12 Indigenous tribes are living harmoniously amongst one another in the late-18th/early-19th century in the mountains of central Taiwan, when imperialist Japanese forces invade.
Their harmonious relations are highly aggressive inasmuch as manhood is achieved by cutting off the head of a member of a surrounding tribe.
The conquerors see things differently however and colonize said tribes in order to put them to work maximizing the economic potential of their natural resources.
Decades pass, and a once proud warrior culture is reduced to back breaking poorly paid labour, alcohol abuse, suffocating ethnocentric taunts, and the systematic depletion of their ancestral hunting grounds.
And respect for their traditions is anathema.
Yet the knowledge that rebellion is akin to mass suicide keeps them at bay, until the situation proves too belittling to be endured forever after (no treaties whereby they could maintain their way of life were negotiated and signed).
And a revolt is launched.
The ways in which director Te-Sheng Wei depicts the revolt incontrovertibly turn one's stomach, as the legendary Mona Rudao (Da-Ching, Lin Ching-Tai) and his Mahebu people express their revenge.
Obviously I was cheering for the downtrodden Mahebu but my support was structurally challenged as they massacred every Japanese person in their village.
The challenge being the result of the generation of an internally cathartic traumatic absolutist aesthetic, which chaotically yet rationally glorifies battle while championing the enslaved, accompanied by a feminine voice singing a haunting lugubrious lament, working within and celebrating the traditions of the vanquished, without hesitating to showcase their warlike being.
A being which I'm not used to inductively digesting.
The rest of Sàidékè Balái (Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale) practically answers Camus's cliché contention that the only properly philosophical problem is suicide.
Assuming that's a cliché by now anyways.
And its response heroically illustrates the fearless spiritual will of a fierce uncompromising people, forced to adopt extreme methods, dedicated to their way of life, refusing to passively perish.
As time goes by.
Showing posts with label Imperialism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Imperialism. Show all posts
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Monday, May 14, 2012
The Avengers
Prominent Marvel characters begrudgingly unite in Joss Whedon's The Avengers to battle the tyrannical intentions of the recently freed Loki (Tom Hiddleston). Loki travels to Earth in order to commandeer the Tesseract from S.H.I.E.L.D for the Other (Alexis Denisof) who promises him an army of Chitauri warriors in return (with whom he can launch an invasion).
The Tesseract is an extremely powerful and seemingly limitless source of energy.
The overt film's explosive enough, as superegos convincingly clash and physically exhibit their prowess. Their introduction's are concise and pinpointed, their initial meeting contentious and energetic, their conversation's confident, inquisitive and challenging, their commitment during battle self-sacrificing and unwavering, and so on.
Approaches and tactics are intently scrutinized before the necessity to act demands a united counter assault.
Much like any given Sunday.
This business of naming the overarching villain The Other is quite troublesome, however, insofar as this can be viewed as external difference financing and supplying Loki's imperialistic ambition.
Which is xenophobic.
And sucks.
After a nation engages in imperialistic activities a degree of underlying cultural paranoia is retroactively generated which can be thought of as manufacturing a subjugating unspoken psychological incision, an example of this incision's profusion being even more excessively manifested in A Song of Ice of Fire.
The Avengers themselves are exceptions overflowing with otherness as is S.H.I.E.L.D and the film's final confrontation takes place in New York.
These are local irreplaceable others, however, produced on planet Earth, apart from Thor (Chris Hemsworth).
As these special local others combat the 'extraterrestrial' forces of the Other in a metropolitan other the military's solution (the closest possible [ludicrous] representation of the people's voice in this film) is to send in a nuke and unabashedly obliterate all forms of difference.
But the narcissistic techno-other who cannot be somnambulistically subdued by Loki's sceptre catches that nuke and directs it into space, thereby using his 'idyllic' individualistic entrepreneurial ingenuity to simultaneously crush the threat of colonization and prevent a government sponsored homeland nuclear disaster.
He is then saved by brute force as he helplessly falls back to Earth (there's a disturbing image for labour relations [corporate fiefdoms anyone?]).
Thus, not so pleased with what's going on behind the scenes in The Avengers.
Thor does chastise Loki for considering himself to be above his potential subjects.
Thor who is from another planet.
Nice to see Harry Dean Stanton nevertheless.
The Tesseract is an extremely powerful and seemingly limitless source of energy.
The overt film's explosive enough, as superegos convincingly clash and physically exhibit their prowess. Their introduction's are concise and pinpointed, their initial meeting contentious and energetic, their conversation's confident, inquisitive and challenging, their commitment during battle self-sacrificing and unwavering, and so on.
Approaches and tactics are intently scrutinized before the necessity to act demands a united counter assault.
Much like any given Sunday.
This business of naming the overarching villain The Other is quite troublesome, however, insofar as this can be viewed as external difference financing and supplying Loki's imperialistic ambition.
Which is xenophobic.
And sucks.
After a nation engages in imperialistic activities a degree of underlying cultural paranoia is retroactively generated which can be thought of as manufacturing a subjugating unspoken psychological incision, an example of this incision's profusion being even more excessively manifested in A Song of Ice of Fire.
The Avengers themselves are exceptions overflowing with otherness as is S.H.I.E.L.D and the film's final confrontation takes place in New York.
These are local irreplaceable others, however, produced on planet Earth, apart from Thor (Chris Hemsworth).
As these special local others combat the 'extraterrestrial' forces of the Other in a metropolitan other the military's solution (the closest possible [ludicrous] representation of the people's voice in this film) is to send in a nuke and unabashedly obliterate all forms of difference.
But the narcissistic techno-other who cannot be somnambulistically subdued by Loki's sceptre catches that nuke and directs it into space, thereby using his 'idyllic' individualistic entrepreneurial ingenuity to simultaneously crush the threat of colonization and prevent a government sponsored homeland nuclear disaster.
He is then saved by brute force as he helplessly falls back to Earth (there's a disturbing image for labour relations [corporate fiefdoms anyone?]).
Thus, not so pleased with what's going on behind the scenes in The Avengers.
Thor does chastise Loki for considering himself to be above his potential subjects.
Thor who is from another planet.
Nice to see Harry Dean Stanton nevertheless.
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Transformers: Dark of the Moon
The Autobots and Decepticons battle once again in Transformers: Dark of the Moon, one group caring for the future of humanity, the other, not so much.
Enjoyed the first act of the film as Sam Witwicky (Shia LeBeouf) struggles to find a job, competently dealing with the shocks of the working world while reservedly accepting that successfully defeating the forces of evil twice does not necessarily guarantee that one will find full-time rewarding employment. Nevertheless, he still finds a position in the mail room of an innovative company and proceeds to prove himself while impressing partner Carly Spencer (Rosie Huntington-Whiteley) and mollifying his ill-tempered father (Kevin Dunn).
Until fellow employee Jerry Wang (Ken Jeong) suddenly provides him with top secret intelligence regarding the Ark, a spacecraft which escaped Cybertron during its transformational Armageddon and proceeded to crash land on Earth's moon.
Reunited with Seymour Simmons (John Turturro), they then unravel a plot involving the stockpiling of pillars on the moon and the murder of many of the people involved with American and Russian moon missions.
It turns out an Autobot named Sentinel Prime (Leonard Nimoy) piloted the Ark away from Cybertron in order to ensure the Autobots's survival, but had really struck a deal with Megatron (Hugo Weaving) to betray them, believing that the future of the Transformers would pay more dividends in Decepticon hands.
With the help of Spencer's boss and Witwicky's rival Dylan Gould (Patrick Dempsey), the Decepticons conquer the earth and prepare to use Sentinel's technology to transport Cybertron to its solar system.
There are many quirky scenes that make the first act stand out, including the struggles of Alan Tudyk's character Dutch, awkward elevator encounters, and Sam and Jerry's discussion in the stall of a men's washroom. These scenes infuse the film with a catchy comedic sensibility that lightens the tension and disrupts the action, briefly, the sharp introduction of a distinct staccato which doesn't ruin the overall affect as it did in Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (the comedy in a Transformers film finally worked for me).
The film also features the significant transitions most of the characters have entertainingly negotiated since Revenge of the Fallen, which, I suppose, is one of the principle points.
As if we're all Transformers.
Transformers 3's second act is primarily concerned with the Autobot/human counterattack and the momentum fluidly built up beforehand stalls significantly. I suppose if you have a constructed bountiful world that is then devastated it makes sense to ensure that its dynamic isn't present in the Decepticon aftermath. But it also makes sense to then build towards a salient climax wherein that world's productivity is brilliantly revitalized, and Dark of the Moon does contain a climax and its origins are revitalized, but the content used to fill this traditional form didn't exactly motivate me, apart from the quasi-rapprochement entre Simmons and Mearing (Frances McDormand).
Nonetheless, its saving grace is represented by how it presents the ways in which the right perverts "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" maxim, by placing it in Decepiticon hands, who, basically want to bring their world to ours, or supplant Earth's culture with another, the imperialist few using their resources to destroy the longevity of the many, in the interests of the one, the dark of the moon (note the necessity of maintaining a prominent place for the study of First Nations culture within educational systems).
Enjoyed the first act of the film as Sam Witwicky (Shia LeBeouf) struggles to find a job, competently dealing with the shocks of the working world while reservedly accepting that successfully defeating the forces of evil twice does not necessarily guarantee that one will find full-time rewarding employment. Nevertheless, he still finds a position in the mail room of an innovative company and proceeds to prove himself while impressing partner Carly Spencer (Rosie Huntington-Whiteley) and mollifying his ill-tempered father (Kevin Dunn).
Until fellow employee Jerry Wang (Ken Jeong) suddenly provides him with top secret intelligence regarding the Ark, a spacecraft which escaped Cybertron during its transformational Armageddon and proceeded to crash land on Earth's moon.
Reunited with Seymour Simmons (John Turturro), they then unravel a plot involving the stockpiling of pillars on the moon and the murder of many of the people involved with American and Russian moon missions.
It turns out an Autobot named Sentinel Prime (Leonard Nimoy) piloted the Ark away from Cybertron in order to ensure the Autobots's survival, but had really struck a deal with Megatron (Hugo Weaving) to betray them, believing that the future of the Transformers would pay more dividends in Decepticon hands.
With the help of Spencer's boss and Witwicky's rival Dylan Gould (Patrick Dempsey), the Decepticons conquer the earth and prepare to use Sentinel's technology to transport Cybertron to its solar system.
There are many quirky scenes that make the first act stand out, including the struggles of Alan Tudyk's character Dutch, awkward elevator encounters, and Sam and Jerry's discussion in the stall of a men's washroom. These scenes infuse the film with a catchy comedic sensibility that lightens the tension and disrupts the action, briefly, the sharp introduction of a distinct staccato which doesn't ruin the overall affect as it did in Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (the comedy in a Transformers film finally worked for me).
The film also features the significant transitions most of the characters have entertainingly negotiated since Revenge of the Fallen, which, I suppose, is one of the principle points.
As if we're all Transformers.
Transformers 3's second act is primarily concerned with the Autobot/human counterattack and the momentum fluidly built up beforehand stalls significantly. I suppose if you have a constructed bountiful world that is then devastated it makes sense to ensure that its dynamic isn't present in the Decepticon aftermath. But it also makes sense to then build towards a salient climax wherein that world's productivity is brilliantly revitalized, and Dark of the Moon does contain a climax and its origins are revitalized, but the content used to fill this traditional form didn't exactly motivate me, apart from the quasi-rapprochement entre Simmons and Mearing (Frances McDormand).
Nonetheless, its saving grace is represented by how it presents the ways in which the right perverts "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" maxim, by placing it in Decepiticon hands, who, basically want to bring their world to ours, or supplant Earth's culture with another, the imperialist few using their resources to destroy the longevity of the many, in the interests of the one, the dark of the moon (note the necessity of maintaining a prominent place for the study of First Nations culture within educational systems).
Monday, November 16, 2009
Before Tomorrow (Le jour avant le lendemain)
Marie-Hélène Cousineau and Madeline Ivalu's Before Tomorrow (Le jour avant le lendemain) (a product of the Arnait Video Collective) presents some picturesque pastoral panoramas in a subdued and solitary (pseudo) soliloquy. An inuit tribe celebrates the joys of life and lives somewhat harmoniously together until strangers come with guns, germs, and steel which kill everyone but a young boy (Paul-Dylan Ivalu) and his resilient grandmother (Madeline Ivalu). They struggle throughout the winter, secluded in a cave with a only a tiny fire, traditional stories, seal meat, their companionship, and thoughts of a better life further south to sustain them. Similar to other survival tales such as Cast Away and Alien, Cousineau and Ivalu pull us into their protagonist's isolation, slowly forcing us to live and breathe their loneliness while also exposing us to the strength of their resolve. The narrative does unreel very slowly at times which has a somewhat soporific affect, but sitting back and watching its forlorn form mimic its sequestered content still produces heightened periods of awareness. An intricate examination of the traditional ways of Inuit peoples, Before Tomorrow exposes us to the harsh conditions they have faced throughout the centuries while aptly celebrating their vivacious spirit.
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