Feminist American Teen Comedy Film: Easy A (2010)

     Aha! The movie for this week back to our 21st century which the film called Easy A directed by Will Gluck in 2010. When watching this movie, I found out that the main actress was actually the actress (Wichita) from Zombieland. She impressed me by her acting in Zombieland. The purpose of this movie wants to strengthen the idea of feminist.






Synopsis
     They story began with a young girl, Olivia's university life. In the beginning, rumor spread throughout the university quickly once a person did something bad. So, it happened to Olivia which said that she had a sex with Bryant because Bryant laughed by other people that he had no dare to have sex with girl. Due to this incident, many people started to ask Olivia for helping them to solve problem like Bryant's problem and for girls were like asking her to take the responsible that they should take but all pushed towards Olivia. After that, people started to think of how bad was the Olivia did because of the rumor. Olivia started to feel stress that she took from these rumor and she considered as scapegoat to the people. What will happen to Olivia? How does she overcomes these problems? Does she gives up or not? 

Theory Discussion

Feminist
     For the whole movie, there is a only thing which touched about was feminist. Feminist itself was defined as the right of a female. From the book Cinema Studies: The Key Concept by Susan with page 137 and line 34-38, she stated that feminist started in the 1920s by looking at women's expression of her own subjectivity and matured in 1960s. The term get matured because of quick evolution of feminist movement. 

     There are several themes which reflected the term of feminist which they are discrimination, stereotyping, objectification, oppression and patriarchy. For the first two themes, they are similar with each other but the only difference is one of them is more serious whereas the other one will be normal. 

     For the term of discrimination, it is something that judged people then used action to do it. For example, a Chinese and a English man tried to apply job in a company. Although company listened for what strength were they both, company straight away rejected Chinese man because they think that the ability for both of them were different and English man will have more creativity than the Chinese man. In Easy A, Olivia got humiliation from other people by throwing things to her.  

     However, stereotyping also judged people but it did not used any action. For this, it only stick to the mind most of time. For instance, people in Malaysia will think of Chinese as selfish person, Indian as a drunker and Malay as a lazy person. This theme should be taken away in our mindset because not every person just like the example I mentioned before. This theme can be seen when how Marriane used word to describe how bad was Olivia was. 

     Next, the theme in feminist also included objectification which means people considered female as an sexual object. In the movie itself, Olivia was told by other people to say that how dirty she was after agreeing fake sex with other boys. She lost her own image by helping other people. After that, she felt oppression or we called it tension under her as well because the rumor around her was getting bigger and bigger. Also, the rumor had became terrible and terrible after she helped people. 

     Moving to next point, most of the society lived in patriarchy style which male played important role than the female. Just like most the movies, the main focus to most of the scenes were male during early generation. After the term of feminist pointed out, the position of the female would slightly increased nowadays when compared to old time.    


The Gaze
     Nevertheless, the position of female became stable after introducing the term which is called 'the gaze'. For what I knew about the gaze, it means the view from someone to another one. There are 3 perspectives of looking which they divided into male character looking at the female character in the film, audience in the cinema looking at the female character in the film and audience in the cinema looking through the eyes of the male character who is looking at the female character. 

  

     In Easy A, the first perspective can be seen when Todd was seeing Olivia to experience the terrible situation after the rumor spread throughout the university she studied. 

     Secondly, this can be seen when the scene only showed different Olivia which audience was looking and focusing at Olivia.


     

Lastly, Easy A did not included this perspective but it was a extreme close-up for just eye only like the photo shown on the right hand side. 




Representation
     For representation, we can look at 3 type of components which they are gender, sexuality and subjectivity. How do they link with each other? To explain this, gender divided into two different sexuality and they are male and female. As in the Easy A, there are 2 different gender and how they wore were different with one another. For example, female's long hair versus male's short hair, female's make up, female's fashion and etc. Feminist for female was subjectivity just like I mentioned before which also call as objectification. This is because of the old time stereotyping when people started to judge female as sex object but it became better after introducing theory of feminist.   

Character

Olivia
     She was a kind character in Easy A because she sympathised other people in order to step on the way which fulled with humiliation. Not only that but also she was smart in solving problem like she chose to step out to point out what other people did to her and she knew what is the thing that needs to do and who does she wants to be.   


Marriane

     Since his father was Godfather, it made her became a close-minded person like anything must follow the rule set by God. She was also a person who loved to jealous that what people had then she must had it with same quality, value, perfect and etc.  


Rhiannon
     This was Olivia's best friend who loved to get attention from boys. From what she wore, it showed the sexy female characteristic which most of male loved to see and pay more attention to it. Unfortunately, she lied to Olivia said that she dated Todd before. At the end, she sent a text for apologize to Olivia.

    

Mr & Mrs Penderghast  
     They were parents for Olivia and both of them were open-minded which allows what Olivia chose to do and support her all the time even the rumor spread throughout the university. This kind of parents usually needed for society nowadays because children will know the way they be so they can perform well in everything.


Conclusion
     After watching this movie, I felt that the movie was really awesome and got the point that support the term of feminist. As a boy, I don't think I able to know feminist well because what a female experienced was totally different from me. Through the movie, I learnt a lot of lesson in feminist. Thanks for reading my blog and have a nice day! 

Reference
S.Hayward (2013), Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts, Fourth Edition, Routledge, London and New York

          

Old French Film: Breathless (1959)

Like previous films, this week movie still remained black and white. Breathless, an old French Film which released in 1959 and directed by Jean-Luc Godard. What surprising me was the director of this movie was actually the main actor for this film. After watching two black and white film, I learnt a lot and I am excited to see what is going to learn in Breathless.

Synopsis
     In the beginning of the story, there was a young man, Michel who was youthful criminal. He stole a car in Marseille and two policemen were following him since they suspected the stolen was drove by Michel. So, Michel tried to find place to hide from policemen but one of them found him near roadside. Then, he tried to escape from the police by killing him and ran away from the crime scene. In order to making the scene clear, he tried to push the police down to downhill so nobody would found the dead body. After that, he got helped from Patrica who worked as selling newspaper on the street in Paris. Patrica found that Michel was someone who cannot trusted due to he left her behind when questioned by police. At the end, she betrayed him and what will happened to Michel? Will he survived from police and escape to Italy? 

Theory Discussion

Frech New Wave (FNW)
     For FNW, it is started from 1959 until 1969 and the founder was the director and actor of this movie. Before 1950s and 1960s, most of the films were in high cost pay and big budget. From the book Cinema Studies: The Key Concept by Susan with page 166 and line 23-25, she mentioned that this term refers to films made by new generation of French filmmakers which were low-budget and every scene looked simple. Therefore, people started to use FNW to save budget in order to produce a movie.

     For example, there was a scene covered most of the length of the scene which was Michel and Patrica in the apartment. Although this scene was boring, the purpose of making this scene was not only save the budget but also tried to let the audience to enjoy the love moment between Michel and Patrica which was romance in single word. 


     Furthermore, FNW opposed the traditions of films which means they tried something new rather than keep on using the old style in making film. For an old film, the characters usually waited each other finished their dialogue then only continue the next script that they are going to say. However, FNW rejected using this because they felt that this kind of performance was not so real compared acting with improvise dialogues and talk over each other's line to reflect real-life conversation. 


     Nevertheless, self-reflexivity can also be called meta-cinema. It is very important for FNW because it constantly reminds audiences that they are watching a film but not think of they are the character inside the movie. To make this out, jumpcuts and actor's monologues were used to get attention from the audience. 



     Besides this, the characters in FNW are often marginalized who behaved immorally because they want to be different from other tradition of films so that their movie get more attention compare to old films. For example, women in FNW were given strong characteristics instead of weak side in the film like what Breathless did where Patrica betrayed Michel. In Algeria or Indo-China, there is a ideology of caring politics and it stressed out as disillusionment with oversea policy.      



Reason for hating FNW
     There are some reason which made me hated the FNW. First of all, most of the scenes were took in same place like what I mentioned before such as the apartment. I was okay at the beginning of 5 minutes but I felt sleepy after 5 minutes passed. This is because I think that love scene should not be more than 5 minutes unless they are going to change place.

     However, it still can be remained the apartment scene if they try to add something like someone knock the door and maybe they enjoy the meal together. These are the scenes that can add for this movie to improve the level of romance. 

     Next, I hated FNW is because of the scenes are usually considered as long takes which means if something wrong such as noise and unexpected incident like technical problem; the scenes need to retake again and it was not low budget if need to retake the scene by using the new tape to shoot the scenes. 

Conclusion

     Finally, I loved the movie how simple content it was. Although it was boring when it comes to apartment scene, I think that that is the part which save a lot of cost for the movie. I am very happy to see the evolution of the old film like Breathless did which showed creativity and new of making the film.



References
S.Hayward (2013), Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts, Fourth Edition, Routledge, London and New York

Old United States Movie: The Maltese Falcon (1941)

The following movie is also a black and white film and it called The Maltese Falcon (1941) directed by John Huston. As what I search from internet, there was a novel in 1929 before this movie releases its product. The quality of this film is better than Bicycle Thieves where we can see from the clarity of every scene. 

Synopsis
    This film started with an inspector, Samuel Spade received a called from police said that his friend, Archer get murdered after meeting with Wonderly on the morning. So, he went to crime scene to see what actually happened. Then, a man ,Thursby was killed and believed as the same time when Archer been murdered. After, that, two friends of Spade who suspected the killer might be Spade himself. Next, a man Cairo who worked with Gutman (The Fat Man that called by Wonderly) offered high price to buy the Falcon but Spade did not know what was the thing they mentioned. In the middle of quarreling, they found out the killer was bodyguard of Gutman. Why he wanted to kill Archer and Thursby? Why the Falcon looked very important to them? Who knows?

Theory Discussion

Film Noir
     For this term, its can say to be crime film and it was started from 1941-1959. In 1940s, film noir was an expression of male concern at women's growing economic and sexual independence that threatens masculinity. However, it reinforces family values to overcome the femme fatale is intricate to the reassertion to (male) representation in 1950s. 

     The characters considered as equal in the movie. For example, all characters in Maltese Falcon had the evil side if we used different view to look into it. Spade helped Wonderly to figure out her missing sister but in other view would be he used to help because of money and female characteristic of Wonderly. 

     Everyone in the film lived in paranoia and fear society. They chose to kill people in order to take something valuable and the world is filled with dangerous which might harm him or her if he or she put down the alert. For example, Cairo threatened Wonderly not to say out who was 'The Fat Man' by using his gun to point toward her. This also showed how darkness at that society.


     From the books Cinema Studies: The Key Concept written by Susan in page 150 and line 21-30, she mentioned that film noir has 3 characteristics which they are principle of contrastive lighting, highly stylised visual style and the specific location or setting. Firstly, the light used in The Maltese Falcon was low-key with high contrast value. This is because it wanted to show the mystery of the movie since it was a crime film which always putting a question to the audience.


      Secondly, visual style like oblique angle and distortion were used in the film to enhance the German expressionistic. For example, the ceiling was very low in height and it gave a feeling like why don't the filmmaker finds high ceiling instead of low; it was very annoyed when looking that scene. Next, the setting is set to be city bound which the location was located in San Francisco and this will let the audience recalled what actually the same thing in German expressionism. For instance, the lighting used in the film, the visual distortion and also the rain-washed street.   


Character

(1) Samuel Spade
     He was an antihero character in the movie. For a normal person, the missing Falcon should be return to the police station but he thought differently which was why don't he used this falcon to sell high price. Moreover, he was inspector that played the buried morals in the film which means he kept any secret for his customers so that he knows the way to help them. Spade also a greedy and lecherous person who usually can see in bad character.

(2) Wonderly
     From her body, it produced femme fatale which means female characteristic. She tried to use her female side to confuse Spade so that Spade can continue for helping her to do something. She lied to Spade at the beginning and leaded him to go for Mr Gutman because she knew that she cannot confront Mr Gutman by herself.

(3) Iva Archer
     Her husband was the working partner with Spade. She thought that Spade killed her husband because of he wanted to be with her but the truth was not right. 

(4) Joel Cairo
     Cairo worked under Mr Gutman who was 'The Fat Man'. He was a cleanliness person as he always wearing a glove and he cannot stand of any dirty of his things like suit, hat and etc. He was also a person who get panic easily when the secret said out from Wonderly.

(5) Lt. of Detective Dundy & Tom
     These two people were straight in the movie which reposible for what they actually did. As a detective, they worked as professional and did not get influence even the person they suspected was their friend.

(6) Effie Perie
     She worked as a secretary in the same office with Spade. She represented good women because she planned anything for and followed everything from Spade to ensure everything was under control. Not only that but also she tried to help Spade to hide Iva (Archer's wife) with her because Spade thought that Iva was under dangerous since there was a man followed him whole day. 

(7) Mr Gutman
     He was 'The Fat Man' in the film who was very rich and targeted on one thing which was The Falcon. He hired a young man to keep the eye to Spade because he knew that Spade was going to know his secret after meeting with Wonderly. He was the person who not keeps his promise. For example, when he knew the Falcon located in Spade's house; he don't keep his promise to give the money to Spade but to hit him down and rushed to his house to get the Falcon without paying the money.

Conclusion
     It is not easy to know film noir because everything needs to think carefully. I liked this kind of movie because it brain storm my mind that how actually a crime scene should be make so you will understand the content of the movie. It is very challenge for me because it is the first time for me to watch this kind of film. Thanks for reading my blog.

References
S.Hayward (2013), Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts, Fourth Edition, Routledge, London and New York      

           

Old Italian Film, Bicycle Thieves (1948)

For this week movie, it is a film that people watch rarely because the colour of the movie was just black and white. So, the film is called Bicycle Thieves directed by Vittorio De Sica in 1948 and it released after one year in U.S.A. This is my first time to watch an old Italian movie.

Synopsis

     The story began with a father, Ricci came from poor family who lived with his wife, Maria and son, Bruno. Then, he got a job which was posting advertising bills but a bicycle was needed for this job. So, Ricci and his wife tried their best to get a bicycle and it worked. Unfortunately, Ricci lost his bicycle in his first working day. He did not know what do and worried his bicycle instead of takes action to find it out. In order to not losing his job, his mind struggle with should he steal a bicycle so that everything will be okay? What happened to him? He did or died?

Theory Discussion

(1) Classical Hollywood Cinema (CHC)

     This term had discussed in Requiem for a Dream and now we will go for further look on this. CHC also called classic narrative cinema (CNC). By the book Cinema Studies: The Key Concept written by Susan with page 80 and line 19-21, she mentioned that David Bordwell introduced CNC is an 'exccesively obvious cinema' in which cinematic style serves to explain the narrative. Due to people don't understand the content, some of elements were used to help the narrative and they are 4 of them.

     Firstly, element of cause and effects logic was added to most of cinema and for Bicycle Thieves as well. The effects mean something what you did then you will encounter what at the end. For example, Ricci got caught by other people due to he tried to steal bicycle which not belong to him. Therefore, as an audience; I knew why Ricci got caught because of his action.

    Secondly, plots and story also one of the element to strengthen the narrative. For plots, it can be explained like what is the characteristic of the character what is the thing that they are going to use in the movie and etc. For instance, Ricci played his role as poor person and irrational when stealing the bicycle. Yet, story defined as the story line of the whole film. For Bicycle Thieves, the story is considered normal because the story was out of my expectation. I was wondering whether he got back his bicycle but ended up with just got no news from his bicycle.

     Next, character motivation also chosen as very dominant element which it may be the way to motivating the film's cause-effect relationship and pushing the film's events follow by desires. For example, the way how the characters spoke in Bicycle Thieves were good because it not just a monotone which reminded me focused on what the film tried to deliver their messages.

     Lastly, just like mentioned before in Requiem for a Dream; a movie must include closure and resolution which are the beginning, climax and also ending. In Bicycle Thieves, the story began with Ricci got his job, his bicycle was stolen and he tried to steal bicycle at the climax and the ending would be how he got caught by other people and how sad he was going to lose his job. 

(2) Italian Neo-realism

     Italian Neo-realism started after the World War II and it lasted from 1942-1952 which only 10 years. The founder for this ideologic was called Cesare Zavattini and he looked plots as a fake structure of everyday life. From the book Cinema Studies: The Key Concept by Susan with page 219 and line 22-24, she figured out that Rossellini called neo-realism as a moral and an aesthetic cinema which means a film is made with meaning and most of them are moral value. So, audience had to get the meaning from the movie through watching every scene of the film. 

     The movie itself used professional actors to complimented the falsehood in order to get support from the audiences. For example, the person who gave Ricci the job at the beginning of the scene is one of the professional actor. After that, contemporary social experience (CSE) discussed about what kind of situation people encountered like people lost their home after World War II, level of poverty increased and so on. In Malaysia, people are now facing the problem of GST as the CSE. 

     Not only that but also most of the scene were shot on location which means something that were unexpected like people came out from a football match and people shouted their slogan when passing by Ricci and his son. This is wants to make the film looked more realistic. Grainy film stock also been used in Bicycle Thieves is because it wants to let the audiences feel that the story of the movie was based on true story which the places they lived and the problems they faced. 

     

     

     Due to the poverty during that time, some of socially conscious and humanistic point of view (P.O.V) to mock the society. For example, people surrounded at the employment booth to make sure they got the job, policeman was not helpful at all because the missing bicycle incident to them was only a small case and people used to get food from church instead of making money for themselves because the level of poverty was very high. Besides this, melodramatic which means mixing of sound track and people talking. This movie used this in order to highlight the humanistic P.O.V.  

Conclusion

     Last but not least, I think the ending of this movie is okay because it lets me think of what will happen at the end. Shall he lost his job or he may meet his friend who is rich and wants to help him? Everything is a question in my mind after watching this film. Also, I liked the movie that tried to link what situation during that time and it brought to that hardship situation. 

Reference 

S.Hayward (2013), Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts, Fourth Edition, Routledge, London and New York
    
    

An American-Australian Sci-Fi Movie, Dark City (1998)

Next, I am going to discuss with you another film that I watched which is Dark City (1998) by Alex Poyas. I was very impressed for this movie because it seems like not made in 1998 but in this 21st century. The technique to shoot every angle were really good and modern which fulfilled as a Sci-Fi movie. 







Synopsis
       The story began with John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell) woke up from amnesia. He was told by Dr. Daniel Schreber (Kiefer Sutherland) to escape from a group of man with bald head who stole human memory and created the world as they wish at every 12 o'clock of midnight. John started to find the truth and found out the city remained dark all the time which everyone would fell asleep at 12. How John save the world and everyone in the city? Will he survive from those men? 

Timeline of Movement
      From what I watched this movie, the building looks like 60s. Most of the skin of the building was old. Also, the road in this movie just like old paved road which still can see in some of countries which have old street. Besides this, the things that they used to call people was also old like you need to turn circle for each number you want to dial. 

      Just like what I mentioned in previous blog, the man would wear suit to show the characteristic of a man. What the only difference that I discussed before was this movie had different prop compared to the Hong Kong movie. Most of men in Dark City would usually wear hat because it can help to improve the term of German Expressionism and it also shows that the man's costume during old time. 

French Impressionism
       The history context for this term was in between 1919 until 1928. From the book Film Art An Introduction 10th edition where the page 472 with line 22-23 written by David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, they stated that impressionism was an avant-garde style that operated largely within the film industry. There are some characteristics of french impressionism which can use in this movie. 

       First of all, it not only explores in psychological causes but also gives a narration considerable psychological depth. For example, John lost his memory because of the injection by the doctor. Because of losing his memory, it will give psychological depth to the audience to think of what the situation was John experienced that time. 

       Next, french impressionism manipulates plot time and subjectivity by showing flashbacks or memories. So, which part we can see from Dark City? It was the scene when John started to struggle with his uncle and to think back of his childhood time and Shell Beach, the place that he born.  

       After that, french impressionism's characteristic also included some of visual depiction of mental states through cinematography and editing. For example, John opened his eyes when he was waking up from injection. In the middle of opening his eyes, the visuals of the scene got blur and this is wants to show the dizzy of John. 

       Other examples will be the rhythmic editing which means most of the scene is shot in continuity but not jump cut where it is to show John's experience and cam movement is smooth when John was talking with Inspector in car because of the camera was tied in the car.   

German Expressionism
       German Expressionism was the filmic style that emerged in Germany from 1919-1926 and it influenced by expressionist movement in modern art of early 1900s. It has several themes which can represent the term such as revolt, self-analysis, madness, primitive and sexual savagery. Although there are a lot of themes, only some of them can be seen in this movie.


       For example, revolt has the close meaning of betray where we can see from doctor that how he provided excuses to avoid the group of bald head man to reach their wishes. For self-analysis and madness, it can see from John where he analyses the problem that people faced and he got mad because of the overact from the bad guys. Then, the last one will be the sexual savagery where we can see from the beginning scene which there was a dead woman body with naked.


     For dark city, the set design is most apparent which everything looks clear in the scene and the light considered as chiaroscuro where darkness of the city and the brightness at the last scene. Yet, there are also some styles like oblique camera angle when framing the planet that people lived, the distorted bodies and shapes by the changing building, the gothic look for the group of man with bald head, high-contrast lighting usually seen in this movie because most the scene framed in dark time and content is surreal because of the make up and the action of the characters when they tried to do something. 



The part that I liked

This is the part where the dark town they lived became bright just like in our real life. It tried to show the hope for the dark city. 








The part that I disliked

I personally don't like this photo is because people were forced on something they don't want do. In the movie itself, the injection can erase someone's memory and it will make people to forget who they are and started a new character. I felt very angry when seeing the injection process. 


Conclusion
     In conclusion, dark city reflected us that what will happen when a city does not has sunlight and people keep on changing their role instead of stick to only one character. It was nice to see this film that related to french impressionism and german expressionism which made me learnt a lesson that how they used these two to make the film. Appreciate for reading my blog.  

Reference
Bordwell, David & Thompson, Kristin (2010) Film Art An Introduction, 10th ed., USA: McGraw-Hill

    

Classic Hong Kong Movie, In The Mood For Love (2000)

       After enjoying ParaNorman last week, the film for this week would be In The Mood For Love (2000) and it was directed by Wong Kar-Wai. At the beginning of the film, I felt that I need to watch it carefully because it brought me the feeling that I am not going to understand what the story tried to deliver if I miss any part of the scene.


Synopsis
       The flow of story starts with a journalist named Chow Mo-Wan (Tony Lueng) and Su Li-Zhen (Maggie Cheung), a secretary of shipping company rented the same apartment with their own spouses. Unfortunately, their spouses' loyalty to them started to be the one of their main obstacles. In order to revenge what their spouses did, they started to secret date with each other and find out that they loved each other. At the same time, they also quarreled when date and afraid people's view on their behaviour. Do they became lover until the end or they didn't?


Timeline of Movement
       Although the film was released in 2000, the movie remained how the look of old Hong Kong in 1960s. For example, the feature of old buildings, the costume of character and character's behaviour are the example of the look of Hong Kong in that time. As I saw from the movie, most of the building were old with old door, chair, table and car. Also, the floor of the building looked nostalgia which rarely can be seen nowadays.

       Next, the costume for a woman wore in the movie was Chinese traditional dress, Qipao. This dress looked noble for a woman and it also represented a symbol for a woman. However, man from the film would wear suit like western people did and it tried to show the level of mature for a man. In addition, the character's behaviour of woman on that time would look shy and small. Yet, man used props like cigarette to show a man's action during that time.      




Beside this, I am going to touch some theories that related to the film. There are three theories can be discuss as below following:-

French Impressionism
       The word 'french' is the term to represent a thing from France country whereas 'impressionism' is something you see then it will remember in your memory. French impressionism began from 1919 and it ended in 1928. French impressionism stopped because of the high production cost and people not interested on it. For example, if you are the boss of a company; will you think of close your company in order to decrease the lost or keep on losing your profit? So, this explained why french impressionism ended.

       Most of films would have psychological depth for people to think of why they shot like that and what are these meaning from the movie tried to say. Just like what I watched from the Hong Kong film, I started to guess the meaning of the film because it had not clear linear narrative for me to know. Furthermore, some parts of the scene manipulated plot time in same way like they went to street night market to buy food to eat. The plot keep on repeating about 3-4 times how they passed by each other in the street market and the time was at night.

       This Hong Kong movie also included some visual depiction which means know what happened to that particular scene through what we see. Firstly, rhythmic editing in where Ms Su and Mr Chow moved their furniture to the apartment. The flow was arranged from start to end and their faces looked excited when the furniture went into the rooms they rented. Secondly, camera movement in car scene was smooth because they used to tied inside the car. This will help to bring the natural feeling when you are sitting in a car and the camera will shake followed with road passed by car.             



Surrealism
       The meaning of this word is something really real as happen in real life. However, it is hard to see this term in film nowadays because most of them are in Sci-Fi which means something you need to imagine. For example, unnatural power like superhero is one of Sci-Fi. So, film maker has to ensure that is no Sci-Fi if he or she wants to make the film seems surreal. Surrealism started in 1924, a few years after French impressionism and it ended 1929 due to same problem as what French impressionism faced.

       Moreover, surrealism was different from French impressionism in the way of absence of character psychology. After that, it was connected to literature and painting which something not made of digital but used something real to represent. For example, the sound of people eating at the street night market and chit chat were used instead of take it from digital sound effect. This is because the movie wants to bring audience to what situation actually Mr Chow in when he was eating.

       On the other hand, surrealism was the term that anti-narrative which means it opposed to use description to explain a thing. It also aimed for causality which if you do something then you will receive something from what you had did. For instance, Ms Su got suspicious by other people saying that she was too friendly to Mr Chow and that was not suppose to be happen and finally ended up with people's gossip. This does not uses any narrative to describe the incident but just shows the audience the incident happened to them in a direct way.       


German Expressionism
      In the same year with French impressionism (1919), the term of German expressionism began from expressionist movement art of early 1900s. According to Cinema Studies: The Key Concept (2013) written by Susan Hayward in page 189 with line 10-11, she mentioned that the word expressionism means 'squeezing out', thus making the true essence of things and people emerge into visible form. In my word, expressionism comes from the word 'expression' which means the look of our face when experience something.

       From In The Mood For Love, the German expressionism can only be seen in lighting and distorted bodies and shapes. The level of light in the movie which was in high contrast or low-key. Then, this kind of light will create dramatic shadows and the purpose to do this is wants to bring the feeling of mystery to the audience. For example, there were more dark scene compared to bright scene. Plus, the distorted bodies and shapes would be the furniture that moved to the apartment. For this, everything looked very narrow and I got distorted by those furniture and started to wonder can the furniture able to move in or not.    


The scene that I liked

       I love these scenes because it showed how much they cared each other.

The scene that I disliked  
  

        I disliked this scene because it keep on repeating about 3-4 times in the movie. I think it is not necessary to put so many times in the movie because audience already knows by showing 1 time in the movie.


Conclusion
       Finally, film maker used to combine these 3 terms to make this film which really impressed me. At beginning, I found out that this film was boring to me because I was not really know the meaning of the film. However, someone told me that I need to view the movie in their situation and that time then I figured out this movie was not boring if you used different view to watch. Thanks for reading.


References
 S.Hayward (2013), Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts, Fourth Edition, Routledge, London and New York

3D Cartoon Film, ParaNorman(2012)

Hey, it is good to see you come here again. So, ParaNorman(2012) by Chris Butler and Sam Fell was chosen for movie on this week. It was provided by Laika company, an American stop-motion animation studio. I am the who loved to watch cartoon since I was small and I really enjoyed this film.

Synopsis
     The story begins with a 11 years-old small kid named Norman Babcock who can see something that normal people cannot see, the ghost. Because of having this natural power, people thought that he is an idiot who always talking to himself all the time. After that, Mr.Prederghast, an old uncle who had same natural power like Norman tried to persuade him to save the town from witch's curse. What will happen to the town? Does Norman able to stop the curse? Who knows...

Postmodernism
     What is postmodernism? This word made up with two different meaning words which are post and modernism. The meaning of post is after or something already happened whereas modernism is something happening between 1980s to 1990s (19th to 20th century). According to Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts (2013) by Susan Hayward in page 284 with line 20-22, she described postmodernism is perceived more as an historical condition within which are contained social, political and cultural agendas and resonances. After that, it also included prefabrication and genre mixing to explain the term of postmodernism.  

Pastiche & Parody
     However, postmodernism had divided in two groups which they are pastiche and parody. For pastiche, it was an attempt to pay tribute to someone or some incidents but it was considered to mock in parody. Next, the similarity of these groups is they referred and copied what people did during that generation. So, film makers will use these two terms to make the movie to reflect the current situation happened at that time.

      For example, ParaNorman was made to mock the people who looked down others just because of natural power like Norman. I was really angry when the scene showed people looked down and bullied Norman. Moreover, Ola Bola was made to pay tribute to the spirit of Malaysia's football team and it gave me the feeling of thankful to them what they did to our country. 

Prefabrication
     Not only that but also, postmodernism can be explained as prefabrication which means a process of a mixture synthesized by several elements which they are miss-en-scene, genres, SFX or soundtrack, narrative and film style. Just a short question for yourself, what will happen to the movie if it lack any one of the element? For instance, a scary movie will mean nothing if it was made without horror SFX. 

      Film makers followed previous film which they would use similar elements to make their movies. For example, what can I found the same element in ParaNorman was SFX of thunderstorm from ParaNorman was copied some of scary movie when a person scared by the sound of thunderstorm. Also, one of component of miss-en-scene which is actor's behaviour and movement was copied by ParaNorman like other zombie movie how a zombie's movement and the scream of people when they saw zombie on the road. This can be also seen by other zombie movie.     

Hybrids & Genres Mixing
     According Susan, she mentioned Neale's point (1990:46 and 48) said that genre does not refer just to film type but to spectator expectation and hypothesis (speculation as to how the film will end) in page 182 with line 9 -11. To make the film more interesting, film makers started to mix more than one genre in a film like ParaNorman. This is because if a movie consists of only one genre, the film will get boring to the audience to stay on his or her seat to continue to watch the film. However, he or she will enjoy the movie if it has hybrids in genres. 

     For a mixing genres, the movie has main and sub genre like ParaNorman was recognized as horror movie just as can see the cover of the movie but it also included some other sub genres like teen film, action and comedy. At the same time, like Neale said a movie cannot just see by its type but need to see until the ending of the movie. For example, if really want to finalize what type movie for ParaNorman; my answer will be the a happy and motivated movie.   

Scene that I liked








     This is the part Norman understood what situation Agatha at and wants to grab her hand to stop the curse.









Scene that I disliked





     This is the part that how people looked Norman. From what the picture showed, they thought Norman was crazy kid who always talking to dead body. 

     This is the scene that people looked down on Norman because of his natural power. They also bullied him most of the time.

Conclusion
     Finally, I liked ParaNorman because it showed me the true feeling of being bullied by others like Norman and Agatha, the witch and the unfairness in that generation. Thank you and have nice day !   


References
S.Hayward (2013), Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts, Fourth Edition, Routledge, London and New York