The ending
The film's last scene is probably one of the most memorable movie endings I've seen, it left me breathless.
Why did Lino Brocka had to die in that car accident?! :(
I agree! Havent felt this way since I saw the last scene in BREAKING THE WAVES
shareDid I miss something. There wasn't anything particularly interesting about that ending. Was I supposed to see some twist or something that I didn't. He killed one of the guys that was holding her and then was get some vigilante justice handed to him at the end. Did I miss something like he killed the wrong guy? Is that last shot of her in the sun supposed to mean she is alive? I don't get it.
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In other words I didn't miss anything. I just didn't have the same reaction that some other people have had at seeing the ending of this film. I thought there was something I missed that made the ending something different from what I saw because it just didn't elicit the kind of emotional response that it did for you and the other two posters. Thanks for your help.
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I am not Filipino.
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When you look at East Asian cinema it's always Japan. I decided to try and get out of Japan. Next comes China, but there are plenty of other countries. The Philippines is one of them. I looked through a survey book on cinema called A Short History Of The Movies. In it there was Insiang by Lino Brocka. I watched it and it was nice little domestic poverty ridden noir. I poked around and found that he was one of the best directors of Philippines. Someone mentioned this film on their website so I got a hold of it and watched it. This one turned out to be a poverty ridden noir. I have three others on tap by Brocka, but I haven't gotten to them yet because I am also looking into Dutch cinema seeing as I am taking a course on the history of The Netherlands.
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Yes, I have heard of it. Apparently it's the worst film in the history of Cannes. I doubt I would like it. I remember coming across this film and all the complaints about it when I started looking into Filipino cinema. Film awards and film festivals can be questionable sources for good films. Take for example the selection of the Thai film Syndromes And A Century by the Toronto International Film Festival as the best of the decade. Not to mention 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days winning the Palme d'Or at Cannes. More statistical lists tend to be pretty good. Like the list produced by They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?
Are you Filipino? I know you're not from an English speaking country based on your command of the English language.
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No, your English is not bad at all. In fact, others might not have even noticed. I just happen to have friends from China, Japan, South Korea, and Vietnam. I have read their writing so when I read yours I recognized similar repeated mistakes. I am an American.
shareoh ok dude. :)
whats your personal favorite asian movies? and have you seen 'perfumed nightmare' by kidlat tahimik?
"God bless the homicidal maniacs. They make life worthwhile."
First, considering this conversation is now basically you and me just talking about movies. Maybe we should move it to Facebook or over to my blog on films where this is more appropriate.
Second, I'm going to assume by Asian you really mean East Asian so I am not going to include India, Russia, or other parts of the Asian continent. That said, this is tough. I keep a list of the films I have seen, but I don't put in the country of origin so I might not remember some. I guess these would be my favorites:
Ikiru (1952)
The Bad Sleep Well (1960)
Yojimbo (1961)
Late Spring (1949)
Floating Weeds (1959)
Ugetsu (1953)
Sansho The Bailiff (1954)
When A Woman Ascends The Stairs (1960)
Woman Of The Dunes (1964)
Fires On The Plain (1959)
Branded To Kill (1966)
Raise The Red Lantern (1991)
A City Of Sadness (1989)
I don't think I can boil it down further than that. Bear in mind though that out of the 3392 films I have seen as of writing this response, films from East Asia are a small portion.
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I think I have gotten a hold of a copy of Perfumed Nightmare via bit torrent. I took a quick look at it and it seems to be partially dubbed into English. It's almost as if it were like a documentary on Africa with some British guy doing voice over of the whole thing. I look it up on IMDB and it says it's in English. I get the impression that the director wanted to create the feeling I described above.
If I expand to include all of Asia (not including Russia/Soviet Union since that is usually lumped with Europe despite being largely in Asia) then a couple more films should be on the list:
Pather Panchali (1955)
The World Of Apu (1959)
The Day I Became A Woman (2000)
I think that is it because I have only seen films from India and Iran. I saw one film from Bangladesh.
I have seen 16 Ozu films. I would say he is my favorite Asian director. Even more than Kurosawa.
I watched Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang (1974) the other night. Brocka reminds me of Ousmane Sembene in the sense that his films lay bare the ugliness of his country, but something keeps his films from going beyond good to great.
Well, regardless of whether or not we keep the discussion here. Feel free to comment on my blog when I write about Filipino films (http://ishootthepictures.blogspot.com/).
I haven't seen perfumed nightmare, but I will track it down and see it.
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Actually City After Dark is available and I have it in my Netflix queue. I am part way through Perfumed Nightmare and I don't think I can imagine it any other way. The dubbed English actually makes it funnier and it's third world view of America come across even better. It's a great example of what's called Third World Cinema. It doesn't mean cinema from the third world, but comes from there and tends to stress the people's place in a world dominated by America and other such powers.
See Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang, it's the best of three Brocka films I watched. It really cuts to some of the core problems present in Filipino, Mediterranean, and Latin American societies. Although you can find them elsewhere as well.
I also have:
Ang Tatay Kong Nanay
Mother, Sister, Daughter
Sister Stella L.
Manila By Night: City After Dark
in my Netflix queue.
Keep those suggestions coming.
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I will check the film out.
That site looks great. They have Out 1: Spectre. I have been looking all over for that film. They also have Toute une nuit as well. There is a lot of good stuff here. The problem is that I would have to buy a subscription to rapid share in order to download these films.
I finished Perfumed Nightmare this evening. During the times when it took place in the Philippines it was fun and interesting, but as soon as it went to Paris it fell apart.
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That's easy, Insiang (1976). That's only because I saw my first Filipino film last month. With Perfumed Nightmare that makes 4 Filipino films so far.
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Netflix has it for streaming. I will watch it ASAP and get back to you.
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Yeah, those three scenes of him dragging progressively larger jeeps across the bridge are hilarious.
Just finished The Blossoming Of Maximo Oliveras. It was well intentioned, but it felt conventional, safe, and didn't seem to want to settle down on the boy possibly being gay, the need to become a criminal to survive in the Philippines, or police corruption. It felt like a bit more theatrical version of a TV movie.
Never heard of Ki-duk Kim. Any particular films to recommend by him?
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Right now my queue is filled with Asian films.
Ang Tatay Kong Nanay
Mother, Sister, Daughter
Sister Stella L.
Manila by Night: City After Dark
Cruel Gun Story
I Am Waiting
Take Aim At The Police Van
A Colt Is My Passport
The Ballad Of Narayama
Pigs And Battleships
The Face Of Another
The Incest Woman
To name a few. I also downloaded 4-5 Ozu films that I hadn't seen before. Some Hirsoshi Shimizu films. I also have various other Asian films I intend to watch.
The Isle is available for streaming and I have moved Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring to the top of my queue. I will tell you what Io think about them when I finish watching them.
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I wasn't planning on watching any more films by Mike De Leon. But now that you mention it I am getting ahold of Batch '81.
I haven't had a chance yet. I finished a couple of Dutch films and an American film during the week. I am desperately trying to finish a bunch of readings for my Dutch history midterm next week so I probably won't get to the two other Filipino films I have before I can even get to Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring for awhile.
See A City Of Sadness and A Time To Live, A Time To Die. See only the first third of Three Times. That's the extent of my knowledge of Hou Hsaio-Hsien.
I usually avoid the Academy Awards, but I actually did watch most of it this time. I figured Bigelow would take Best Director, but I was shocked that The Hurt Locker took Best Picture. Maybe the Academy felt this was their chance to rectify the mistake of giving Titanic Best Picture instead of L.A. Confidential back in 1997.
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You must check out A City Of Sadness. It's his masterpiece.
It's funny you should ask about Dutch films. I almost want to say right now to stay away from Dutch cinema. I have yet to see one that I would say is good. The two films that are supposed to be their best are Turkish Fruit (1973) and Soldier Of Orange (1977). They both have Rutger Hauer in them and they are both directed by Paul Verhoeven. Turkish Fruit is like a Dutch version of Love Story with some French New Wave elements thrown in. If you want to see Rutger Hauer's penis and see him screw like 5 women or more within like the first 10 minutes of the movie then it's the film for you. Soldier Of Orange is about a famous resistance fighter for the Dutch during WWII. Unfortunately, from what I can tell the theatrical version was re-cut from a mini-series and it shows. The film really has two halves. Fighting the Nazi's before going to England and meeting the Dutch Queen and then returning to continue fighting. The second half seems like it's all there, but the first half clearly has pieces missing rather than just trying to be elliptical.
Some people also like the film noir The Fourth Man (1983). I will give it credit for one thing. I have never seen a film noir where the man is rescued from the spiderwoman by the Virgin Mary.
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I didn't. I probably have had it out for Dutch films because the first one I saw was I Love Dollars. A horribly heavy-handed documentary about the evils of capitalism. However, I did watch a good Dutch film today called Als Twee Druppels Water.
I watched two Filipino films over the past few days. Ang Tatay Kong Nanay and Mother, Daughter, Sister. Mother, Daughter, Sister was a nice straight down the middle family drama. Ang Tatay Kong Nanay was nice, but I can't stand it when films present homosexuality as if it equates to crossdressing and/or transsexuality. Ang Tatay Kong Nanay did this and so did that other film you mentioned, The Blossoming Of Maximo Oliveras.
I have question. Is it common in the Philippines for people to speak a combination of Filipino, Tagalog, and English?
Finally, a guy in my computer science group mentioned a program to me that allows me to get stuff off of that website you brought to my attention. I was able to get that good Dutch film off of that website and I just found a film from 1917 Argentina. Amazing!
the Als Twee Druppels Water looks interesting. i havent seen those 2 filipino films youve mentioned. but i think i saw a picture of Ang Tatay Kong Nanay on google and saw the father dressing as women.
yeah its pretty common. in every sentence or daily conversation, theres always an english words included. Filipino language mix of, tagalog, little bit of spanish, english, etc. and theres also some rich pilipino who overuse english. they're called 'KONYO'
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=konyo
yeah a lot of great movies in that website :)
"God bless the homicidal maniacs. They make life worthwhile."
I love how those urban dictionary entries first say "the bane of philippine society" and then go onto to say the word in Spanish is vagina. So vaginae are the bane of Filipino society. I love it.
I think an appropriate English translation would be pseudo-intellectual, wannabe, superficial, and/or any insult you can muster to attack somebody who has a foot in two societies, but without enough of an understanding to be accepted by either society. You see this a lot in first generation and teenage immigrant populations and get this kind of a response from the culture they appear to be abandoning and from the culture they aren't fully immersed within. At least that's my response to that vicious first definition in urban dictionary.
Also, no culture that has been colonized takes kindly to those who try to become the colonizers. Filipino --> American or Spanish, Vietnamese --> French (there is a great Vietnamese book from the French colonial era called Dumb Luck that is wonderfully vicious about that), and Indonesian --> Dutch.
lol at the bane of philippine society. also the spanish word 'puto' is a bad word but in philippines language it means 'rice cake'.
you know i also read some filipinos on the net wanting to bring back the spanish language in the philippines as an official language but i also see some thats against it. i think one of the reasons they want it back because theyre a big fan of those spanish telenovela lol.
hey have you heard this filipino movie http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1244571/
"God bless the homicidal maniacs. They make life worthwhile."
No, I haven't. Is it any good?
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I wasn't able to find Jay on Surreal Moviez. I haven't tried BitTorrent yet.
What is Kubrador about?
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Been awhile since I responded. Sorry about that. The semester was coming to an end and it was been very hectic.
shareits fine, man. dont forget to study :)
"God bless the homicidal maniacs. They make life worthwhile."
but I can't stand it when films present homosexuality as if it equates to crossdressing and/or transsexuality.
Just fyi, in the Philippines, homosexuals are expected & usually are dressed based on the gender they identify with. So male homosexuals dress like girls while female homosexuals dress like guys. In your culture, it's considered being transgendered but in the Philippines, that's the only definition of homosexuality.
Global Warming, it's a personal decision innit? - Nigel Tufnel
Just curious, what are the similar repeated mistakes?
About Kinatay, I think international viewers had a problem with the name Madonna & the religious or Catholic posters on the wall. They found it weird but here in the Philippines, they're both just natural everyday things.
Global Warming, it's a personal decision innit? - Nigel Tufnel
You might enjoy these films as well & they're not poverty ridden noir:
-Kinatay (2009)
-Itim (1976)
-Ang Babae Sa Septic Tank (2011)
-Badjao (1957)
-Batch 81 (1981)
Global Warming, it's a personal decision innit? - Nigel Tufnel
Wow. some people shouldn't bother watching films. Some people need to stick with the mainstream hollywood garbage.
"IMdB; where 14 year olds can act like jaded 40 year old critics...'