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Vittorio De Sica's "Bicycle Thieves"
Vittorio de Sica's film "Bicycle Thieves" discusses the differing worldviews within social hierarchy, and how ignorance of solution contributes to the further illnesses in society. It strongly contrasts the two sides of its depiction on social relation--between the masses and the privileged. Portrayal and composition mainly come into play in their differences.
The privileged, who are made as background characters and pseudo-enemies to the story's course, are shown as silent or murmuring, and come usually in small groups. They are only ever loud when individually provoked. The masses, meanwhile, are shown as exactly that: in masses. The crowds frame each other, and against claustrophobic buildings. The people, however, come in many different forms, but are usually pliant when conversed with individually despite "noise" when compressed together.
Each scene is simple and clean cut, shot in very realistic set locations. The designs are rugged for the masses, while it is posh and simple for the privileged. Most of the lighting comes as neutral, feeding easily on the eyes in contrast to the harsh reality that the film sets to the audience. It becomes stark and dreary only when absolutely needed, and creepily so. Flowing these sequences are music every now and then, but the majority of the film runs on sound design rather than soundtrack. This adds to the ease of the visuals, and doesn't feed too much on the more physical senses of a person. Effectively, it makes one focus more on the story and its meaning--as though taking away heavy filmmaking in film making amplifies the meaning of what you want to tell the public.
Along with strong contrasts between each other, the film demonstrates an endless circle within each social stature. The privileged can be blind and isolated, and may only speak out when threatened individually, especially in regards to their privilege; the masses can be tight and desperate, always seeking for ways to lift themselves up, but ultimately have a hard time leading anywhere. A clear mirror of what reality faces, from back then up until today, de Sica shows the harshness of the world in the most simple yet effective way.
Never Not Love You (Dir: Antoinette Jadaone)
Antoinette Jadaone's Never Not Love You features famous love team James Reid and Nadine Lustre in what's possibly the opposite of how love teams are perceived and executed. While love teams are very idealistic and photogenic, the film shows a more realistic couple and their true-to-life modern day struggles with love when it comes to contemporary living. The story was shown very simply but very real, despite still being in a very romantic lens-but not in the way of negativity, but in that despite how harshly real struggles are and can be, love should be able to thrive in it.
Chasing one's dreams was the story's recurring theme, but also that those dreams can grow and change through time. It showed that nothing is truly stagnant, and nothing can thrive without change. While idealism is good, realism is still important: If you were to chase your dreams, things around you still keep going, and nothing is set to be built only for you. The trouble between James' and Nadine's characters was just that: for James' character, you can finally learn to look out for Number I (yourself), but you shouldn't forget about Number 2 (your partner); while for Nadine's character, you can learn to look out for Number 2, but you should never forget about Number 1. Formulaic romantic tropes continuously to be mundane and predictable in that you always end up expecting that a lover will always chase after a lover, no matter what's realistically at stake for them. After all, it's "just a movie", there's nothing one necessarily needs to be realistic about. However, some storytellers forget that connecting with the reality that audiences feel, especially in a genre such as Romance and Slice Of Life (which directly lifts from human feelings), is important too. Again, idealism can be good, but realism is still important.
However, Direk Jadaone's film isn't without its faults: just as with most pieces falling under the Slice Of Life genre, mundanity is a downfall. Certain parts became draggy and took too long to finish, when it could've been easily cut out but still left an impact-things such as way-too-long lingering glances, and unnecessarily loud silences accompanied by awkward stares through the screen. While breathers in the middle of films are important to give audiences a break, in a genre such as this, they seem pretty unnecessary. Bottomline is though, the message leaves itself clear to the audience anyway: Love means support within change, not belief through stasis.
Sleepless (Dir: Prime Cruz)
Prime Cruz' Sleepless is quite the romantic film, without any of the romance. The film thrives in exactly this and its platonic ending: the implication and chance that something could have happened, but it's amazing that it didn't, and it's a beautiful ending. The entire character development and relationship development of the two leads show very clearly that someone can mean something so big to another person, and impact them greatly in a lot of different ways and different aspects in their life. Whether this leads to a spark or not is beside the point, and that's just what happens: the relationship remains platonic, and that's the best of it.
There are clear parallels between the two characters' personal lives that impact their inability to have a restful sleep, and the way these details are revealed (such as Gem's passed father being an artist, and Barry being a father and an artist; as well as their own personal grievances over recent losses) lead the audience on to watch such a simple story to its end, and even think about what could lie beyond that ending. The film leads the simplicity of meeting someone, with that little but important connection. You learn a little something, and you can grow a little bit, despite little time spent with each other-every depiction, every step of the story, feels incredibly real and personal. It shows exactly what it means to find a connection with someone, anyone.
Among the parallels, not only the connections between Gem and Barry are clear, but the two characters are also written to oppositely match one another. Gem, having been a call center agent for a long time now, easily brings up shows of confidence; meanwhile, Barry is new to the scene, and he is not only the awkward rookie, he's also very reserved in general as a person. The film frames these differences as well, in color theory of a blue against red, and in placing them at opposite ends of several shots (a lot being in Gem's apartment, on her bed).
Amidst all its beauty, though, the animated sequence is the film's (very unfortunate) only sin: it's almost directed in a completely different way from the rest of the film. The art style, as well, felt disconnected from the film, and could have instead matched the art style of Barry or even Gem's father. Just that change could amplify their little moments together, and allude even more to their artistic connection, as well as feel much more personal to each other.
Parallel Cinema: The Mirror of Reality by Cas Aseoche
Art can be many things: a form of personal expression; an exploration of worlds; an experimentation of ideas; or a meaningful story. One of the most important things it represents, however, is a political mirror of reality. This detail can be found everywhere-in the social structure of characters, in the interaction of the people, and especially in the events that happen.
Art is nowhere near being reality, only ever a mirror. It's what one does with this mirror that's crucial to what the viewers will see. A lot of the time, political context can lay in subtlety.
The Indian Parallel Cinema Movement showcases this exceptionally well. Simplicity in portrayal but weight in meaning is key—it is the deeper aspect bled into a film's message that gives life and meaning to what's being shown. The movement is a direct combat towards mainstream Indian films that boast technical prowess over the thought in stories. Socio-political mirroring is heavily present in the movement's films. They began to give truer meaning to what a viewer sees, tell them stories that are important and must be learned from, rather than feeding candy to the senses and glorifying reality into a fakeness.
Grand examples include the 1980, Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyun Aata Hai, directed and written by Saeed Akhtar Mirza. The film elaborates the eventual anger of a working class man, the titular Albert Pinto: he believes in mirroring the rich and privileged in order to move up the social stature. Initially, he's persuaded by the ill-thinking of the rich that worker strikes indicate a bad person. However, his father soon faces abuse in his own workplace, which enlightens Pinto.
He realizes, then, that the working class is not to blame for these strikes, but that the capitalists-the RICH—are to blame for the abuse on these workers. Pinto learns to stop glorifying the privileged class, and gains understanding of the plights in society. The film's title begs a question that should also spark the same passion in others: "Why does Albert Pinto get angry?" These themes and lessons are very much relevant until today: capitalists still abuse working class and underprivileged citizens, the fight for fair pension still goes on, and rightfully so.
"Kisapmata", or perhaps The House on Zapote Street
Mike de Leon's "Kisapmata" sequences itself similar to a crime documentary--dates are shown to indicate how slow time passes as all these events occur, and are shown in order. Its sequences mirror the mini-chapters of Nick Joaquin's report on "The House on Zapote Street". There is narration overhanging the scenes, whereas while The House on Zapote Street is told by the daughter's husband, Kisapmata is told by the daughter. The curious structure of both tellings emulate a creepy vibe of a creepy crime report, and are written or portrayed as such in their respective mediums.
The story of The House on Zapote Street starts with the daughter's to-be-husband, Leonardo. He tells of the curious hierarchy of his to-be-wife, Lydia's household, and how all basically bow to her father on every command. The perspective of Lydia is later on revealed to be an absolutely terrible life, where her father wants everything to do with his own daughter--in her actions, in her words, and even in her pregnancy. Meanwhile, Kisapmata begins with Lydia's perspective, before introducing us to Leonardo. His observances of the household is quite the same, and the only differing aspect would be his personality.
Initially, Joaquin's report indicated Leonardo to have more toughness and confidence in him, and describes it to slowly simmer down upon integrating into Lydia's household. In Kisapmata, Leonardo is portrayed in reverse: mellow throughout the entire ordeal, except when he finally snaps at the absurdity of Lydia's family. The fictional retelling of the report by de Leon created a more cinematic character this way, because while reality is truthful in Leonardo's repression, Kisapmata showed a version where reality can break even the most mellow of souls.
Lydia, in both the report and retelling, lives in fear throughout the entire ordeal. Her relationship with her father is delicately shown, as it will always be a mystery as to how deeply any incestous relationship can run. In both Joaquin's and de Leon's works, Lydia's father is less delicate, however--he is very clearly brash towards others, harsh in all of his words, yet soft in his regard for Lydia, but will never hesitate to let his anger and selfishness take over him. It's almost masterful, maybe, how his actor could keep a consistent personality yet have so many different attitudes at any time. The father's values, no matter how twisted they've become, are ever present: his desire for close family ties (mangled by his desire for Lydia), his need for family time (ruined by his need for control), and his want for familial understanding (destroyed by his want for attention). His character's placement in line with Lydia and Leonardo, always close and wanting to be closer, amplifies the predatorial portrayal.
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