Nang Mai/Nymph

When my boyfriend told me that Pan-Ek Ratanaruang made a new horror movie, I was so excited. Why?

Firstly, it’s Pan-Ek’s.
If I can analogize a movie as a full language where each cutting scene is the grammar used to make a point and show a reaction or emphasize emotions, then Pan-Ek knows exactly how to rework the grammar into a poem. From two of all Pan-Ek’s movies [Last Life in The Universe and Ploy –with no proper English subtitle] I sense that Pan-Ek is the person who likes to torture his audiences with his fragments, unexplainable interpretation that leave thousand of questions and a deep sigh.

Secondly, horror movie always fascinates me. Some people always question: why bother paying to get frightened? Despite from the stupidity of getting a priced fear, I think making a real horror movie is a difficult task. Horror movies are designed to elicit fright, fear, terror, disgust or horror from viewers. In horror film plots, evil forces, events, or characters, sometimes of supernatural origin, intrude into the everyday world.
To keep audiences stayed and entertained while they are intruded is never been an easy job, I believe. and of course, avoiding the horror flicks' cliche.


So, up we went to see the movie in one of the expensive theatre [plus we bought the expensive coke too!], things we hardly do, but two reasons above are worth the money.

The forest.
Movie is started with a floating camera movement, we are intensely forced to get face to face with the mother nature we might’ve never seen before, where all the plants and the trees have the magical power.
The intrigue is appeared when we see a young woman is raped. Her scream fades in the silence of the forest. In the burbling stream of the river, Pan-Ek delivers us the forest warning, that if they wanted to, they could reject or even swallow you up whole, like the floated dead bodies of the assaulters.

Nop and Mai.
Nop is an eccentric photographer who’s got a job to take pictures of the forests. Nop somehow sees a picture of a tree in the forest with a message “don’t let the forest seduce you”. The puzzle is thrown.
Mai, Nop’s wife, is a typical beautiful urban woman who has an affair with Korn, her boss.
Both of them are going to the forest. On the way, Mai is being a busy bee, cannot get detached from her phone [somehow my boyfriend, who is Thai said, Pan-Ek is trying to criticize the modern life, from the lyric of the music that is played in the car. Something about how modern life has changed people’s life].

The hotel affair.
May is out from the room, leaving Nop sleeping alone, to secretly talk on phone with Korn. When she comes back, the door is locked, she knocks and the door is opened with Nop, weirdly is still sleeping. Mai feels a bit of anxiety, either from her reticent affair or her guilt’s apparition. She takes her sleeping pills before sleeps.

In the forest.
Mai is still busy with her phone, talking to Korn, leaving Nop alone to explore the forest. Nop gets himself absorbed by the forest, and is somehow hypnotized by one tree. He caresses the tree and slowly penetrates his head to its crevice. The day is settling down and Mai starts to worry about Nop, she finds him in the forests, and gets shock to see Nop and the tree.
As night crawls in, the intruder Pan-Ek tries to infiltrate is growing. Something is wrong with Nop. In their tent, Mai is taking her pills again, when Nop is trying to get intimate, Mai is coldly rejecting him. At down, Nang Mai seduces Nop, taking him with her.

Nang Mai.
Mai wakes up in the morning finding Nop is missing, when she calls his phone, she can only hear a deep breath. Mai asks help from the forest rangers who end up give her an amulet necklace. Mai decides to stay in forest and finds Nop, she explores the forests, finds one of Nop’s sandals. Then she gets fainted and Nang Mai is dragging her back to front of her tent.

Come back home.
Desprately, Mai comes back to town with her boss, who lies to his wife to stay with Mai. Mai feels sorry for Nop, it’s either for Nop’s disappearance or her affair. The horror is getting intense: how can a life disappear even while it is in the midst of it? Is Nop really gone?
But somehow Nop is back, more earthly, Mai finds herself relieved.

The secret of the forest.
Meanwhile the forest ranger is calling Mai about their finding. Shown in a simple fragment, a forest scavenger finds a dead body, which to him is not more than a dead animal. Apparently death is something common in the forest. Like finding a treasure, he takes the corpse’s possession. The living lives from the dead.

Disclosure.
Mai is glad but somehow, everything has changed and so has their 10 years old marriage. Both of them are aware of it, now is just a matter of who and when to divulge it. It seems like peeling off a plaster from a long-healed wound’s covered so long it dissolves with time. Leaving only the scar and unbearable frustration that cannot be articulated.

Step back.
Mai and her boss are apparently having a plan to leave each other’s spouse and get together. It isn’t easy on her boss’ wife. Love is something hard to fix once it’s broken, even though Mai bails on her affair, she finds Nop is missing again. Korn feels unsatisfied, decides to go back to the forests with Mai.

Condemn, guilt and innocence.
In the forest, Nop is making out with Nang Mai. Mai is disturbed to find Nop’s phone again answered with the deep breath. She storms out to the forests, calling for Nop with no results. When she founds the tree, she condemns her anger to the tree, she axes it with no mercy until she faints.

In the silence of the forest, inbetween dreams and reality, Nang Mai is covered by either latex or blood. Nop is taking Mai back to the tent, where Korn is asleep. He wakes up and shocked to see Mai is full of sort of red liquid, he perceives as blood. Korn and Nop are involved in a conversation that is more like the end of the trip that had no destination.

In this movie, you can forget the time frame, that I belive Pan-Ek has intended to neglect. Pan-Ek puts no cold fact in these fragments, and let us enjoy the moment when reality and imagination are vague.
They are piled up on top of each other, interlaced us a beautiful long braid that leaves lots of room for our own interpretation. How much of a comfort.

When Nop says: “What did she do to you both, why you hurt her?” Who is her? Nang Mai? Or Mai? Or Korn’s wife? These three “her” has fell victim to the conditions Pan-Ek suggests.
And as for both of the two men, Pan-Ek also mercilessly puts them in a two parallel universe where their mistakes are beyond comprehension.

If you may ask me what I catch from this long review, I’d say…the whole movie is like a phantom hour in these three main characters’ lives, trying to examine the past and probably hope to change the things they’ve done…but unfortunately, life never goes reverse…and it has no mercy, no matter how much you beg. Such a weary journey, isn’t it? I’ve told you, no? it’s Pan-ek after all…:)

"Nangmai" is rated R
Directed by Pan-ek Ratanaruang
Written by Pan-ek Ratanaruang
109 minutes

Would you confront death?

Have you experienced the loss of someone close to you?

I have, and death that once was foreign, detached and far away, is now a part of my life. Death came with unexpected responsibilities, reconciliations and retreats from my dreams. Departures beautifully delivers a story about the meaning of the death for the living, which opens up an interesting perspective to see death as something “normal.”

The film begins with the main character, Daigo, performing a calm and delicate “encoffinment” ceremony for a beautiful young woman prior to her cremation. Slowly, within every dainty tune of the soundtrack, the story flips and reveals how fate has brought Daigo, from an orchestra’s cellist to a gatekeeper between life and death.

When his orchestra disperses, Daigo is forced to come back to his hometown. To live in the house he inherited from his mother. To take the first job he finds. Diego was hoping that his new job would be something related to travel business because the ads mentioned something about “departures.” It is, in a slightly different way, it is traveling to another life.

His new employer is an encoffiner; he prepares the deceased for cremation by cleaning them up, dressing and applying makeup on them. However, the job does more than just that; an encoffiner acts as a sort of conduit between the death and the living. Through teething troubles -that are unexpectedly hilarious and touching in an equal measure – Daigo finds that he has a flair for the job. While performing peaceful rituals of purifying and presenting the deceased, he gains a greater appreciation for life.

Though so, the stigma attached to dealing with the dead discourages Daigo to tell his wife the truth about his new job. Together with the guilt over his dead mother and the absence of his father, these problems rack him.

Departures are like an observation of life left by the dead for the contemplation of the survivors. As Daigo’s employer said about his wife’s death: “I knew one of us would leave first, but it was hard to be the one who’s left behind.”

Death is an unsettling matter. However, strangely comic and sturdily solemn, Departures helps us to understand that death’s arrival brings about lamentation and laughter. A careful arrangement of romance, humour and desolation in the film manages to generate laughter and tears, within a short space.

We all know that one day, we have to “travel” to our final destination. So, while we’re waiting for our “departure”, I’d recommend you to sit back and enjoy this movie.

"Departures" is rated PG-13
Directed by Yojiro Takita
Written by Kundo Koyama
130 minutes

Let the right one [slip] in

I finally watched “Let the Right One In” the most anticipated *drumroll please* Swedish horror movie. I saw the trailer around a year ago, and I just couldn't wait for it. Like I couldn't wait for Christmas. That's a weird analogy, but if you're a horror movie buff like me, you'd understand how hard it is to find a horror movie that could surprise you (in a good way.)

It seems that vampire is a hot movie topic (NO thanks for turning something eerie and macabre into something cheesy and ridiculous, Twilight!) but LTROI is nothing like the stereotypes. It is so much more than just immortality, blood drinking and pale faces in it. Or, let me put it this way, there're some interesting vampire facts we can learn from this movie.

Set in frozen rural Sweden, we are introduced to Oskar. He is 12 years old, and he lives with his mom who's a divorcée. Oscar is an awkward kid, his friends bully him, and he spends most of his time alone. Sometimes he plays in an empty playground that covered with thick snows. Hoyte van Hoytema, the D.O.P, is half Dutch, half Swedish and he makes everything in the movie looks and feels just about right and enough. He meticulously captured the enveloping snow, wintery light, and remarkable stillness, they look so beautiful to gaze at. It is almost like you could feel the cold, and the loneliness Oscar has to face.

So, when Oscar met Eli, you'd feel this strange emotion because you’d want Oscar to be friend with a girl who has lived as a 12 years old since like forever. Maybe because oddly, immortals like vampires are capable of feeling the same way as us, mortals with beating hearts. Oscar feels that only Eli can understand his misery and Eli knows that Oscar too understands what pain is like. Pain and misery, they are like twins, lovers or Oscar and Eli, they belong together.

There’s something achingly romantic about Eli and Oscar relationship, it is like both of them are washed up by darkness on the shore of despair. It is so emotionally involving, and things Eli says and does are unexpectedly terrifying.  LTROI is a serious vampire movie that would leave you feeling grim.

“Let the Right One In” is rated R
Directed by Tomas Alfredson
written [in Swedish, with English subtitles] by John Ajvide Lindqvist, based on his novel of the same name [taken from Morrisey's song -> Let the Right One Slip in]
director of photography, Hoyte van Hoytema

Vatican City, Illuminated

The most beloved and progressive Pope is dead. A canister of “anti-meter” is stolen from the CERN laboratory in Switzerland. A threatening note from Illuminati to blow up Vatican City is sent along with the [murderous] kidnapping of four Cardinals.
Those are enough as start up for making Angels and Demons a ticking-clock thriller with the background of the hidden long war between the Catholic Church and Illuminati, the religion and the science.


So, if you are all coming to see this movie in the sense of getting entertained, I can say, Angels and Demons, is a promise that make your wish come true. In a breakneck speed and fabulous production values, Ron Howard stuns you with his unbelievable set up of Sistine Chapel, the Pantheon, Roman Churches, Tombs, Crypts and off course, the drama.

But if you are just like me, a movie avid with a hope to see a better movie than its predecessor: Da Vinci Code, all I can say, there is no time to care about what you’ve known or hoped for. This movie requires a big forgiveness.

Pope election is always a big deal. Thousand hundreds eyes and faith are gathered together in Saint Peter’s square to witness the white puff blows out from the Sistine Chapel stating who is the successor of the late Pope. Here is when Illuminati plans to blow their revenge kiss towards the Catholic Church.
How?
Well, I don’t want to spoil anything, but everything is revealed on the very beginning. The scene of CERN laboratory, Geneva and the appearances of beautiful and brilliant Vittoria Vetra as Langdon’s sidekick to: 1. Explain why Illuminati are stealing the “anti-meter.” 2. To seek for her father’s secret journal. 3. To provide Langdon the clues and you know…being an urgent partner of Langdon on his 4 hours quest to safe the kidnapped Cardinals and the Vatican City.

And when it comes to Illuminati trouble, well, Professor Robert Langdon is to the rescue. Racing against time on his Mickey Mouse watch, asides from his brilliance and great help from Vittoria, God is on Langdon’s side this time, I believe. With no much hassle and great uncanny luck, he spots and correctly identifies every clue no matter how well hidden they are.

Meanwhile, the intrigue is also happening within the church itself, involving the young Camerlengo who also is the adopted son of the Pontiff, the Commander as the protector of the Pope and Cardinal Strauss who is in charge of the Pope election.

This movie portrays a balancing conflict between science and religions without taking side on none. Langdon is not a religious man and the church is not either an anti-science. As Langdon says: the existence of God is beyond his mind to determine and his heart is not worthy.

I don’t know how to call it, whether it's better or worse or even, compared to the previous movie, but all I can say is, this time less controversy, less Dan Brown, more entertainment to the eyes, including Hank’s more convincing hairdo ☺.

Come out, come out wherever you’re, here’s some Milk for you.

Have you seen Milk? I have and Sean Penn amazes me than he ever did. Penn totally moved me. He doesn’t create perfect Harvey Milk and he doesn’t need to. He plays the charming character from the heart and awakes the soul of Harvey Milk, his kindness, his humor, his love, his passion and his dream for a better world, for every people, regardless whom they are. With every meticulous effort to bring every detail alive, Penn is totally inciting the pretty Harvey Milk you’d fall in love with.

Setting up in San Francisco 1977, Milk is the engaging story about Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected for San Francisco slash The United States Supervisor. Milk was just a man in his fortieth birthday when he “accidentally” fell in love with Scott Smith in New York Subway. Questioning what he had done for his 40 years on his birthday, he then decided to run away and did something big before he reached 50, which he believed he wouldn't reach. In the shadow of Castro Theatre in San Francisco, he opened his camera shop, which then became the most formidable gay community base in town. There he witnessed that even in the most open gay community, persecution toward gay still happened.

Milk was the man with rare energy and vibes. He was a man of action, of words, a man with the powerful ability to rally people for a cause, and not only gay people. He firstly fought for gay rights ordinance then forged an alliance including liberals, unions, longshoremen, teachers, Latinos, blacks and others with common cause.
It takes two geniuses as in Gus Van Sant’s direction and Lance Black’s screenplay to successfully bring out these compelling character and vibrating movement that now has heeded.

The photography and film cuts are just fabulous, they come off great in transferring us to the 70’s. The combination of actual footage is emotionally devastating and so remarkable. In additional to its perfection is, Lance non-conventionally successful attempt to put Milk in the way of a hero rises from zero hippie to national symbol rather than just another main character. And fascinatingly interlaced it with his romantic odyssey.

The whole movie impeccably tells Harvey Milk’s transformed life and the victory of minorities’ freedom comes as the result of one brave man’s decisions in life. Another proof that the real manly-ness isn’t what is visible.


On pic is Harvey Milk poses in front of his camera shop in San Francisco in 1977
source: TIME