Amores Perros, si.
q c d a yIt being Quezon City Day, I slept in.
My youngest sister, however, proceeded to wake me up at 10 am in the same fashion that Isabelle uses to wake up Matthew in The Dreamers. Gasp. Reality and film have reached a parallel.
Today was movie marathon day. It just came about because I still had unwatched movies from Alfie and Niña, and I was already feeling guilty about having them in the house for a couple of weeks. Oh yes, there's still Donnie Darko from Ina.
h e y j o e
Movie 1: The Dreamers. With commentary by Bernardo Bertolucci, Gilbert Adair, and the producer guy Jeremy Thomas. Yes, I paid attention to his name this time around. And, random bit of info. While I was watching Drew Barrymore's E! True Hollywood Story, it just so happened that they mentioned that Drew had broken up with a producer fellow named Jeremy Thomas some time ago (when she was 19. Eons ago). I wonder if it's the same guy.
After completing The Dreamers with commentary, I whored the special features. I watched Michael Pitt's music video for Jimi Hendrix's Hey Joe. It's actually thrilling to watch him go mad, almost feral, towards the end in the recording studio. It made me happy.
THEN I watched the minidocu Bertolucci makes The Dreamers, then the featurette about the history behind Paris during February-May 1968, when the protest to reinstate Henri Langlois as director of the Cinematheque Francais escalated into a revolt against the government. It was so interesting how they remade and shot the protests for the movie. It's almost freakily historically accurate, down to the film canisters where they wrote their protest statements, to the banners and flyers.
Of course I watched the trailers for The Dreamers and Garden State. I'm wondering if I should give Garden State a second chance. I remember not being overly impressed with the ending, as well as Ian Holm's American accent (Why ruin a yummy British accent with an American one, I say). But I suppose Zach Braff should be motivation enough to get me to scavenge through my shoeboxes and look for it. Hmm. I saw Natalie Portman's cleavage there. That made me smile, too. (I'm sure it made Gael Garcia Bernal happy as well)
s i e n t o mi f r a g i l i d a d
Movie 2: Amores Perros. It's been sitting near my computer for a little under a month or so now, so I decided to watch it. After all, Gael Garcia Bernal is in it (credited without the Bernal, which kind of made me raise my eyebrows). That should be a good enough motive.
It was worth every minute. It's three separate stories, three chapters. The first is about Octavio (Gael Garcia Bernal) and Susana (Vanessa Bauche), which is also my favorite of the three, mostly because it has Gael. (Aren't we close?) But I digress. Octavio's in love with Susana. Great, right? But Susana's married to Octavio's older brother, Ramiro (Marco Perez), and is the mom of his two kids. The whole story is about Octavio getting enough money through dogfights so he and Susana can run away.
The second story is about a supermodel named Valeria (Goya Toledo), who's the mistress of a magazine editor named Daniel (Alvaro Guerrero). After Octavio crashes into her car, she breaks a few bones and has to have a neck brace and move around in a wheelchair. She's got a dog named Richie, who is their 'son'. One day, Richie falls down a hole in the apartment floor, and the rest of the chapter is about them slowly destroying each other because of the dog.
This was also good, but when I watched the deleted scenes in the special features, I felt that they should have put the deleted scenes in. They told more story, and expanded on their relationship. Like the son they aborted and blamed each other for, her dislike of anyone else in the apartment except the two of them.
The third story is my least favorite. It's about an ex-radical named El Chivo -The Goat- (Emilio Echivarria) who was jailed for his beliefs (I'm doing a bit of guesswork here). He reads in the paper that his wife's died, so he visits the cemetery to watch the burial from afar. He's a dog lover, and is always surrounded by his pets, the only source of his happiness. He's estranged from his daughter Maru (Lourdes Echevarria), and is trying to tell her that he's still alived, as she was told when he was imprisoned that he had died.
My favorite scene in the WHOLE MOVIE (SPOILER ALERT) is when Lucha de Gigantes (Fight of Giants) by Nacha Pop plays when Susana succumbs to her attraction for Octavio, and they do it on top of the washing machine.
The scene is beautifully shot because there was a mirror on the wall, and I loved how Octavio could see himself while he was fucking his brother's wife, while his brother was getting beaten up by some hoods elsewhere. Vanessa Bauche looked so cute in the scene; she was wearing pigtails, and she always looked a combination of surprised and ecstatic. Adorable. If Kiju reads this, maybe she'll say something like Susana's suprised with the size.
What added to the prettiness was that the subtitles contained the English translation of the song. I only know two stanzas' worth of the song, and I'm hunting down a complete version. Lucha de Gigantes has been on repeat on Winamp since this afternoon.
Once more, I eagerly raided the special features, and watched the deleted scenes, both featurettes; one about the movie, and the other about Perros de Amores Perros (The Dogs of Love's a Bitch). I watched two music videos, and discovered two pretty songs, A Van a Mater by Julieta Vinegas, and Avientame by Cafe Tacuba. I think that Julieta Vinegas is like Mexico's answer to Bjork... but that judgment is just loosely based on that particular song and the eclectic music video.
The minidocu about the movie produced lots of quotable quotes, which I intend on 'borrowing' for our little production and inserting into Elias' character, or the theme in general. Gael Garcia Bernal describes Octavio as being "visceral... with an uncontrollable animal instinct that leads him to do some terrible things." (Visceral means instinctive, I only found out now) Someone else said that Octavio is wrongfully looking for affection that he's never had (Octavio says in the movie that his older brother is his mother's baby) through Susana.
So, we'll just take liberties... change names... Elias has never experienced real affection from his parents, and he's looking for it from Saira.
Oh yes. Notice the play on words. Amores Perros can mean Love's a Bitch (which is how it was released elsewhere), but it can also mean Love of Dogs. Appropriate, seeing as that there are dogs in each chapter of the movie.
I want to learn Spanish now. NOW.
y o u ...
Movie 3: Jackass the Movie. If you wish to call it a movie.
I don't know why. I just watched it. Some of the stunts were really funny, like when Steve-O did the alligator tightrope, which consisted of him walking on a tightrope that was over a pool of alligators. And he had to put a piece of meat in his ass and have the gator snap it off.
Some stunts I fast-forwarded, mostly stunts that included self-mutilation (Johnny Knoxville getting paper cuts in the webbings of his hands and feet) and embarrassing others (making fun of Japanese people, taking dumps in store toilets).
I don't know why Roger Ebert's partner gave this a thumbs-up. But after watching it, I sort of understood why Alfie's the way he is. ('endearing', that is)
v a m o s
I'm still wondering what to watch next. Kubrick's Lolita? Ray's Rebel Without a Cause? Donnie Darko? Jenny Juno? Polanski's Rosemary's Baby?
Mexico is calling my name. I'll work at Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna's production company, Canana. Secretary to Señor Gael doesn't sound so bad.
posted by Tala @ 9:08 PM
2 Comments:
The Luna Stop Swearing I used to admire, is still the Tala I admire... ha?? anlabo?? anyway, ansaya mo a. movie marathon na pala ang drama ng lola mo! =D e kung sa natututo ka naman ng mehicano at espanyol, why not, chocnut?? basta laging tatandaan ang mga trabahong naghihintay sa ibabaw ng table mo! =D at malinis na ba ang kuwarto mong cute?? may posters pa ba ng anime?? ano na ang kinahinatnan ng kamote cue at mga pancit canton sa bahay niyo?? i can hear them call my name.. Ella.. Ella.. kainin mo ako.. kainin mo ako!!! WAAAAHHHHH!!!
yakk, ella, ampanget!!! God bless you, too daRling. capital R kasi matigas ang R ko sa wikang tagalog. Ja ne! =D
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