What a pleasant surprise!

Wolkwalkers, despite its simplistic story where one could pretty much guess the entire plotline by watching the trailer once, it is 100% worth watching and worth recommending. I feel like in a world where animation market is dominated by either Disney Pixar, a movie like this is like a gasp of fresh air. This is the first movie from Cartoon Saloon that I know of and now I can't get enough of their works.

I first got to know about Wolkwalkers through YourMovieSucksDOTorg. His review piqued my interest because his rating for the movie is quite high, standing at 8/10. One thing to know about YourMovieSucksDOTorg is his choice for movies and his standards. Anything that gets above 5/10 is good while anything that's above 8/10 is rare and excellent. So when he's given his approval for Wolkwalkers, your know that's definitely worth checking out.

What stands out about Wolfwalkers has to be the art style. I am no professional animator and I don't know how to properly articulate its art style. It just feels hand-drawn and contains a lot of purposely rough edges. In short, it is unlike what I've seen before. I am especially amused by the way they depict the background. Whether it is a building, a walled city, or a farmland, they are all plain rectangles and lack of perspective, like how a child would draw them, or like the paintings before Renaissance. Combination with the magical elements in the story, the movie just feels like fairy tales, or one of those Aesop's fables. It really reminds me of my collection of colourful story books which I've lost many years ago.

As to the soundtrack Running with the Wolves, my oh my! This is actually the biggest surprise from the movie for me. How the hell that I only know about Aurora now while she has been so good for so long already. Her live performance of the song in Pandora captures my heart instantly. With just a guitar accompaniment, her voice leaves me in awe. Her skillful singing is undeniable, her unique personality is enchanting, plus her fairy-like appearance, what's not to love about her. I especially love the way she moves when she sings, as if the song itself is bursting from her soul and her body can barely contains all the emotions. She even nailed the live performance for the Nobel Peace Prize Concert in 2015 while she was just 19! She deserves more popularity!

Midsommar - The Tragedy of Atheism

At the end of Midsommar, seemingly genuine happy, Dani smiles. 

But all I feel is sadness. Many classify it as an horror piece, which is totally justifiable with the amount of disturbing elements in the movie. But to me, this is a tragedy. Going through the trauma of losing all her entire family, it is just sad that it ends up the way it ends, engulfed, consumed, and she has become agreeable to the shady shits done by the cult.  

"What if she had a proper moral support?" I asked. "What if there is someone to comfort her by her side when she is the most vulnerable?" 

"What couldn't have been done differently so that the cult doesn't win?"

Sigh...

To me, the movie epitomizes the tragedy of our increasingly secular world. At the start of the movie, when shits hit the fan for Dani, she needed a community to embrace her, a proper moral support system, all of which religion could have very well provided. But in a secular world, she was left alone to process the grief. This is where the cult had its way to fill in the void and stood in for what she lacked of when she was the most vulnerable. When nothing else could provide a source of consolation, the cult would.

To quote Alain de Botton in the TED talk Atheism 2.0: "We have secularized badly." This is a point that I stand by whole-heartedly. I have always hated those proud atheists who feel entitled to ridicule theists, but forget to look at what religion can bring to us, how it can benefit us. To deny the existence of god, that's the easy part, at least to me it is. What's difficult is what's now, what comes after that denial. What is proposed by Alain is very interesting. We should not discard religion entirely. We should not look down upon religion. Instead we should learn the methods from religion and we steal what works. Tradition and ritual are words strongly associated with religion. And thus in our modern secular world, these are the terms many are very skeptical to. But Alain argues that the power of ritual cannot be overlooked.

I still remember vividly my experience attending my godfather's funeral when I was like 10. To be honest, I was not that close with my godfather. So his passing didn't really affect me. But I remember the funeral, the gathering, the song singing, the setting of the church, the ambience. All of these combined, successfully created a place of empathy, an environment to encourage one to grieve, to share the pain of lost, together. I said successful, because I remember that tears did start to swell up in my eyes. This is first time that I feel the power of ritual.

All of this is not to say that atheists must always revert back to rely on religion for emotional support through hard times. But like Alain proposes, we should employ certain methods of religion to replace scripture with culture. The reason why I am a strong proponent of this idea is that I had a very personal experience with it. During a series of depressive episodes, it was not the church events nor the visits to the psychiatrist, it was the book "The Catcher in the Rye'' that saved me from plunging into the abyss of dangerous thoughts. It was a book that I'd noted down verses and memorized, a book that I'd carried with me all the time. Although my view of the book has changed and I now think Holden is a shitty whinny teenager, it was the right book for me at that time. 

The story of Dani also makes me reflect on the nightmarish situation in Malaysia right now. With high number of Covid cases, seemingly endless lockdown, political turmoil, economic downturn, and high suicide rate, there is no lacking of tragedy everyday. Everyday, cases like Dani where the all the family members had died are no longer news worthy. At the same time, there are many MLMs on the rise, using cult tactics, exploiting people's insecurities, such as the loss of loved ones, the lack of meaningful human connections, lack of financial security, or the general hopelessness, to prey on the vulnerable. I know it is hard to stay unshaken in turbulent times. But 

"...if we can't be there for each other when we're alone, angry, and in need of guidance, the cult will be. But if you always felt held, what a cult could ever offer you?"

--  The True Horror of Midsommar --

#kitajagakita

To feel the flow of time through Before trilogy

I recently re-watched the Before trilogy, one movie per week, over 3 week-span, just like how the movies was made, 9 years gap in between movie. I guess it is the only way to do right to the trilogy, the correct way to watch the trilogy. It gives time gap to allow the thoughts to sink in, let the emotions to mingle, to marinate, to feel the time passing, inevitably.

I'd always thought that the idea of setting an artificial time limit was brilliant romantic idea first brought up in the Drumroll, Please episode of How I Met Your Mother. I realize it is actually an idea first brought to life by Before Sunrise. I guess adding a ticking clock, a time limit, just like some people would argue that it is exactly because we will die eventually that it gives meaning and excitement to life.

The cities that each of the movies is set in are very interesting choices. I agree that both Vienna and Paris are very romantic cities. The only difference is that Paris to me, exactly like the Jesse and Celine in their early 30s in Before Sunset, more history, more diverse, and yea, I guess more mature. As to Greece in the third installment, I think it is also a perfect fitting to the stage where their relationship is in. Although it is filled with sunshine, it is no doubt a city of ruins and end-of-empire melancholy. It sets the tone of the movie and perhaps it also has a subconscious effect on both the characters and viewers, just like how the city of Istanbul has influenced Orhan Pamuk, his work, and his view on life.

I've always like this fan-made tribute video for the trilogy. From the video, one could already know the entire plotline of the trilogy, but that's not the point. The plot is not point. As well made as how this tribute video is, it is no match to watching these movies itself, to evolve together with the characters through these movies.

I feel like I could just listen to them talk. The topics that they bring up is so interesting and I just feel like quoting all of them here. What else to say about the trilogy that has not being said. It is excellent. I watched the trilogy a few years back. Now that I'm older, it manages to hit me more than the first watching. I have no doubt that when I re-watch it years later in the future, it would hit me in even more ways than it is now. 

Mind Hygiene

大包子(Da Bao Zi)'s latest video resonates with me so much. He articulates what I have been thinking in such a structural fashion.

So amidst the rise of Covid-19 cases in Malaysia, another "virus" hit the Malaysian Chinese community not long ago. It was the Yang Bao Bei (YBB) saga. In summary, 大包子's video criticizes, in the rise of this virus invasion into the public consciousness, how the general audience is easily manipulated by social media, advertisers, and more specifically by an influencer, and how they used our primitive monkey mind to further their power over us.

The majority of the YBB saga happened about a month ago. After a suicide attempt which gained the public's empathy, only to reveal that she had been lying, cheating, stealing, and heavily involving in gambling and loan sharks, the public anger against her was at all time high. It was at this time that some cheeky folks decided to sponsors her and used her infamous popularity to advertise their products on Facebook live stream. I think deep down, YBB and her recent sponsors understand very well that her recent rise of popularity is an effective tool to sell products. While those sponsors are definitely dodgy, but just like 大包子, what disappoints me, is the huge number of audience who tuned into those live streams.

I feel like most of the people just don't seem to understand that view count is how they earn money and what feeding their power. The way I see it, there are two types of people who tuned into the live streams. First are those who love a good train wreck, ready to see "good" drama broke out at anytime, those whom 大包子 qualifies as soulless folks; while the others are angry about YBB and eager to express it all under the comment section. One must realize that anger is the best tool for an idea to spread online. To this point, I have to recommend a CGP Grey's video years ago about how ideas are propagated online. Like Cobb said in Inception, in many ways, an idea is just like a virus, while the emotion of anger is the best entry point for an idea to get into our mind. It reproduces, may be mutates, and then further spreads to other people when the host shares the idea. So in the end it was a mix of morbid curiosity and public anger that was used for marketing purpose in the case the YBB live streams.

Bottom line is, we have to educate ourselves, keep our mind "hygienic", build up a more solid defense mechanism with more critical thinking, in order to prevent the spread of dangerous "virus". In the case of YBB, those live streams were simply business but we as the audience must realize that we collectively has the power to influence what kind of content to be promoted.

 

Indifference is the best reaction towards the junk food internet content like the YBB saga - don't watch, don't react, don't comment. Don't solely blame the Youtubers who produce unhealthy, emotion-driven, clickbait-y junk such as pranks, we must also question ourselves if we have been over-consuming the junk by feeding them our view.

I guess another reason that compels me to write this is because I feel so unfair for Youtubers like 大包子 and 新聞爆爆看 (News Bao Bao Kan). They produces the kind of content I would like to promote. 大包子 is focused on explainer videos on Malaysian social topics while 新聞爆爆看 is aiming towards becoming a late night show like Trevor Noah. I could sense the hard work pouring into their respective channels. But sadly I also know that it is hard for them to gain the level of viewership of a drama-filled channel or influencer.

The Race For Space

 "The Race For Space" by Public Service Broadcasting, it is an album which I highly recommend. I always find the album endlessly hopeful, something that is especially in shortage during this eventful year of 2020.

I first got the know about this musical band from a recommendation by Brady Haran during an episode of the podcast Hello Internet. The band would kinda fall into the category of hipster-ish, because I'm pretty sure that not many has ever heard about them. Although I qualify the band as hipster-ish, I think their musical style is very accessible. I would describe their songs as mostly instrumental, contain almost non-existent lyrics, and heavily on the electronic musics and drums.

"The Race For Space", the idea of the album is to capture one of the most exciting times of scientific progress in the human history - the space race. And dare I say, it succeeds in it. The excitement of that era is condensed into a 40min album. It brings the listeners back to that era surrounded by a sense of unity in humanity in face of the impossible. We may not live during that era. But through this album, we could re-live the Apollo program, Yuri Gagarin first venture into the outer space, the moon landing, etc.. Through this album, we could feel the joy from the success, as well as the angst from the countless failures.

The album is very complete, in the sense that from the start to the end, it is an experience. All the songs follow the chronological order of the actual events. So it only makes sense to listen to this album in that order and that order only. If I have to pick a favorite song, it got to be "The Other Side". Unlike the most famous song in this album - Go!, this one won't get you all pumped up and all motivated for a morning run. "The Other Side" is about taking a leap of faith, going into unknown, and hope for the best. The actual voice recording of the event mixed into the song, the anxiety of waiting in silence, the triumph in the end, and especially the connotation of the going into the other side and might not come back ever again, the thought of it just gives me goosebumps. It is a very atmospheric song, and I just love it.