Before Sunset

She is “neurotic” as Jesse said. Crazy and unstable, Céline has a problem of keeping a meaningful relationship.

She had a lot of exes. The men were nice to her. They liked wine and cooked well. And she was never screwed over by any of them. But what did Céline want to do to them? She wished they would have proposed to her so that she could reject them. Why was she so cruel to break their hearts? “The French men aren’t as...what's the word...hmm...horny”, she managed to murmur. In a worldwide survey done in 2004 when the movie was released, the French were the most sexual active (137 times per year), compared to an average American (111). Well, don’t believe the stats, mais est ce vraiment difficile de trouver un Parisien sexuellement actif ? Notice the calculated pause before “horny”. If it were the real reason, Céline would have used it so many times and might have written a guitar song about it. So clearly it was a lie.

She longed to love and be loved but when love came, she felt “suffocated”. For her, it was never true love or the right person. The solution was to have a patronizing and meaningless liaison with a kitty and marry a photo journalist who always travels abroad. Did she ever have true love and the right person? Céline thought it was the night with Jesse.

Was it?

Jesse is less psychoneurotic, but his weakness is not being able to hold on to his idealistic beliefs and caving to pragmatism. He married the school teacher because she was pregnant, and stayed with her because of their son. If he were an idealist he thought he was, he should have gone to Paris after the ill-fated rendezvous in Vietnam. He would have spent all his life searching for her, if he believed she was his true love. No, he didn’t do so. He settled. He knew it was a wrong thing to do, as he was thinking of Céline even on his wedding day, but he settled. He was the reason for his own agony.

So was it true love between Jesse and Céline on that fateful encounter on the train nach Wien?

No.

What Céline was looking for was curiosity. She loved the US. She left New York because she couldn’t renew her visa. She took on projects in India and Mexico. She wanted to learn Chinese. Only exotic things intrigued her. And a handsome American on a train from Budapest to Vienna intrigued her. She fell madly for him, hormonally. He felt for her because she was French. However, they knew themselves well enough not to exchange any contact information. They foresaw that if they had stayed in contact, their affection would have vanished quickly. The rendezvous in Vietnam was designed to be a staged second “magical encounter” so they could relive the moment again. They couldn’t handle the “everyday love”. In that sense, they were chasing fantasy or a fairytale that ultimately eluded reality. That’s why Céline couldn’t keep any meaningful relationship, and Jesse could only fantasize it in his book.

There is a little detail earlier in the movie: when Jesse told her he spent a couple of days in Vietnam in her absence, she asked, “Did you meet any new girl there?” He joked, “of course, there was this girl Gretchen…”. Gretchen is a common German girl’s name. So it shows that she could easily fall for another exotic person in Vietnam in just two days, and he could easily fall for another European girl in an equally short time.

At the end, Jesse will miss his flight, and Céline will fall in love again with Jesse because the Paris meet was unplanned and presumably destined, which translated to “magical”. However, it won’t take long for Céline to get tired of the American stud. She is destined to be depressed and alone.

Looking at the title, any photographer knows that the light at sunrise and sunset is magical. Screenwriters call it “magic hours”. It’s ephemeral. That’s how long Jesse and Céline’s passion towards each other will last.

After sunset, there is just darkness.

Cloverfield

When Monet, von Gogh, and Picasso first came out, people were shocked. You call those paintings? They are not finished; the figures are deformed; the proportion is way off. They are works of an amateur.

Most people don’t think that way any more.



J. J. Abrams intended to rock the audience off the usual comfortable observation deck with the best vantage point, and throw them right into the middle of chaos, confusion, and fear. Blurry images, disoriented angles, sharply truncated compositions, and hysterical and deafening screaming made me dizzy and caused a headache. A few times during the movie, I wanted to shut my eyes. However, I am convinced that’s the exact effect the director wanted to achieve. Maybe that’s how one would feel in a real apocalyptic moment.

For that, I applaud the artist’s ingenuity, audacity and integrity.

I love Monet, I am okay with von Gogh, and I don’t care too much for Picasso. As for Cloverfield, I wouldn't recommend it. I had feared the movie might just turn out like the trailer. I wouldn't have watched it if I'd known. The bottom line is: I wouldn't spend a nice evening watching a "hand-held" style movie on a big screen, no matter how professionally done it was.

An Uncomplicated Analogy

I am invited to visit this house. The owner is away, but the caretaker is very hospitable. It’s on a big lot with a few other similar houses around it, but it is indeed the most grandiose and decorated.

It’s pouring outside. I get in quickly. As I am about to fold my umbrella, I find, to my great surprise, that it’s also raining hard inside. The caretaker, wearing a raincoat, welcomes me and leads me towards the main hall. Still holding my umbrella, I want to ask but feel shy. I am sure an explanation will be volunteered, but the caretaker is busy pointing out different rooms in the house, showing no sign of offering any explanation.

As I follow him, I tilt the umbrella and look up. I notice that the entire roof is leaking. The damage is so extensive that wind gushes in, rain pours down, and it feels just like standing outside. Walking ahead of me, the affable caretaker still talks about the history and stories of the house, totally oblivious of buckets of water hitting on his body.

The layout is nice, albeit a little dated. Soon we reach the great hall. There is a tent set up in the middle. I can see a bonfire inside and shadows of other guests. The caretaker lifts the front door for me.

I lower myself, get in, and sit among the guests. It’s considerably warmer inside. I am greeted with warmth and enthusiasm. I can’t help but notice the loud pounding rain on the paper-thin polyester and the howling storm outside. Yet the guests are chitchatting happily unmindful of the noise.

The caretaker enters bringing wine and bread which we start to share. Taking my share from him, I whisper a question to him: “Why don’t you fix the roof?” Handing over the a piece of bread, he answers calmly: “What roof? The house is fine.”

God On Trial

Job wanted to put God on trial: “Oh! that I knew where I might find him! that I might come even to his seat! I would order my cause before him, and fill my mouth with arguments. I would know the words which he would answer me, and understand what he would say unto me. Will he plead against me with his great power? No; but he would put strength in me. There the righteous might dispute with him; so should I be delivered for ever from my judge” (Job 23:3-7)

When Job confronted God, the all-loving Almighty babbled some mumbo jumbo which conveniently concealed his childish bet with his loyal Attorney General Ha-Satan (the wrongfully accused Satan). Job gave up, was blessed, and lived happily ever after.

The profound meaning of human suffering is thus fatally compromised, forever, for a cheap Hollywood ending whose target market mostly composes of mental teenagers.

Thousands of years later, a group of Jewish inmates in Auschwitz, on Rosh Hashanah, before their death, convened a beth din, a Jewish court of law, to put God on trial.

And they found God guilty.

Dragon Wars

This Hollywood Hopeful has probably one of the best special effects I have seen in recent years, yet also fatal defects most Asian movies share: a terrible screenplay and bad acting.

Nevertheless, I am so pleased to see at the end the traditional "Asian" rendition of a dragon: horns of a stag, scales of a carp, wingless body of a snake, and four legs with claws of an eagle.

(I can't use the word "Chinese" so lightly, as in "Chinese rendition of a dragon", after a series of acts of desinicization by the South Korean government including successfully demanding the Chinese government to change the Chinese name of the Korean capital Seoul from its 500-year-old name "汉城" (with the ostensibly meaning of "Han Chinese City") to "首尔" (a Korean transliteration meaning the Capital City). No, you didn't read it wrong. The Chinese government agreed to change the Chinese name of Seoul. It's like the German government demands our beloved George W. to stop the usage of "Munich" in the US and replace it with the fatherlandish "München". Poor George W., how can he ever say it right this time?)

Anyway, the "Asian" dragon is beautiful, and that's the point of this post.