a bizzare interconnected world

Hey, I just want to share an interesting photo from New York Times online frontpage featuring the Iraqi football team who just won the Asian Cup 2007 in Jakarta against three-time champion Saudi Arabia. For those of you who follow our national team's struggle in the past 20 years to just pass the qualification group, winning the Asian Cup would be a huge thing.

Looking at that photo this morning is just an amazing moment for me thinking of our bizzare interconnected world today. Well it started from Captain Younis Mahmoud dramatic corner kick header that sealed the winning goal for the Iraqis. There is a great jubilant going on right now across Iraq as all people old and young, men and women risking their lives celebrating the victory. PM Al-Maliki had to order a full car curvew across Iraq to prevent the terrorist for blowing up people who are celebrating which they did before as the Iraq team progressing through the Asian Cup.

There is a deep joy inside me, a triumph of humanity against terror, it can keep us in fear but never always, from celebrating life. I am also proud that we can in our small way contributed to this globally interconnected historical moment.. a short moment that unites the universal human spirit, the Sunnis with the Shiites, people across the world who have concerns in that region, the Americans with the Iraqis, and even the Indonesians from all background who were part of the event that day live in Senayan or in warungs and in their neighborhoods.

But take a look at the screenshot photo I send you. It's the best part. Standing in front of the team in Senayan is FIFA's President Sepp Blater and AFC's Mohamed bin Hammam the bigshots in the world football. Next to them of course is our good looking President Bambang which I am not sure whether he is happy and smiling or depressed and worry (about his safety?).. an ambiguous man indeed... just like his presidency. But the funny part is his bodyguard to the right of the photo... hahahah that guy is really funny.. standing sideway 90 degree to the camera looking stern at his president... completely in contrast with the rest of the people... good job Mr Bodyguard !!! I am proud of you too showing the world we can be serious and focused when doing our job : ) Great photograph also.

the gravity of memory

I watched my second Michel Gondry's film "eternal sunshine of the spotless mind". The first one was "the science of sleep". Both are really good. Good enough to keep me up past midnight to type. This one is also the staple of Gondry's works of using surreal visuals to depict the non-linear and intertwining connection of memory (eternal) and dream (the science). So watching them in reverse of their release dates actually makes more sense.

But the basic story in 'eternal' is closer to my heart. It is about an incidental meeting of an introvert man with an impulsive woman. The introvert man got attracted to the out-going approach of the woman. The woman curious with the quiet but thoughtful and humorous man. The man didn't find anything that "he doesn't like". So did the woman. Life became beautiful for both. Until the proportion of their differences piled up and surpassed those early beautiful moments. The woman then would get bored with the bookish man and feel trapped in the relationship. The man will get tired of the impulsiveness and insecurity of the woman. Relationship grew cold and became tiresome. The woman would call it off. The man would let it go. Their live would go on and continue to diverge. However, both would now live in a new realm constantly under the gravity of their memories. That's the underlying story line in "eternal". A universal human romance problem indeed. Merci Michel.

some moving thoughts

This is a blog about three recent movies that I watched: A Man with a Movie Camera (1929) by Dziga Vertov, The Lake House (2006) played by Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves, and Evan Almighty (2007) played by Steve Carell, Morgan Freeman, and Lauren Graham. The similarity from all of them is that they are better than what I expected and that’s it.

AMWAMC is a black and white experimental movie shot in the nascent days of filming on celluloid. It has no specific storyline and just a pure indulgence in recording. That’s probably the biggest joy of a filmmaker. That is if he can just make a movie by focusing fully on the visual composition and free from the tyranny of a narrative.

The content of the film is also interesting. It has several things that I wanted to comment on. It experimented with shooting techniques that are quite innovative and creative even by today’s standard. Among my favorites are the bird-eye view of the city and a couple of breathtaking freeze frame moments.

The subjects in the movie include people from a wide range of social classes in Ukraine mainly the rich, the poor, and the workers. Another main subject is the daily mix of urban activities of factories, heavy machines, trains, trams, pedestrians, horses, carriages, and rickshaw. It is the time when the images of heavy industrial era technology can still coexist with a residue of medieval technology in the streets of big cities. The main experimental value of that work is its attempt to combine film and photography into one cohesive or hybrid project.

The Lake House is a nice little charming romantic movie but with some intellectual interests to me. Well the first obvious thing is this is the reunion of Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves after Speed more than a decade ago. Besides, they are both such a good looking Caucasian male and female that any kind of movie which even only has one of them will make it worth your eight-and-a-half dollar in the theatre.

Alex (Reeves) is portraying an architect who is in a juncture in his life both professionally and privately. At work, he has just moved out from his dad’s prestigious practice in downtown Chicago to a ‘less’ glamorous job at developer’s building site. In his private life, he is in the familiar quest to search for the ideal companion. He lives in 2004. Kate (Bullock) who lives in 2006 is a young doctor who has just got into the, already cold, life together with a successful young lawyer. All of these characters are caricatures of modern metropolitan people.

But what’s exciting is when they both start communicating to each other and exchanging affection back and forth literally through times. Alex is constructing his dream every day until he will meet this woman. Kate flashback-ing through her memories to find this guy she met at some point in the past. Both are basic story-telling techniques but rarely are both deployed simultaneously and so seamlessly on a single screen. When you feel the switch in the story-telling perspective it is a sublime movie feeling. This is also probably the first movie, at least for me, that illustrate the possibility of the multiple universes advocated by string theorists like Brian Greene.

The Lake House itself is a beautiful project. It is an early 20th century art-nouveou style glass house set on a scenic lake. It is not a real building but a set constructed in 7 weeks and had to be torn down immediately after the movie production. Just to add a couple observations. First, with the single-pane glass on a lakeside in the Midwest, it would be almost impossible to live in that house in the winter. Second, if Alex’s father died in 2005 and the house was constructed in the beginning his career and when Alex was between 5 and 8 years old, then the year it was built must fall between 1950s and 1960s. At that time, new modernism and avant-garde architecture were at their heights. To build an art-nouveau house like that for a young architect rising in his career, he must be a retro or traditional style architect.

Last, last, and finally is Evan Almighty. I praise this movie for it’s creative political attempt. Like other movies in the same genre, this one quite successfully caters to audience from various ages and social backgrounds. But what’s different is that it also able to send a subtle political message that are acceptable to both the right wing conservative and left wing environmentalist.