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Growth is a weird thing

You know when people say they're in their "healing era" and they find time to be more content with themselves perhaps fix themselves to become a better person whether it's mentally or physically? It's strange to me because most of the time this change is almost always caused by someone else. It could be someone leaving you, someone telling you to fix your shit, hearing someone talk behind your back...

Once you find out that you wanna become better you do these things that help you "heal" most of the time it's a physical trait whether it's changing your hair, going to the gym or changing your style and the way you present yourself. Maybe, it's because this is how we're able to really show others (specifically the person that hurt you) that we've become a changed person through our physical appearances. The more dramatic the better. For me, I started going to the gym, dyed my hair back to black, got a new tat I yearned for a physical change as dramatic as possible. But maybe it was just an illusion... just kidding I really do feel more content and love myself more mentally and physically.

But there's something about how it's always the hurt that changes and tries to make their life better, while the one who hurt doesn't need to do anything about it they seem to just grow without needing this change. It seems like they just clicked continued without taking the impact of what happened before. Whilst I feel like i'm just there. stagnant. everyone moves but I stay here, not necessarily stuck in the past it's just healing? growing slower than others. And I know it's never a competition because "we all grow at our own pace" bs but it's confusing... why do you get it better without having to go through the hardships of becoming better...

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怪物 Monster directed by Koreeda Hirokazu

wow... usually after I watch films I kinda dread writing a review and let it marinate in my head for a few days especially ones I haven't seen. But this movie is different, I don't think I have had a movie that has made me go quiet and contemplate the whole movie since La La Land came out (I bet there are many films but I'm not completely indulged in the whole film thing yet).

I will most definitely be spoiling this one there is no way I can say it without anything

Firstly, this film takes on a Rashomon style where it splits into 3 separate perspectives of the characters and develops a story. From the sound of the title Monster I figured this might be a thriller or even a horror (which I'm not the biggest fan of I get scared so easily) Koreeda convinces the audience that it uses the suspenseful approach to tell this story through the first (1/3) of the story.

The story is shown through the mother of the main character Saori's perspective as it unravels she's a single mother that dearly cares for her son Minato, she sees her son becoming physically injured and has psychological changes (what they want us to think) hinting that Minato might be suffering mentally due to the loss of his father and is being abused at school by his teacher. As an audience we share the similar feeling of suspense and anger as we want to understand what is happening to Minato and this section ends with 1) the teacher being fired due to a lawsuit we find out later 2) Minato being found in a tunnel/cave

2/3 of the story shows the "perspective" of the teacher Mr Hori whilst continuing to develop the film as we unravel a little more about the mystery of Minato and his friend Yori. We also find out about Mr Hori and how he seemingly does not seem like the way he is portrayed through the mothers perspective. Near the end of this segment we vaguely find out many of the things that he did that were considered "abuse" was very much twisted from Minato

3/3 (I would say my favourite part of this movie) There's something that about this movie that will always remain so special and impactful to me and it is the way Koreeda can smoothly transition my assumption that this movie would be a horror genre to romance, Koreeda didn't have to drastically change the color grading of the movie or even the soundtrack to portray this because it transitioned so well and fitting for this movie it seemed so normal.

In this last segment we see how these "injuries" happen to Minato and come to a realization that they were all lies to hide his shame for his love for his. friend Yori. Because of society Minato felt shameful for feeling this towards Yori instead of confronting this he blames it on his teacher. There's so much that happens Idk how to unravel this...

Yori -> we see a side of him that was barely shown through the other perspectives (the power of storytelling) he doesn't have a mom and his dad is very abusive, his only friend at school is Minato and was bullied often. For a while Minato resented the pity he felt towards him but eventually embraced this feeling of comfort whenever he was around Yori

(I think seeing the scene where you see bruises and burn marks all over his body really made the audience sympathetic definitely did for me there was this one scene where Minato looks for Yori after pushing him away he finds him soaked in bloody bath water all beaten up from his dad and that scene nearly made me cry the shame he felt was something I felt I could resonate with growing up)

Minato -> so unexpected for him to develop feelings for his friends but as you reflect and puzzle all the pieces together it really makes sense why a young boy would feel so afraid and hate themselves for feeling this way thus, twisting all these lies so no one knows about his truth.

I could go on but I'm trying my best to wrap this up

Near the end there's a typhoon it also happens to be the same time where Minato finds Yori in the bathtub and takes him to their "secret hideout" on a train. However, a scene is shown where the train is filled with water which transitions to them "getting out" For once I don't like how it's an open ending because I really cannot fathom whether they made it out alive and the rain has ended or if it's sunny because they've reached the other side but died together... the director confirmed that they didn't die but for some reason I can't accept any ending right now... maybe this will change because I've just been processing a plethora of emotions but there's this one last scene before the movie ends where the two boys run off to a train track that no longer has any gates in it which really symbolizes freedom and breaking free from Yori's abusive father and Minato accepting his feelings for Yori.

It makes me realize that in the movie... the monster really was Yoshi's abusive father but also... the monster is society and how it takes away our happiness

wow... really was in the zone there... I loved this movie so much the simplicity of following the storyline and the power of story telling made this movie probably one of my favorites I rate this 5/5 it was beautifully written I'm still in awe.

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Black Swan

It's been a while since I did these movie reviews, I feel like I put so much pressure on myself to make it a really "good" review each time so I just lose motivation to continue this. So I'm gonna try to make it more casual and more like my opinion? maybe this will encourage me

Black Swan is a Horror? Thriller? about a ballerina that fixates on perfection. Initially in the beginning of the movie the color palette of Nina (protagonist) personality is a reflection of the White Swan due to her innocence and purity to her sexuality and obedience towards her mother and everyone. I think her mother plays an important role as to why she finds it so hard to become the Black Swan as she enforces her to behave a certain way to achieve this feminine like manner to encapsulate the idea of being a ballerina to live her own dream through her daughter's. However, when Nina gets accepted to play the role as the White Swan and the Black Swan she struggles to capture this seductive and rebellious act that is portrayed in the Black Swan. Nina (the White Swan) meets this girl Lily who carries characteristics of the Black Swan.

Nina is a passive and "well behaved" little girl whilst Lily is a rebellious and seductive woman. Nina has always strived for perfection, in this case her act of rebellion towards her mother and awareness in sexuality acts as a sign of rebellion and understanding of how to become the Black Swan. By letting go (the quote "where did my sweet girl go" "she's gone") could also support this idea. However, by gaining the Black Swan persona she loses grasp of reality and starts halucinating, which might be why is it a psychological horror which low-key freaked me out a little some scenes where a little yuck especially when she removes her entire nail... (that freaked me out a little) but I'm not one to judge cause I don't watch any horror movies I'm such a wuss. Despite this, I think the psychological suspense added made this movie just THAT much better the use of reflections and Nina seeing two different reflections just further emphasizes how distorted her reality becomes.

Truth is, I think the horror part really comes from Nina's psychological destruction that she creates herself thus, leading to her death at the end. This just shows how the strive for perfection can be so powerful and so dangerous at the same time because it can really damage someone.

Overall

4.5/5 I think it deserves a high score because it had the right amount of straightforwardness but also it really got me thinking

Cinematography

3.3/5

I think it lacked in this category to sacrifice for the concept but it's also cause it was filmed in 2000s so it makes sense

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TENET

Currently on break from school and I've decided I want to immerse myself in more films and do film reviews so ill be doing them here

spoilers.

This marks my second Christopher Nolan film I have seen, and let me just say Inception is simple compared to this... TENET is about so much more than just dreams.

After watching TENET I had to watch not 1 but 3 YouTube explained on what happened because after watching it I think I only got like 37% of what was going on. To begin with we have a protagonist that is actually sent from his own future self ( I think) and basically he is sent on a mission called TENET that manipulates time distortion with your past and your future to save the world from exploding. I just want to say Christopher Nolan was able to capture the audio and visual elements of this concept quite well. My favorite favorite scene was probably in the red and blue room, the use of lighting WOW... the subtle undertone of purple use as well to represent the merge of time. Cause that's what they were literally doing merging their present self with their "inverted self" which was their future self to save the girl. Another thing I really liked about this film was the way Christopher Nolan was able to bring the audience through a journey from random unknown segments shown in the beginning of the film, kinda piecing it together - just like I did with Inception that's what makes his movies so good.

Now, maybe I need to watch this again or maybe even 3 times to be able to understand this the way others do. Because even after watching the YouTube explained videos there's still a lot I don't understand. It's not exactly not knowing a specific part but it's more like the whole chunk of it I still need some explanation - maybe it's cause I'm slow cause I've read other reviews and some people really seem to enjoy it more than I do

so I rate this

3.8/5 I like movies that have open endings but this whole entire plot was just too open for interpretation leaves me confused however the overall concept was great and the overlap of different characters from different TIMELINES? that was very smart

cinematography

4.2/5 some really good scenes of lighting and and visual effects - my brain is too overstimulated to recall any specific events

I'll probably change the rating when I rewatch it again - but It requires a lot of brainpower for me

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feeling confused!

so tiredddd