theprocessofthought

[theprocessofthought]

Can you say you have truly lived if you have never loved?

There is a quote by Friedrich Nietzsche that says “To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.” As morbid as that statement sounds it has backing, without reason life tends to become very boring and mundane, it is not until you find something special in the day-to-day aspects of life that life itself becomes interesting. Things that were once lifeless and boring now become filled with memory and life. Many people associate this change with the chemical brain reactions commonly known as love. To apply a more visual description of what I mean I turn to two films, Black Orpheus and Amelie. Fair warning one is based on a Greek story and for those of you that know how those work it may not end happily. Let’s start with Amelie, it follows Amelie Poulain an only child in quite a predicament. Her father makes no physical interaction with her aside from a monthly checkup. These few interactions cause a nervousness in Amelie during the checkups which causes her father to believe she has a heart issue. As a result of this he declares her too delicate to go to school, ironic considering her mother, who ended up teaching her is worst off. Not being allowed to be a child by either of her parents her imagination adapts allowing her to cope. Fast forward she moves out and takes a job as a cafe waitress.  Life takes an unexpected turn when she finds a small box in the wall of her apartment. She decided to return it to the owner, who’s reaction to receiving the box inspires her to help out more people in her life. She hopes that the feeling she gets from helping others will fix the feeling of nothingness that she’s lived with for so long. However, one of the person’s she helps Mr. Dufayel, a brittle bone painter tells her that, the happiness she is trying to give others she should offer to herself. She attempts to do so through Nino, her love interest. This almost ends badly as some miscommunication almost causes her to give up on the pursuit. All ends well however as she allows herself to let him in, both figuratively and literally, thus beginning their relationship.

On the other side of things is Black Orpheus, a retelling of the Greek tragedy. It follows two people Eurydice, a farmgirl attempting to escape from a man she believes is trying to kill her and Orfeu, a trolley conductor and guitar player. Their paths cross as Eurydice is attempting to find her way around Rio. Orfeu is promised to someone else but falls for Eurydice, but before anything can really happen between them, death comes (the man she has been chasing her). Orfeu in his attempt to help kills her and the knowledge of her death starts to break him. It wouldn’t be a Greek story without someone heading to the underworld of course. In terms of the film that is done as an Umbanda ritual. As the voice of Eurydice rings out to him Orfeu turns around hoping to see her and realizes she’s gone. With her body in hand he approaches a cliff, Orfeu’s ‘wife’ finds them and hurls a rock at him. This causes him to fall over the cliff as he joins his beloved in death.  

[theprocessofthought]

What could have been.

While doom scrolling for ideas for a project I was working on (as one does when looking for inspiration) I came across a post that piqued my interest. It stated that the following time periods:

Victorian England: 1837-1901

American Old West: 1803-1912

Meiji Restoration: 1868-1912

French Privateering in the Gulf of Mexico: ended circa 1830

Now what do any of these years mean, to the uninitiated nothing, it is simply a record of time but to those who know it means, there’s a possibility that the ultimate adventure party could have existed.

A pickpocket from the Victorian Era, with the possibility of vampirism. A ronin in search of a new master with hopes of avenging their own. A rough and tumble sharpshooting cowboy from the American old west hoping to make a name for themself. A pirate hellbent on making the seas their very own but will need a crew to do so. Many movies have tried these cross overs, heist movies, movies with parallel universes, even the occasional historic fiction takes a crack at it but no one has ever truly touched this treasure trove.

Now you may be asking yourself, why is this such a big deal to you, if you like pirates there’s Pirates of the Caribbean, a million and one cowboy movies, old samurai and Englishman films. That may be true but think how amazing it would be to break their world view historically. Think about it, in those years everyone thought that the world was only what was immediately around them. How would they react to a person with a completely different way of life to them. Could they work together, would it spark war? Let’s not even limit it to being completely historically accurate. The Victorian can be vampirical, an excellent choice for a disgraced ronin whose master were killed by yokai. A cowboy monster hunter hoping to make a name for themselves by exploring the world and learning of the different types of creatures that exist. A young priestess who gets kidnapped aboard a ship that is ransacked by pirates. To show her appreciation she communes with the gods of the sea ensuring the fleets make safe voyages. As a result of this she becomes a leader of a fleet and heads out in search of others like her to join her crew. All these characters have the opportunity to help the others but at the same time conflict is obvious and everywhere. Putting this story to a singular film wouldn’t even truly do it the justice it deserves. Making it a series like, Loki or Castlevania would allow the audience the chance to get to know each character and their goals and then slowly show just how tiny the world is. Everything you once thought to be fact is suddenly thrown on it’s head and now you have no just but to face it and push forward. Learning the pros and cons of cultures, the links of myths all in a neatly wrapped package.

[theprocessofthought]

The Difference between being Peaceful and being Harmless.

Peaceful and harmless are adjectives, in other words, terms used to describe things. Persons occasionally assume these words to be synonymous, being one and the same. I for one think they are nothing alike and I think the best way to show that difference is through the movies La Haine and A Prophet. La Haine (which translates to Hatred) is a 1955 French social thriller film by Mathieu Kassovitz. It follows three boys from a poor immigrant neighbourhood in the suburbs of Paris. A prophet another French film, this time a prison crime film by Jacques Audiard. It follows Malik El Djebena a nineteen-year-old inmate as they rise through the prison hierarchy. Now back to my main point, the difference between being peaceful and harmless. Malik from a prophet is peaceful, Vinz from La Haine is harmless.  Allow me to explain, in A Prophet Malik enters prison with practically nothing to his name. He has no friends or family to provide him any assistance from the outside. As a result of this he is pulled in by the Corsicans, one of the two powerful factions in the prison. In order to get their protection, he is told to assassinate Reyeb, a witness for a trial. Although unwilling Malik successfully manages to kill Reyeb and is made a low-level servant to the Corsicans. While working for them more and more of the Corsicans are transferred or released from prison leaving their leader Luciani to rely on Malik. Malik prior to this has been learning their language and upon hearing this information Luciani makes him his informant. With this new power Malik gets day long outings from prison in which he conducts Luciani’s criminal business. He uses this time however to also do his own business, in which he sells drugs. Luciani finds out and sends him to Lattrache, someone who felt strongly for the death of Reyeb. Through a mix of coincidence Malik warns then of an oncoming deer that the car hits. Impressed by this Lattrache tells Malik about a mole that’s hiding in Luciani’s group. Luciani sends Malik off the kill the mole but instead they kill the mole’s bodyguards and snitch that Luciani sent them to kill him. By the end of the film they boy who came in with nothing leaves the prison with a family (his best friend’s family that he promised to look after) and an entourage of cars. Malik was peaceful, he didn’t resort to violence unless necessary or when required. On the other hand, is Vinz. Vinz from the film La Haine is the perfect definition, at least to me of what it means to be harmless. Vinz is a hot-headed teenager in Paris who has deeply seethed hatred towards the police. Throughout the film he constantly threatens to shoot an officer if Abdel, (someone he looks up to) ever dies. His temperament is best displayed when he and his friends attempt to get some money, they are owed from a man named Asterix. He has them play a rigged game of Russian Roulette and Vinz makes and scene before realizing the game was rigged and there was never any danger. This all comes to a head when news of Abdel’s death reaches the group. Hubert, the more reasonable of the group tests Vinz after they were attacked by police. One of the officers that attacked them Vinz has at gunpoint and Hubert tells him to shoot him since Vinz said that if Abdel died, he would kill an officer. Vinz in unable to pull the trigger, which later leads to his death as the same officer accidentally shoot him in the head. Vinz was all talk, claiming he was macho and could do something, but in the end he was harmless and couldn’t even save himself.

[theprocessofthought]

The Eyes of Class

Class can be defined as the system of ordering a society in which people are divided into sets based on perceived social or economic status. A way of measuring yourself in society which may or may not hold any truth. Two movies in which class is portrayed at its forefront are Parasite and The White Tiger. Parasite is a South Korean dark comedy thriller film directed by Bong Joon-ho. It follows the Kim family, a low-income household living in a semi-basement flat in Soeul. Min-hyuk a friend of the Kim family’s son Ki-Woo offers him an opportunity to take his place as a language tutor to a rich family as he’s leaving to study abroad. Ki-Woo has no notable sources to his name but with the help of his sister who manages to make a fake certificate Ki-Woo now has documents that he came from a prestigious university. Something similar happens in The White Tiger, an Indian Drama film made in 2021. This story follows Balram Halwai recounting his upward mobility from the Indian underclass into its upper echelons. He recounts having the chance to go to school in Delhi after receiving a scholarship due to his advances in academics. However, he is not given a chance to realize that dream, due to his family’s inability to pay their landlord he is ripped from school and put to work in a tea shop. His luck changes just like with Ki-Woo when he hears to landlord is in need of a driver. He learns to drive and manages to get himself into their estate where he is tested before being granted the job. In both cases the main characters are taken aback by how differently the rich live to them. Ki-Woo finds ways to get his family in on his opportunity. His sister becomes the therapist for the Da-Song, the young son of the rich family the Parks. Together they set up the Park’s driver as a sexual pervert and recommend their father as the replacement. For their mother they take aim at the caretaker’s allergies to peaches and makes the Park family believe she is suffering from tuberculosis which causes them to fire her. In contrast Balram originally sends money home, the majority of his funds, when his brother asks if he can enter the estate Balram doesn’t let him enter due to fear of backlash. Balram seems to be more focus on upgrading himself than his family. Both movies come to a head when disaster strikes. For Balram his boss’ wife runs over a child, for Ki-Woo his family is almost found out and their house is flooded.  This leads up to the ultimate decision on both sides, the murdering of their masters. In Balram’s case he warns his boss, who thinks he’s joking, about his want to kill him. In the case of the Kim family after the father watches his daughter die and the boss move on as if nothing happened. This causes him to snap and stabs the boss. Balram waits until his boss has to pay four million to a political party before stabbing him with a broken bottle and stealing the money. In both cases this event results in the parties gaining the riches they once dreamed of. Both in different ways, Balram invests in taxi’s and bribes the police force. Ki-Woo works until he is rich enough to purchase the house the Parks lived in.

[theprocessofthought]

Why we as humans can't have nice things.

District 9 is a film directed by Neill Blomkamp in 2005 and personally one of the more infuriating films I’ve had the chance to view. I’ll return to why that is in a moment. The film follows the arrival of a massive alien ship appearing over Johannesburg, South Africa in 1982. On this ship are a multitude of bedraggled alien creatures, which in the years to come become known as “prawns” due to their shellfish like features. These aliens are initially welcomed in by the humans but as is the case with any type of guest that welcome soon fades. These “prawns” live in refugee camps that as the years go by become a militarized ghetto known as District 9. The “prawns” are stuck between a wall and a hard place. Their “home” is under constant military scrutiny, as well as having an African mafia right besides them as well. Both sides hope to use and abuse these “prawns” for their abilities and weapons. After we the audience understand this, we are introduced to the film’s catalyst, ( I refuse to see him as a character and not simply a means to an end) Wikus Van der Merwe. He is introduced via a film that we later learn was unsuccessfully redacted. He was hired as the head of the group tasked with forcibly evicting the aliens from the camp. Here is where as I mentioned I consider this film to be one of the most infuriating. The introduction of an ignorant character with little to no hope of making them a better person. Allow me to paint this picture. Wikus is a pencil pusher, he works at a desk, a simple task where you interact with normal persons daily. Now he has to interact with groups that are completely separated from what he considers normal. I say groups because he also interacts with the African mafia of that area. (something you should never do regardless of where you are) The audience is expected to feel care and pity for a man who set fire to a house of alien eggs and compares it to the sound of pop corn as if he’s a child around a campfire. During this time however we are introduced to the real protagonist of the film, Christopher a prawn along with his son CJ and friend Paul. This small group has been constantly looking for materials in order to fuel their ship and return home. When they manage to gather enough fuel to do so who comes around to throw a wrench in the plan. If you guessed Wikus you’re right, a small and simple plan takes the worlds longest detour because some human decided to mishandle something they know nothing about. Make note of this, it’s not the first time he’ll do something like this. Wikus is contaminated and starts transforming, Paul is killed. From here the film makes an attempt to make Wikus out to be a victim. He is taken in and upon seeing his transformation is experimented on. Just like the aliens he was trying to evict earlier. Here’s a chance for a naive character learn about the world outside of themselves and make a difference. Does this happen to Wikus, sadly no. He helps retain the vial (which might I remind you is his fault for being in the military’s hold currently) by threatening the African mafia for guns that they took from aliens. Once receiving the guns, he chooses to let the leader live, because surely that wouldn’t come back to bite him in the butt later. Oh wait, it does because that same leader now wants to eat him in hope of gaining his alien abilities.  That’s not even the best part, upon hearing that it will take three years to cure him he betrays Christopher and attempts to fly to the mothership, which he fails to do and crashes. In his defense he does try to regain some form of dignity when he tries to sacrifice himself so Christopher and his son can leave. Christopher promises to return in three years and Wikus fully transforms. The audience learns that all that they have seen is from redacted footage done by one the team members that worked with Wikus.

[theprocessofthought]

City of God

City of God

I believe it was Albert Einstein who said the phrase “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” In a way this is what embodies the movie City of God.  City of God is a 2002 Brazilian based film. It loosely follows real events as it showcases the growth of crime in the Cidade de Deus (the Portuguese name’s sake of the movie).  The main theme following the story is “If you run, the beast catches you, if you stay, the beast eats you.” The film itself is a retelling of events from one of the character’s views, said character being Rocket. It opens with Rocket in the conundrum of being between a rock and a hard place. He is placed between a standoff of a gang and the police. I personally enjoy this method of storytelling as it shows me the climax of the story while I have no context as to what is happening. How could you enjoy something like that you may ask? It preps me, the audience for a specific result which forces me to wonder the ways how it got here. Who is the antagonist? Why are these things happening? Is it deserved? An example that comes to mind would be the opening scene of Megamind, which obviously came out much later but the concept of the opening scene is shared. From this point we the audience are transported to the past with the effort of providing context. A small gang of three boys, Shaggy, Clipper and Goose.  These three remind me of the concept of the coin. They are two main sides; Heads and Tails. Shaggy goes from bad to good. He is a bad influence, stealing and threatening violence but after a failed stunt he decides to be a better person, hoping to leave the slums and start a new life with his girlfriend. He’s shot by the police as he makes an attempt to escape in a taxi. On the other side of the coin is Goose, he doesn’t choose to leave the life of crime and at first it seems that it’s works for him but turns out he’s shot as well, not by police but by Lil Dice, the antagonist. Those are the two main sides of the coin but a coin has three sides, the third being the band that holds the head and tail. Clipper leaves the life of crime to become a member of the church, he is the only member of the three that live. I will return to why that is important later.  This trio is outlived buy their younger counterparts those being, Lil Z, formerly Lil Dice, Benny and Rocket. Now why do I mention these three as the counterparts of the former characters mentioned. Benny is Shaggy’s counterpart, ironic considering they are brothers. Benny is a more reasonable version of his brother, becoming one who is loved by all. However, like his brother a girl comes into his life who inspires him to a better life. He is accidentally shot by a bullet meant for Lil Dice, (now Lil Z). On the other side is Lil Z, Goose’s counterpart, which is funny since Lil Z killed him.  Goose dies because he felt he was powerful enough to take whatever he wanted without consequence.  This is exactly what happens to Lil Z, after his arrest he tries to get a gun from the children he has armed over the months and they turn around and light him up with bullets. Once again, the only survivor is the person who tries to get out of the world of crime. Clipper became a member of the church, Rocket on the other hand becomes a photographer for a newspaper. Clipper completely leaves the life of crime, Rocket on the other hand is aware that he cannot entirely leave this life so he finds a way to safely bridge that gap.