Coward. Swirling. Comes gliding across the sky. Swim in the terrace. Knocking in. Bash the door.
Somehow a revelation. Awakening. Bright. Like a sun. Dancing. Shining. Shimmering.
The hope. The dreams. A good visualization in the head and mind. Flowing through the veins. Bringing all the life. Soul gets pumped. Energized.
I can’t really describe, nor giving example and illustration. It just…. something. Not losing nor gaining. Or maybe both losing and gaining.
I’m not talk in rhymes, not even trying. I just can’t figured out the order of the words. It’s messy right here. Everything is mixed. The colors blend into one. I’m blackout. Either full or blank. Or in between. Or none of those.
I listen to some songs. Not to facilitating the emotional conditions. Just needed some melodical tones. To make the colors less dark, to saturating. Merely as backsound. Eventho an unrelated backsound. The score director must be a worst one. I am the worst one.
Thus we catch the breath. Living in vacumm space. We scream, we light up. It’s undesirable, this kind of roaller coaster. All I can feel is just a banging head. Beating motion.
I’m in the middle of vertigo. Your eyes moves diagonally. Your voice draw a circular shape in the air. Try to catch it up, the hands grasp in between of tremors. I can’t, I said to you.
Rating: 6.6/10.0 (IMDb) Genre: Romance, drama Cast: Keira Knightley (Anna Karenina), Jude Law (Alexi Karenin), Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Alexei Vronsky) Director: Joe Wright Music: Dario Marianelli Wardrobe: Jacqueline Durran Released: 2012
Prologue
Truth to be told, I’m not really excited writing this review.
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Who doesn’t know Anna Karenina? A fenomenal, both well-known and notorious novel by Leo Tolstoy. To be brief, Anna Karenina tells the story about Anna, a beautiful woman in high society of Russia who had almost everything: wealth, husband whose important position in goverment, handsome son, social status, beautiful dresses (the last one is so important) but later would give up everything in order of her passionate love towards Alexei Vronsky that lead them into scandalous relationship which later would break their life.
I’ve never been read the novel by Tolstoy so I don’t have any idea of what Anna Karenina would be like. This seems led me to awed by the techniques used in the beginning of the film that reminds me of Tales of Hoffman somehow. It setted on an opera stage, like, literally. Wright use a large opera stage as his main stage, hence we can see the backdrop rolled as the setting changes, the set officers slash extras and stunts swinging around everywhere in the hassle to put the proper equipments, even the backstage mechanicals used as a good metaphorical setting.
Sadly this whole coolness faded away just like that in a few minutes as if the sets officers and director Wright himself grown tired already and decide to stop. In a few minutes, we’ll just merely watching a common romance movie. No special effects of (back)stages process anymore.
About the casts itself, I’m not really sure. I never read to book or the book review thus I can’t easily judge whether they play it right or not. Nonetheless, the characters itself far less than stunning or remarkable. In the contrary of that, they seems artificial and unsymphateticable. All they leave me with as the story goes to an end is just a flat, lack of depth feeling, an expressionless face staring at credit screen backsounded by an ending score.
Speaking about the music score, is it just me who feel they are tedious and unstriking?
Epilogue
If Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina truly that great, I can’t see it here in screen. Maybe it’s too hard to catch up one of world’s most legendary and complicated literature piece.
Rating: 6.8 (IMDb) Genre: Thriller, drama Cast: Mia Wasikowska (India Stoker), Matthew Goode (Charlie Stoker), Nicole Kindman (Evie Stoker) Director: Park Chan-Wook Music: Clint Mansell Wardrobe: Kurt and Bart Released: 2013
Prologue
Finally a first edition of #MovieMonday tag that I planned to be one of regular review tag project every Monday!
Truth to be told, when I wrote my last #CurrentObsession post (the one that involved several titles of movie) I had been watched this film for, like, three times, and still can’t get enough with this.
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Stoker basically is a bewitching grotesque movie that is nowhere near your common thriller movies. Stoker doesn’t involved any ghosts or spiritual appearances or vampire and any other kinds of blood-sucker creatures, as first I though it named after Bram Stoker and the story would swirling around another version of Count Dracul. Apparently I was wrong.
A little synopsis before the review, the story goes after India Stoker, an innocent young woman whose beloved father died in an unknown accident, right in her 18th birthday, leave her live only with her estranged-yet-miserable mother, in a such a fine house in a forest-y desolated landscape. A long-unknown man acclaimed as her uncle come in her father’s funeral day and since then, this movie plays a triangle between Evie the mum, Charlie the uncle, and India the child/niece.
If I could describe the three things that draws this movie well, I’ll pick up 60’s velvet vintage dress, indigo baroque wallpapers, and vintage rolleiflex TLR camera, because those are what this movie tastes like.
It frames victorian-styled family in the middle of modern life of 18 century with all of their oddness and melanchony. The setting is gorgeous and the wardrobes ellegantly potrays a fine family that seems not willing to dip the same stream with normality around them.
Stoker movie goes not in a packs of antagonists versus protagonists type. Instead it sets unbalanced grey characters that swinging easily in unpredictable ways. The director successfully linger every one of each character’s emotions as well as spectrum of tensions captured in a deep and psychotic behaviours.
The casts embrace the film really well, I think. Mia Wasikowska fairly potray a vulnerable yet anomalish 18-years old girl that have an abnormal ability of senses, Nicole Kindman playing a bitchy-lavish-lonely woman that crawling her own existence upon her daughter disapproval, and Matthew Goode grab the attention as a misteriously charming uncle with a maniac and possesively psychotic persona underneath.
Not to mention the music score is captivating in every frame and automatically being the most supportive element of tension building itself.
I won’t say this is perfect or masterpiece, beside that I’m not really capable to write a valid review, also because the film opened by India stating her ability of sensing every each smallest details of what people are not capable to sense. But let alone that statement in the face only because it’s not explored as well as she supposed to be.
And the fact that character by character could be vanished easily to give the main hero and heroines spaces to form a big triangle, as if the audiences will not overthinking this as a plot hole, is kind of resentful.
But above all, psychological thriller is my thing and I thought this is one of a few that caught my attention as a movie.
Epilogue
‘ve said that music score for this is depressingly beautiful, so for one whole week, this song is played in my ears over and over again countless time, even when I write this review. Don’t know if it’s your thing, but I though you have to listen this too, it’s hauntingly addictive
“I swear if Father was a Bandung Technology Institute alumnus, he might not living here in Indonesia anymore,” Mother said that evening while munching her dinner, “he would be in Germany by now, working for a big automotive company; or in Japan, be a part of world’s breakthough robotic projects; and would personally acquainted with Archandra Thahar as a felow alumnus, or might even be a friend of him as well!”
What she said is out of the current topic, actually, but then I saw my Father’s expression and immediately knew that his heart noted it.
My Father is a godfather for everything and anything mechanical, automotive, machinery, and engines, hence we are–Mother, me, my siblings, our big families and relatives–are all the same absolute mind with this.
He once said to me (when once I helped him repair TV just because I want to photograph the cute green PCB board) that ‘Machines, whatever they are and however they seems, are basically the same. They have a similar system and working methods. Once we understand how the fundamental system goes, we practically understand every each of them.”
This is the photo I took by the way. Uploaded in a post about three years ago.
It’s funny that I learnt electronics for three years in high school plus took electrochemical subject in my college, AND it results nothing, hence his words seemed invalid for me at the moment. I just practically think he mastered it not because the fundamental systems or blablabla, he mastered it because he born with that ability.
“Yea, agree! I mean, Father is not an alumni of any pretigious institutes but nothing he can’t do regarding any machines and electricities this far.” I approved Mother’s initial convo.
“Well, unfortunately I didn’t have such a privilege,” Father replied, giggled a little. “It would be great though, if once I had.” He finally agreed himself.
“If you once had it, nothing can beat you though!” Mother assured him. “Many of the so-called experts have a better life because they graduated from prestigious schools but you can even have similar skills like them. Think if you graduated from a similar institutes, compared to you, they would be NOTHING.”
Agree. I once watched a TV commercial that debating ‘talent vs hardwork’. It said that nothing called talent in this life. Everyone can do what they want and be an expert of anything if they worked so hard for it. Me, in the other side, absolutely disagree. I think talent is real. It’s a personallized gift that privileged by God to His creatures. If you don’t have the talent, you can work hard on something you want, but you’ll never exceed them who has talent plus work as hard as you, I believe.
“You know what,” Father said to me as a reply for Mother’s convincing statement, “even by now, I still regreting why I never took a higher school. I was born in a insufficient family and what’s on my young mind at that time was merely about how to paying my own bills and not being a burden for my parents.”
I knew this story, my parents both bornt at the time when the economical circumstances in this country was rather unstable, mainly because the unjustice regime that was ruled back those time. Compared to them, I was extremely lucky to born in the family where I don’t have to work or struggling with money to be able to have school days everyday.
“When I have this job, my current safe-and-assured civil job, I thought there’s no need to pursue a higher degree, but it proved me wrong. Higher degree wil always be a necessary.” Father continued. “Then my current office had once offered to send me to continuing my study in order of employer development program but some political issues happen in management ends, affected that I don’t get what promised to me. That’s the time I feel a real regret.
There it goes, my dear,” he looked at me, intensely, “school is important. It always is.”
I’m not replied, because that statement is no need to be replied as it is an absolute principle of me already. But I got another think:
Apparently when you’re getting older, you’ll be more regreting for something you didn’t do than the one you did.
Thanks Mother who brought up this topic and Father who continued it, now I got a solution for some of my current problems.
I hate go to movies. Not that I go there often (in fact, maybe you’ll never find me there because I most probably go to movies merely twice a year in average, never more), but I just really.really.really hate the feeling of gigantic screen pressing out the air from your chest and the audio bursting your ears and so on. Basically because I’m a minor claustrophobic, I think
So in return, I opt for streaming or downloading instead! (I’m sorry, dear piracy, but I just cannot 😦 ) And this is what’s in my watchlist:
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1. Stoker
2. Pride & Prejudice
3. Gone Girl
4. Train to Busan
5. The Duchess
6. The Awakening
7. That Evening Sun
8. Anna Karenina
9. Jane Eyre
10. Map to The Stars
11. ….And many more!
A lot of Mia Wasikowska’s movie, I know. She is so impressing in every characters she played, that’s why! And some of them are Keira Knightley which I abruptly dislike in person, but what to say if she starred all the classical movies I intent to watch?
Currently thinking to make a new hashtag project for those movies matters only. Please expect a not-professional like me blabbering around about some tittles for some weeks ahead.
Wolf Cafe 