3/3/05
3/2/05
Critic After Dark: A Review of Philipppine Cinema
The book is a compilation of my articles, from 1994 to 2004, mainly of Filipino films, with a few pieces on foreign films (the better pieces, I like to think) thrown in, including my articles on The Passion of the Christ.
From the introduction in Big O Magazine:
Segurista was one of the first Filipino films that became a hit in Singapore in recent years prompting further imports of Asian independent films. Filipino film critic Noel Vera in his new book, Critic After Dark: A Review Of Philippine Cinema, tells you why Segurista is not just a dirty sex film. The book will be published in April and available at this year's 18th Singapore International Film Festival.
It will be possible to order the book online, from Big O; I'll post details as they come.
The Taj Mahal (New Delhi, cont'd)
The third day four of us hired a van to drive us two hundred kilometers to Agra. It took four miserable hours going out--it was hot and dusty and I swear the driver kept nodding off to nap every few minutes--then we arrived.
And we saw it. The Taj Mahal. Built four hundred years ago by the Mughal dynasty's most architecturally ambitious emperor Shah Jahan for Mumtaz Mahal, his favorite wife. Mumtaz died in childbirth after giving Shah Jahan fourteen children; he started work on the mausoleum that same year and it took him twenty-two years to finish--Austin of Bordeaux and Veroneo of Venice had helped in its decoration, and the main architect was Isa Kahn, of Iran. Marble from nearby quarries, coral from the coast, onyx from Belgium; Mumtaz's tomb is decorated with forty-three different gemstones, and the marble screen surrounding her tomb is filled with exquisite carvings. Each of the four gigantic entrances have words from the Quoran written on them, a breathtaking sight: flowing Arabic script, each word roughly a foot square in size and difficult enough to write well with ink on paper, cut from black onyx and inlaid in white marble!
It's a massive edifice, but the overall effect isn't of heaviness at all; the perfect symmetry, the pale, almost translucent marble (you can see into it to the depth of a few inches, I think), the soaring height, the way the lines break up the sun's rays into different shapes of light and shadow give it an unbelievable sense of grace and otherworldly mystery. It doesn't seem rightly of this earth; when I looked at itthat morning I couldn't believe I was there, or that it really existed, or that this all wasn't a dream. Looking back, I'm even less sure than I was then.
Story has it that Shah Jahan had planned a twin mausoleum across the river, made of black instead of white marble, but his son Aurangzeb revolted and put him in a fort upstream, where he spent the rest of his life gazing at his wife's tomb. When he died, his son refused to spend the additional money to build his mausoleum and had his tomb placed beside his wife, the only element that mars the building's perfect symmetry.
Bullshit. Incarcerated with the Shah Jahan had been his entire harem, and I wouldn't be surprised if he spent as much time frolicking with his newest mistresses as he did gazing at his wife's monument. And the Taj Mahal is surrounded by numerous smaller mausoleums, for his lesser wives (to the left of the Taj Mahal is a mosque, however). Knowing things like this can put a real dent in a monument's romantic history...
Only it doesn't. When you're actually there, in its presence, you don't care if Shah Jahan had screwed his harem three different ways every week for the rest of his life--the sheer beauty of the structure, the passion and energy poured into it by its craftsmen and architects and workers is overwhelming. Despite its builder's sordid history, it IS the most extravagant monument ever created in the name of love.
3/1/05
New Delhi (cont'd)
Also visited the Qutab Minar, literally Tall Tower, the tallest in India, about 280 plus feet high--not impressive, I suppose, except it had been built some eight hundred years ago, out of fitted stone. Up close, it's impossibly high and unbelievably beautiful, adorned with carved inscriptions from the Quoran. Beside the tower is Quwwat-ul-Islam Masjid, the Might of Islam Mosque, the first mosque ever established in India--it had been built by Muslim conquerors from Hindi temples, and you can see the difference in Hindi and Muslim architecture--the Hindi built in a series of interlocking stones, which is actually safer during an earthquake, while the Muslims knew the secret of the arch, complete with keystone.
I had followed advice and not hired a guide at the Red Fort, which made it cheaper (entry into the Fort was almost eight dollars), but there was one disadvantage--every picture I took didn't have me in it; I couldn't trust anyone with my camera. So at the Qutab Minar, I hired a guide for four dollars (looked at his badge to make sure he was official) and he took my pictures for me (still a risk, but a better one, I think. Well, I still have my camera...).
Actually, the guide was a good buy--he had this dotty theory that the Qutab Minar had actually been built by Hindus, not Muslims, who he said were better engineers; the Muslims took the tower and merely dressed it in red sandstone, geometric designs, and holy inscriptions. I didn't point out to him that the tower was supposed to have been built in stages by several Muslim rulers, though he did make the compelling case that the Minar wasn't a minaret--meant to call the faithful to prayer--but an astronomical device. As proof he pointed out the twenty-four sides (hours of the day) the position (outside of the mosque, not connected to it), and the entrance (which faced north, not east towards Mecca).
STILL no end to the Passion!
It's a year later and they still don't get it! Latest reply to what I write about Gibson's snuff flick (and from a pastor yet!), and my response:
Hogwash!!! I am so TIRED of these scholars and theologians pushing THEIR ideas.
As a pastor myself.... I seek anyway that God reaches out to the kids of our time. I believe God used Mel Gibson's gifts to do just that.
If we would just stop looking for what we hope to put others down with; if we could just stop trying to say I'm sorry for things we have not done but wish to burden our children with the repentance of; if we would just start doing what we tell our congregations to do: Trust God!!!
I took my youth group to see this film. They did NOT see antisemetism. What they saw was what they know to be true: How easily a mob is stirred up.
What was the major response??? "I will never miss church services again! I never realized until I saw this visual presentation of what might have occurred, just how much Christ suffered and just how much God gave up for me."
I rest my case.
-Massachusetts -home of the Pharasees
Comment from pastorsandir - 3/1/05 6:52
Well, bully for you that your kids responded so positively and shame on you for taking kids to this piece of garbage...one of the most painful experience I ever had was listening to the cries of terror and confusion of kids over the extreme violence in this picture. This is child abuse of the worse kind.
Because none of you saw any anti-Semitism in this picture doesn't mean there isn't any; I rest my case with what I have read and written--all available for you to address and attack if you wish (please see the links).
Otherwise, we'll have to agree to disagree with what we believe--you, that God used Gibson as an instrument to spread his word (of what, the message that Romans and Jews were bloodthirsty scumsuckers?), me, that Gibson was so crosseyed obsessed with sharing his pain with as many people as he can that he chose the writings of some 19th century anti-Semite (you read any of her writings? She asserts that Jews drink the blood of Christian babies. Check it out) and the German poet who supplemented much of her 'visions' with writing of his own.
From where I'm sitting, the 'mob' happens to be the crowd supporting this snuff flick, and they're pretty consistent about howling for blood--real Christian attitude, that is.
Comment from noelbotevera - 3/1/05 11:49 PM
My Oscar picks
From pinoyexchange:
MEM2: what was your oscar pick?
Well, if I had my druthers...the Best Picture Of Last Year (actually Of The Past Two Years, it's back in 2003) was Nathaniel Khan's documentary My Architect. Lav Diaz's 10 hour long Ebolusyon ng Isang Pamilyang Pilipino (Evolution of a Filipino Family). Mario O'Hara's Babae sa Breakwater (Woman of the Breakwater). Maybe The Aviator as the best Hollywood mainstream movie.
For fun, I'd throw in Hellboy, Looney Tunes: Back in Action, and uh Prisoner of Azkaban.
I need to see Tsai Ming Liang, Godard, Hou Hsiao Hsien and Kiarostami's latest.
And as for the Oscars not awarding overdue awards...wow, name your example: William Holden got an 'overdue Oscar' for Stalag 17 because he lost for Sunset Boulevard; Bogart got one for African Queen because he lost for Casablanca. I could go on and on.
And if you think it doesn't happen anymore, Paul Newman got one for Color of Money, his least interesting performance to date, while Pacino got his for yelling his head off at O'Connell in Scent of a Woman (Pacino, who did Godfather 1 and 2?).
The Oscars are a joke. I don't think Scorsese, or Filipino films really need them; an Oscar winning Filipino film would 1) have a big budget (around 15 million dollars--you do the math); have some easy-to-digest theme or moral (mentally or physically handicapped heroes would be nice; kids too), and have a feel-good ending, or a really feel-bad one.
Anything really interesting--like imagination, or a sensibility or complex point of view, or a storyline you can't reduce to three sentences, or concern for character or real acting--would only harm its prospects.
They should just go and make good films, is all.
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