Saw two cinemanila films yesterday at GB3. Although both of them were pretty well-done, neither of them really spoke to me, for various reasons.
The first one, The Mother, was a BBC-produced film about a 60-year-old housewife whose has lost her husband. Suddenly, she doesn’t know what to do with her life. She doesn’t want to be like those old, defeated widows who just sit around at home all day, so she goes to live with her children (who are both adults with their own families) in the city, which turns out to be a pretty bad idea. You’ll have to watch the movie yourself, because I don’t want to go and spoil it for anyone, but suffice to say that she gets herself into a rather curious situation.
My main problem with this movie was that I was so unable to relate with any of the characters. Maybe I’m just not mature enough to really get it, or maybe you have to get to a certain age before things like this really start to make sense. (Obviously, your mileage may vary, as they say.)
Unfortunately, the only thing that this movie left me with was an intense fear of old age.
The second film we watched, Osama, had the intriguing honor of being the first movie to be shot in Afghanistan since the war. It described the life of a young Afghan girl who is forced to disguise herself as a boy in order to earn a living. Visually, the film was above average; the war-torn cityscape of Afghanistan makes for some great cinematography.
My problem with this movie was that it didn’t try hard enough to grab its viewers. It just felt detached from its subject matter, so much so that you didn’t feel any significant sadness or pity for the girl (who is named “Osama” by one of the boys she has to hang out with). Maybe if I could understand the film without the subtitles, it would feel more … substantial. A lot of the dialog (as translated) feels too simple somehow.
In between the two movies, we got to try out Go Nuts Donuts (see sassy’s thoughts), which I thought were alright. I guess I was expecting something really phenomenal given that there were 30 people in the queue clamoring for these crazy things, but it was just marginally better than your average Dunkin Donuts or Mr. Donut. Their coffee was definitely better though.
And lastly, we saw another well-funded thesis exhibit from the DLSU-CSB Multimedia Arts graduating batch. The exhibit was sitting in the middle of the cinema waiting area, a cluster of about 12 LCD monitors which showcased the students’ interactive portfolios. I didn’t see anything very interesting, although I did see examples of just about every new-media-design cliche you can think of: the hiphop soundtrack with flashing text, the enya soundtrack coupled with an organic interface, the milk-carton menu, pictures of pet dogs in photography portfolios, excessive use of the word “emancipate” as a major design element. The list goes on and on. I guess I should be glad that at least these kids are paying attention to what’s popular.