Nope, Not The Fairest
by Jansen MusicoMirror Mirror (2012)
D: Tarsem Singh
S: Lilly Collins, Julia Roberts, Armie Hammer, Mark Povinelli, Nathan LaneWhatever happened to Julia Roberts? Growing up in the 90s with a rabid fan of hers as a mother, I was programmed with a fondness for all the fictional characters she played. She made me wail as Shelby in Steel Magnolias, howl with the lost boys as Tinkerbelle in Hook, and wail some more as Isabel in Stepmom. Ms. Roberts is a star, but given all her horrid films of late, it seems as though her glimmer is fading.
In Mirror Mirror—the first of two Snow White flicks this year—she plays the evil queen, a sorceress who introduces herself as the true heroine of the story. She gives her own take on the Brothers Grimm fairy tale via a superb animated sequence by Ben Hibon (the same dude who produced the Deathly Hallows segment in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows, Part 1.) Here she introduces Snow (Lily Collins), the pasty princess with blood red lips and thick black brows. She depicts Snow as the bane of her existence, the spoiled stepdaughter with entitlement issues. It’s an interesting thesis that the writers could have developed into an inspired piece of cinema. Mirror Mirror could have been to Snow White what Wicked was to The Wizard of Oz. Alas, the filmmakers settled for the standard.
The filmmakers take liberties with the original fairy tale, making it humorous but still narrowly close to its source material. The characters become hyperboles of themselves. The queen soaks in her vanity, the prince (Armie Hammer) puts on his charms, and the seven dwarves (specifically Mark Povinelli as the lovestruck Half Pint) play up whatever quirk it is they’re given. The only exception is Snow, who, instead of being a naive and helpless damsel, is a spirited fighter. Collins is gorgeous, and it’s hard not to find her endearing. Her Snow White’s innocence and finesse balance out the zany ensemble.
As a hodgepodge comedy, Mirror Mirror works. The film’s overall humor is mostly tame, giving it a Disney-like feel. Its narrative is splotched with several tried-and-tested gags and puns, which the cast mostly delivers on point. On the other hand, since the film is based on a well-known fairy tale and since it makes use of common comedic tropes, Mirror Mirror becomes predictable, save for a few priceless surprises and a gratuitous yet fun Bollywood number.
Roberts’s fans, myself included, might walk out the theater a wee bit disappointed. A film like Mirror Mirror would not restore the luster she once had, but at least for an hour or so, it seemed that she was enjoying channeling the queen of madness, Helena Bonham Carter.
My mother posted this a few months ago. I wanted to share this, not just because she is my mom, but because she has lived in over 7 countries and has had to raise three children while doing it.
If there is anything that sums up my deepest philosophy as a photographer and as a traveler this is…
..I don’t use an exposure meter. My personal advice is: Spend the money you would put into such an instrument for film. Buy yards of film, miles of it. Buy all the film you can get your hands on. And then experiment with it.
That is the only way to be successful in photography. Test, try, experiment, feel your way along. It is the experience, not technique, which counts in camera work first of all. If you get the feel of photography, you can take fifteen pictures while one of your opponents is trying out his exposure meter.
The Devil as a Forlorn Woman
by Don JaucianMapang-akit (2011)
D: John TorresJohn Torres’s Mapang-akit isn’t necessarily an invasion of perceptions as much as Jonathan Safran Foer’s Tree of Codes erases the magnificence of Bruno Schulz’s prose. Mapang-akit and Tree of Codes are formed by what may seem as erasure to some, with Foer dismantling Schulz’s book and Torres imposing his own kaleidioscopic visions on a residual footage for a supposed collaboration with a Danish filmmaker. But really, what Foer and Torres do is a creation of a Frankenstein monster of sorts, using old parts to tell their tales that are both menacingly resilient despite the protests and qualms. Both Mapang-akit and Tree of Codes retain the original charms of their birthplaces, with Mapang-akit operating as a portrait of a small village ambling along the most ordinary of circumstances.
Mapang-akit appears to be in shambles, with the camera hiding from what seems to be a screen, separating the spectators from the film’s subjects: a community in Antique where they speak in fear of a woman, or as Torres would like us to believe. Prior to the start of the film in one screening, Torres warned audiences, that, just like in his third full-length Ang Ninanais, if they could understand the language spoken by the people in the film, they should disregard it and follow the subtitles instead. Torres has created his own myth using only the setting, mannerisms, and curiosities of his subjects, something that has alarmed audiences. Torres uses a rather deadly weapon which endangers the cultural significance of his subjects. Instead of dipping his feet into the lives of his subjects (collaborator Che Villanueva later shot additional footage, being more familiar with the place), Torres follows the people in this village, letting them talk, observing them in their most intimate conversations and daily ritual while allowing us to see them in a tweaked perspective.
The film builds a rather chilling narrative of Anita, a suspected aswang who beguiles the men of the village with her beauty and later leads them to their death. Like the uncertainty of hearsay, Torres leads us into the precipice of the village, uncovering stories after stories as more of the village folk share their own tales of how Anita has wrecked their lives: missing sons and husbands, mysterious returns and illnesses, and the unexplainable dread that Anita has spread all over the village. In one of the film’s final scenes, the camera follows Anita walking along the thick foliage of the village, maybe looking for another man to lure with her beauty. We hear strange noises, her footfalls sounding like the clawing of a creature hellbent on feeding. Torres’s Anita is an old woman, whose face has lines as gnarled as the trees that surround her, but we fear her, with the shrouded atmosphere of dread that the villagers, who seem to both repel and revere her, have created.
Despite the lack of Torres’s signature poetry and voice-over, Mapang-akit bears his stamp as a filmmaker. He conjures a supernatural tale that looks as ordinary and idyllic as a pastoral landscape yet it teems with the most frightening aspects of rural life that has fueled the imaginations of many. Like the storytellers of old, Torres tricks us into believing that the ordinariness of our environment cloaks a more mystifying truth, twisting hushed exchanges into grim tales of engkantos and seducing nymphs. It is a device that is both personal and universal, forming a tapestry of perspectives tinkling like a music box that heralds the start of a tale that will keep us up at night, long after the last word has been uttered.
Blur - The Universal
Zambales, Philippines
Vivitar UWS
Kodak Ektachrome 200
