The Conjuring 2

'The Conjuring 2' released within a couple of days, my friends and I went to the cinema to watch this movie. This is the very first time I watched a horror movie in the cinema. Usually, I will hide under my blanket and 'enjoy' the horror movie in my room because I knew that the sound system and visual effect in the cinema are going to enhance the horror elements in the movie greatly.

During watching the movie, I actually screamed in the cinema. But luckily my friend's screaming was louder than mine. Undeniably, this is a great movie and I enjoyed it a lot although it was very scary!

'The conjuring 2' is a supernatural horror film which directed by one of my favorite directors, James Wan.
The story is about a poor single family with four children, the Hodgson family suffering from a series of paranormal events in their haunted house. Ed and Lorraine Warren, husband and wife and also paranormal investigators approach to the family and try to solve the paranormal problems.

I like the mise-en-scene in this movie.
The setting of the film is in London with a time frame around 70's. I love the old street in London during the winter season. Through the movie, I saw a lot of vintage props, for examples the spin dial phone, black and white television and the remote control with the big buttons. From the setting, we can confirm the Hodgson Family is a poor family because their house is old and shabby. The furniture in the house is worn and there is a scene which the single mother Peggy, goes to the basement with her friend to do the laundry. Unfortunately, the washing machine has broken down. This makes me sad because they actually living in a very bad condition.
We can see a huge contrast between Warren couple's house condition if compared to Hodgson's.
Warren's house have complete and outstanding furniture plus the house is decorated with a lot of flora which able to make the house's environment become more friendly and warm.

Costume and make-up often able to enhance the appearance of the actors. To show the destitute of the Hodgson Family, the characters often wear the clothes with not much of design and all of them are in dull color. Unlike Warren couple, Ed is often wearing a hoodie with fashion design which is still popular in our decade while Lorraine often wearing Western women suit with elegant design. Make-up works very well on Janet, the second oldest child in Hodgson family. Janet always possessed by the old man spirit, Bill Wilkins. Wilkins is the previous owner of the house, he often possesses Janet's body to communicate with others. In the beginning, Janet is a beautiful and energetic young girl however she becomes weaker and exhausted after haunted by the ghost spirit. The make-up makes Janet's face pale and dark circles lies under her eyes to show Janet is extremely tired and depress.

Lighting plays an important role in a film. Low-key illumination usually applied in the horror films as it able to create stronger contrast and darker shadows. Low-key illumination makes the horror scenes become full of mystery and danger. For example, Billy, the youngest child in Hodgson family go downstair during the midnight to have a drink. The darkness in the house makes the audience feel nervous and curious whether Billy will get harm or return to his room safely. When Billy on his way returns to his room, he accidentally steps on his toy fire trucks. After that, he kicks the fire trucks into an Indian tent then return to his room and prepare for sleep. The tent suppose have nobody inside of it but the fire trucks actually moves by itself and enters into Billy's room. The darkness in the tent makes the audience unable to look into it and it creates mystery and horror element in that scene as we are curious what is in the tent.

In my opinion, a success film which able to make audiences enjoy and get into it, the enhancement of the films by sound effect cannot be ignored. To increase the horrific of the evil figures in 'The Conjuring 2' such as Crooked man, Bill Wilkins and Valak (the nun), their voice and screaming are creepy and stunning. Especially when Wilkins talks through Janet's body, the pitch of the voice is low and it makes the environment become more creepy and makes people shocking since Janet is just a little girl but with an old man voice. Valak, the nun does not have a dialog but her anger able to express via her roar especially the scene in Act three, Lorraine try to rescue Ed and Janet but Valak tries to stop her. I think that the scariest scene is Ed and Peggy go down to the basement and try to fix the washing machine. Ed found out that the washing machine has no problem but the pipe has blocked. Ed tries to fix the pipe which located in the middle of the flooded basement. At the moment Ed is fixing the pipe, Peggy sees some blurred spirit figure behind Ed. The background music enhances the nervous phenomena, and the jump scare works very well when the sound effect combine with the Wilkins who hides in the water and pulls Peggy into water. Sometimes, I'm confusing I was scared by the paranormal in the film or just the sound effects. I believed that a horror film is just a nothing if without the sound effect or background music.

Zombieland

The movie shown in previous lecture class was Zombieland which directed by Ruben Fleischer and released in 2009.

The story is about the mad cow disease deteriorate into 'zombie disease' which makes everyone turning into zombies. Columbus, a survivor from the disease is trying to make his way to Columbus, Ohio from Austin, Texas to find his parents. In his adventure trip, he meets Tallahassee, a guy who expert in killing zombies and has a strong desire to get a Twinkies at the same time. Two of them meet a pair of a sister, Wichita and Little Rock. Four of them begin their road trip across Southwestern united state to find a free-zombies land.

Genre

The topic we discussed in the class on last week lesson.

In general knowledge, the genre can be defined as 'types' or 'categorize' of films. But, how to define and categorize a genre?  Mr. Joe has shared his knowledge about interpreting a genre by syntax which is through semantic and syntactic, approached by Rick Altman.

Semantics: list of common traits and attitudes, bringing us to very much the visual aspect. 

*Which means that mise-en-scene: lighting, costume and makeup, actor's performance and movements, setting and props become a building block of the genre.

Syntactic: a constitutive relationship.

*Able to define a genre through a structure with deeper meaning. For example conversation between actors, types of character, ideologies, etc.

Genre can be analysis and better understanding through combining these two components.

Now, let us discuss the genres of Zombieland.

Zombieland is categorized in horror comedy film.

Horror film usually aims to lead the negative emotional reaction among the audiences such as fear, shock, disgust by creating a threatening, a thing which can terrify us.
There are several sub-genre under Horror genre but Zombieland is categorized in 'unnatural' horror type. Most of the storyline in unnatural horror is begin with an external force (vampire/zombie's bite) to change a normal body into bodily mutilations or mutations. Sometimes, it might be caused by a virus or disease.
A very strong evidence to prove Zombieland is an unnatural horror film is everyone has become zombies because of the mad cow disease turned into mad zombies disease except the survivors.
Besides, the setting and props and zombie's makeup make me actually felt disgusted especially the opening of the film is introduced by the zombies are eating the human flesh while the person is still alive. The blood and the tearing of human flesh scenes make me extremely uncomfortable and this is the aim of being a horror movie.

Comedy is a genre which totally opposite with horror. The aim of a comedy film is to make the audience laugh through a sense of humor, entertainment and fun.
In Zombieland, we able to find several comedy sub-genres in it such as dark comedy, slapstick, and parody.

Dark comedy is a sense of humor which makes us forget the darker and serious matter such as war, illness, and death. The scene where Bill Murray try to act a zombie and try to scare Columbus, but Columbus shots and kills him. At the moment he takes his last two breaths before he dies, Wichita actually laughs because Bill Murray is a classic comedian actor in her heart. I think most of the audience will treat this death as a hilarious rather than a sad case.

Slapstick is a style of humor with a varies of hyperbole physical actions which overreacting than a normal physical action to make people laugh. In the beginning of Zombieland, the screen appears the Columbus rules while Columbus sharing his experience to survive from the zombies. To let the audiences learn some rules such as 'double tap' or 'cardio' from a horror film actually able to add some humor elements in it. I remember a slapstick scene where Columbus meets with Tallahassee in the first time, Tallahassee treats Columbus have a drink but Columbus spills it out from the car window during Tallahassee drinks his liquor. After that, Columbus pretends he actually drank it.

Parody means that make fun and change the style of the original work into a more funny way. The parody of ghostbusters appears in Zombieland: Wichita, Tallahassee, and Bill Murray get high after inhaled the Shisha. Wichita tells Tallahassee and Bill Murray there has a monster on the ceiling lamp, then the two guys take a vacuum machine and act it as the weapon which able to catch the ghost.


Although the main genre in this film is a horror comedy, but this film has included other genres such as Romance, Sci-fi, Action, and Road film.

The romance genre is all about love stories. Columbus always want to impress and woo Wichita but the love story between Columbus and Wichita begin to fall in love with each other is when they are dancing and try to kiss each other but failed through the interruption from Tallahassee. However, they are finally kissing and Wichita reveals her true name after Columbus changed his nerdy and timid into a hero to save Wichita and Little Rock from his greatest fear, clown zombie.

Sci-fi, Science-Fiction-Film often dealing with scientific facts, futuristic science, and technologies and visually through imaginative or after effects. The background in the film is about the extinction of human but full of zombies. The setting of the film is an advance city but only left a shell with no human but damages everywhere. It seems like the entire world only left four main characters as the survivors from the mad cow disease.

The action genre often requires an action hero and this character must belong to Tallahassee. He is a one man army who can kill hundred of zombies. His appearance brings along the masculinities, which is a cowboy image, strong built body, and expert in killing zombies. Columbus can be considered as an accidental hero as he has no courage and body skill to deal with the zombies, he is a nerd but he uses his intelligent to survive from zombies, unlike Tallahassee takes the actions without thinking. Wichita is a heroin with the combination of Tallahassee and Columbus. She is smart, quick, brave as she tries to protect little rock and herself from chasing by zombies with the expert in a shotgun. A huge chase scene happens in the film when a crowd of zombies attracted by the sound from Pacific Playland after Wichita and Little Rock activated the rides and enjoy the theme park. Luckily, Columbus and Tallahassee come to rescue them. Tallahassee attracts all the zombies to chase after him to let Columbus near to the drop tower ride to save Wichita and Little Rock. Tallahassee locks himself in a game booth and shooting down all the zombies. Columbus overcomes his phobia, clown zombies to save Wichita and Little Rock. He even changes one of his rule 'Don't be a hero' to 'Be a hero', then he smashes the clown zombie's head with the game hammer. The chase scene, battles, rescues are the important elements to categorize a film into an action film.

Last but not least, a car has become an important vehicle for the characters to reach their destinations. Road film genre requires a journey and the characters will travel from one place to another. The characters will start to have a bond with each other along the road trip. I felt warm when four of them agree to go to Pacific Playland in Los Angeles, California and take turns to drive the car. They start to have a conversation like the old friends without suspicious with each others. 

Requiem for A Dream

A psychological drama film with four main characters, four different styles of drug addictions, four failures lives which able leads the audiences to know better the darkness of Drugs. This film is so realistic since it is all about the dark side of humanity on drugs, fame, money, and sex.

I actually felt tired after watching this film in class since I so got into in it. The pace of this film was so fast to make me unable to take a break. Of course, the sound effects also played a very important role to serve the excitement in the storyline so well.



What is editing?
'Editing is the basic creative force, by power of which the soulless photographs (the separate shots) are engineered into living, cinematographic form.' - V.I. Pudovkin, director

Yes, in my opinion, editing is a powerful tool to filter the flaws, joins all of the best shots together, enhances the film with various of vision and audio effects.
I believed that most of the audiences are impressed by the editing skills in 'Requiem for A Dream' on how the director delivered his ideas and messages for us.

The use of split screen technique is interesting and new for me because I seldom watch a film with this technique with frequent appearances. I like the way director split the screen in the beginning of the film to show the quarrel between mother and son, Harry and Sara. It able to present Harry's anger and Sara's fear in a frame. Another unforgettable scene with split screen is Harry has a pillow conversation with his girlfriend, Marion. Their bodies part are shown at the same time with extreme close up until not exactly able to see who they are but able to confirm via the voices and Marion's blue nail color.
Why director split the love scene since they were lying in the same bed? When I saw this scene, I'm was thinking: this lovely couple must not having a happy ending. I think that this was director's intent: to make the audiences have a feeling which they are 'so close yet so far'. Their love was so real but still has a gap which leads to collapse easily.

One of the marvelous editing technique we have discussed in the class was the fast cut and arrangement of the random shots which a.k.a montage. I discovered montage techniques have been used on two different actions: the act of drugs consumption and the characters cut and sell the drugs on the streets. The montage might just appear on the screen for only a few seconds, but it able to present the whole process of drugs consumption with step by step: pour out the drugs, burn it, boil the water, prepare the injection, roll the paper money to suck the drugs and finally found the pleasure after consumption the drugs. The sound effects on every single step were emphasized to enhance the actions.
I think this technique is so powerful to avoid audiences to get bored but able to repeat it again and again to show the characters taking the drugs all the time.

I found interesting elements in cinematography has been used in the film which was the director used fish-eye lens in several scenes. In my opinion, fish-eye lens able to enlarge the facial expression of the actors in a medium shot. This mise-en-shot has been used on focus on Sara expressions and emotions. The desire of fame shown on Sara's face as she is imagining she is on a TV show but the illusion makes her face turned into frightening in the next seconds as she thought her refrigerator come alive. The second time to apply this technique was when Sara visits her doctor. Sara is trying to explain her problem to the doctor but he seems like do not care about it. The fish-eye lens makes Sara looks like very confuse and her world already became distortion but the world apart from her face seems like normal as usual.

The mise-en-scene means 'putting into the scene' / 'staging the scene' which includes the aspects of the film such as lighting, setting, and props, costume and makeup, actor's performance and movement. In my view, the actor with most stunning performance is Ellen Burstyn as Sara Goldfarb. She actually makes me heartbreaking when she tells her upset and loneliness to her son with a smile, a smile which full of sadness. Her emotional stages appeared in this film have a huge contrast as she is looking forward to be on TV but dealing with the 'fridge monster' at the same time. In the end, she drives crazy and accepts the therapy from the hospital which is very reasonable and convincing. On top of that, makeup plays an important role to enhance the appearance of the actors. The makeup on Harry's infection arm makes me impressive. Especially when Harry tries to inject the drugs on the wound on his arm, this actually makes me got goosebumps.

I strongly believe that many of us can't get rid of this film after watching it. Thanks to Mr. Joe makes us awake as he said that all of the movies are FAKE even it was based on true story. Yup, the story can be true but not the movie itself. I agree that. I learned a new thing from him which is called 'Hollywood realism'. For a simple example: we watch a guy in the movie was killed but in real he is not dead. The Hollywood realism makes us believed that the guy actually been killed.

Spirited Away 千與千尋

I remember I watched this movie before when I was a kid. I never thought that I got a chance to rewatch it during the Film Studies tutorial class. Thanks to Mr. Joe for choosing such amazing film as our first weekly journal.

However, second time watching this movie was totally different from the first time which makes me think a lot after enjoyed the movie. When I was a kid, I'm just simply enjoyed the graphics, music but not thinking about the hidden messages.

I've learned two important values from this movie: Manners and Kindness

In the beginning, Chihiro's parents eat the foods on the street without asking any permission. As a punishment, her parents actually turn into pigs.
To avoid the punishment, Chihiro needs to request a job in this magical world. She meets Kamaji and Lin after she follows the instruction from her rescuer, Haku. Luckily, Kamaji and Lin choose to help her. Before Lin allows Chihiro to follow her, she asks Chihiro to say "please" and "thank you".

For me, Lin just like an elder sister who teaching Chihiro to become a polite girl.
Chihiro actually goes to Yubaba's room to request a job from her. Chihiro gets scolded by the magic doorknob because of she directly opens the door but not to knock it first.

From these points, I think that being a polite person is very important especially when we step into a new environment/society. Even a smile or a nod of the head to a stranger is able to give a good impression for the others. Good manners may not guarantee makes everyone likes you but it can avoid everyone dislikes you.

Besides, Chihiro's kindness makes me like her more. She got a magical medicine from the River God after she 'cleaning' him. At first, she wants to use the medicine to cure her parents to become a normal person. However, she chooses to save her friend, Haku from his death by feeding him a part of medicine. Another part of medicine is given to No-Face after he drives crazy until swallow everything. After Chihiro fed him the medicine, No-Face vomits everything out and become normal again. The medicine means a lot for Chihiro since she wants to rescue her parents but she decided to give it to someone who need it more. Chihiro is not a selfish girl but generous.

Before the class ended, my classmates voiced out a lot of opinions. The pollution problem, greedy, policy...
I'm felt quite surprise this movie is not just an animation movie but it actually reflects a lot of society's issues.

In my opinion, the most important hidden message is no matter where we are, we must not forget who we are.

Yubaba wants Chihiro to sign a contract after she offers a job for Chihiro. Then, Yubaba change Chihiro's name into Sen. Luckily Sen remember her true name when she found her farewell card with her name on it. Otherwise, Chihiro will forget her name forever.
Haku stated that Yubaba controls people in this magical world by taking their names. If Chihiro forgets her name, she will never go back from this magical place.

Just like our reality society, most of the people will forget who they are after step into this materialistic society. The workers in the bathhouse reflect the people in the society. All we know is blindly chasing the wealth and power by working non-stop and repeat it day and night.
A cruel reality is: everyone lose their pride when they face the money.
In the movie, everybody loves to dedicate all they have for the No-Face after they discovered No-Face able to provide a lot of gold for them.

I think that this hidden message very suitable for the newbie freshly graduates in this society. We must remember our dream and fulfill it while we are young. We must not sell our pride and happy in front of the materialistic desire.