So I Watched a Turkish TV Series called Everywhere I Go

 

So let's take a break from movie reviews for a short while and talk TV. 

The Philippines has the teleserye, Thailand has lakorn, and Latin America has the telenovela. Many countries have their own version of the serialized television series, but one country that flew under my radar happens to be one of the most prolific producers of TV content in terms of international distribution - Turkey. In Turkey it's called Dizi, and can refer to shows from a number of different genres.

Thanks to the folks over at Solar Entertainment, I've been able to watch the first few episodes of a 2019 series called Her Yerde Sen, a.k.a. Everywhere I Go. Its premise is similar to the Japanese manga/drama series Good Morning Call! where two people are tricked into owning the same apartment and romantic hijinks ensue. Initially, these two new roommates, Demir and Selin, are not happy with their surprise arrangement and argue and bicker over the smallest things. This drama, however, adds an extra complication to the proceedings by making Demir Selin's new boss, where he begins to introduce a number of workplace changes that Selin does not appreciate at all.

The episodes I saw cover the very beginning of this relationship, so I don't know how it all pans out. But there's more to Demir and Selin than meets the eye: Demir, for example, looks like he has past trauma regarding family, and there might be a reason why he rented that particular home in the first place. Selin, on the other hand, has her own issues to work out. Both come from very different backgrounds and both have different viewpoints in life, but if my hunches are correct, they'll eventually find common ground somewhere down the road. It's nice so far, filled with interesting characters and although the chemistry between the two leads hasn't found its footing yet, it's too early to tell 3 episodes in.

As for the rest of the story, I don't know what's going to happen, but luckily for us local viewers we'll be able to see how the story unfolds once the series starts airing on the ETC channel on September 19 with a 3 episode premiere (basically the same episodes that I've watched so far) and regular airing every 8pm on weekdays starting on the 21st. 

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That's it, I'm thinking of using the blog to talk about more TV in the future since movie-wise the world isn't producing a lot of new movie content these days for obvious reasons.

TIFF 2020 Reviews: Shadow in the Cloud, The Disciple, Quo Vadis, Aida?

 

Roseanne Liang's Shadow in the Cloud is a great fit for TIFF's Midnight Madness section: a wild, sometimes silly, sometimes hamfisted mishmash of genres that is entertaining as hell, as long as you suspend your disbelief.

Monsters of all kinds haunt WWII pilot Maude Garrett (Chloe Grace Moretz) as she undertakes a top secret mission, and if we are to follow the film's rather overt messaging, the worst monster of all is the patriarchy. The disbelief, skepticism and casual sexism Garrett has to endure over most of the film is reflected in the claustrophobic space of a bomber's turret where she is physically squeezed into the frame.

The proceedings evolve (or devolve, depending on your suspension of disbelief) into more familiar genre trappings by the film's third act, something that will either make or break one's appreciation of the film. But Liang makes it all supremely entertaining, and she knows exactly what kind of film this is and rolls with it.

An artist's journey to master his or her art is often fraught with difficulties, stemming from any number of personal, social and even spiritual factors. But while many take the journey, very few can truly reach the enlightenment at the end. The question that Chaitanya Tamhane's The Disciple then asks is, what happens to all those artists that are left behind?

Both languid and introspective, The Disciple takes us through one such journey. Aditya Modak plays Sharad Nerulkar, a practitioner of traditional Indian music, specializing in a specific type of improvisational performance called Raag. His journey begins through childhood, and is shaped through many mentors. But he begins to suspect that among those climbing the mountain of artistic enlightenment, he belongs to those who will never reach its peak.

This deep existential crisis constitutes most of the film and is compounded by a number of other socio-cultural problems: for an artistic field whose practitioners are drawn towards more modern, contemporary forms of art, the idea that one is unable to contribute directly (and meaningfully) to that field is particularly devastating.

During my initial viewing of the film, I found myself frustrated at the film's eventual solution, something that I figured could've been resolved in far less time. But it's a sunk cost fallacy, in a way: when engaging in a lifetime of work towards an unattainable goal, it might look easier to just keep going than to stop, take a step back, and take a new path.

An inevitable, horrifying force propels the viewer through Jasmila Žbanić's Quo Vadis, Aida?, a heartbreaking and harrowing account of the Srebrenica massacre through the eyes of a UN interpreter. This inertia towards an inevitable outcome makes the proceedings all the more heartbreaking. This is a film that stays with you.

There are a number of things that Žbanić manages to pull off; the film does not glorify or stylize the atrocities that occur, electing instead to put the focus on the victims, and it does not pull its punches when it shows the inaction and thus, the complicity of the UN forces to the events that occur.

Aida uses her unique situation to try to help her family, trying to game a system obsessed with following regulations to the letter. The UN forces, meanwhile, are naive at best, and foolish at worst to think that they can take a war criminal's word as truth.

And then, a masterfully written coda adds a further kink to the proceedings, showing us that the enemy are not aliens or invaders from another land, the perpetrators of this brutal violence were (and still are) countrymen, neighbors, co-workers, and students, most of whom have not been held liable for their crimes. There are no mustache twirling villains, only evil men following orders, an Arendtian waking nightmare for those who survive. But instead of despair the end is hopeful, echoing the film's title: a reference to an apocryphal story where Saint Peter, on the run from Roman authorities, meets the risen Jesus on the road. Jesus' words compel Saint Peter to be brave and return to Rome, to certain crucifixion. Sometimes, in the face of despair, with nothing to lose, the best thing to do is to be brave and live on.

TIFF 2020 Reviews: Gaza Mon Amour, Nomadland, Under the Open Sky

 The Toronto International Film Festival is currently ongoing. Here are reviews of some of the films from that fest.

The romance at the heart of Gaza Mon Amour is the kind that would be done in a 15 minute short film, had the movie taken place in an ideal world. But the film takes place in Palestine, where simple matters of the heart are made needlessly more complicated by bureaucracies, systematic oppression and other things. 

By a twist of fate, fisherman Issa (Salim Daw) finds himself in the possession of a bronze Greek Statue (and its disembodied phallus). The statue (and its phallus) become the target of the Hamas authorities; indeed, phalluses both figurative and literal become a sort of obsession for them. It becomes a symbol of supremacy or power that is desired, but not easily obtained. Near the end, there is a parade in the streets where a fake rocket (itself a phallic metaphor) is being raised up. One day we'll have a real rocket of our own, one man says.

But this movie is anything but bleak; the film is more a comedy than a drama, mining gold from the absurdity of the situation Issa finds himself in. Despite all the darkness, the characters of Gaza Mon Amour have found laughter and love in their situation.

The economic devastation brought upon by the recession of 2008 has led Fern (Frances McDormand) to live a life of a nomad, riding across the United States on her trusty van, working part time jobs and seasonal work at places like Amazon. It is not an easy life, but it's a life that she has embraced, perhaps partly out of a desire to grieve, but with no real outlet for that grief. It is also in its own way, an indictment of the economic policies that have lead to this scattering of peoples.

The first part of Chloe Zhao's latest film, Nomadland reads like a series of testimonials from real life nomads (the movie is actually adapted from a true life story) who have all hit the road for different reasons. Some are just looking for a place to settle down. Some are looking for a place to die. Some desire freedom, and some take the trip to find themselves. It's a bit of a paradox, actually: where people find community in shelters and trailer camps, but often only in short, transitory spurts.

The second half of the film becomes a character study, where our gaze is directed solely at Fern and the reasons behind her desire to become a Nomad. She's presented with another way out. But wounds don't heal as easily as we'd like to think, and the shadows of a former life sometimes cling to people too tightly. Home may be where the heart is, but what if the heart is itself lost?

Miwa Nishikawa's films often depict people who use lies and deceit to live another life, but in her latest film, Under the Open Sky, Misao Mikami (Koji Yakusho) is a man whose candor regularly gets him in a lot of trouble. This is a man who wears his heart on his sleeve. The problem is in a society like Japan, speaking your mind isn't always the best recourse.

But to the people who do try to understand Mikami, they find someone who is genuinely trying his best to live out his newfound freedom. The film is littered with small acts of kindness from people who genuinely want Mikami to succeed.

In the end, however, Nishikawa throws us a curveball in the film's last minutes. It questions the meaning of living "under the open sky," and whether having freedom but merely surviving is any better than a life well lived, but behind prison. Paradoxically, for a man who tells the truth to anyone he comes across, the only lie is the lie he tells himself.