Well, yesterday I didn't manage to do a single line of revision. I had a REALLY long day and, as soon as I got home and had some food, I was ready to fall into the dreaming.
And I say fall because I couldn't jump, even if I wanted to...
And dream I did, even if they weren't particularly pleasant. Sometimes you seem to wake up in some ways more tired than when you went to bed and then you kind of work it out of your system during the day.
These days I don't try to remember my dreams so much since I more or less know what they represent.
Today they meant I'm stressed and I need to rest.
And that's what I'm going to do tomorrow.
(and write, of course...)
Yesterday the only writing bit that I did manage to do was to finish reviewing a comic book and revise that review. And then publish it on the livejournal website for the Graphic Novels Reading Group that I run.
If you want to take a look, you can just click HERE.
Today was more or less the same scenario with the difference I did manage to get a little bit more done. I revised Scalped Vol.3 Dead Mothers (amazing book - one of the best crime stories around) from beginning to end, revised the first 4 short stories in Flight Vol.5, published the review for Brit Vol.3 Fubar and am about to begin revising Invincible Vol.7 Three's Company.
I still haven't published any of the Invincible reviews I've done but I will do so as soon as I can be bothered to type them all up.
Hopefully I'll be able to blitzpost them during a couple of weeks or so.
In the meantime I'll revise vols 7, 8 and 9... and get my hands on vols 10, 11 and 12!!
I have found that doing a bit of revising someone else's stuff before starting to revise my own really does help me gain some perspective and, perhaps most importantly, some momentum.
I am in hopes of going home in an hour or so and still write a bit... let's see how that turns out...
peace.
Showing posts with label review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label review. Show all posts
Tuesday, 15 June 2010
Thursday, 4 March 2010
Stars of Battle
I don't even know why I'm writing this. To get a weight out of my chest probably. it's almost 2am and I feel tired. Drained even. I've spent the day (and the last few days) revising my first book which is probably the most challenging thing I've written so far.
And I've just finished watching the last three episodes of Battlestar Galactica, the reimagining of, I should say.
There isn't much to tell since it only make sense if you've spent all those hours falling in love with those people on the screen. Never underestimate the power of film, that's the big lesson that once again I've been reminded.
To tell you the truth, it really felt like a part of me died with the last few moments of that series. Even though I know I can revisit it, it doesn't feel that way. It feels as if that cycle is truly gone and lost forever. It's sad but also awakening. It's a big step away from the moment to moment insight meditation, but it carries a similar punch only one given with a slightly different kind of gloves. Much heavier, much slower, likely to stick around for a while longer.
I could tell you a lot on how brilliant I think the plot and the characters were for all this series but I'll spare you the rant.
What really is important is that, through images and sound, a deep feeling of love and compassion arose for what, ultimately, merely happened in my brain. I was being programmed, voluntarily induced to experience the full breadth of human emotions. And by sticking with the ride, by closing the cycle (and I think it particularly important that Laura Roslin is the last person to die on the series and she dies because her lungs fail her), there is something worth being gained. I guess when those lives close ours must come automatically under scrutiny. There's a void now. Perhaps to be filled with a new series. Perhaps not. Perhaps that void can just be there to make itself known. That space used for us to breath into ourselves.
I don't know.
I'm trying to commit words to describe something that I never will. So intimate, so personal, and yet something I know I will share with most humans at some point in our lives.
It's not the words. It's what they hint at.
I guess a lot of people were disappointed with the religious overtones. Especially towards the end. And I can see that and accept that. But, to be perfectly frank, that's missing the point. To me it's not really about religion. Not really. Or, rather, if it is, it's in a very different way that we tend to think about it. I think it's more about what religion does than what religion is. But, in doing so, perhaps hints at what religion would like to be.
This series is woven with such incredible force and yet so much delicacy. That final death was something that filled me so completely. Together with Kara's last scene. Those were the two most important scenes in these final episodes. Perhaps even of the whole series. Because of the simplicity. Because of the beauty. Because of the subliminal depth that they carry.
Kara was the second chance coming to an end without ever coming into full bloom in the love that finally had every possibility laid in front of it. Terribly sad and moving but, as with most of this series, incredibly poignant and appropriate.
And Laura... Laura had always been this strange creature who we'd all like to love but never really could. But she is the epitome (along the old man...) of the true leader. So much so that only with the closeness of death does she allow herself to fully come into being and allow herself to feel. Her death is well staged. We've been hearing about it since day one in the series. She dies throughout the whole scale. And we are dying with her. Perhaps in different ways, but getting closer to that moment as well.
And we all know it. Deep inside of us we do.
And, instead of a big dramatic end, we have simply the very essence of life, air, being slowly taken away from her. Her lungs not being able to cope anymore.
So beautiful and so powerful. I truly have no words to describe it. Because it's bringing us, each and every one of us to the closest thing we will most likely one day know: how it is to run out of air.
It's something I realised very deeply in this last retreat (and undoubtedly why I resonated so profoundly with this scene) how, in most death scenarios, we will run out of air and we will know it and, more than try to fight it, we'll have to learn how to ride it.
That this scene, the way it's made, with all it's back history, with all the big themes lying about, is placed precisely there, in this way, cannot be a coincidence. Which tells me that the people behind this series (and I'm thinking Ronald D. Moore more than anyone) are truly special.
I'm sure many people, more cultured and educated than myself will look at this series and see a great many shortcomings, perhaps even dangerous things, undercurrent political viewpoints, etc.
I cannot glimpse any of that so much and, what I can it really doesn't contribute very much for any belief change or strengthening.
I just feel that this series was made with great love and is an act of love and a tribute to life itself. Its about us, but it's about so much more than just us.
Anyway. Thanks for listening.
Galactica Actual out.
peace
And I've just finished watching the last three episodes of Battlestar Galactica, the reimagining of, I should say.
There isn't much to tell since it only make sense if you've spent all those hours falling in love with those people on the screen. Never underestimate the power of film, that's the big lesson that once again I've been reminded.
To tell you the truth, it really felt like a part of me died with the last few moments of that series. Even though I know I can revisit it, it doesn't feel that way. It feels as if that cycle is truly gone and lost forever. It's sad but also awakening. It's a big step away from the moment to moment insight meditation, but it carries a similar punch only one given with a slightly different kind of gloves. Much heavier, much slower, likely to stick around for a while longer.
I could tell you a lot on how brilliant I think the plot and the characters were for all this series but I'll spare you the rant.
What really is important is that, through images and sound, a deep feeling of love and compassion arose for what, ultimately, merely happened in my brain. I was being programmed, voluntarily induced to experience the full breadth of human emotions. And by sticking with the ride, by closing the cycle (and I think it particularly important that Laura Roslin is the last person to die on the series and she dies because her lungs fail her), there is something worth being gained. I guess when those lives close ours must come automatically under scrutiny. There's a void now. Perhaps to be filled with a new series. Perhaps not. Perhaps that void can just be there to make itself known. That space used for us to breath into ourselves.
I don't know.
I'm trying to commit words to describe something that I never will. So intimate, so personal, and yet something I know I will share with most humans at some point in our lives.
It's not the words. It's what they hint at.
I guess a lot of people were disappointed with the religious overtones. Especially towards the end. And I can see that and accept that. But, to be perfectly frank, that's missing the point. To me it's not really about religion. Not really. Or, rather, if it is, it's in a very different way that we tend to think about it. I think it's more about what religion does than what religion is. But, in doing so, perhaps hints at what religion would like to be.
This series is woven with such incredible force and yet so much delicacy. That final death was something that filled me so completely. Together with Kara's last scene. Those were the two most important scenes in these final episodes. Perhaps even of the whole series. Because of the simplicity. Because of the beauty. Because of the subliminal depth that they carry.
Kara was the second chance coming to an end without ever coming into full bloom in the love that finally had every possibility laid in front of it. Terribly sad and moving but, as with most of this series, incredibly poignant and appropriate.
And Laura... Laura had always been this strange creature who we'd all like to love but never really could. But she is the epitome (along the old man...) of the true leader. So much so that only with the closeness of death does she allow herself to fully come into being and allow herself to feel. Her death is well staged. We've been hearing about it since day one in the series. She dies throughout the whole scale. And we are dying with her. Perhaps in different ways, but getting closer to that moment as well.
And we all know it. Deep inside of us we do.
And, instead of a big dramatic end, we have simply the very essence of life, air, being slowly taken away from her. Her lungs not being able to cope anymore.
So beautiful and so powerful. I truly have no words to describe it. Because it's bringing us, each and every one of us to the closest thing we will most likely one day know: how it is to run out of air.
It's something I realised very deeply in this last retreat (and undoubtedly why I resonated so profoundly with this scene) how, in most death scenarios, we will run out of air and we will know it and, more than try to fight it, we'll have to learn how to ride it.
That this scene, the way it's made, with all it's back history, with all the big themes lying about, is placed precisely there, in this way, cannot be a coincidence. Which tells me that the people behind this series (and I'm thinking Ronald D. Moore more than anyone) are truly special.
I'm sure many people, more cultured and educated than myself will look at this series and see a great many shortcomings, perhaps even dangerous things, undercurrent political viewpoints, etc.
I cannot glimpse any of that so much and, what I can it really doesn't contribute very much for any belief change or strengthening.
I just feel that this series was made with great love and is an act of love and a tribute to life itself. Its about us, but it's about so much more than just us.
Anyway. Thanks for listening.
Galactica Actual out.
peace
Thursday, 31 December 2009
Elegy
This is the title of the film I just saw.
It's two-thirty am and I should be going to bed, meditate a bit before I fall asleep and yet, here I am, thinking, not to worry, I'll manage with just four or five hours sleep.
It's a story I've been telling myself for many years now and yet, in situations like these, when I'm compelled to stay awake to write something, I often do not regret it afterwards.
It's feeling like that that I am here.
I'm listening to Clock DVA and thinking about what I wanted to say about this film as soon as it ended.
(I cried, of course I cried)
The main theme of the film struck home in a big way. No because I identify with the main character (even though I did so much in the past) but because I know of many people in that situation (most humans I would say) and one in particular. She's now twelve and struggling with a lot of things. Like you're supposed to when you're that young.
The film ended and I found myself thinking that I would've liked to have seen this film with her. To see her imbued with the feelings and everything that the film evokes in us. I think she would get. At least she would identify with that hunger for life but, at the same time, the fear of it.
That's Ben Kingsley's character. He is a man at the end of his life, too afraid to let go of all the repressions he has absorbed throughout his life to actually see what is in front of him. His dream. A beautiful young woman that truly loves him. She, so much younger than him, can see it. And she wants to help him to come out of his hardened mind that doesn't allow his heart to breathe. But he has a lifetime of fears, a lifetime of misconceptions and self protection.
I think he sees all this, but what makes him even more brilliant as a character is that he cannot let go of what he so desperately wants to get rid of about himself.
I think he is a powerful metaphor for humanity.
Actually, he is more than a metaphor. He is real. He is inside everyone of us. He is me and you whenever we surrender to our fear for no good reason but out of fear itself.
And how does all of this connect to a twelve year old girl?
The same way it would've connected to a twelve year old boy some 22 years ago.
It would've connected with that boy at that time because already there and then he was fascinated with the provinces of the mind. He was fascinated with art and science and people and everything he saw and welcomed inside him. Young people are like this, even when they don't fully know it.
He was fascinated with everything and he wanted to know everything. He knew it was a quimeric obsession, something that, in reality, somewhere inside of him, he knew it would be impossible to achieve but that, nonetheless, remained, increasingly powerful, increasingly magnetic and alluring.
He was fascinated with all these things but I don't think he really knew why he was fascinated. Things were just fascinating.
Yet, at the same time he began to realise that what he wanted was to know life, in its deepest, in it's fullest, so he could live it in precisely that way. In it's deepest. In it's fullest.
Can you blame him?
I do not.
I call him smart. Ambitious, perhaps even arrogant, but smart nonetheless.
I still think it's a good idea. To outwit life. To know early on the way you'll probably feel when you know you don't have much more time to live.
This was actually an exercise that I did (and sometimes still do) many times in the past.
"If I were to die tomorrow would it have been a good life? What would I regret? What have I missed?"
The answers to this were often surprising. Many times (not to say always) extremely important.
With the years I have found that my regret levels have diminished considerably and that I haven't missed much of the things I would've liked to have done.
That's simply because I am doing them now.
It does help.
Just today I was talking with a friend of mine and we ended up reaching this simple and yet so crucial conclusion that young people aren't stupid and that they actually know what they're doing.
(I guess myself and my friend both felt not listened to when we were younger so we can relate to this, even if a few decades have passed in the meantime)
(and by the way, I always dreamt about writing stuff like this when I was twelve. Go figure...)
I think it's quite brave and intelligent to try and find out what life means to us as quickly as possible. That way, hopefully, we will be able to enjoy it to the fullest as soon as possible.
When I was a teenager I used to dream about having the experience of an old man in a teenage body (and this has been the theme of many of my stories. Perhaps in disguise, but it's there).
There was a phrase that my father's uncle used every single time we went to visit him in Lisbon. It was something like
"Now that I' ready to die, I am ready to start living."
It's a bitter affirmation of disappointment towards one's life. This phrase became engraved in my mind. I could feel the taste of fear and pain that it held underneath the words. It weren't just the words you see. There were sights. And smells. And tones. Things that however many words we might use, we will never truly describe.
And, as soon as the meaning of this phrase became clear to me, I vowed to live a life that would NOT end up in this way. I wanted to end my life saying, I've lived my life and I am ready to die. I have done all I've wanted to.
There is a very powerful phrase in this film, it goes something like
"Man's biggest surprise in life is old age."
I understood this at the age of twelve but the understanding I have now is that of a twelve year old with twenty two more years of experience. An understanding of someone who already has some measure of knowledge of what it means your body growing old.
This is one of the big reasons why I believe this film is an important one. The sooner we become acquainted with life the better.
There are a couple of very important lines in this film about this.
In one scene Ben is saying that
"we've spent our whole life acting like teenagers."
He's not referring to clothes or going to parties, but rather in the sense of not knowing how to be fully responsible for one's own life.
I mean, let's face it, life is what we do everyday and yet, there is so little teaching about it imparted from other people. We have our parents. We have our grandparents. We have our friends. But, not always the wisdom they have to give us is enough to steady us in our path.and, to this I say, recognise them as fellow travellers in this mysterious road and chide them not for their blame. Life just happens.
On another scene Ben is talking to his oldest friend (played by Dennis Hopper) and he says something like
"It's time to grow up. Not just grow old."
Again he is alluding to that most precious of lessons that this film is trying to impart on us. A lesson in responsibility.
But a responsibility that has nothing to do with returning our assignments on time or know how to comment a work of art in an appropriate manner.
But rather a responsibility to the way we feel. A responsibility towards the heart. A responsibility that is unconditional and non-judgmental.
This is something very hard to achieve.
Our inner truth.
That's the only thing we've been striving for all our lives. That is certainly what Ben's character fails to accept, see, BECOME at every step of his path.
Yet, Penelope Cruz's character, some thirty odd years younger, she sees it so clearly.
More. SHE IS IT.
And this haunts him. This taunts him. This lures him as much as it frightens him. She is truly his Holy Grail. And in more ways that just this one. She is complete.
And she is complete because she is FULLY herself.
There's no holding back.
It's just take it or leave it. Like a child.
And it's through that innocence, that incredible, mature spontaneity that her beauty truly shines through.
This is the lesson they both learn in fact. But him, a lot more than her.
Still, the important thing is that they do learn it. And that they share this.
This is actually all plainly told in the film. They each go through their own masks and, what they find is simply what they always had known was there.
And why had they always know it?
Simple.
Because they had feared it.
Anyway, you know how sometimes you just wish people would change, realise this or that in order for them to become so much more fully what you feel and know in your bones that they are, but you don't know how to?
Well, this is one of those films that gives you this trust that, if they did watch it, they'd get it. Just the way you got. And that impression, that lasting impression that it left on you, would be theirs as well. And, the next time you saw them, they would be a few steps further in their own path. Perhaps a bit closer to you as well. For truly, this is the one thing you want to share.
Peace
It's two-thirty am and I should be going to bed, meditate a bit before I fall asleep and yet, here I am, thinking, not to worry, I'll manage with just four or five hours sleep.
It's a story I've been telling myself for many years now and yet, in situations like these, when I'm compelled to stay awake to write something, I often do not regret it afterwards.
It's feeling like that that I am here.
I'm listening to Clock DVA and thinking about what I wanted to say about this film as soon as it ended.
(I cried, of course I cried)
The main theme of the film struck home in a big way. No because I identify with the main character (even though I did so much in the past) but because I know of many people in that situation (most humans I would say) and one in particular. She's now twelve and struggling with a lot of things. Like you're supposed to when you're that young.
The film ended and I found myself thinking that I would've liked to have seen this film with her. To see her imbued with the feelings and everything that the film evokes in us. I think she would get. At least she would identify with that hunger for life but, at the same time, the fear of it.
That's Ben Kingsley's character. He is a man at the end of his life, too afraid to let go of all the repressions he has absorbed throughout his life to actually see what is in front of him. His dream. A beautiful young woman that truly loves him. She, so much younger than him, can see it. And she wants to help him to come out of his hardened mind that doesn't allow his heart to breathe. But he has a lifetime of fears, a lifetime of misconceptions and self protection.
I think he sees all this, but what makes him even more brilliant as a character is that he cannot let go of what he so desperately wants to get rid of about himself.
I think he is a powerful metaphor for humanity.
Actually, he is more than a metaphor. He is real. He is inside everyone of us. He is me and you whenever we surrender to our fear for no good reason but out of fear itself.
And how does all of this connect to a twelve year old girl?
The same way it would've connected to a twelve year old boy some 22 years ago.
It would've connected with that boy at that time because already there and then he was fascinated with the provinces of the mind. He was fascinated with art and science and people and everything he saw and welcomed inside him. Young people are like this, even when they don't fully know it.
He was fascinated with everything and he wanted to know everything. He knew it was a quimeric obsession, something that, in reality, somewhere inside of him, he knew it would be impossible to achieve but that, nonetheless, remained, increasingly powerful, increasingly magnetic and alluring.
He was fascinated with all these things but I don't think he really knew why he was fascinated. Things were just fascinating.
Yet, at the same time he began to realise that what he wanted was to know life, in its deepest, in it's fullest, so he could live it in precisely that way. In it's deepest. In it's fullest.
Can you blame him?
I do not.
I call him smart. Ambitious, perhaps even arrogant, but smart nonetheless.
I still think it's a good idea. To outwit life. To know early on the way you'll probably feel when you know you don't have much more time to live.
This was actually an exercise that I did (and sometimes still do) many times in the past.
"If I were to die tomorrow would it have been a good life? What would I regret? What have I missed?"
The answers to this were often surprising. Many times (not to say always) extremely important.
With the years I have found that my regret levels have diminished considerably and that I haven't missed much of the things I would've liked to have done.
That's simply because I am doing them now.
It does help.
Just today I was talking with a friend of mine and we ended up reaching this simple and yet so crucial conclusion that young people aren't stupid and that they actually know what they're doing.
(I guess myself and my friend both felt not listened to when we were younger so we can relate to this, even if a few decades have passed in the meantime)
(and by the way, I always dreamt about writing stuff like this when I was twelve. Go figure...)
I think it's quite brave and intelligent to try and find out what life means to us as quickly as possible. That way, hopefully, we will be able to enjoy it to the fullest as soon as possible.
When I was a teenager I used to dream about having the experience of an old man in a teenage body (and this has been the theme of many of my stories. Perhaps in disguise, but it's there).
There was a phrase that my father's uncle used every single time we went to visit him in Lisbon. It was something like
"Now that I' ready to die, I am ready to start living."
It's a bitter affirmation of disappointment towards one's life. This phrase became engraved in my mind. I could feel the taste of fear and pain that it held underneath the words. It weren't just the words you see. There were sights. And smells. And tones. Things that however many words we might use, we will never truly describe.
And, as soon as the meaning of this phrase became clear to me, I vowed to live a life that would NOT end up in this way. I wanted to end my life saying, I've lived my life and I am ready to die. I have done all I've wanted to.
There is a very powerful phrase in this film, it goes something like
"Man's biggest surprise in life is old age."
I understood this at the age of twelve but the understanding I have now is that of a twelve year old with twenty two more years of experience. An understanding of someone who already has some measure of knowledge of what it means your body growing old.
This is one of the big reasons why I believe this film is an important one. The sooner we become acquainted with life the better.
There are a couple of very important lines in this film about this.
In one scene Ben is saying that
"we've spent our whole life acting like teenagers."
He's not referring to clothes or going to parties, but rather in the sense of not knowing how to be fully responsible for one's own life.
I mean, let's face it, life is what we do everyday and yet, there is so little teaching about it imparted from other people. We have our parents. We have our grandparents. We have our friends. But, not always the wisdom they have to give us is enough to steady us in our path.and, to this I say, recognise them as fellow travellers in this mysterious road and chide them not for their blame. Life just happens.
On another scene Ben is talking to his oldest friend (played by Dennis Hopper) and he says something like
"It's time to grow up. Not just grow old."
Again he is alluding to that most precious of lessons that this film is trying to impart on us. A lesson in responsibility.
But a responsibility that has nothing to do with returning our assignments on time or know how to comment a work of art in an appropriate manner.
But rather a responsibility to the way we feel. A responsibility towards the heart. A responsibility that is unconditional and non-judgmental.
This is something very hard to achieve.
Our inner truth.
That's the only thing we've been striving for all our lives. That is certainly what Ben's character fails to accept, see, BECOME at every step of his path.
Yet, Penelope Cruz's character, some thirty odd years younger, she sees it so clearly.
More. SHE IS IT.
And this haunts him. This taunts him. This lures him as much as it frightens him. She is truly his Holy Grail. And in more ways that just this one. She is complete.
And she is complete because she is FULLY herself.
There's no holding back.
It's just take it or leave it. Like a child.
And it's through that innocence, that incredible, mature spontaneity that her beauty truly shines through.
This is the lesson they both learn in fact. But him, a lot more than her.
Still, the important thing is that they do learn it. And that they share this.
This is actually all plainly told in the film. They each go through their own masks and, what they find is simply what they always had known was there.
And why had they always know it?
Simple.
Because they had feared it.
Anyway, you know how sometimes you just wish people would change, realise this or that in order for them to become so much more fully what you feel and know in your bones that they are, but you don't know how to?
Well, this is one of those films that gives you this trust that, if they did watch it, they'd get it. Just the way you got. And that impression, that lasting impression that it left on you, would be theirs as well. And, the next time you saw them, they would be a few steps further in their own path. Perhaps a bit closer to you as well. For truly, this is the one thing you want to share.
Peace
Wednesday, 23 December 2009
Seven Pounds
Another amazing film that I saw recently was Gabrielle Muccino's Seven Pounds starring Will Smith incredible performance.
This was also an unexpected journey. But, fortunately, one that I will treasure. I think this will be one of those rare films that I revisit from time to time.
I will try not to spoil it too much for you but, in any case, I'd advise you to simply watch it and then come back here and read some more.
One of the great things about this film is that, even though it relies heavily on plot (and it's a great one), the story itself and the performance of the actors are really the thing that makes this film work. For this reason, the journey will always be true, even if you already know the end point at the beginning. In fact, I think that on a second viewing the film will feel even deeper and more meaningful...
I mean, after a point, I saw the end coming but, even so, it was still so intense and deep.
Together with Paranoia Agent, I think that this film is what the 21st century film making should be all about. Both are filled with human compassion and, to me, this is the only way forward.
(well, obviously not the ONLY way forward, but the one that in my opinion should be the reference in years to come)
I loved the way how throughout most of the film we did not know what to think about Will's character. Is he good? Is he evil? Who is he? And why is he doing the things he is doing?
Clearly the story plays with our own fears and misconceptions along the way. It is an incredible tribute to the human soul and to the swamps we all have inside and that we must traverse if we are ever to reach a more complete view of ourselves. I feel that this film does this for us, albeit in a much more subtle way than in Paranoia Agent.
Even though one of the tag lines for this film could be "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth", the story turns this upside down. Sacrifice is mixed with redemption and true unconditional love.
It is also a tribute to reason by presenting us with this summit of mathematical retribution but on a very high level of compassion. He is tormented but, even in his torment he uses his darkness to reach liberation.
It is a tribute to the best of us being able to traverse the worst of us, if even with dire consequences.
Even though this film is haunting in many ways, it is also a reminder of life attempting to deal with the unchangeable consequences of its actions, of its very being. I do not necessarily agree with all the outcomes but I believe that they-re never done in a gratuitous way.
If you've seen it you know what I'm talking about.
If you haven't you're not missing the point of this tangential review.
You're missing a great film.
Peace.
This was also an unexpected journey. But, fortunately, one that I will treasure. I think this will be one of those rare films that I revisit from time to time.
I will try not to spoil it too much for you but, in any case, I'd advise you to simply watch it and then come back here and read some more.
One of the great things about this film is that, even though it relies heavily on plot (and it's a great one), the story itself and the performance of the actors are really the thing that makes this film work. For this reason, the journey will always be true, even if you already know the end point at the beginning. In fact, I think that on a second viewing the film will feel even deeper and more meaningful...
I mean, after a point, I saw the end coming but, even so, it was still so intense and deep.
Together with Paranoia Agent, I think that this film is what the 21st century film making should be all about. Both are filled with human compassion and, to me, this is the only way forward.
(well, obviously not the ONLY way forward, but the one that in my opinion should be the reference in years to come)
I loved the way how throughout most of the film we did not know what to think about Will's character. Is he good? Is he evil? Who is he? And why is he doing the things he is doing?
Clearly the story plays with our own fears and misconceptions along the way. It is an incredible tribute to the human soul and to the swamps we all have inside and that we must traverse if we are ever to reach a more complete view of ourselves. I feel that this film does this for us, albeit in a much more subtle way than in Paranoia Agent.
Even though one of the tag lines for this film could be "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth", the story turns this upside down. Sacrifice is mixed with redemption and true unconditional love.
It is also a tribute to reason by presenting us with this summit of mathematical retribution but on a very high level of compassion. He is tormented but, even in his torment he uses his darkness to reach liberation.
It is a tribute to the best of us being able to traverse the worst of us, if even with dire consequences.
Even though this film is haunting in many ways, it is also a reminder of life attempting to deal with the unchangeable consequences of its actions, of its very being. I do not necessarily agree with all the outcomes but I believe that they-re never done in a gratuitous way.
If you've seen it you know what I'm talking about.
If you haven't you're not missing the point of this tangential review.
You're missing a great film.
Peace.
Paranoia Agent
I've been meaning to post something about this amazing animation series for a while now. This was one of those series that seemed to take animation and film making to that level where one seems to reach a core of reality so deep that any attempt to discuss it seems futile.
Satoshi Kon is an accomplished master.
He can not only see through the medium but also through ourselves.
To be honest this whole series deserves far more than just a post. It deserves to be seen. To be experienced.
perhaps that is the core of this series. Experience itself.
Like Lynch, Satoshi Kon takes us to a place where logic breaks and where, by being lost, we regain something that we have forgotten about.
It still astounds me how Satoshi Kon has managed to pull off such a series. It's like a breathing organism, growing and mutating, adapting to our own growing perceptions of it. And, by knowing this, it takes us on a carefully established journey through our own lunacy.
When I went to Panditarama Forest Monastery for my first ever meditation retreat a few years ago I did not know the many surprises my own mind had kept so well hidden away from my intense conceptual/philosophical soul searching throughout the years. I thought I had seen it all. That I knew it all.
And, in a way, I had.
But I had not experienced it all.
Knowing madness is quite different from experiencing it.
We all, by one reason or another, come close to these experiences in our lives. Through loss or sheer frustration, through an unbearable pain or some sort, our minds seem to want to recoil and slingshot into a different level of awareness where the normalcy of feeling is lost and thus, the seemingly uncontrollable experience at hand shifts into a more manageable level.
Sometimes we just want to lose control. Perhaps because a part of us knows that if we do so, we will regain another sort of balance.
But, we also know, even if vaguely, that the consequences might not be the best and so, we refrain.
I think Satoshi Kon knows very well how the human mind works. If not in a scientific way surely in an experiential way. The intensity and clarity of such experiences are clearly demonstrated throughout the series by the mastery with which he takes us - safely, nonetheless! - in such a perilous journey.
At first I was puzzled with this story. Captured by the images, by the sequences of strangeness and beauty being offered at every moment. But I did not understand this kid with golden rollerblades and golden bat beating people up. This was no ordinary thriller, that much was clear...
After two or three episodes a pattern began to emerge. All those that had been attacked suffered from some form of mental breakdown.
The girl that had created the doll and that was so pressure that started to hear the doll talk back to her.
the boy collapsing under his own success at school.
The woman that had dual personality, crashing under her own desire to regain herself, crushed by the weight of her two opposing sides.
The cop with too much to hide.
I thought I had cracked it.
I didn't know how Shonen Bat (golden bat) had managed to tap into all those people but this was nonetheless the pattern emerging. And, somehow, I doubted that a paranormal explanation would be the correct one.
Then one of the police officers said a very important thing half way through the series.
That maybe this case was the signaling of a new type of crime. A crime that avoids patterns and reasons. A type of crime that no one can hunt or be prepared for.
An this is the key for the whole series, in my view.
The series then apparently seems to lose its focus after episode seven when the basis for the whole Shonen Bat story is no more. Episodes range in their surrealism and darkness, but always depicting madness in one way or another.
But, slowly, the story seems to return to where we had left it. Maromi's creator, the two cops and the dying man in the hospital seem to begin to coalesce once again.
It then becomes clear that all of them have become infected with the Shonen Bat paranoia. in one way or another, this mystery has taken over their lives.
This is what they begin to find out with different levels of awareness.
In the end, even though the mystery is cracked, at the same time it continues.
My interpretation is simple. What Satoshi Kon is targetting is not Shonen Bat itself but the paranoia that exists within each and everyone of us and thus, that pervades the whole of society. The only reason why Shonen Bat becomes the cult phenomenon it does is simply because we resonate with it. Ie, we resonate with the fear of the unknown - which is the basis of paranoia.
This is Satoshi Kon's masterstroke.
He's not talking about a boy in rollerblades.
He's talking about the pressure we experience in our everyday lives and how this causes paranoia to creep into us.
All the episodes are merely examples of how this might happen. If you take a closer look, you will see that he has attempted to look at every significant strata of society. First and foremost he focuses on those we already know that are on the edge. Either because of their professions or their lifestyle but then, as the cult catches on, everyone becomes a vehicle for this. Because all of us have stresses in our lives, in one way or another.
To me the experience is truly to see the series from beginning to end and see the circle forming. Realising that, even though Shonen Bat is no more, Shonen Bat is still very much alive. It was never a person. It was an idea. It was the expression of our individual paranoias that had finally found a way to reach the surface of our minds.
Obviously, this series is aimed at a Japanese audience and looks intently on the Japanese lifestyle on the big city.
Thus the ending, which is so similar to the beginning is not only suitable but also fundamental. Satoshi tells us that the pressure is everywhere and we don't even see it anymore. We just take it as normal. But that the consequences of it live on while this pressure remains.
And that this is something that cannot be resolved by the normal analytical mind. It needs to be known and experienced. And then a choice be made upon this realisation.
This is the true importance of the detective that, connecting the dots, decides to stay real rather than succumb to his fears. Like his partner. That then replaces the old man in the weird calculations on the sidewalk.
At first I did not know what these scribbles meant. I only noticed that each of the numbers reached at the end of each step of the calculation were connected to the main character of each episode. Their age. Date of birth. Number of document. Car tag. Door number. Etc.
But what did they meant? What was the purpose of all this?
To me this insane character that believes he knows and predicts the fate of the next victim represents simply the logical trying to make heads or tails of something that is more a symptom rather than a pattern.
This is what Satoshi Kon is ultimately telling us. That our contemporary society is ill. And that some strange diseases are on the loose.
Illnesses of which we all participate.
And he's showing us the way of how to outgrow them.
This is why this series is so important to me.
It can safely take us to the other side of our own madness.
And make us whole again.
Peace.
Satoshi Kon is an accomplished master.
He can not only see through the medium but also through ourselves.
To be honest this whole series deserves far more than just a post. It deserves to be seen. To be experienced.
perhaps that is the core of this series. Experience itself.
Like Lynch, Satoshi Kon takes us to a place where logic breaks and where, by being lost, we regain something that we have forgotten about.
It still astounds me how Satoshi Kon has managed to pull off such a series. It's like a breathing organism, growing and mutating, adapting to our own growing perceptions of it. And, by knowing this, it takes us on a carefully established journey through our own lunacy.
When I went to Panditarama Forest Monastery for my first ever meditation retreat a few years ago I did not know the many surprises my own mind had kept so well hidden away from my intense conceptual/philosophical soul searching throughout the years. I thought I had seen it all. That I knew it all.
And, in a way, I had.
But I had not experienced it all.
Knowing madness is quite different from experiencing it.
We all, by one reason or another, come close to these experiences in our lives. Through loss or sheer frustration, through an unbearable pain or some sort, our minds seem to want to recoil and slingshot into a different level of awareness where the normalcy of feeling is lost and thus, the seemingly uncontrollable experience at hand shifts into a more manageable level.
Sometimes we just want to lose control. Perhaps because a part of us knows that if we do so, we will regain another sort of balance.
But, we also know, even if vaguely, that the consequences might not be the best and so, we refrain.
I think Satoshi Kon knows very well how the human mind works. If not in a scientific way surely in an experiential way. The intensity and clarity of such experiences are clearly demonstrated throughout the series by the mastery with which he takes us - safely, nonetheless! - in such a perilous journey.
At first I was puzzled with this story. Captured by the images, by the sequences of strangeness and beauty being offered at every moment. But I did not understand this kid with golden rollerblades and golden bat beating people up. This was no ordinary thriller, that much was clear...
After two or three episodes a pattern began to emerge. All those that had been attacked suffered from some form of mental breakdown.
The girl that had created the doll and that was so pressure that started to hear the doll talk back to her.
the boy collapsing under his own success at school.
The woman that had dual personality, crashing under her own desire to regain herself, crushed by the weight of her two opposing sides.
The cop with too much to hide.
I thought I had cracked it.
I didn't know how Shonen Bat (golden bat) had managed to tap into all those people but this was nonetheless the pattern emerging. And, somehow, I doubted that a paranormal explanation would be the correct one.
Then one of the police officers said a very important thing half way through the series.
That maybe this case was the signaling of a new type of crime. A crime that avoids patterns and reasons. A type of crime that no one can hunt or be prepared for.
An this is the key for the whole series, in my view.
The series then apparently seems to lose its focus after episode seven when the basis for the whole Shonen Bat story is no more. Episodes range in their surrealism and darkness, but always depicting madness in one way or another.
But, slowly, the story seems to return to where we had left it. Maromi's creator, the two cops and the dying man in the hospital seem to begin to coalesce once again.
It then becomes clear that all of them have become infected with the Shonen Bat paranoia. in one way or another, this mystery has taken over their lives.
This is what they begin to find out with different levels of awareness.
In the end, even though the mystery is cracked, at the same time it continues.
My interpretation is simple. What Satoshi Kon is targetting is not Shonen Bat itself but the paranoia that exists within each and everyone of us and thus, that pervades the whole of society. The only reason why Shonen Bat becomes the cult phenomenon it does is simply because we resonate with it. Ie, we resonate with the fear of the unknown - which is the basis of paranoia.
This is Satoshi Kon's masterstroke.
He's not talking about a boy in rollerblades.
He's talking about the pressure we experience in our everyday lives and how this causes paranoia to creep into us.
All the episodes are merely examples of how this might happen. If you take a closer look, you will see that he has attempted to look at every significant strata of society. First and foremost he focuses on those we already know that are on the edge. Either because of their professions or their lifestyle but then, as the cult catches on, everyone becomes a vehicle for this. Because all of us have stresses in our lives, in one way or another.
To me the experience is truly to see the series from beginning to end and see the circle forming. Realising that, even though Shonen Bat is no more, Shonen Bat is still very much alive. It was never a person. It was an idea. It was the expression of our individual paranoias that had finally found a way to reach the surface of our minds.
Obviously, this series is aimed at a Japanese audience and looks intently on the Japanese lifestyle on the big city.
Thus the ending, which is so similar to the beginning is not only suitable but also fundamental. Satoshi tells us that the pressure is everywhere and we don't even see it anymore. We just take it as normal. But that the consequences of it live on while this pressure remains.
And that this is something that cannot be resolved by the normal analytical mind. It needs to be known and experienced. And then a choice be made upon this realisation.
This is the true importance of the detective that, connecting the dots, decides to stay real rather than succumb to his fears. Like his partner. That then replaces the old man in the weird calculations on the sidewalk.
At first I did not know what these scribbles meant. I only noticed that each of the numbers reached at the end of each step of the calculation were connected to the main character of each episode. Their age. Date of birth. Number of document. Car tag. Door number. Etc.
But what did they meant? What was the purpose of all this?
To me this insane character that believes he knows and predicts the fate of the next victim represents simply the logical trying to make heads or tails of something that is more a symptom rather than a pattern.
This is what Satoshi Kon is ultimately telling us. That our contemporary society is ill. And that some strange diseases are on the loose.
Illnesses of which we all participate.
And he's showing us the way of how to outgrow them.
This is why this series is so important to me.
It can safely take us to the other side of our own madness.
And make us whole again.
Peace.
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