was actually gonna leave the crew and go and find his family, but he changes his mind that he decided to stick with them and stick with Wichita, he was so in love with Wichita that even he ask Little Rock does she has a boyfriend or not. At first Wichita never wanted a relationship with Columbus because of Wichita and Little Rock's rules, which are only trust themselves. But after they spend some time getting know of each other, the bonding within Wichita and Columbus has grow but Wichita was still having trust issue towards Columbus and Tallahassee, which Wichita and Little Rock left because Wichita are trying to prevent to continue building a relationship with Columbus. But after being saved by Columbus and Tallahassee in the park, Columbus finally gain Wichita trust and Columbus wins the heart of Wichita.

REQUIEM FOR A DREAM

REQUIEM FOR A DREAM

This is a psychological film about four different drugs addiction, this film was new to me, it kinda show us the life of the drug addicts living through and how they’re craving for drugs, and make their life hard. I like the performances of the four characters which really brings out the mood of they are drug addicts, I personally didn't overcome a real drug addict but the film was able to illuminate it like it was real. 

I also very impressed by the Mise - en -shot and Mise - en - scene in this film which have very good set up. The beginning of the scene where the director show us the split screen is really catching my attention, because this is my first time seeing split screen was used in a film, but the down side is I kinda didn't know where I should focus on, on the left or right? But still it is quite interesting how the director using it. The film seems to keep repeat different montage for different drugs taking and also where the character drug dealing, I actually didn't see an actual drug or drug deal before but still the montage kinda shows like it was real. The uses of montage is very interesting, (which I personally like it), the pros is that it can cut lose the amount of works but the cons is that eventually it will get boring because of the multiple times using it. 

I also very like the lighting in this film, because it is more of a "dark" film the lighting for me is very good, because it kinda give me the feel mystery and anxiety mood while I watching it rather than bright and colorful lighting which will not make film feel like a "dark" film anymore and it will lead the audience to feel confuse. The actor's movement are very good too, I personally really like the character Sara Goldfarb ( Ellen Burstyn ) because I actually quite impressed by the scene where she was scared of the refrigerator and after she takes the pills she was happy and high when she was watching the TV. The setting of the background is very good too, because it kinda show us the anxiety mood for the scene.

Climax
The ending of the film is very executed too, because it really shows that if you are drug addict you will have a tough life. We can see many rapid cut of scenes of the four characters having a tough life because of drugs, Tyrone was a labor in the prison, Sara undergoes the electroconvulsive therapy , Harry got his arm cut off  and Marion was being humiliated in a private sex show.

Will I recommend it?YES! I will definitely recommend this film because it kinda show the consequences of having drugs, and there is also many interesting Camera shots was showed in this film. Special thanks to Mr. Joe to tell us that all of the movies are fake! Even if it was based on true story. Which I totally agree with it, I learned a new thing from him which is called "Hollywood realism", which kinda show us that the film may looks real but actually it is not.  

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Spirited Away

First Impressions

My first impression on this film is i think that it was quite good, because of the ratings of this film is quite high. After i watched it actually i was very impressed by this film, the moral values contain in this film is actually relating to our real world.

What i like in this film?

I like the film that it shows the reflection of the real world, for example this film shows that how humans handle and changed the environment of the natural world and ignored the consequences and also how people was driven by greed.

           There are many scenes shows that human has changed the environment, at the starting of the film Chihiro's father says that "There's no doubt. This is a theme park. In the 90's there were lots of plans for them, but many didn't succeed.” Which kind of shows how human destroy the environment and abandoned it after the business went down, and another scene is that the ancient river spirit who were seems to be a stink spirit is because it shows how polluted the river is because of human dumping rubbish and wastes into it. 

              In the film there is also many scenes show us about the characters greed for money or gold, for example Chihiro’s father says that “Don’t worry, you’ve got Daddy here. He’s got credit cards and cash.” which shows how we human react when we are wealthy and think that wealth can pay for lack of respect and manners. Second scene is that Yubaba “You humans always make a mess of things. Like your parents who gobbled up the food of the spirits like pigs. They got what they deserved.” which kind of  tell that when you got too greedy there will be consequences. Another scene is that when Haku says “You still haven’t noticed that something precious to you has been replaced.” to Yubaba, the first thing Yubaba look is the pile of gold on her table then only realize her baby was not Boh, the greed has leave her nothing but dirt. Which shows how people are greed for money or gold and lost what was precious to them.

            Lastly, i also really like how the director create the characters, which is every character has a bad side and a good side, for example starting of the film Chihiro is like an annoying child, she only reveal her better side after she become Sen. Even Lin, Kamaji and Zeniba at first they met they kind of show their bad side but in the end they become the one who really help Chihiro to escapes from the bathhouse. These kind of style really makes the character more interesting because it kind of reflects real person which is not all people are clearly divide good or evil, which make this film kind of different from most of the film genre where clearly divides the character good or evil.

Will I Recommend it?

Yes! I will recommend it, because the film has very good character development and the theme of the film is very well developed too. I personally really like the theme of  environment, and the character didn't clearly divides the character good or evil makes the film very interesting.

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