Asian Cinema

Name: Winnie Tin Wei Yi

Student ID: 2015050281

Course: Diploma in Film & TV Production

Subject: Asian Cinema 

Final Assignment

Q:1 “A Separation” 

Iranian film A Separation, is a 2011 Iranian drama Film written and directed by Asghar Farhadi. A Separation won then Academy Award for Best Foreign Language in 2012, it had become the first Iranian film to win the award. It received the Golden Bear for Best Film and the Silver Bear for Best Actress and Best Actor at the 61^st Berlin International Film Festival, Becoming the first Iranian film to win the Golden Bear. It also won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, making it the first non-English film in five years to achieve this.

  

  This is a great movie in my opinion. The central problems in A Separation are deeply human, and thoroughly believable. The story begin with an unhappily married couple wants to break up in a painful, fascinating marriage because Simin (wife) wants to leave the country with her husband, Nader and her daughter, Termeh. Nader doesn’t want to leave his dad alone who suffered the pain of Alzheimer’s disease. Simin tells Nader that his father doesn’t recognize him anymore, he replies, “but I know he is my father”. This scene makes me think a lot, as a mother she wants her daughter and her family have a better life than before her moves wasn’t not wrong and Nader refused her . He wanted to break up with her until he said that he has a father who in pain, he doesn’t want to leave him alone. This make me think about in real life, human have a lot of choice need to be decide; If you think this is the best choice ever in others people’s opinion is totally different from you.

  

  Besides, he realize her wife leaves and stay with her mother, Nader hires a working class women, Razieh. She is Pregnant. She force to accept the job is because her husband, Hodjat, is out of work and creditors are hounding him. During the working time, Razieh realize she had to take care of an old man who unable to take care himself. He had pee on his pants and walking here and there. Razieh was stunted and she doesn’t know if possible to help an old man to change the pants because due to her religion. Here come the decision too, either she follows the rules of quran or she feel compassion for the old man and helps him to change. If she decided to help the old man, she was afraid she have sins and may have punishment to her family and if she choose to ignore it, her situation will become even worse than before.

    

  On Nader way home with her daughter, they realize his dad was tied on the bed, Nader is angry by his father’s condition. At the same time Razieh returns and he throws her out from his house. In the end, he get to know Razieh is in the hospital. She and her husband accuse him of causing a death of baby by pushing her down from the stairs. Nader accuses Razieh back of neglecting his father. This scenes, everyone had their own difficulty; they started to lie to the judge. This content about the level of the lies and the choices too. Razieh lost her child is not because of Nader, is because her fault. She doesn’t lock the door and Nader’s father went out of the house. When she found him on the opposite of the road, he almost get bang by the car; she save him and she miscarriage her child. On that day Nader kick her out of his house because she tied his dad on the bed, she went to see doctor. The truth is she lost her baby herself and she try to accuse Nader for pushing her down to stairs. She wants to save her husband rom creditor because if she win the lawsuit, she able to return money. For Nader, he lied to the judge about Razieh stole his money and wanted to kill his father. This is because he need to take care of his kid and his father although he already knew that the money wasn’t stole by Razieh; just that he is really mad at her tied his dad on the bed.

  In the end, Nader and his wife was in the court debating to hold her kid Termeh; Termeh’s choice is to ask both of the parents leave the court and let her decide with judge. The last scene was two of them are waiting for the result and there was not result. The concept of divorcement will affect their children. I like the end of the story is because there was no ending and we need to think about how the ending will ends like. This concept is similar to another movie named about elly. Furthermore, In the middle of the story there was a scene at the petrol station. Nader was waiting for Termeh to refill the tank. Termeh paid and she doesn’t get the change pay from the man. She went up to the car, she dad told her in a bad way to get the change back and she went. She gets back to the car, her dad smiles at her that is your pocket money. This shows the bad side and the good sight of her father. This movie content a lot of underlying message in it and we need to figure it out.

 The background information on the movie is before the new wave of Iranian, nobody considered the director as the creator of the work. There were only few director whose name denoted specific types of film. Ordinary people did not know that the main creator was somebody else. In fact, there was no creator or the people were correct. After the new wave, the public found out that one person was the principal thinker of the film. His ideas and plans are made into the pictures, and we named it as a director. Apart from this, the new wave caused the Iranian cinema to be viewed as a cultural category. Cinema was not viewed in that way before and also nobody really care about cinema but after the new wave, contemporary writers would like their works to be made into a film, people turn to look for movies and also gain interest in it. In another hand, the special value of the new wave cinema in Iran was its artistic tendencies. They will never copy any other movie but they do come out a structure from the film subject itself. They were new and unique/different in both subject and form. In the end, this was true about other principal factors making up film/movie.  

 In the conclusion, I can say this a great movie. A Separation, it is a movie that so perfectly captures the human conditions in real life. I’m surprised that the writer/director Farahdi able to transform this quarrel into a contemporary tragedy. 

Q:2 How to write a critique of a movie.

  What is Movie Critiques? What is Movie Reviews? Does Movie Critiques and Movie review are the same? Movie critiques can be easily confused with movie reviews. A movie reviews reveal a personal impression of a viewer and also recommend, tends to focus only the surface of the story or discourage audience yet a movie critique are to criticize the film(critical thinking), provides key details and also analysis the scene or the sequence that may have escaped viewers on the first or second viewing. 

  As student of film, while we are criticizing a movie, where/what should we need to be focus on?
 
  First, we should focus on analysis. It can be focus on one or even more.
 
 The beginning of analysis the film, we should understand the formalism of the film/movie. We should look specifically at the matters of the structure and the style. Besides, we should always ask ourselves, “what was the most interesting about the features and how do they add the story and the themes? Which scene that give big impact of a meaning of the film?” Secondly, we can go for the genre of the film. Genre is an important concept to understand. It defines the general direction the plotline will go and allows you to prepare yourself for that film. Next, The Historical of the movie/film. It is one of the most common modes. We should investigate the unique historical moment of the content of the movie and always ask ourselves, “How historical events are depicted in the film? Does it have a deeper meaning behind the film? Does knowing the background help to explain the narrative?”
 
 Furthermore as a film student to have a good understanding of film history, film theory and film technicalities, there were have some analysis technique that explain details and make us understand more about it. For example, National Cinema. We can look at the film by taking into the country’s unique way and exploring the cultural conditions that produce effects. “What kind of cultural research might lead you to a deeper understanding of the themes?” we can always ask ourselves some type of question like this so that we could understand or absorb more knowledgeable things. Moreover, we can analysis the director of the film. This is one of the most important theoretical forms. What we can look about how directors, producers, actors use pervasive themes and their styles in their body of work. We can always ask “How do the historical conditions encourage or discourage the unity of the director’s work? What are the most distinctive indicators of the director’s control over the film?” to ourselves too.
 
 Last but not least, Ideology (another way to say “Politics”). Some of the film there will be some meaningful dialogues or scenes that contain some underlying message. It is to brings out or conveying about the problem of the society or culture or gender or etc. In this category can be further broken down into few studies of thought. For example, Hollywood Hegemony (how classical film formulas dominate and distort ways of seeing the world), Feminist Studies (how women have been positively or negatively represented both in front of and behind the camera), Race Studies (how different races have been positively or negatively represented in front of and behind the camera), Class Studies (how social and economic arrangements surrounding and represented in film reflect and influence the distribution of social power), Postcolonial Studies (from a global perspective, how the repression and subsequent reemergence of indigenous cultures is revealed through and represented in film) and Queer Theory (how normative gender relations can be challenged or disrupted through film). These six approaches for the critical essay rarely appear in seclusion.
  
Besides these, Plot, theme, characters, film’s formal technique (editing, sound, cinematography, lighting, narrative), story content are important too while writing a film/movie critiques. This is how we criticize a film/movie.
  
  Understanding the history of a country, include the history of the cinema in the country is important while we are writing a movie critique is because traditional historical documents tend to privilege great events and political leaders. As a film student, we get to know what is happening in the past and we get to improve our perception. Nowadays, we lives in a modern life and everything is different form the past so through understanding the historical culture we get to know differentiate between the pass and the present. We to know about the culture in different country too and also the races, the political, the religion, the languages. After we get to know the concept we can critique the film or movie easily and much better than before. If we doesn’t know about the background of the movie, how do we critique the movie?  In addition, we could write some stories that based on the history of the place or the culture, political easily because we already know about it. That why knowing the history of a country is important to film students. 

Q:3 Asian Cinema is important as a film student.

  As a film student, in my opinion, Asian cinema is important is because first, we could learn more about different country's culture and cinema. Asian Cinema is refers to the film industries and films produced in the continent of Asia, and is also sometimes known as Eastern cinema. The country who involve in Asian Cinema – Japan, Korea, China, India, Malaysia, Iran, Indonesia, Taiwan, Hong Kong and etc. Different country had different culture. For example, movie of India, romance scenes is secondary, actors will sing in the movie. Through analyzing the movie, we able to identified their style, the story content, camera movement, feeling of the film and the underlying message of the movie too. There was good and bad movies too, in my opinion if it was a bad movie, we still need to watch and we can try to improve the story content after analyzing a movie. What make a greater movie than before is starts from the bottom/failure. Besides, critique a movie can improve my writing skills and i able to write a good movie critique based on the country's background history or culture. If A person who don't know the background about the movie, how does he/she finish his/her critique? Asian Cinema in different movie era gives different feeling and this may gain our knowledge in sense of cinema. Moreover, this may improve student’s perception and also perspective. Lastly, we able to communicate with seniors during workshop or conversation when we knew about Asian Cinema.

Critique Movies (Assignment)

1.     Paloh (2003, Malaysia)

  This movie is directed by Adman Salleh, Malaysia. This is produced by Filem Negara Malaysia and he National Film Development Corportion Malaysia (FINAS). This is a historical conflict movie between Malays and Chinese; this gave credit to the role of the communists in the independence struggles and highlighted the savage act committed by the Japanese soldiers.

   Paloh was filmed in Southern Johor state; during the days of Japanese occupation in 1944. Story is about 4 malay Friends (Ahmad, Osman, Puteh and Harun) who choose to become a Japanese Policeman, but they were not that rough like Japanese officer, they still have their humanity. Besides that, there were some scenes that show amicable between Malays and Chinese. Before the dominant of the Japan or British, Malays and Chinese were actually lives peacefully together without any violence incidents. Because of the war, we started to become racist and this is because we love our race; we try to protect them from danger. In my opinion, there was no right or wrong during that time, just that different races employ different way or method to keep their races save. These are what Paloh try to bring out to the public.

  In another hand, the main characters were different race. They fall in love but they couldn’t stay together because of their culture. Ahmad (main male character), he’s Malay; he has his own decision on his future, His parent would let him do anything he wanted to do anyhow he is happy with it yet Siew Lan(main female character) Ahmad’s girlfriend. She’s Chinese, she has no choices to choose in her life; she must obey her parents and do whatever they asked her to do. She tried to suicide because of her pressure from parents, she had no choice on her life and also her boyfriend, she will put him in a danger from communist but her best friend Fatimah who was Malay had save her life. Fatimah’s dad had rescued her life and this show that they were not racist.

 The summary of this film basically is telling us about the history of Malaysia during the world war time the people who suffered and the culture of Malaysia’s in different race. 

2.     Chicken Rice War (2000, Singapore)

  This Movie is directed by Cheah Chee Kong and the story is loosely based on "Romeo & Juliet". There were two Chicken rice hawker stands always competing for customers and whose Chicken is the best. This movie gives audience knows more about Singaporean culture and Singaporean people.

  The Wong’s (The Montague) and the Chan’s (The Capulet) stall were placed side by side in the same market. The conflict between them has pass down few decades; is about their chicken rice’s recipes but apart from that they doesn’t know what the fight is about that started from upper generation.

   Besides, director also tries to convince audience about the mutual love of the Shakespeare. Fenton and Audrey play the star-crossed lovers. Audrey Chan is a beautiful girl who is the most popular girl in the school. Fenson Wong is an insecure young man with shutter; is madly in love with Audrey. They have the same interest in Shakespeare. They were tried to end the war between two families during the play but two families had started the argument. In the end, Fenson gone mad and he voiced out his opinion toward them how he really feel to this unconscious war. Although he had voiced out, two families were still competing with each other after the days.

  During the ghost festival night, Audrey and Fenson are trying to stop the war between them but they failed. That night turns out a really bad night for the comers; they had food poisoning because of the chicken. The chicken is supplied by Hugo (chicken seller), it was stale or no longer flesh. Both families are seeking for justice from Mr.Hugo; they accidentally broke their secret recipes. They were only use code to represent the material that used to cook the chicken rice. The story ends with both families are happy and they were finally reconciled with each other; thanks to Mr.Hugo.

  The summary of this movie is about the Culture of Singaporean. The movie impressed me the most was Fenson who was a shutter but he speaks out his opinion to the elder. He speaks out the younger generation’s mind. Sometimes adult thinks that they give focus to their kids but actually they are only focusing on their kids, who are the best among others; who can win other, which was the wrong. Singaporean is afraid to lose that why their ruin their children’s dream. Kids needed their parent’s support to achieve their dreams but adult was the one who started the competing with others; to compare who was the best and who was the loser. Parents should have change their mind set now and also self-criticism. 

3.     Kamaal Dhamaal Malamaal (2012,India)

  This movie is directed by Priyadarshan. The film has been produced by Percept Picture Company. The story is adapted from Malayalam film Marykkundoru Kunjaadu written by Benny P. Nayarambalam. This is a comedy Hindi film but failed to tackle audience and also failed to become an entertainer.

  This is a simple story that a young guy, Johnny, who doesn’t like to work, afraid of everything and also anything, who always buy and also think that he could be a billionaire with winning the lottery. He could label as the useless guy among the villages and every one call him “Sheep”. Johnny was falls in love with Maria, who was the daughter of the biggest gangster in their village. She has 3 elder brothers who kept on eyes of her. One day, her brother finds out she wasn’t at college and she was with Johnny the whole day. Her brother has beaten up Johnny and warned him not to get closer even not to meet up with Maria. Days had passed, there was a stranger who comes into his house compound and falls into the well. The stranger had become his elder brother, Sam because Sam can protect him from Maria’s brothers. Johnny had lied to his families as they were in long waiting for his lost son. With the arrival of Sam, good days come to the family. Sam works hard and in the farm and helps family earn good livelihood. He is well accepted in the family. One day, someone tells Johnny that he actually seen Sam before at the Kolkatta jail, convicted of rape and murder of a woman. Johnny had convinced to his family about stranger is not Sam but a rapist and murderer. Johnny’s parents don’t believe what Johnny says and he asks Sam to tell one thing which he has not told Sam as family history. Sam asks for a mango tree which was there. This convinces Johnny’s parents, Sam is real. Johnny had kicked out from his family and he tries to kill Sam but fail. On the eve of the Christmas, Sam sets Johnny’s home into fire. Everyone thinks that Johnny has done the same and blames him. Johnny was disappointed himself on what he has done earlier to his family, he decides to suicide with writing the last letter to his family. Meanwhile, he sees Sam and another man enter into burnt hut. Johnny follows them and finds out they dug in the home. They take out the stolen golden cross; Sam tells Johnny that he had stolen the cross and hidden under the mango tree and ran away. To have his golden cross back, he has to set fire to the house. At that time, the man has betrayed Sam. He runs away with the cross. Sam beats the man to death after the man confess to him that he was the one who had raped and murdered the lady and told police that Sam had done it so. Johnny has injured because he tries to return the golden cross to the church, so that he could marry Maria. Sam falls into the well again, Johnny feeling grateful to Sam’s earlier help, he rescues him. Johnny convinces Sam not to steal the cross again and also remind him the love received from his family. Sam continues his walk but he leaves the cross on the ground. The story end with Johnny gets married to Maria because he has achieved the request from Maria’s father to get at least a small golden cross. During that time is hard to get a plastic or a wooden cross for villages; Sam has proved his innocence with putting the dead body of the man as thief. Village accepts the truth and Sam is permanently member of the family.

  This movie had banned in India, because certain scenes made a “disrespectful portrayal” of the community; the scenes considered “Blasphemous” will be eliminated. For my opinion, this movie has a wonderful twist ending but yet had offended the Catholics. There are certain scenes that offended Catholics, for example: a priest with a bouquet of flowers with an 'I Love You' message and he was dancing with a rosary around his neck and wearing a garland of lottery tickets with a church in the background. This shows disrespectful to the religion itself. Next, this story does give about the loves of a family. For example, Sam willing to give up his wealth because Johnny had succeeded convinces Sam about the love his family has given to Sam (as I mentioned above).

  Director Priyadarshan fails to entertain audience and he says that he had made a huge mistake with filming this movie. Besides, this movie takes 2 hours plus to end the story, this made audience feel bored even for me feels like wasting that watching this movie. Furthermore, the talent was good in acting but yet the storyline and script wasn’t caught the audience’s heart. Some people saying that, director Priyadarshan need to be upgraded. 

4.     Friendship (2008,Thailand)

  This movie is a Thai Romantic-Drama Teen Film starring Mario Maurer and Apinya Sakuljaroensuk (Ploy) directed by Chatchai Naksuriya. The film is around 1972 setting and is about Singha and Mituna's endless love for each other. The film starts with the present and goes back to the past of their high school days.

   Singha receives a call from a high school friend who is organizing a high school reunion for their class. This reminds Singha of his first and only loves Mituna, whom he met during his last year of high school. Singha helped a mute woman during his way to school and gave her his marigold. There are two new classmate transfers to his class, Mituna and Lam. Lam become friend with Singha and his gang because he almost get kill by a gangster. In another hand, Singha wants to get attention from Mituna; he has make jokes on her during the dancing class. Until, Mituna fight back in the bus because they made fun of her for helping the mute woman. Singha realizes he has gone too far and then he tries to get forgiveness from Mituna. He even stalks hers living place. Day by day, their relationship gets closer and closer. They were falling in love with each other. Final exams are around the corner, Singha and his gang are hanging out together to have some alcoholic drinks since it was their last year of high school. When they are heading to the lake side, Lam forgets to take the drinks along their way, so he heading back to the shop alone. After a while, he brings along the drink and on his way to meeting his friend but he get killed by Kong, the gangster. Singha and his friend were too late, he bled to death. This affected Singha’s exam and Mituna has console him, Lam doesn’t want to see him failed in his final exam. During the last day of the exam, Singha has given Mituna the friendship book; she left a note to Singha that they would talk on the result day. On the day itself, Singha has broken the promise, he gets drunk and fall asleep. When he wake ups and look for Mituna, the school and the house; she wasn’t there anymore. He ends up waiting that the park. He was caught by the cops but was recognized as son of a sergeant. Back to present, Mituna doesn’t show up during the reunion party. Singha finally meet up with Mituna but she has been sick with AIDS and they talked to each other the whole night. Her mom has been told to pass the friendship book to Singha after her daughter has passed away. The book has written down everything that Mituna wanted to tells Singha. The mute woman he helped during his way to school actually was her mom. She loves marigold flower because he does too. Mituna keep her promise to meet during the result day but she ended up searching for him in his house but no one was there. She even went to the park where their favorite place was. She afraid they will never say goodbye to each other, which was why she tried to go back to school. On her way back, she came across three men, the same three men who the cops were after in the middle of the rain. Even Mituna died but their love for each other will never end.

  The story ended up with a sad ending. This movie do tells about how wonderful their relationship is and also how great friendship is. Lam had risk his life to save Singha from Kong and ended up killed by Kong. There were also a few scenes that show friendship between Singha’s gang and Mituna’s gang. They were helping Mituna’s mom renovate the house; enjoying the moment with others; helped educate the kids by giving them handouts and others. Besides, there are several scenes that show social values, there are also displayed ‘delinquency’ teens. This is normal and is often encountered in school life. For example: having fight at school because of a small incident happen, boy who loves to watch pornographic and also loves to tease the girls, having drug addictions and so on. This movie reminded me how good friendships are. 

5.     Lovely Man (2012,Indonesia)

  Is an Indonesia film, written and directed by Teddy Soeriaatmadja. The film had its world premiere at the 2011 Busan International Film Festival to positive reviews on the segment "A Window on Asian Cinema". This film shows how a young veiled woman trying to accept the circumstances of his father who is transgender.

  The story is about a simple Muslim girl, Cahaya (19 years old) who is seeking for his dad in Jakarta. Since Cahaya left her dad, Syaiful at the age of 4, she is raised by her mom with a very strong value of Islam. This is her first trip to the big city with only carry a picture of herself where was she stolen from her mom. She found him in Taman Lawang but ended up with disappointment because her dad was transgender prostitution. All the her ideal father figure she had in her mind was destroyed. At first Ipuy (Syaiful) doesn’t want to accompany Cahaya although he didn’t want to reject the presence of his daughter. Ended up he decided accompany Cahaya until the next day morning. The rest of the night they spent with each other, they talked about the past day and also the present they were having now. Sadness, joy and hope then unite in an uncertain future. In the end, Ipuy is in trouble with some local gangsters; he sends his daughter away with a promise never to contact him again, it’s clear how the story truly ends.

   The idea of ​​the film Lovely Man is from the observation of Teddy to his surroundings. One day Teddy saw an unusual sight, a transgender who was talking to a veiled woman in a roadside. Starting from the situation then develops a story about a sissy and veiled women who engage in a conversation about the past, present and future. This story may tell about the same situation is actually happening around us, just that it is not in your family. We may not have the same situation like Ipuy and Cahaya but we do feel every moment of their minds. Teddy was one of the best directors. Although this movie has a limited budget, he was still able to bring a beautiful impression. Lovely Man is a film which sometimes bitter sweet drama. In another hand, this movie does give a unique story as it displays the loving relationship between the father and the daughter. Teddy is trying to tell about the relationship between them were actually full of profound message inside. Lovely man managed to convey a positive message without focusing on the transgender character, dialogues are easy to understand. Not surprisingly, this movie won several awards at international competitions among other.