Short Movie Reviews

I: 2012
2009 Roland Emmerich
Significance: The Mother of All Disaster Films

Emmerich has stated that his intention was in making 2012 to the Mother of All Disaster Films. And what a disaster film! O sweet mother of mercy, put that monstrosity back into the ground where it belongs.

Has it got redeeming qualities? Yes:
2012 does not portray China as a Commie behemoth. Rather, it had the faint whiff of respect from the West who had seen China's efficiency in disaster relief and organising the 2008 Olympics.
But, China, building arks to bring salvation exclusively to the rich and strong of the world?... That is worth a bit of thought. Emmerich, you cunning bastard!

And a bit of hypocrisy to top off the bad plot and acting:
So it recently came to my knowledge that Emmerich did not destroy Mecca in the film, for fear of a fatwa on his head. So, destroying the Vatican was OK? Gods, you americans.

II: Gloomy Sunday / En Lied von Liebe und Tod
1999 Rolf Schübel
Significance: World's Longest Running Film at the Academy Theatre, Christchurch Arts Centre

A little bit about the Academy Theatre:
The theatre sits at the heart of the old University of Canterbury Campus, now reappropriated as the Arts Centre of Christchurch. It is surrounded by a smattering of galleries and artists' studios and temporary stands selling international cuisine. The theatre consists 2 tiny screening rooms; the one I was in holds just 10 people.

About the movie:
Gloomy Sunday has screened in the Theatre for 9 years straight (daily 1pm, 7pm) and shows no sign of stopping. When I went there, however, it seemed a bit in need of bohemian patrons. Which also meant I was the only guy in the screening room when the movie played the infamous suicide anthem all over and over and over again.
I guess that made me pretty brave, huh-

III: Fermat's Room / La Habitación de Fermat
2008 Luis Piedrahita and Rodrigo Sopeña
Significance: Airplane on-demand

4 mathematicians solve a riddle and are invited to a gathering in a house far away from civilisation. As it goes on the walls begin to close in upon them, and they now have to solve riddles within set times in order to halt the walls' progress.

The magic of the film wasn't in the puzzles, but in the way characters changed and revealed themselves as the truth is unfurled.

Galois [characters are codenamed after historical mathematicians]:
Start: young, flirtatious, charismatic and a mathematical prodigy.
Middle: Impotent and short-tempered
End: Fake through and through

Hilbert:
Start: Elderly, accomplished mathematician
Middle: Rather dubious; the respectability aura flakes off him
End: Rampant sexual pervert (implied) and criminal mastermind, and mentally unsound genius (though he drops hints about these towards the start of the movie)

Oliva: Nothing about our image of Oliva actually changes.

Fermat:
Start: Supposed host, a suspicious character
Middle: The criminal mastermind with a real motive to do away with Pascal
End: A quite endearing character who ends up dying a needless death.

Pascal:
Start: Underachieving inventor of a popcorn machine, mathematical phillistine
Middle: Resourceful sleuth unearthing most of the clues to the mastermind's identity and motives.
End: Still a mathematical phillistine, but in a good way.

In effect, the characters inside the plot undergo a full reshuffling, and change roles sometimes more than once.
It is intriguing to see Piedrahita cook up such sympathy in Galois in the early parts of the plot and then suddenly pull it down to next to nothing, while Pascal becomes so important and proficient at the puzzles that the audience feels guilty just for having thought that he was just a noob in a room of bright sparks. Fermat is also one of those bags of surprises, with his transition from scheming psychopath to unwitting pawn taking only seconds.

However, if your expectations lie upon the puzzled themselves, prepare to be a little disappointed. They are ripoffs from puzzle.org and not something the brightest minds on the planet (who would rather be crushed) would scramble after.

Blogging from Christchurch

Day 7: In the night of day 7 I have finally decided to settle down and blog, in the absence of tight schedules, van trips, kiddy distractions and impulses to shop (I have run out of money). The previous 6 days have been long, because the van and coach trips were long. The time spent in the wilds, interacting with local people and local birds etc. was preciously short, sadly speaking.

Today was spent in Christchurch's cultural precint, the bohemian heartlands of South Island. Spent the afternoon lubbing around town like a layabout, because I had visited the Art Gallery (twice), Arts Centre, CoCA, the Canterbury Museum and the Botanical Gardens before in day 5. Besides, I had run out of money.

Had fun out of whatever social contact I could establish. When I couldn't, I had fun watching the folks play chess at the giant chestboard in Cathedral square.

The Europeans that one meets in NZ, in general, are friendlier and more warm-hearted than your usual Anglo-Saxon. They are almost always easy to talk to, and their accent amusing and soothing. The German bratwurst seller at the Arts Centre is a nice guy. And so was Cyrielle, the French girl I met on the whalewatching boat. The German waiter at Kaikoura was nice too, although it was hard for me to conjecture how a German would have landed a job like this in such a place.

Day 6: Day 6 was spent on a day-trip to Kaikoura. Kaikoura means eat-crayfish and true enow, I got to eat crayfish. Mom's complaints on the non-freshness of crayfish notwithstanding, I was happy as long as it was served with tartar.

The seas were rough on the day we took the whalewatching boat over the underwater Kaikoura Canyon and the passengers spotted only 5 sperm whales who scurried away unhurriedly as we drew near.

I also found the French (Ardéchois) girl called Cyrielle who, after ~20 minutes of sitting beside me and not talking, shattered the ice at first opportunity. She was (and still is) on an 8-month holiday globetrotting, from S. America to NZ to Australia to Indonesia, Singapore, Taiwan, Nepal etc. with her parents.
What about school? I asked. Ach, home-schooling was what she swore by, that lucky wommon.
She was struggling in English, but drawing on a notebook and my infantile French got the conversation chugging along quite nicely all the way ashore.

On an unrelated note, I was reminded that lack of social interaction can be terribly suffocating, yet breaking the coccon of introversion is also hard.
I have been walled up in home and van confines for long enough!
"It is God's calling for Catholics to reach out to others!" proclaims Father Richards.
In my last days in Christchurch and thereafter in Singapore, I must follow this philosophy to the best of my ability.

Pronouncements on Things We do not Really Understand

In the book Much Ado About English, In a chapter concerning obsolete words, Richard Watson Todd describes one such word which means "to make pronouncements on things you do not really understand". I have forgotten what the word was, except that it was long and probably started with a "u". However, I do remember one other word he cited: spanghew, which means "to throw a frog into the air".

It may sound like an intellectual malpractice (and I think it is), but Yours Truly has been guilty of u----------ing. I was never a Dandong pilot and has never met one, and yet I had the nerve to pen down Portions for Sixteen. Now let me try lamely to explain-

It was inspired by retired bomber pilots recounting a mission from which the squadron suffered heavy casualties from the Americans. The battle had left a heavy stamp on their memories, and they could recall clearly who died and where they crashed their plane into. They may or may not have mentioned a promised feast, but that was what came into mind then. The story is built on this question:

The CO promises a feast for the pilots when they return victorious. To heighten spirits, he orders all to be present for it. As it turns out, not all of them are able to come when the battle was over, but the food is already on the table! Who eats it?

Apart from pushing this question, the rest of the content was hastily put together: How could I have known if the fallen pilots crashed into Kumgangsan or any other san? And how would I have known the minds of the Dandong pilots? The story is less realistic than it should have been. In fact, it probably reads more like J.G. Farrell's Siege of Krishnapur than any WWII literature written in all sincerity.

After such self-bashing, what better to bash now than a fictional straw man? Enter Jaromil, Kundera's caricature of a poet in his book Life is Elsewhere. While in his childhood, Jaromil displayed one instance of u----------ing by writing a long poem describing sex between two aged lovers.

To say nothing on the poem itself, here's his mother's reaction:

When Mama read this strange poem, she was as usual stunned by the precocious maturity that allowed her son to understand a time of life so far off from his own;

She didn't understand that the characters in the poem had no connection with the real psychology of old age.

Kundera's own expanation:

[Jaromil] was unaware of old age, which to him was a distant, abstract notion; what he knew of old age was that it is a time of life where the adult age already belongs to the past; [...] where love, when we encounter it, is certain and final.

Jaromil's poem, as it goes, was a cathartic stream of thought on love, as it is more vividly displayed under special circumstances. i.e. when the lovers are no longer young and voluptuous. It would not be so bad if one looks at it the way Kundera does; it would be quite the other thing if it passes off as precocious maturity, as it did for his mother.

While it is hard for imaginative writers to escape treading poorly-known waters, it is far less acceptable for intellectuals to fall into the u----------ing habit. The writer who makes baseless and pedantic declarations is laughable. When such a thing is taken seriously, it is not as funny anymore.

Ever seen an impressive string of words? Do watch out for what it is intended for. Ever seen an impressive bunch of words? Dive into it bravely, and yank the soul out of the waffle. The very last thing an artist deserves is for his audience to pass his work by only to comment dryly on its being inscrutable. The very last thing any honest writer should desire, is for his writing to be taken, without further delay or scrutiny, to be a sure sign of his own genius. "How did you come up with such big paragraphs of thoughts? So subtle, so profound! So philosophical! I couldn't understand a word of it. Well, you are the professor."

Eight Threads' Worth of Stuff [blog]

A Brief Overview of Sean Lim's Article Entitled "In Response to Esteemed Crystal Soh's Article Entitled 'Why'"
The article, and its many responses, can be referred to here.

About the Article

Sean's article was a response to another article, which I regrettably have not read yet. Doubtlessly it has been intellectually stimulating for him, because it has inspired him to open not one but 5~10 different lines of argument.

The subsequent comments number as I type to 56, some genuine arguments and counter-arguments both to Sean's general premise and to the finer points that he had introduced, and others exclamations to the sheer volume of text unheard of in other notes posted on Facebook. Yet others made ecstatic, pious affirmations to counteract the air of despondency displayed in his writing. However, this has also made the lines of arguments hellishly tough to follow, which is why I try to make them a little less obscure.

Summary (subject to errors)

Using Sean's own numbering as it is used in the comments also-

1. UNCONDITIONAL LOVE not common or necessary in humans.

2. God does not grant UNCONDITIONAL LOVE to unbelievers or apostates.
2a. God gives them ETERNAL DAMNATION instead, without recourse to a second chance.
2b. Assumption: God is a God of Reason (God follows the laws of Reason?)

H1. There is no solid proof that God exists, or that the God we believe in is the correct one. (?)
H1a. contra. circular argument nature of Bible as proof of God's existence
H1b. The Bible is self-consistent only because of Constantine's intervention in setting the Biblical canon (doubtful?)
H1c. So how can we trust the Bible?

H2. (As the gist goes) What is the place of morality w.r.t. religion?

H3.
(H3 part 1)
The Bible is fallible, and its account of Love being actually conditional is put in serious doubt.
Therefore,
a. there is no justification to believe in one God or another,
Hence,
b. there is justification to believe in none at all

(H3 part 2)
God, being a God of Reason would forgive all [misled in belief], because God is also a God of Unconditional Love.

Interpretation (also subject to error)

1. An observation on love in humans.
Group 2. A denial of the notion God's unconditional love (?)
Group H1. For the Bible to be out of the picture as a valid source of info.
H2. An unrelated but valid issue.
H3 part 1. Since {Group H1}, then there is justification to not believe in any god.
H3 part 2. Affirmation: Even if God exists, those who follow {H3 part 1} can also be forgiven.

Pertinent Issues and conclusion

This is admittedly an "untidy approach" and a train of thought, and I understand how Sean penned down such thoughts (as a cathartic response to Crystal's article). However, I wish that the discussion had been built on one point of contention and not all of them at once.

The comments invited by this post are varied. While arguments have been put forward to address the starting 10 points, most other people have responded with likewise cathartic or vague circumlocutions.

Nevertheless, one can identify certain issues that arose from both Sean's article and the subsequent response, and these are what I have found:

Major issues:
Maj1: Can Love ever be unconditional?
Maj2: What is Morality's role in relation to God?
Maj3: Does God exist?
Maj4: What are the virtues that God is supposed to embody? (reason? morality? etc.)

Minor (side) issues:
Min1: Is the Bible self-consistent?
Min2: Is the biblical canon standardised with vested interests?
Min3: Is logic useful in describing and analysing religious concepts?
Min4: What is evil?

I consider Maj3 (existence of God) to be a hacked-to-death question that would mean nothing even if it is solved.
However, Maj1, 2, 4 and Min4 are questions worth opening new threads for.

The other side issues (Min1-3) concern the integrity of the bible and church history, and would be of concern of religious practitioners (particularly Christians) worried or besieged with distorted views and attitudes of the naysayers.

This is from my observation that in these domains, knowledge of the Bible and Church History tends to give weight to one's arguments, rather than have it all knocked off the boat in one "circular arguments" thingy.

Books worth re-reading

1. Halldór LAXNESS: World Light / Heimsljós
2. Halldór LAXNESS: Under the Glacier / Kristnihald undir jökli
3. Halldór LAXNESS: The Fish Can Sing / Brekkukotsannal
4. Paolo COELHO: Manual of the Warrior of Light
5. Salman RUSHDIE: Fury
6. 当年明月: 明朝那些事儿
7. Denis DUTTON: The Art Instinct
8. James Gordon FARRELL: The Siege of Krishnapur
9. Milan KUNDERA: Life is Elsewhere