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Jun. 30th, 2005 11:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakThe Munich Film Festival is always fun to attend, only this year I have limited time. Still, films I've seen:
Child Star: Manages to be witty and unsentimental. Jennifer Jason Leigh as the mother could have been a caricature but never is, and usually gets the best lines. The kid isn't either over the top brattish (just brattish, in places) nor sweet. Bonus points for "First Son", the film they're shooting in this film, and which sounds like either a brilliant satire of the genre or, sadly, something Hollywood just might do next.
"Der Vater meiner Schwester": aka, Daddy issues aren't just for American tv. This German variation of same manages to be astonishingly sans heavy-handedness, given the subject. Boy finds out his supposedly dead father is very much alive and living the rich and stable family life with another legitimate family, boy makes friends with unknown sister and allows her to fall in love with him in order to force father to admit his existence. As opposed to classical drama, no one dies or goes mad over this. Some of the actors could have been better, but it was okay.
Shampoo Javaid: Pakistani film set in Lahore, witty, with the twist at the end well-prepared, and the society chit-chat with occasionally disturbing asides reminded me of a comedy of manners. The fluent and constant switch between English and Urdu in conversation makes as much a point about Pakistan as the arguments between the characters.
Re-Inventing the Taliban: also a Pakistani film, much darker, by a female director, Sharmeen Obaid. Documenting the rise of Islam fundamentalism in her country, especially in the poor Northwest regions on the border to Afghanistan, she makes you feel well and truly chilled as we see advertisments on billboards with the faces of the women blackened or torn out, or in her interviews with MMA (= the coalition of religious parties in Pakistan who went from 2 % nationally to twenty in the last election) officials. Asked about the activities of the MMA youth after the later has burned down a circus, the official she talks to benignly smiles and says: "Let me put it this way. If I told you I wanted to slap you right now, why would I want that?" Slowly, and disbelievingly, she replies: "Because I have done something in appropriate?" "Yes," he says, continuing to smile. "You acted inappropriately. And so did they. First, you threaten a slap, and I am sure our youth has done so, but when they don't listen, well..."
Equally disturbing is her interview with a female MMA official who had her head completely covered, only the eyes free, and who insists that yes, coeducation is bad, women should not work together with men, there are enough jobs where this does not have to be, women should have their own parliament, the MMA wanted to restore female honour etc.
Sharmeen Obaid also documents the other side: the actresses, singers and models who have no intention of giving up their rights but yes, are worried that there might be a Talibanization coming soon. Very worth watching, very disturbing. Small but frustrating and ominous detail she points out: even at a protest assembly in the Northeast, with the protest being against the edict forbidding non-religious singing and music, she was the only female attendant...
***
I've watched the season 4 of Enterprise three-parter with Brent Spiner. He was good, the narrative was tense, but I was still left somewhat frustrated, because of the predictable way the subject was handled. Not that I have anything against megalomaniac villains now and then - waves with nostalgic fondness as Khan - but really, we'd done that before. And Ricardo Montalban had more charisma. Of the Augments, the only one not going along with Malik completely was Pris (spelling?) because of some daugherly affecton for Soong. You mean to tell me that of all these genetically engineered superhumans, no one questions their leader? They all follow like sheep? Forget about moral qualms, they don't have egos, either? (And these aren't military, drilled to obey. They're hormonal teenagers.)
Yes, I get that in the ST universe, genetic engineering is bad. (With some token arguments for the opposition on how this would have saved Archer's father, but you know what would have been show, not tell? If Soong actually would have been in a position to save someone of the crew via genetic engeneering and put Archer & Co. thus in a position to choose.) But still, after DS9 gave us Bashir (and the Jack Pack - not that these episodes don't have problems as well, but they do differentiate), and after the X-Men movies, watching episodes which basically say "all mutants with superior abilities must become evil megalomaniacs" gives me a bad taste in the mouth.
The final scene with the implication that Soong's drive to create the perfect human being leads one of his descendants to create Data is nicely ambiguous, though; if only an entirely artificial creation can avoid megalomania and cruelty along with superpowers, there must be something pretty dark pretty hard-wired in our DNA. But still. Soong himself aside, the concept was handled very much black and white.
***
A Harry Potter recommendation: "Grieving Process" , a gen story about Harry and Remus after Sirius' death. It feels immensly real, and I loved reading it.
And I've written another Alias challenge response, Irina this time, in her KGB days.
Child Star: Manages to be witty and unsentimental. Jennifer Jason Leigh as the mother could have been a caricature but never is, and usually gets the best lines. The kid isn't either over the top brattish (just brattish, in places) nor sweet. Bonus points for "First Son", the film they're shooting in this film, and which sounds like either a brilliant satire of the genre or, sadly, something Hollywood just might do next.
"Der Vater meiner Schwester": aka, Daddy issues aren't just for American tv. This German variation of same manages to be astonishingly sans heavy-handedness, given the subject. Boy finds out his supposedly dead father is very much alive and living the rich and stable family life with another legitimate family, boy makes friends with unknown sister and allows her to fall in love with him in order to force father to admit his existence. As opposed to classical drama, no one dies or goes mad over this. Some of the actors could have been better, but it was okay.
Shampoo Javaid: Pakistani film set in Lahore, witty, with the twist at the end well-prepared, and the society chit-chat with occasionally disturbing asides reminded me of a comedy of manners. The fluent and constant switch between English and Urdu in conversation makes as much a point about Pakistan as the arguments between the characters.
Re-Inventing the Taliban: also a Pakistani film, much darker, by a female director, Sharmeen Obaid. Documenting the rise of Islam fundamentalism in her country, especially in the poor Northwest regions on the border to Afghanistan, she makes you feel well and truly chilled as we see advertisments on billboards with the faces of the women blackened or torn out, or in her interviews with MMA (= the coalition of religious parties in Pakistan who went from 2 % nationally to twenty in the last election) officials. Asked about the activities of the MMA youth after the later has burned down a circus, the official she talks to benignly smiles and says: "Let me put it this way. If I told you I wanted to slap you right now, why would I want that?" Slowly, and disbelievingly, she replies: "Because I have done something in appropriate?" "Yes," he says, continuing to smile. "You acted inappropriately. And so did they. First, you threaten a slap, and I am sure our youth has done so, but when they don't listen, well..."
Equally disturbing is her interview with a female MMA official who had her head completely covered, only the eyes free, and who insists that yes, coeducation is bad, women should not work together with men, there are enough jobs where this does not have to be, women should have their own parliament, the MMA wanted to restore female honour etc.
Sharmeen Obaid also documents the other side: the actresses, singers and models who have no intention of giving up their rights but yes, are worried that there might be a Talibanization coming soon. Very worth watching, very disturbing. Small but frustrating and ominous detail she points out: even at a protest assembly in the Northeast, with the protest being against the edict forbidding non-religious singing and music, she was the only female attendant...
***
I've watched the season 4 of Enterprise three-parter with Brent Spiner. He was good, the narrative was tense, but I was still left somewhat frustrated, because of the predictable way the subject was handled. Not that I have anything against megalomaniac villains now and then - waves with nostalgic fondness as Khan - but really, we'd done that before. And Ricardo Montalban had more charisma. Of the Augments, the only one not going along with Malik completely was Pris (spelling?) because of some daugherly affecton for Soong. You mean to tell me that of all these genetically engineered superhumans, no one questions their leader? They all follow like sheep? Forget about moral qualms, they don't have egos, either? (And these aren't military, drilled to obey. They're hormonal teenagers.)
Yes, I get that in the ST universe, genetic engineering is bad. (With some token arguments for the opposition on how this would have saved Archer's father, but you know what would have been show, not tell? If Soong actually would have been in a position to save someone of the crew via genetic engeneering and put Archer & Co. thus in a position to choose.) But still, after DS9 gave us Bashir (and the Jack Pack - not that these episodes don't have problems as well, but they do differentiate), and after the X-Men movies, watching episodes which basically say "all mutants with superior abilities must become evil megalomaniacs" gives me a bad taste in the mouth.
The final scene with the implication that Soong's drive to create the perfect human being leads one of his descendants to create Data is nicely ambiguous, though; if only an entirely artificial creation can avoid megalomania and cruelty along with superpowers, there must be something pretty dark pretty hard-wired in our DNA. But still. Soong himself aside, the concept was handled very much black and white.
***
A Harry Potter recommendation: "Grieving Process" , a gen story about Harry and Remus after Sirius' death. It feels immensly real, and I loved reading it.
And I've written another Alias challenge response, Irina this time, in her KGB days.
