ABOUT ME (Semi-Formal)

This is my "about me" page. Honestly, i hate pages like this. When I started blogging, this was the last thing that i have in mind. i find it idiosyncratic and selfish to write something about one's self-aggrandizement. It just doesn't make sense. However, i felt it was a necessary thing to do. So here it goes!


THE BASICS

Me, Myself and I

I am a college student from the University of the Philippines - Diliman taking BS Chemical Engineering. i took the course because i like it. But i like other things. I like things that can be studied. I like things that are spontaneous and whimsical.

I write. When i was twelve years old i wanted to be just like J.K. Rowling. When I was fifteen years old, i hated J.K. Rowling and dreamed of becoming James Joyce. A year later i wished i was Fyodor Doetoyevsky, the Russian novelist who write anti-hero stories. Two years later i wanted to become a Russian and live in St. Petersburg. Yesterday, I was nineteen and I wanted to become a film critic and live in Upper East Side, New York City. But today, after turning twenty, i just wanna become a film blogger with a Doctorate Degree on Petrochemical Engineering.

My friend said:

Adrian is like Chicharon—he’s special.

He is a sunshine that greets those dear to him with bursts of radiance that makes them feel good and special about themselves. Some people may come and go but not Adrian. Once you become his friend, expect him to be there for you always. He’s like a malignant cancer; you can’t just get rid of him that easy. He’s always there to make sure that his friends are in perfect condition—that no harm is upon them. His friends are very lucky to have him as a friend. The very fabrics of their existence would not be complete without that extra string called Adrian.

He’s the gin in a martini, the clams in a linguini—a friend to you and me.

- Keith Hernandez Cipriano

Aside from all that, I spend most of my college hours watching lots of films. What I mean by “a lot” is not a seventy (too few), nor a hundred (few), nor a thousand (moderate). Let’s just say I hit the 2,121th film last Sunday with Yi Yi: A One and Two (2000) by Edward Yang, and my 2,122th film last Thursday with a Filipino classic Tunay na Ina (1939) by Octavio Silos. I write criticisms about them and send it somewhere over the internet.

My all-time favorite film is Tokyo Story (1953) by Yasujiro Ozu because it is very close to my heart. My favorite film about love is Un Homme et Une Femme (or A Man and A Woman, 1966) by Claude Lelouch because I fell in love with it on my first viewing. My favorite national cinema is French cinema because it stayed with me through the years: from Lumiere to Vigo to Renoir to Truffaut to Godard to Lelouch to Rohmer and to Desplechin. Vive la France! My favorite local contemporary film that stayed with me is Raya Martin’s Now Showing (2008) and my favorite Filipino film of all-time is Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang (1974) by Lino Brocka.

But this is not who i am.


***

MORE about ADRIAN...

Change! A Reflection about Chances
Dinner at Sefali, A Bad Experience on Chinese Cuisine?
Question & Answer: An Interview by a Ghost
Relevant Days of Pleasure: A Philosophical Reflection
All Saint's Day Reflection, Value of Death
November: A New Look to Blogging!
On Military Bags: Trapped in Starbucks Araneta
Cleaning, Saying Goodbye to First Semester A.Y. 08 - 09
Writing Fiction, the writer in me
Days are just it: My opinion on Chemical Engineering.
Last Pill: A Remission from the Flu Virus
Yesterday Once More: Chemistry Class and Blogging
An Introspection on Writing

Yi Yi: A One and A Two (2000)

an 'about-me page'

Yi Yi: A One and A Two

In the final scene of the film Yang-Yang, the boy in video above, spoke in front of his grandma's coffin the words that would change my life forever. It was Christmas Eve 2008, I calmly sat on my study table for a stretch of about 3 hours when almost suddenly,Yang Yang uttered these beautiful words . I could not contain myself so i cried for almost an hour. It was as if i was offered LIFE itself, one of the rarest experience I have felt in a movie so immense, so great it overpowers you. This is the most wonderful moment i have experienced in any film in my whole life.

FINDING CINEMA

Discovering cinema is more like a ritualistic digging, like that of an archaeologist. With an axe and thick brush, you pummeled the blade into your site, deciphering the richness of the specimen, and how it would look like, how it would function when it's alive. You do not know what it's going to be: may be one of the shocking discoveries of the century or just a bone of some bird like starling or swift.

Cinema is a big find for me, equivalent to that of finding the pyramids of Giza or the lost kingdom of Machu Pichu. I opened my mind into accepting cinema in my system when I pondered on creating a blog theme. I thought, “I love movies, why not invest time on my favorite hobby and watch films straight from punch." But my road to accepting cinema is paved with manholes. I doubted myself to the importance of my discovery, whether it will be an important part of my history or a big waste of time and money.

I found it hard to gobble the fact that cinema is not what I used to view during my 19 years of existence. I mentioned in my other blog posts that my experiences in cinema, rather mainstream cinema, dated back as a toddler when my father took me into a local rental shop out of town to rent movies. I remembered choosing Disney animated films and hero films and I would cry for more. The rent would come at BETAMAX tapes, my most loved format for its authenticity. You could not find any pirated BETAMAX tape around that time. Everything is 'authentic'.



MY FAMILY and CINEMA



My family love films. My late Lolo was a big fan of James Bond, and my father heralded war films as important as the discovery of penicillin. Cinephilic tendencies runs in the family and it seemed that the next generation of the gene pool was passed unto me. When the VHS format rallied every house in the neighborhood, my Lolo allowed running rentals for the whole neighborhood. I was eight then, and I would usually move like the wind to get the tape rewound. When somebody would like a preview of the film, being the 'operations' manager, I would handle the TV and the VHS player. It was like my first job, something that I would thrive upon. I would dare not to go to school just for the sake of handling the rental of movies. I schedule dmy part time job with my Lolo like I was really in the part time job though my salary would involve ice cream and fruit juice on weekdays and pansit palabok (Filipino-style pasta) and Coke on weekends. I felt fulfilled with that little treats my Lolo gave me.

On Saturday afternoons we would watch action films of Steven Seagal, Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Chuck Norris, of course, the JAMES BOND (again), and back from the 60s up to Pierce Brosnan, though he wasn't really a big fan of the new guys. On Sundays, Filipino oldies of FPJ[Fernando Poe Jr.] and Rudy Fernandez would seem to wake the solemn moments. of course, my father would join us.



HORRIFIC ADVENTURES




I suddenly remember when I was four year old, at my aunt's apartment during my first time in Manila with Lolo and Lola; I cried fiercely and hid myself under the chairs when they viewed the movie "THE EXORCIST". The whole family would try to console me to believe that it's a fake and just an imagination.

"IAN [my household nickname] it's alright! Don't cry, dry your tears, it's just an imagination. A trick to fool one's mind," my uncle tries to dissolved the image of Linda Blair walking inverted down the stairs. I still can recall the true horror in my face, as if the Hiroshima bomb landed in front of me with a lack of better expression.

"NONO [a Bicol term for 'son' usually termed for the eldest], it's okay, you're safe. Come to me!" As always the motherly figure of my grandma would put my tortured soul in sanguine stillness, the pulchritude of her conscience eludes my heart.

My cry subsided a few hours after the movie rolled its credits. By that time, I knew that it deflowered my sensibilities and open my door to the fascination not only cinema but to the whole new world of HORROR FILMS. I knew that at that moment when Linda Blair twisted her head 360 degrees, it would be a traceable memory that would link tothe origin of my fascination to horror movies. It's like my most pleasurable and infantile experience of cinema.


By the time VCDs entered the scene, during the late 1990s and when I was budding from puberty turning into an adolescent, I consider horror movies as a cult. What I love about horror films is when the protagonist enters these series of chained, dumb actions that would lead him or her to the ultimate death. Blood would be spilled here and there like a fountain up at MAKATI Central District, and bodies would be dismembered with so much drama I laughed all the time, or gargantuan human-eating monster taking a limb for a snack, it's a bliss for me. I thirst for thrills, body being chopped, and killers on the loose, animal turning into bizarre forms, just outrageous. I knew that time that all of them were fake which my uncle insisted.


PORNY PETER!

Well, adolescent life had its debut when I turned 10. My classmate invited me to watch a 'movie' during lunch break at his house beside my elementary school. I was hesitant since lunch break would just be 2 hours, and I knew that movies last about an hour and forty-five minutes. My classmate, which I will name Freddy, intensified his invitation by bribing me that if he would come with me and the rest of the gang, I could have a chance to play with, at the time the big thing, GAMEBOY. I instantly agreed, who could have resisted the offer, it's the biggest thing in school before the Play station! We walked about five minutes in the midday sun; my skin was burnt a little for it was July.

We sneak inside and Freddy turned on the television. I sat with the rest of the pubescent audience, all of us were boys, and suddenly a flash from the screen dredged like nails in my head. My body heated up, flames rushed into my insides as if I was about to explode, my jaw dropped, and I remained chained in my seat. My fellow classmates, I guess they have seen it a couple of times, hooted and hopped like a party. I was just dropped dead with a hard-on. Believe me, this was my first response to seeing my first ever PORN in my life.

"Mama mia! Holy molly smokes! Tits tits!" I found this line similar when Archimedes rose from his bath naked and shouted the historical outcry, "EUREKA! EUREKA!" And it was definitely better than GAMEBOY! Of course, the whole treat lasted for about fifteen minutes (not an hour or so), and we headed to the school with horny heads and bulging crotch.

Today, I would consider it as my first taboo psychoanalytic image, a claim that mirrors the level of maturity of my perception of cinema which I have built through rigorous research and viewing. I find it just a part of a massive scale, a small unit too common for viewers and filmmakers alike. The adult film industry is now an institution in some foreign countries such as the US and GERMANY. This subculture proliferated the internet. it is an issue that constitute the large part of Censorship nowadays. Conservative groups alongside with religious groups and feminist groups rallied against these corporations to halt the production of adult videos which can be marketed easily to the internet. They claimed that it poisons the mind of the youth, and they correlate the increasing number of sex related incidences to the proliferation of these adult video entertainments. ADULT video entertainment is still on the hot seat now today. My early experience with adult video entertainment was remarkable, at the same time disappointing. I found myself at the foot of unresolved conflicts of ideologies that even my parent did not know how to emboss in my critical pubescent thoughts.


ACADEMIC APPROACH




Nine years later, I was well aware of the issues it continually shrouds. The University explored its central theme: sexuality with a legitimate and academic view that I am very willing to take. Courses like Social Science 3 (Sexuality and society) and Panitakan Pilipino 19(Philippine literature 19, Sexuality and Literature) institutionalize the study of these modes of expressions, not just pornography in cinema but also texts from ancient times that embodies the same theme.


CINEMA, oh CINEMA

Cinema has greatly affected my sense of being.

My life would be colorless without cinema.

---------------------------------------

WITHOUT THE NET

WITHOUT THE NET
a commentary

STUCK!!!
December 28, 2008

To say that i am living in an icy cold room with enough coffee, a one-year old laptop, and a pack of Marlboro Lights may be too romantic for a writer. These images came to me as fire envelops a building, it heaves like a tantrum, but simple and unpretentious. 500 kilometer from civilization i sat on my bed merely thinking about the academic work that has been installed two weeks ago. I find it suffocating to be inside my room 24 hours with nothing to talk to but a blunder text mate named *toot*. My isolation is getting worse, my blood pressure dropped erratically every time i lie down. But then i must continue this trivial stance for a week, it's gonna be heaven by Sunday so watch out for the coming updates. I have been finalizing the list of my TOP 20 films of the year.

I have certainly achieved 'NIRVANA' status on my film research after reading 4 essays on subjects such as animated films, the French New Wave, auteur theory. It is important however to keep this status, whether my ass gets flatten in my bed or develop a gangrene on one of my fingers. The essential book WORLD CINEMA: CRITICAL APPROACHES edited by John Hill and Pamela Church Gibson legitimizes the 'CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK' that i have been developing for my criticism. I have promised once that i would deliver my first critique on Almodovar's BAD EDUCATION(2004). Another complication occurred to me as to what approach is necessary to elucidate the highlights of the film.

What i learned with my introspective dealings with Stephen Prince is that there are 6 approaches to the analysis on film: Psychoanalytic, Feminist, Realism, Cognitive, Ideological, and Auteur. I felt that learning these approaches will guide me thoroughly of my criticism. It's been 4 months since i started my research on FILMS but found that these theories are the fundamental grounds for criticism. It's a bit disappointment in my case. As i got nearer and nearer to my goal, i felt blunder of the medium.

With this difficulty i badly need the net to consume my doubts and to fill the gaps on my mind. I have recently acquired a cellular phone which can directly lead me to cyberworld, but WTF, it's a shit. So i have to suffer and come to the local net shop to be connected. I find it an incovinience and a shame.

But anyway, i still want to celebrate the seasons' stillness and tranquility.

THIRD

THIRD
DECEMBER 18, 2008


The expanse of night unfolded. The kiln burned with toasted frivolities of the inmates of Ipil. Darkness succumbed our skins, piece by piece, inch by inch, as if we were bathe with the subtleties of the vexed light from nothingness. I must felt it: warm, intoxicating, and frisky whenever i sway my hands to wary the floating beasts that touches it, the air. The air grew thinner, we sat on a cold bench, after everything had passed, the hours of togetherness, of meeting the eyes, of soldering our brains to one another. It seemed a becoming, a mingling of sun and moon, however my heart doesn't felt right.

Whether the night should be an illuminating halo that wrapped our souls and feet with arduous intent or a despicable perversion of two unlike entities seeking for belonging, the stillness of the surroundings was lamenting, of the street lamp burning by the other side of the avenue, of the damp windowpanes on the house walls, of the seclusion of a butterfly by the cobwebs, of the sheets of soils with fiery ants in dark ebony. It seemed as though the night bestowed us the stillness that we want, the calmness and anonymity, the peacefulness whenever i heard of silence. And we sat there with our eyes fixed, and mine, clearly alluded to L's, i heard the beating of my heart, but on this night, it did not foretold the tales of romanticized love but more pure that.

What is this new found nothingness holding the strings back, back into the reveries on my own damnation? Will this exquisite agony, the space between our seats and faces, be the end of all? If there should be a resolution, the moment when we laid our eyes, wouldn't it be my extinction? Where does this leads?

And when K jumped into the bus by 6:00 AM, i saw K's face, frozen in my own time frame, haunting me, disturbing my very sensible nerves, and i continued to ask irrelevant questions about my adequacy as a companion, a new found friend, an 'admirer'. Whenever i can, i would recall that frames of my life, when the bus left and me, standing in the middle of empty north avenue, on a 6 o'clock, looking at L's face passed from the shadows of my empty thoughts. I couldn't stop it, to cry, to weep whenever i can, to ground my own sensibilities... to question my own fate.

--- BD.

NOTE: Fictional!

READ "FIRST"
READ "SECOND"

FIRST, SECOND, THIRD

a short story

[reposted and re-edited]
[from here]
[here]
[here]

FIRST
December 15, 2008

I sat on a dark aisle waiting for the medical results. The streets hummed with buzzing bees, the color of the nights exploded, and in every moment I regret the sudden passage of the wind. I whispered quietly in still air: "I should have stopped myself."

--------
Fifteenth of December


I stood still on MINISTOP KATIPUNAN waiting for L. I was filled with hope yet fixated with terrible apprehension for I haven't met someone like this for almost three years. I recalled the last time I had an 'eyeball' with a text mate, Jocelyn. It was monumental that time because I did it after I gave the valedictory address. I send a text message to Jocelyn that Blainnard Daemiaz (the anagram of my name) stood in front of the graduating class of 2006 and gave the unfaltering speech about pursuing one's ultimate dream. Surprised, she approached me to shake my hand and congratulated me for being the class valedictorian of 2006. Her faced was bruised with sentimentalism and was flattered with an ardent smile, that of a dove, but simply curved on the left of her cheeks.

I smiled back, and I heard her talked but the sounds deafen my ears. The spotlight illuminated my skin like a lamb, and everything ended there. After that, we never talked. We never heard of each others words. We never sent text messages.

My cell phone went dead for three years. I heard that she's in Singapore studying on a local university, I’m not sure if NUS.

I have lost faith in forming relationships via technological tools such as cell phone and chat rooms. I bade goodbye to my teenage years and welcomed adulthood with a blast.

On my eighteenth birthday, I had a big party of about thirty people frolicking in and out of the Molave shed, drinking wine not beer(for I absolutely believe that wine is most proper in my-coming-of-age party), eating chocolate cake and munching white spaghetti. After that, I busied myself with almost everything related to my whole new world: the University. I went to plays, indie film showings, parades, cross-dressing pageants, company talks, lectures of renowned scientists, economist and writers; joined the welcoming of a Nobel prize laureate; drank a bottle of vodka with my best friend which my dad found out; argued with most of my colleagues about the effects of pornography; glorified philosophy and met a philosopher; made a sarimanok costume; joined three organizations but failed one; organized a corridor display; and failed a major subject. I have set limitations but learned that no such limitations exist. I learned to value failure, independence and the meaning of forming true friendships and bonds.

I believed that I have grown somewhat better, more controlled, and more mature. My sensibility and sense of being responsible for myself and my fellow friends is most evident. Everything seemed to be okay until that day of December.

I grasped my cell phone tight and hoped it would malfunction when L arrived. L walked past the entrance of the shop. I knew it was L, pale, thin and peaceful looking. I plunged into the Katipunan sidewalk. Dirt and a whipped of mechanical smoke dashed my brown skin. L smiled at me, and I introduced myself. L carried a violin and offered it to me and asked if I could carry it. L was a bit nervous; I could see it in the dark set eyes, the whimsical and mysterious circular halo filled with stories unknown to man.

We met and did not stop there. On that cold night before the sun could fleet, L left me the violin and asked for a jacket. I gave L a sweater instead of a jacket for it was the only available one. I seemed to be left with hope, moved by L's offer of keeping the violin. L's taxi reverently strides away from me, and I recalled feeling a deep fainting feeling. But maybe it was just because of the alcohol that we drank earlier.

Tipsy, i went back to Ipil to finished my video. I did not slept after that.

SECOND
DECEMBER 17, 2008

1:30 PM

I just got back from Antipolo, it was a hazy day and i heard forecast of rains from northwest. The skies were troubling my conscience. i followed a straight path from the junction of Kapinunan avenue and Marcos Highway and walked straight towards the stairs crossing the busy highway, and fled towards the Katipunan jeepney. i felt considerably warm and dislodged, with two heavy plastic in both hands and a jostling messenger bag hanging on my shoulders. I sighed as soon as i sat beside a middle-aged fat woman, and she was murmuring something about the traffic and politics. I did not want to listen. Sounds of truckloads banged through the dusty causeway; switching gears of motorcycles and shrieks of barkers saturated my ears. It was then and there, i knew that it was KATIPUNAN on an ordinary Wednesday. What could happen?

230 L arrived from the Katipunan station with a gray bag. I brought L a bottle of mineral water for substantial consumption. I want L to indulge in the healthiness of the soul, yet there seemed to be sadness around. The tinge of the sky convulsed as gray as the bag, and sultry wind wept in ensemble with the dust and smoke. It is as if that moment created a deepened feeling, of disgust and aberration, a darkened humming noise gauged the stillness between L and me as we sat on a jeepney.

It seemed that i have lost my loneliness sitting with L. It hindered my senses, my clutter brain defiled, and as soon as L spoke with L's hair waxed like a shoe, my loneliness was over.

I broke into an exhortation, a windy disposition, with a smiling face and exuberant spirit, i made L taste my tipsy words coming from mouth. My admiration to this talented entity grew like a stalk, building and branching out, but the closeness of my adamant eyes to L's despised me. I retreat by mentioning cold words like "how are you?" It felt defined that at this moment everything is possible, everything is true, brimming with joyfulness and callousness. It felt that as of this day, when the lanterns lit the darkness, when the white butterfly exposed its wings, the utterly conjugated feeling of longing would be quenched forever. Persistent, we jumped from the jeepney and headed to the dormitory to get L's treasure violin.

Rich, when lanterns fled towards the streets of Diliman, everything is virtually hanged with pleasure, to see how L's eyes were opened. How L greeted them! Fine Arts! Fine Arts! i saw L's eyes mysteriously lit the space that he pursued. Beside L were hungry by-standers, meticulously seeking for pleasure. The construction of Ls perceptions brought me into a temptation: to make most it.

And when the night came we sat, alone in the wilderness. People walked with pace, but they did not mind, for their eyes were blind, blinded with splendid pursuits, fulfilled by the majestic brilliance of the lanterns. Whenever i could, i would look at them from a far. I saw most of them, smiling. Others, they frowned in mystery.

As soon as our eyes were fixed i cannot possibly tell you what happened.

THIRD
DECEMBER 18, 2008


The expanse of night unfolded. The kiln burned with toasted frivolities of the inmates of Ipil. Darkness succumbed our skins, piece by piece, inch by inch, as if we were bathe with the subtleties of the vexed light from nothingness. I must felt it: warm, intoxicating, and frisky whenever i sway my hands to wary the floating beasts that touches it, the air. The air grew thinner, we sat on a cold bench, after everything had passed, the hours of togetherness, of meeting the eyes, of soldering our brains to one another. It seemed a becoming, a mingling of sun and moon, however my heart doesn't felt right.

Whether the night should be an illuminating halo that wrapped our souls and feet with arduous intent or a despicable perversion of two unlike entities seeking for belonging, the stillness of the surroundings was lamenting, of the street lamp burning by the other side of the avenue, of the damp windowpanes on the house walls, of the seclusion of a butterfly by the cobwebs, of the sheets of soils with fiery ants in dark ebony. It seemed as though the night bestowed us the stillness that we want, the calmness and anonymity, the peacefulness whenever i heard of silence. And we sat there with our eyes fixed, and mine, clearly alluded to L's, i heard the beating of my heart, but on this night, it did not foretold the tales of romanticized love but more pure that.

What is this new found nothingness holding the strings back, back into the reveries on my own damnation? Will this exquisite agony, the space between our seats and faces, be the end of all? If there should be a resolution, the moment when we laid our eyes, wouldn't it be my extinction? Where does this leads?

And when L jumped into the bus by 6:00 AM, i saw L's face, frozen in my own time frame, haunting me, disturbing my very sensible nerves, and i continued to ask irrelevant questions about my adequacy as a companion, a new found friend, an 'admirer'. Whenever i can, i would recall that frames of my life, when the bus left and me, standing in the middle of empty north avenue, on a 6 o'clock, looking at L's face passed from the shadows of my empty thoughts. I couldn't stop it, to cry, to weep whenever i can, to ground my own sensibilities... to question my own fate.

--- BD.

NOTE: Fictional!

Ciao!

MOVIES AND MEANING

MOVIES AND MEANING
a commentary

SECOND
DECEMBER 17, 2008

1:30 PM

I just got back from Antipolo, it was a hazy day and i heard forecast of rains from northwest. The skies were troubling my conscience. i followed a straight path from the junction of Kapinunan avenue and Marcos Highway and walked straight towards the stairs crossing the busy highway, and fled towards the Katipunan jeepney. i felt considerably warm and dislodged, with two heavy plastic in both hands and a jostling messenger bag hanging on my shoulders. I breathed as soon as i sat beside a middle-aged fat woman, and she was murmuring something about the traffic and politics. I did not want to listen. Sounds of truckloads banging the dusty causeway, switching gears of motorcycles and shrieks of barkers saturated my ears. It was then and there, i knew that it was KATIPUNAN on an ordinary Wednesday. What could happen?

230 K arrived from the Katipunan station with a gray bag. I brought K a bottle of mineral water for substantial consumption. I want K to indulge in the healthiness of the soul, yet there seemed to be sadness around. The tinge of the sky convulsed as gray as the bag, and sultry wind wept in ensemble with the dust and smoke. It is as if that moment created a deepened feeling, of disgust and aberration, a darkened humming noise gauged the stillness between K and me as we sat on a jeepney.

It seemed that i have lost my loneliness sitting with K. It hindered my senses, my clutter brain defiled, and as soon as K spoke with K's hair waxed like a shoe, my loneliness was over.

I broke into an exhortation, a windy disposition, with a smiling face and exuberant spirit, i made K taste my tipsy words coming from mouth. My admiration to this talented entity grew like a stalk, building and branching out, but the closeness of my adamant eyes to K's despised me. I retreat by mentioning cold words like "how are you?" It felt defined that at this moment everything is possible, everything is true, brimming with joyfulness and callousness. It felt that as of this day, when the lanterns lit the darkness, when the white butterfly exposed its wings, the utterly conjugated feeling of longing would be quenched forever. Persistent, we jumped from the jeepney and headed to the dormitory to get K's treasure violin.

Rich, when lanterns fled towards the streets of Diliman, everything is virtually hanged with pleasure, to see how K's eyes were opened. How K greeted them! Fine Arts! Fine Arts! i saw K's eyes mysteriously lit the space that he pursued. Beside K were hungry by-standers, meticulously seeking for pleasure. The construction of Ks perceptions brought me into a temptation: to make most it.

And when the night came we sat, alone in the wilderness. People walked with pace, but they did not mind, for their eyes were blind, blinded with explendid pursuits, fulfilled with the majestic brilliance of the lanterns. Whenever i could, i would look at them from a far. I saw most of them, smiling. Others, they frowned in mystery.

As soon as our eyes were fixed i cannot possibly tell you what happened. (TO BE CONTINUED)

READ THE FIRST PART! CLICK HERE!
READ THE THIRD PART! CLICK HERE!



MOVIES AND MEANING
A film book must-have




I enjoy Prince so much i want to engorged the whole book into my mouth, but do not take this in literal sense per se. I struggled in finding a good book on film. It is most needed and not that there is more hope in CAL (college of Arts and letter) Library, i want to exhaust the power of my library card. With five library books on regular circulation and 2 books on the reserve section to borrow, i consumed only 5. I manage to get 4 books on film and 1 book on philosophical writing, not that i needed them for my academic pursuits.

Last month, I integrated my film research with my academic reading with ultimate dedication that i found no time enjoying most of my building-up film collection. So i promised to watch them all: two Bergman and the Coppola masterpieces "The Godfather #1, 2 and 3", Capra's "its a wonderful life", Truffaut's dazzling "the 400 blows". On my contemporary collection i recently acquired "Grave of the fireflies" and the newly acclaimed 80th academy award winner for best foreign film, "Counterfeiters". I also have Scorsese's "raging Bull" and Edward Yang "YIYI".

I hope my collection would look like this!
ARCHIVES!

The breathtaking cinematic experience of my December vacation just got better after finding MOVIES AND MEANING by Stephen Prince utterly satisfying. I love the book. Prince definitely knows his audience, and his enthusiastic tone generates a lively reading experience for budding cinephiles like me. It is rich with images and up-to-date with movies. it uses popular films as basis for analysis which may be beneficial for start-from-scratch beginners.

if anyone of you is willing to experience cinema with critical eye, i suggest you get Prince's MOVIES AND MEANING. it is most satisfying.

GREAT GREAT BOOK!

IMAGES

IMAGES
great captures from my Cybershot

French countryside? Nope! It's just around Sorsogon City!

Ciao! God Bless!

THE WIND WILL CARRY US

THE WIND WILL CARRY US
A commentary (pre-critique)

FIRST
December 15, 2008

I sat on a dark aisle waiting for the medical results. The streets hummed with the buzzing bees, the color of the nights exploded, and in every moment I regret the sudden passage of the wind. I whispered quietly in still air: "I should have stopped myself."

--------

Fifteenth of December


I stood still on MINISTOP KATIPUNAN waiting for K. I was filled with hope yet fixated with terrible apprehension for I haven't met someone like this for almost three years. I recalled the last time I had an 'eyeball' with a text mate, Jocelyn. It was monumental that time because I did it after I gave the valedictory address. I send a text message to Jocelyn that Blainnard Daemiaz (the anagram of my name) stood in front of the graduating class of 2006 and gave the unfaltering speech about pursuing one's ultimate dream. Surprised, she approached me to shake my hand and congratulated me for being the class valedictorian of 2006. Her faced was bruised with sentimentalism and was flattered with an ardent smile, that of a dove, but simply curved on the left of her cheeks.

I smiled back, and I heard her talked but the sounds deafen my ears. The spotlight illuminated my skin like a lamb, and everything ended there. After that, we never talked. We never heard of each others words. We never sent text messages.

My cell phone went dead for three years. I heard that she's in Singapore studying on a local university, I’m not sure if NUS.

I have lost faith in forming relationships via technological tools such as cell phone and chat rooms. I bade goodbye to my teenage years and welcomed adulthood with a blast.

On my eighteenth birthday, I had a big party of about thirty people frolicking in and out of the Molave shed, drinking wine not beer(for I absolutely believe that wine is most proper in my-coming-of-age party), eating chocolate cake and munching white spaghetti. After that, I busied myself with almost everything related to my whole new world: the University. I went to plays, indie film showings, parades, cross-dressing pageants, company talks, lectures of renowned scientists, economist and writers; joined the welcoming of a Nobel prize laureate; drank a bottle of vodka with my best friend which my dad found out; argued with most of my colleagues about the effects of pornography; glorified philosophy and met a philosopher; made a sarimanok costume; joined three organizations but failed one; organized a corridor display; and failed a major subject. I have set limitations but learned that no such limitations exist. I learned to value failure, independence and the meaning of forming true friendships and bonds.

I believed that I have grown somewhat better, more controlled, and more mature. My sensibility and sense of being responsible for myself and my fellow friends is most evident. Everything seemed to be okay until that day of December.

I grasped my cell phone tight and hoped it would malfunction when K arrived. K walked past the entrance of the shop. I knew it was K, pale, thin and peaceful looking. I plunged into the Katipunan sidewalk. Dirt and a whipped of mechanical smoke dashed my brown skin. K smiled at me, and I introduced myself. K carried a violin and offered it to me and asked if I could carry it. K was a bit nervous; I could see it in the dark set eyes, the whimsical and mysterious circular halo filled with stories unknown to man.

We met and did not stop there. On that cold night before the sun could fleet, K left me the violin and asked for a jacket. I gave K a sweater instead of a jacket for it was the only available one. I seemed to be left with hope, moved by K's offer of keeping the violin. K's taxi reverently strides away from me, and I recalled feeling a deep fainting feeling. But maybe it was just because of the alcohol that we drank earlier.

Tipsy, i went back to Ipil to finished my video. I did not slept after that. (TO BE CONTINUED)

THE WIND WILL CARRY US
December 19, 2008

Cinema permits the viewers to experience the darkness of human nature and the ugliness of ordinary life hidden beneath the subtleness of time. sex, violence, aberrant and criminal behavior are things the viewers permit themselves to witness - we derive pleasure from these experiences. (PRINCE, 2001) This perspective on cinema stems from a Hitchcockesian belief that "the viewers are like peeping tom able to witness forbidden sights without being held accountable for what is seen and enjoyed." (PRINCE, 2001)

The viewers' role on cinema is essentially voyeuristic, as what Hitchcock believes and is explored in his film, PSYCHO(1969).

What happened in (1997) cannes changed the whole perspective of cinematic viewing, when Kiarostami's A TASTE of Cherry(1997) won Palme D'or(Golden Palm). In contrast to hitchcock's belief, kiarostami's approach to the viewers is profound enough that it launched Iranian cinema to the world. It was as if a new global wave swiped cultures with Kiarostami's masterpiece, A TASTE OF CHERRY(1997) as he explored topics such as existence, death and the dichotomy of good and evil with a fresher, more revitalize concrete portrayal.

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Connecting with the world.

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Two years later, another masterpiece revered Kiarostami and placed him in line with the master of cinema adjacent to Hitchcock and Kurosawa with his dazzling new technique of handling the dark auditorium theater. THE WIND WILL CARRY US (1999) have taken the role of audience from mere witnesses of moving pictures to a self-reflective individual in which the subconscious is highly affected.

THE WIND WILL CARRY US(1999) took, by surprise, the majestic themes of modernism. the film discusses how technology and communication can truly affect our lives. it let us reflect the value of physical alienation and its effects to finding the purpose.

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The POEM...

The Wind Will Take Us

In my small night, ah
the wind has a date with the leaves of the trees
in my small night there is agony of destruction
listen
do you hear the darkness blowing?
I look upon this bliss as a stranger
I am addicted to my despair.

listen do you hear the darkness blowing?
something is passing in the night
the moon is restless and red
and over this rooftop
where crumbling is a constant fear
clouds, like a procession of mourners
seem to be waiting for the moment of rain.
a moment
and then nothing
night shudders beyond this window
and the earth winds to a halt
beyond this window
something unknown is watching you and me.

O green from head to foot
place your hands like a burning memory
in my loving hands
give your lips to the caresses
of my loving lips
like the warm perception of being
the wind will take us
the wind will take us.

Forugh Farrokhzad
Translated by Ahmad Karimi Hakkak
The Persian Book Review VOLUME III, NO 12 Page 1337
CLICK HERE!

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Kiarostami sees cinema as a window to the human soul. He explores the idea of man through his prevalent use of symbolism. Though this generality can not stand alone, it is important to subject my criticism from the fundamental elements of film: the shots.

The reception of Kiarostami's film indeed requires critical perception. It hides important elements deep in the subconscious through symbolic and often straightforward representation of themes. The poem in which the film was based formed the structure of the film.

IS this a new cinematic experience?

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Kiarostami's exploration of death.


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The lyrical formal system explored in Kiarostami's THE WIND WILL CARRY US offers new challenges in criticism and film viewing. It jolts the critics with a question: should critics measure these films via the set of rules offered by 'conventional cinema' or should they include the possibility that cinema can substantiate a connection between the viewers subconscious perception?

GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES:
A PRE-CRITIQUE
a commentary(pre-critique)

December 9, 2008

Walks. I am always fond of writing about walks. A walk across Laurel Avenue or plunging into G. Apacible Street, or a tirelessly stride on the busy A. Roces Ave would be as exhilarating as attempting a score in a basketball game(though i never played a game), i admit it, i have this tendency to prompt my own writing via the movement of my body. I am a motor-driven person, as characterized by psychologist, the one who's cognitive stimulant for learning lies on the function of his spatial-motor sense.

I usually have to rewrite the whole notebook before an exam to memorize everything that have been discussed. I noticed that in order to contextualize my thoughts i have to bring a pen and write it down to remember it. The connection of my pen and my brain is very evident and elusive. I cannot recall thinking without a scribbling notebook to write my thoughts.

So it was midday and i did not have a class from 1:00 to 230 pm, and i duly spent the time reviewing, and as what might have expected of me, rewriting my notes on my ChE 131 exam. I have keenly memorized step-wise the procedure on graphical methods of solving solid-liquid extractions. I am glad to have finished my colorful notes by 1:30 so i have an hour to spare some good nap.

After that snap-nap, i prepared my leather bag and head off to the campus to walk about half-a -mile to the Faculty center where my

English teacher would meet us there. I arrive on time, about 2:28 and occupied myself with reading my rewritten notes on ChE 131. 5 minutes later, Maam Ginny arrived. We immediately entered the Arcellana AVR room.

I positioned myself on my seat such that i was neither a too far or too near from the contorted projected screen. I sat without any preconceived notion on the film. The room darkened, we started at around 2:45 PM.


GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES: A PRE-CRITIQUE

Before i could rush a judgment after the curtain falls, to say and genuinely say, i have fallen in love with it, i want to consider some formal thoughts on cinema. During the following months of searching and forming in my mind the importance of the medium of film, i could not believe my eyes, that within the walls of the AVR i have seen such beautiful majestic picture. I almost cried but hold my tears, to think that i have cried enough, and the only reason to hold it back because it was shot in animated sequence.



I have to honestly say this that my dissatisfaction on ANIME (animated Japanese films) comes from its degradation due to the immense popularity of Animated Japanese Series and the bombast of the Japanese virtual culture to the succinct and peaceful laid back youth of the Philippine Society.




My first encounter with ANIME series dates back during the time when my father purchased an antenna for our television. We used to have a beta max player. My father and I would travel to the next town to borrow tapes from a tape-lender. I am glad that i have seen the beauty of Disney Animated Films before we had an antenna. The antenna connected our television to what now, to what i believe, the drought in Philippine Cinema: mainstream television. For the succeeding years, many Japanese Animated series penetrated the cathode-ray tubes of our television, deeming to what is now an irreversible culture attacking the vulnerable youth with rage, defunct sensationalism and admiration of what is unreal.

It cascaded today as one strong influence to the formation of the hypocritical society of the youth. But it seems a bit odd that i have fallen in love with this ANIME, a sudden rage, a sudden twink in my sensibilities to believe and hail that the animated version of reality is not jaundice to cinema but a flowery depiction of life. Is this a new found perspective, a change in my ideology of what i used to call 'film'? i simply want to reconsider my thoughts on ANIME, like a rebirth, or the more daunting, a Resurrection of my subconscious thoughts on the new, Japanese art.




The rampage of ANIME is irrevocable, i want to cover my eyes and sought for a deepened likelihood that post-modernity is simply a chain events the can passed away anytime. I want to see myself abhor the art, a new found art, and to say that it has damaged the eyes of the youth. I want to call it a brainwashing medium, a termination of the connection of the youth to the REAL. I want to debased the art, with much vigor, calling it a dominion of photography and comics, an artificial disappointment. I want to call an addictive distraction. I want to do all these but stopped after seeing GRAVE of the FIREFLIES, and finding happiness alike.




I want to stop there, or is just a beginning? Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away(2001) convulses in my thoughts. The fact that GRAVE of the FIREFLIES overthrew my dark ideology of ANIME, is Hayao Miyasaki's masterpiece capable of bridging my dainty and dry perspective cinema to the artificial beauty of ANIME?

Realism is explored deeply in the skin from the beginning, when Seita, the main character, strapped Setsuko on his back and floundered against the destruction of their small village in Japan. Earlier scenes, the beginning, when Seita announced his death, an unlikely and heartbreaking beginning of an ANIME, to found that our hero have fallen in the arms of death. It churned my heart, my temple begun to shiver, and i thought i could never hold back that this animated film will overthrow my ideology on ANIME. I simply shut my brain and opened my eyes to see the astonishing picture that left my eyes brimming with tears.

It is as if i have touched the fingertips of wrath of World War II, and my heart burnt in the stake, and my brain, not brainwashed but reformed.

The trailer

To speak that ANIME is one of the most intriguing aspect of cinema that i have ever seen.

sex, lies and videotape (1989)
a commentary

A psychoanalytic gaze of the audience.
[if you know what i'm talking about]

Palme d'Or, the biggest catch on the A-listed Cannes International Film Festival, spotlighted sex, lies and videotape(1989) to be one of the most important films of the 80s decade. This masterpiece is alluring, actually mystifying that depletes expectations and challenges the spectators to treble and left with a cast eye fresh and unknown.

I actually and surprisingly felt how important the film was. It never sprouted from a preconceive notion that it is actually the most important film(i repeat) of the 80s decade. The control of Steve Soderberg consumes me, it was almost as if i was there interacting, listening to the characters, conversing and sympathizing with them. The voyeuristic eye is completely elucidated without exploiting the subjects. The poetic registry combined with a simplistic compelling dialogue is elusive.

It's as if the first word in the title does not connote anything but a allusion to marriage. It is a movie about marriage and cinema.

This film surely revolutionized the independent film industry of the 1990s.


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The sex scenes 'are not' sex scenes at all, but poetic gestures of love.


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I love these frames!

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Of course, the videotapes.


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Peak hole, my favorite part.

It's like a prelude to Pulp Fiction(1993) conversation of Mia Wallace and Vincent Vega.

Notice the transition of the camera shots on both clips, it's really fantastic. One can observe how the style is used differently on both clips. In sex, lies and videotape(1989), the shot was relaxed and suffocating, but in Pulp Fiction(1993) the shot was energetic and vibrant. Notice also the color of the frames.

Absence

Absence
a poem by Adrian Mendizabal

It's lonely for the night to mend.
surface are half truths
wombed
by the macabre of the night
Hymns shatter'd utterless silence
broken by the heart
shaped like a sword
any whisper completes the tune
that left their voices astray.

In stillness rose a flight
flicker bond with a kiss
they rose
in their beds they whisper
with lips on my ear
Bind. sought night after endless night.

In they grasped and tossed,
bled and seized the rose
to stem darkly, rise a stone fire
Frosted
poured the milk,
poured in, consistency of my soul.

How bright and tan
their bodies shone,
plead but resist
hover but mad
darken and taken
by blades of heart
in they pour the Milk they sought

Beyond are voices
the moon, distant;
borders came;
to the horizon, went, sparkling spree
Left are floating bodies
soaked in fire
bleeding.