Amor, Letra Por Letra (2008)

Translated into Love Word by Word, this film may seem like the average romantic comedy. Famous telenovela star Silvia Navarro plays Hanna, an engaged woman who is having second thoughts about marrying her loser fiancé who still lives at home with his parents due to her sexual attraction to her Boss, who coincidentally also lives with parents. During a visit to the bank, Hanna messes up on her check deposit form after seeing her boss walking by. As a consequence, she deposits over $8,000 to another loser who lives with his parents. Hanna tracks the man down but falls in love with him just days before her wedding.

Hanna’s best friend has an affair with the loser fiancé and so does the girlfriend of the loser who takes Hanna’s money (yes, it’s a bit confusing… like a soap opera). The film seems to be all over the place, but it is easier to pick up as the film goes on. Set in Mexico City, the multiple storylines give a sense of the hectic lifestyle of the city. Hanna struggles to keep her job as a restaurant evaluator, takes care of her best friend’s son, while she runs around the city, stalking the man who spends her money. Carlos, Hanna’s fiancé, struggles to get his cell phone shop to open, avoids getting kicked out of his parents’ home, and has a secret affair with Hanna’s best friend.

The film is narrated by Hanna’s best friend’s son, Gaspar (played by child-actor Octavio Ocaña). Gaspar seems to be the only stable character in the film and the voice of reason. Unlike all the men in the film, who all live at home with mom and dad, Gaspar is an individual. Throughout the film, he is seen reciting speeches for a speech competition. These scenes symbolize the voice of reason that Gaspar represents. Gaspar is very innocent. Whenever Hanna curses, he is amused at these new words. His innocence becomes a gift in the film, while the rest of the characters suffer the consequences of their lust, sloth and greed before they achieve their happy ending.

The Politics in Saving Private Perez (2011)

When you combine Scarface (1983), The A Team (2010), with a dose of B-movie Mexican urban western genre, the result is Beto Gomez's Saving Private Perez.

The film follows Julian Perez (played by Miguel Rodarte), "the most powerful man on Earth", and his quest towards finding his brother Juan who is missing in action in Iraq. With the help of his protégé, Perez puts together a clan of texano(cowboy hat)-wearing men with machine guns to help him with this suicidal mission.

The plot calls for an entertaining storyline, politics aside.

But as much as I tried to enjoy the the film, I could not help but to see it through a political context.
The film presents unnecessary reinforcements of Mexican stereotypes. The men in the film are caricatured through violence, "machismo", an exaggerated sense of masculinity with attributes such as physical courage, domination of women, and aggressiveness, thirst for beer, and the glorification of hot sauce. One character thinks of a "caguama" bottle to get through the Middle Eastern heat. In a different occasion, hot sauce is used as a weapon to gain information from the Islamic radicals.

The film surfaces many controversial and political issues that the US is currently facing, including the War in Iraq, The war against drug cartels, and immigration. It fails to present the reality of these issues. Instead, it glorifies organized crime and displays the battlefield in Iraq as a playground. The thing that makes a film like Saving Private Perez borderline-controversial is the neglecting of political anxieties. The film lacks political content. Instead, it runs through them, solely focusing on the rescue mission and the humor of the situational irony taken place. This tactic, however, works as it puts the viewer into the characters' neutral position of the War in Iraq such to the extent that loyalty and the love for family becomes a more important issue in the film.

Saving Private Perez can be enjoyable to watch if you can appreciate raw humor and if you are not easily offended. Miguel Rodarte successfully portrays a powerful, yet charismatic drug lord, proving that he is among the best actors of contemporary Mexican Cinema. What is more enjoyable about the film is the soundtrack. The film features iconic Mexican songs and corridos, with music by Chavela Vargas, Los Tigres del Norte, Los Tucanes de Tijuana, among others.

Back After Hiatus

It's been a while so I am going to start doing this again. I will try to update reviews as much as I can.

Enjoy!!

Chungking Express (1994)

Chungking Express is an extraordinary film that plays with genre, narrative and chronology. The Film reminds me of Pulp Fiction meets Chinese romantic comedy, but with an aesthetic twist.Together, elements tell the stories of four people, breaking the conventional traits of Classical Cinema.

The film plays around with genre. The beginning starts with an action sequence, as a policeman chases a felon. However, the tone and smooth cinematic effect contradicts the action genre, making the sequence disoriented. In addition, the voice-over talks about love in the chasing opening sequence, which essentially expresses a paradoxical feel of genre. The film continues with a storyline about drug trafficking, then switches to a similar story about a different policeman, then switches to another storyline of a woman trying to achieve her dreams. The change of tone in the film leads to an ambiguous genre. This is an unconventional trait for a film, contradicting elements of Classic Hollywood.

Another element that contradicts Classic Hollywood, is its narrative structure. Chungking Express revolves around the points of view of four different characters. The film provides voiceovers from all four characters, dividing the plot in four as each part focuses on a particular character. This enables the viewer to see every side of a character's perspective as the storylines intertwine. Thus, rather than identifying with one or two characters in the film, the film allows the viewer to become familiar with four different characters.

The chain of events within the film are not told chronologically. The plot is disorderly presented based on the focused character. The events taken place are told chronologically by each character, but as a whole, the order is non linear because of the separations of stories. For example, in the beginning of the film, we see Faye walking out of a store with the stuffed animal as the woman in the blonde wig waits outside the store. The action taken place in Feye's point of view is later presented later in the film.

Sound in Paranormal Activity 2 (2010)

When watching Paranormal Activity 2 , I could not help but notice how significant sound and the lack of sound was in the film.

The film is shot informally with a hand-held (and surveillance) camera to evoke authenticity. Due to such aesthetic, visual elements are not enhanced by CGI (Computer-Generated Image). Instead, sound is used to produce anxiety, fear, and anticipation.

Throughout the film, day scenes are cut to night scenes. These scene are very quiet. The viewer is aware of a presence. The silence is used as a sound effect that evokes a frightening anticipation.

In the midst of the silence, a slight, indescribable sound creates tension that alarms the viewer that something is about to occur. Such tension would turn the peaceful image of a baby sleeping into a intense and fearful event in the film.

The film plays with the viewers feelings with such sound, making the viewer unaware of what will happen next. When something does occur, the sound drastically changes, creating the "jump" effect from the audience.

I think about the film and wonder if I would have the same emotional effect if the audio was off, or if I simply covered my ears.

Blackmail (1929)

Blackmail (Alfred Hitchcock) was one of the first sound films ever made.

When watching the film, I was very impressed with the quality of sound for such a early sound film.

Despite such innovative film technique, the film still used off-screen sound and cutting within dialogue.

An interesting thing I found about the movie is that the actress playing the main character was the woman we hear in the film. With out this knowledge, I would have never guessed it was not her voice being use in the film. This comes to show how images can become manipulated by sounds.

Without a doubt, sound is an important element in the film. The film utilizes sound to underscore its themes of eavesdropping.

The film begins as a silent film. Very little dialogue is exchanged after the introduction of the characters. However, the audience is given signs that Alice is having a secret affair with a man. Like most Hitchcock films, the viewer is indulged with watching. The lack of sound gives the viewer hunger for explanation. But when sound is introduced, the viewer learns to depend on sound for meaning.

Consequently, when more dialogue is introduce, the viewer becomes more involved in the sounds of voices and music in the film.

Like the character who becomes involved in the murder for eavesdropping, the viewer is intertwined by the storyline knowing what is and is not being said.

Sound helps intensify some of the scenes in the film. For example, one of the most memorable scenes when Alice is haunted by the repetition of the mentioning of the word "knife". The viewer becomes engaged in the same emotion as Alice because the viewer is presented with the same sounds that the character hears. In another scene, the non-diegetic sound of laughter serves the same purpose as the sound of "knife", conveying the emotions of Alice's guilt.

Without sound, this film would not have had the same effect from the viewer. The film shows that sound is very important in cinema. Although film is a visual medium, sound is the important element that completes one's film experience.

Hiroshima, Mon Amour (1959)

Hiroshima, Mon Amour (Dir. Alain Resnais) is a story of couple’s romantic journey in Hiroshima. The main female protagonist meets a Japanese man in Hiroshima while filming a movie about peace, fifteen years after the end of the Second World War. The Japanese man she meets and falls in love with reminds her of her first love; a German soldier who was killed. The film displays the woman's troubling character as she remembers her past.

The film’s themes are the power of memory and love. Most of the film is shot in extreme close ups between the two main characters. The close ups not only show the isolation they have developed with their love but also the claustrophobia of the space in the world. The frame is constantly narrow with display of the characters’ skin/body. These shots evoke the love for each other because the bodies seen become almost one single part. In addition, it shows the viewer that the minimal space these characters have are shared with one another, enhancing their chemistry, both physically and emotionally.

The film provides a lot of voice over scene with the display of past images. In addition the shot always has a straight cut transition to and from these memory shots. This shows the power of memory in the film. It shows that the characters’ memory is strong enough to even be a part of their current lives. The memories of these characters are an essential element of the film because it shapes their behavior throughout the film. Essentially, the memory of the female's first love is so critical to her that Hiroshima becomes a metaphor that represents the loss of her first love.

The order that these memories are told also say a lot of the female protagonist. The memories she shares with her Japanese lover is not told chronologically, which shows the disorder of her character. The character is eventually portrayed as an unstable woman who is traumatized by the death of her husband. Likewise, the film itself has a disorderly composition, going from the past to the present, and then back to the past.