On a movie spree....

Felt long since i went to the cinema.

Had a no show tour, so decided to catch "Wet Season", a local production.

The director of the movie directed Ilo-Ilo the last time, where it explores rare topics about Domestic Helpers. This time round, the movie theme is rain, intergenerational ties, and teacher-student relationship.

After all it was still a arts film genre so do not expect to have exciting pace or heart thumping climax. The movie spotlights on the protagonist, a Malaysian Teacher, who faces humiliation of many levels - child bearing, desperate wife, unsupportive family, foreigner, trivial subject, and a less-dignified job. While the intergenerational ties between her and the grandpa is strong, I like how it kindda contrast a dependent elderly to an infant, both of which have similar caretaking needs. As they always say, circle of life.

What was not very accurate was how close the teacher-student relation goes. While this would be impossible at today standard, lets give the scriptwriter a break to assume that this takes place in the olden times when the age gap is not too drastic and there are less strict laws on civil servant behaviors. I thought that their relationship should be developed further as I felt there is a fluctuation of being childish and mature in the personality of the student. But overall, I guess in the end what the teacher taught was not chinese but rather his first heartbreak in the forbidden love affair.

Other than that I thought the cinemagraphy was rather well done. Mundane shots were reiterated to portray the relationships between the characters such as teacher getting closer, roads getting longer, eating sessions, and also the degree of rain. So much so that I loved the ending where the grandma washes her "blanket of hundred blessings" (personal identity) as if cleansing and then the sun ray shines on her face as if liberation from all the torment. Subtly, I guess there is also a shed of light on the "burden" of societies such as caretaking and strained relationship that people tend to refuse to let go. 

Then, the next movie is "Frozen 2".

This is where my opinion is gonna be unpopular. While retaining the good o disney feels of musical numbers and heartwarming family friendly moments, the movie did push through typical cliches into some thought provoking topics. This movie relooked at "history" and ask what is the "right thing" to do. The sisters are forced to search deeper into the past, to find out truths of governance, and to venture into the unknown, face your fears. Their personalities are reflected again and again, the roles and responsibilities, sense of inferiority, purpose, and ultimately is still friends and kinship.

On a light note, the movie uses Olaf alot, to look at "deep inspirational quotes" or just being plain annoying. But as I always believed, we need people like that sometimes, someone that is full of nonsense, that you just cant get angry no matter how annoying he/she is, but because the intention is just so pure and innocent and selfless.

But then, this movie, unlike the previous one, felt like there's no punch line, there's no easy-to-singalong-and-catchy melodies, there's no emotional roller coaster. Perhaps the lyrics to "Next Right Thing" was probably the coolest song there but I would not forsee kids running about saying next right thing take first small step and step by step kindda thing.

The movie was not satisfying that I decided to jump straight to the next movie, "Last Christmas".

This movie attracted me as I thought it would be a light hearted holiday season home along kindda of comedy movie. Yet it wasnt. I guess this is a less popualr movie but Henry Golding and Michelle Yeoh is in so woohooo support local! Call me biased but I think Michelle Yeoh is the best actor there, with her infatuated face, her motherly love, her typical asian behaviors, and her stares.

Last Christmas is basically a romance drama of some girl that seems constantly on her bad luck, failure to see all the good friends around her, and indulge in a false sense of hope that she will one day find someone that discover her talents and make her big but blame on her illness; who say a too perfect to be true guy who is very obvious the plot twist as it was given away too fast at so many scenes.

But then again I thought a few quotes are rather nice in the movie. "Look Up" is what the guy keeps asking Kate to do, is to notice the beauty of the moment, the subtle details of the environment, constantly. SO comforting though, when the guy spoke : "There's no such thing as normal. It's just being human is hard."

As a holiday movie, they also focus on the theme of forgiveness, handling mothers, friends, relationships and work. To the sense Michelle Yeoh commented "you were great, but you stopped caring", see most people lost the joy they had at work and that's where the spirit will die.

However, this move got a feel good ending. Last christmas, I gave you my heert, but the very next day, he gave it away....... this line is soooo literal!