The Maltese Falcon Movie Review

                                      The Maltese Falcon is a film directed by John Huston in 1991. In French, film noir means a black film. This is a style of filmmaking characterized by such elements as cynical heroes, stark lighting effects, frequent use of flashbacks, intricate plots, and underlying existentialist philosophy. The genre was prevalent mostly in American crime dramas of the post-World War II era. (Encyclopaedia Britannica, n.d) 

                                     The early example of the noir style includes dark, stylized detective films such as Maltese Falcon 1941 by John Huston, This Gun of  Hire 1942 by Frank Tuttle.  From the visual, we can see that the film noir is all black and white, dark with lots of shadows. This shows a high contrast lighting or we call as low key. This film-noir has added some element of German expressionism which is oblique vertical and horizontal lines.  

                                     The story usually uses a cynical, pessimism and dark theme. Not only for male characters, in film noir, we also can find out corrupted characters, fatalistic themes, hopeless tone, blurred morals, and intellect. All the character are showing the reality of them while in the world of criminals.

                                    The story is a noir film usually involves a male character who is cynical, hard-hearted, and disillusioned who encountered a female character who is a beautiful but seductive femme fatale. The female character will usually use their sexuality to manipulate the male character to fall for her and fulfill her desire, which then leads the men to corruption and a downfall (filmsite.org, n.d.). The male main characters in film noir who are hard-hearted are usually detectives or investigators who solve the case and reveal the truth or plot of the femme fatale. This is to portray the independence and the job-earning power of women after the war that was being a threat to the men in the society and to preserve the masculinity, dominance or status of the men. In the noir film, most of the main struggle is male protagonist vs female Fatale.

                                 Overall, film noir is not a genre, It is a type of film that only defined by more subtle qualities of the tone and mood. Film noir is a specific period of film history. This theory founded in 1941 and the was a post-world war 2 which is during the forties and fifties that possessed particular themes and cinematic styles. Film noir is actually an influence on the expressionist film. Film noir films will also use a low key and high contrast lighting to create a gloomy appearance. The shots are usually taken at night with low lighting as it can bring out the sense of danger in the narration and the characters also tend to have a very huge and sharp cast shadow to show the morally ambiguous trait of the character. The shots are also often taken at a low angle as another way to create the distortion feel for that particular scene without using an unnatural distorted background that can be seen in an expressionist film. 

                                    This film is talking about a woman named Ruth Wonderly approached Samuel Spade and Miles Archer for helping her following a man - Floyd Thursby to looking for her sister. Unfortunately, Miles Archer, and Floyd Thursby been murder. On the other hand, Brigid O'Shaughnessy, who is Thursby's partner, meets Samuel and seduced him for help. However, her identity had been revealed by Gutman to Sam. Sam turns over Brigid O'Shaughnessy to the police when he realized that she was the one who killed Miles. And all these things happened is because of the Maltese Falcon statue.

                                 Maltese Falcon 1941 is one of the best films that can explain film noir. In the film, we can find out one film noir trait in the film is the role of cynical and hard-boiled man and a beautiful and seductive femme fatale. Sam Spade is the detective, a cynical and hard-hearted man and he hardly falls to any women and his role also to dominate any woman in the story. Besides that, Brigid O’Shaughnessy is a beautiful woman in the story, she uses her beauty to seduce every man to help her to do the stuff. But Sam Spade is a hard-hearted man, he passes Brigid O’Shaughnessy to police even though she seduces him for sympathy.

                                     Second, the setting of the film was much influenced by expressionism. Some shot was taken in low angle, in the movie to show the distorted body shapes. In the whole film, we can found that the film was in dark and it shows a high contrast of lighting. With the high contrast of lighting, in the film can find out a lot of the shadows in the films. For example, when the scene of Miles been murdered, there should be a dark place, but they use a high contrast of lighting.

                                   In the film, the theme is pessimism, cynical, and dark. As a crime film, the using of the background music is very suitable to cover the mysterious feel of the story. The character in film noir is all reality, they are all selfish and care about themselves since in the forties is a crime and violence happen often.

                                       As conclusion, film noir is a type of film that shows the reality of people. Not only in film, in the real world, people also apply "noir" in their daily life. Some people only take care of themselves.

REFERENCE : 

Encyclopedia Britannica. n.d. Film Noir. 

Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/art/film-noir.

Filmsite.org. n.d. Film Noir. 

Retrieved from http://www.filmsite.org/filmnoir.html.

                                   

Corpse Bride Movie Review

                               Corpse Bride is a British-American stop-motion-animated fantasy film directed by Mike Johnson and Tim Burton in 2015. The main characters are John August, Caroline Thompson and Pamela Petter. This movie is a hybrid film that included various types of genres such as romance, action, drama, comedy, horror, fantasy, musical. German expressionism has been used by Time Burton as his visual aesthetic when he produced this film. 

                               German expressionism is a Filmic style that arose in Germany from 1919 to 1926. It also a cultural movement that is challenging to define as it is not distinguished by a singular style or method of creation while German expressionism is generally considered to be a pre-World War II movement. In the 1920s, the expressionists start to bring in the shooting styles of Hollywood films to strive with them. There are many themes in this theory and it can be found in this film such as revolt, self-analysis, madness and primitive, sexual savagery. The most apparent in this film is the set design and chiaroscuro lighting. Chiaroscuro lighting is the low-key lighting and contains high contrast visuals. Some of the areas will be very dark while some are very bright. Moreover, this film also comprises surrealism and some of the settings in this film were very gothic and dark.

                            The movie begins in an unspecified Victorian British village in Victorian England.  Victor Van Dort, son of a nouveau riche fish merchants, and Victoria Everglot, the neglected daughter of snobbish aristocrats are preparing for their arranged marriage by their parents. When they first met each other, they have a good impression and fall in love with each other. Victor was too nervous in his first rehearsal of the wedding ceremony and so the ceremony failed to continue. He ran off and keep practicing his wedding vows alone in the forest. Just as he put on his wedding rings onto a branch, suddenly a corpse bride, Emily appears and she took Victor to the hell. Victor tries to escape from the land of the living but failed. Due to Victor's inexplicable disappearance, Victoria was forced by her parents to marry her relative named Barkis Britten. But then Victoria realized that the real purpose of Barkis married to her is because of money and Victoria leave him directly. Victor agrees to marry Emily and willingly to drink the poison- Wines of Ages in their wedding ceremony. Emily stopped him. She noticed Victoria's appearance and she just realized Victor did not belong to her. In the end, she reunites Victor and Victoria and turned into hundreds of butterflies. 

                              As I mentioned above, this film had included different themes. The first theme is a revolt. One of the main characters in this movie, Victoria has obeyed their parent's wishes marry Victor because it was the traditional law at that time. Because of Victor's disappearance and he has screwed up their first rehearsal of the wedding ceremony, Victoria's parents find another wedding partner for Victoria, which is their relative, Barkis Britten. Victoria refused it as she already fell in love with Victor. She was being chained by her parents. Hence,  she tries to escape and she climbed out of the window even though she knew that was not allowed. She does not care what her parents said yet just know Victor needed help so she ran off. 

                               

                           Secondly, some self-analysis can be found in this movie. At the beginning of the movie, Victor was very anxious and lack of confidence during his first rehearsal of the wedding ceremony with Victoria. He then ran off to the forest for self-practice. When he was wandering at the forest in order to remember his wedding vows, he noticed that his spouse was still at the church. He keeps thinking whether he really wants to go back or not and he was not sure about his own feelings. This is how it got him into trouble in the next moment. After being forced by Emily to marry her, finally, Victor knew that the person he loves is Victoria. Furthermore, Emily does apply to self-analysis. Victor lies to Emily that he wants to bring her to meet his parents but actually he went back to find Victoria. Emily felt very sad after knowing Victor's deception. She sings a song and thinks whether she forced Victor to marry her is the right thing or not. 

                                          

                                In addition, the following theme is madness. After watching the movie, I feel that the hell was chaotic although it looks lively and beautiful. When Victor first enters hell, imagine how he feels and how does he begin in a totally different situation. He feels lost and anxious where we could see from his facial expressions. He wants to escape from there imperatively. He does not know what happened in this new environment.                   

                                   

                                          

                                The last theme is primitive and sexual savagery. In hell, we can see some of the corpses are drinking wine, using utensils and their bones can be easily cracked. The worm which sometimes will pop out from Emily's eyeball always gives her the latest information and told her what to do.                               

                                              

                                             

                                In this movie, it has used a lot of chiaroscuro lightings such as the church and the houses in the movie are very gothic and dark. Chiaroscuro lighting also can be defined as low-key lighting and has high contrast visuals. As an example, they almost use high contrast visuals throughout the whole film. They use different colors to create high contrast visuals in hell so it can attract people's attention. 

              

                                               

                                 Last but not least, we can see distorted bodies and shapes in this movie. One of the corpses named Paul has a peculiar head-shaped without a body. He can simply move around especially on the dining table. 

                                        

                                                 

           Paul

                                 There also many oblique cameras angles that can be found in this movie.

                                                   

                                                   

                              Overall, Corpse Bride is an interesting movie and it is worth to watch it. Although it has a horror genre in this movie, for me it was totally not scary. The mixing genres make this movie become more fascinating and attractive. 

REFERENCE:

Fandom. (2019). Corpse Bride | Corpse Bride Wiki | FANDOM powered by Wikia

Retrieved from https://corpsebride.fandom.com/wiki/Corpse_Bride

Flickr. (2011). Paul The Head Waiter: Coming through, coming through. 

Retrieved from https://www.flickr.com/photos/allanimatedmovies/6240353002

University Libraries. (2019). German Expressionism Collection.

Retrived from https://lib.guides.umd.edu/c.php?g=326833&p=2194181

Stam, R. (2000). Film Theory: An introduction. Wiley-Blackwell.

Bordwell, David & Thompson, Kristin (2010) Film Art An Introduction, 9th ed., USA: McGraw-Hill, pp. 454 – 489.

Hayward, Susan (2013) Cinema Studies The Key Concepts, 4th ed., USA: Routledge, pp. 34 – 36; 168 – 170; 189 -195

In The Mood For Love Movie Review

                            Well for this movie, I admit it was quite boring to me at the beginning. In the mood for love is a Hong Kong dramatic movie in 2000. Before that, its original Chinese title named “花样年华” which derived from a song by Zhou Xuan. This movie was directed, produced and written by Wong Kar Wai. He is a famous director and he has produced many famous films such as Days of Being Wild (1990) and Chungking Express (1994). In this film, it has used the concept of French Impressionist Cinema and Surrealism.

                            French Impressionist Cinema is popular during 1919-1928. It reveals the play of the character's consciousness, concerns mental states, dreams or fantasies. It was mainly focused on what the character is thinking, feeling and experiencing. It also manipulates time and subjectivity by showing the flashbacks. The visual depiction of the mental state is from cinematography and editing. It includes point of view editing where shows the character's experience and visuals are vertiginous to show dizzy effects. For Surrealism, it was a theory where shows contents of sexual desire, violence, blasphemy and bizarre humor. Mise-en-scene is involved in this theory by Surrealist paintings, meaning that it was the things that we take for granted and we will not care about it.                                        

                            This movie is talking about a bitter love story between Mrs. Chan (Su Li-zhen) and Mr. Chow (Chow Mo-wan) who are next-door neighbors just right they rent a room in a department building at the same day. Both of their spouses often leave them alone and they never show faced in the movie. who discover that their spouses are cheating on them with each other. This is the main reason caused Mrs. Chan and Mr.Chow become friends. After been a while, they knew that their spouses were having an affair behind them and they been together to find out the truth. They fall in love with each other unconsciously. Because of some reason, they did not start their relationship then ended unwillingly with missing. 

                               In this movie, the soundtracks can be addicted and it keeps repeating especially when Mrs. Chan and Mr.Chow pass over each other. As an example, the theme song "Yumeji's Theme" by Shigeru Umebayashi has been played many times. The song can be heard when Mrs. Chen went out to buy noodles. She walked down the stairs and met Mr. Chow. The song makes it feels desolated sort of like two lovely people met each other but they cannot be together. Secondly, one of the scenes is Mr.Chow was having a rehearsal separation practice with Mrs. Chan how does she should react in the real moment. She cries sadly and Mr. Chow hugged her. This shows their intimate relationship that they are loving each other. This song involved jazz, blue styles and it gives people a kind of sad and lonely feeling. This scene has shows the plot time and subjectivity and it had been greatly used in this movie. 

                                    

   

                                   

                                There are many beautiful costumes that we can see from the main characters. Mrs. Chan had worn various types of Cheongsam in the movie. It shows her different daily life and Cheongsam gives people feel that she is a tender and graceful woman. We can see her wearing is more in the traditional way. She ties up her hair neatly in a bun with a pair of nice earing. For Mr. Chow, his wearing has revealed he's working as a businessman. He wears the same consumes everyday which a suit with a tie. One of the scenes that we can see clearly is he runs out to meet Mrs. Chan after receiving her call. He has got wet in the rain and his costume all wet yet he still took the umbrella for Mrs. Chan. This shows Mr. Chow had felled in love with Mrs. Chan.

                                                              

                                Besides, this movie is disseminating with love emotion and romance. The motion it has used is mainly at a slow pace especially its rhythmic and the ways of editing. There are many scenes apply different kinds of editing and the point of view editing are smartly connected in the movie. As an example, Mr. Chow was sitting in front of the makeup mirror while Mrs. Chan was sitting on the bed. Both of them are writing a script for the material art novel. When the camera closed up to them, it actually reflects they enjoyed spending time together despite they did not have any conversation.  They feel relieved staying by each other's side. Moreover, the iris shot had been used when Mrs. Chan and Mr. Chow having dinner together, they know their spouses are having an affair behind them. They even found out they have using the same things which gave by other's spouses. In this shot, we can see that their facial expressions were very sad and heart-broken. 

  

                                              

                                             

                                       Other than that, chiaroscuro lighting can be seen in the film. Mrs. Chan was lying on Mr. Chow's shoulder in the taxi after crying sadly in a rehearsal of separation. It uses low-key lighting and high contrast visuals at the street lights and both of their faces. Mrs. Chan's face shows that she was tired and grieved. She loved Mr. Chow but she knew they cannot start the relationship.  

                                               

                                           In a nutshell, In The Mood For Love is a romance film with French Impressionist Cinema which filmed in a traditional way. The soundtracks and editing ways are well used in this film. I think it might not suitable for me to watch many times as I feel it was a bit boring. I will recommend this movie for the older generation

REFERENCE :

South China Morning Post. (2019). 10 films, 30 years – Wong Kar-wai movies ranked from good to great, from As Tears Go By to The Grandmaster

Retrieved from https://www.scmp.com/culture/film-tv/article/2154813/10-films-30-years-wong-kar-wai-movies-ranked-worst-best-tears-go

THE SOUL OF THE PLOT. (March 8, 2017). In The Mood For Love

Retrieved from https://thesouloftheplot.wordpress.com/2017/03/08/in-the-mood-for-love/

Mp3-PM. (2019). Yumeji's Theme (In the mood for love/Любовное настроение) 

Retrieved from https://tvoxy.net/song/1015130/Shigeru_Umebayashi_-_Yumeji_s_Theme_In_the_mood_for_love_Lyubovnoe_nastroenie/

Resident Evil: Damnation Movie Review

                          Resident evil: damnation is a hybrid film that contained animation, action, horror, sci-fi, suspense and few comedy elements. It is a Japanese adult animated biopunk action film by Capcom and Sony Pictures Entertainment Japan. This film was directed by Makoto Kamiya and it was made based on the video game, Resident Evil. The main characters in this film are Leon S. Kennedy, Buddy, and Ada Wong. I will mainly discuss action and sci-fi theory based on Resident Evil: Damnation how it reacts to these theories and what scenes had associated.

                           The action genre was started by Edwin Porter with The Great Time Robbery in 1903. There has semantic and syntax in the action films. The fluidity in action films are heavily mixed, bent and fused into several other genres especially with the technological growth of special effects. It is not only built with action scenes anymore because nowadays the films came out with Sci-fi and comedy. They mixed together and create an amazing effect. As an example, the Marvels series become impressive gradually. They use different types of genres and combined them. Sci-fi, also known as science fiction is a fiction of genre of fiction whose content is imaginative but it is science. The first film that contains a Sci-fi element was made by Georges Melies in Trip to the Moon. Actually, resident evil: damnation is a hybrid mixing genre which means they have many genres mixed together. It is a postmodernism movement so that the film more striking and remarkable.

                             The synopsis of this film is talking about a special agent of the United States named Leon S. Kennedy has been dispatch by the US government to verify rumors that Bio-Organic Weapons (BOWs) are being used in the country's civil war. He then sneaks into the Eastern Slav Republic to stop it but unfortunately gets caught. During his mission journey, he met Ada Wong which she is actually a BSAA agent working beside the president, Svetlana Belikova. Both of them reach an agreement to fight against the president. After that, Leon and Buddy have a serious fight with Svetlana. The monsters, Tyrants and Lickers are being released. At last, Tyrants are attacked by the U.S planes which they have been observed Leon's action since his mission started. It was a happy ending I think.       

                               In this film, we could see those action genres are fit in some scenes. The extended chase scenes, fight and escaped will automatically awaken me when I almost fall asleep. The sound effects always the loudest and noisest for me. Thus, I quite preferred to watch an action film. For example, there have one action scene I was interested with which is the fight between two women, Svetlana and Ada wong. Svetlana received some bad information about Ada from her personnel. After the truth has exposed, both of them fight seriously and Ada still jailed by Svetlana. This scene also a type of semantic approach in the action genre. While for the syntax approach,  we can see that Leon, Buddy and Ada act as a protagonist yet Svetlana act as an antagonist. Svetlana becomes the enemy by the public. Both parties having fights with her. Lastly, Svetlana received her retribution as she had done so many bad things. 

                                     Moreover, the sci-fi genre had been used and it is also the main genre in this film. This is because the characters are sort of like animated design. There are many extraordinary monsters created in these films such as tyrants, lickers, and Plaga. Tyrants are created by Svetlana and Lickers are created by Buddy. Plaga is parasitic in nature where it can control human beings and make them become abnormal. These monsters are all the components of Sci-fi. They were created and transformed by using a type of mutagen named progenitor virus. Because of Sci-fi, it makes this film more attractive and it was one of the features in this film. The monsters are special although it looks scary and it gives audiences a kind of surprising feels.                                                  

Tyrant

                 Plaga                                                                         Licker

                      

         

                                 

                                     
                                  Other than that, resident evil: damnation has included horror genre in some of the scenes. It makes me felt me disgusting especially when the scene a group of zombies is chasing an army. The army failed to escape and one of the zombies insert the plaga into his mouth. The scene closes up to the plaga as we clearly see how the plaga looks like. The process is extremely ruthless. It has revealed the reality of the city. Then, he becomes a zombie and one of the victims among people. Besides, the war in the end where Leon and Buddy fight with Tyrants at outside. Due to the endangered situation, Buddy released all his Lickers to fight against Tyrants although he has seriously injured. One of the scenes when Tyrants kills all the lickers, he lifted one the lickers and crushed. The tyrant also stepped on Licker's body. The blood splashed out instantly and the ground is bloody. 

                                   Overall, resident evil: damnation is a hybrid movie with the mixing of action, sci-fi and horror genre. My favorite part of this film is the women fight because it looks cool and has used tongue-in-cheek dialogue. It was not bad but I feel a bit confused that what message they are trying to deliver to the audience. This movie was not popularization in my opinion. For those who love sci-fi films or play video games, I will recommend this movie to them.

REFERENCE :

Literary Terms. (2015, June 1). 

Retrieved from https://literaryterms.net/science-fiction/

Fandom. (2019). Plaga | Resident Evil Wiki | FANDOM powered by Wikia. 

Retrieved from https://residentevil.fandom.com/wiki/Plaga

Hayward, Susan (2013) Cinema Studies The Key Concepts, 4th ed., USA: Routledge, pp. 284 – 294.


Shumway, David R. (1995) “Screwball Comedies: Constructing Romance, Mystifying Marriage” in Film Genre Reader 2 edited by Barry Keith Grant.