Japanese jazz pianist Yōsuke Yamashita revisits his 1973 recital on a burning piano (famously made into a short by director Kiyoshi Awazu) with a repeat performance on a beach in Shika-machi, Japan.
Sampha’s cerebral Process has always had an aura of warmth, whether it’s a familial closeness through “(No One Knows Me) Like the Piano” or the more literal “Plastic 100°C.” His smooth voice lends itself to imageries of sunsets and beaches, families and reunions. So it’s not surprising to find Kahlil Joseph use these ideas in his video, also titled Process. Beautiful crane shots of seagulls over a beach are intercut with Sampha performing parts of the album. (Minor nitpick: using abbreviated portions of Sampha’s vocals feel counterproductive to the cohesive, immersive experience of Process.) Joseph uses “Like the Piano” as an anchor for the film, and by extension, Sampha’s appreciation for his late mother become the bedrock for this non-narrative. There are scenes of childhood, marriage, and love; they adhere less to Sampha’s life, and more to his emotions.
But Joseph also cuts into something deeper. His handle of color allows for striking, iconic shots--the ones that have won him trust with the likes of Flying Lotus and Beyonce. They’re confident in its display of black beauty, and in its harmony with nature. Just as he’s able to pinpoint the palate that suits Sampha’s voice, he weaves in these dark, cool, and structured scenes--something like Awaken, My Love’s color scheme. In an empty pool, people assemble and dance to strict routines. Another scene finds a lone, mysterious woman that’s consumed in blue, while surrounded by greenery. These too, are part of Process. The uncertainties and doubts, the energy that inspires questions of “What Shouldn’t I Be?”
The warm and the cool, they’re not conflicts, but rather compliments. It’s threaded together by the well-worn, but still effective, theme of nostalgic memories with family. To end where you began, that’s the process.
the first African-American person, of any gender, to win a gold medal at the Winter Olympics. Vonetta won the gold in the women’s bobsled event in 2002 at Salt Lake City.
#WinterOlympics #BestOfUS #BlackHistoryMonth #Day11
7 years ago MBDTF came out and I painted this, still in high school, still trying to figure out life. 7 years later I’ve graduated college, and still haven’t figured life out yet lol but I’m on my way. Its just nice to look back at things and remember how far you’ve come
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A dead body is always heavier than expected. This was the realization that kicked off Nepalese director Deepak Rauniyar’s breakout hit, White Sun (2016). After learning about the death of his father, Chandra (Dayahang Rai) must travel back to his old mountain village to bring his father’s body down to the river where he can be cremated.
This is not an easy family reunion. Waiting at the village is Durga (Asha Maya Magrati), Chandra’s ex-wife, and Suraj (Rabindra Singh Baniya), his estranged brother. Chandra’s Maoist beliefs put him at direct odds with his late father, Suraj, and the other village elders. It’s also the indirect source of Chandra and Durga’s separation; she cheated on him when Chandra was away during the civil war.
Many of White Sun’s thematic threads are visible in a tense sequence where Chandra and Suraj are tasked with carrying their father’s body down to the river. Tensions start on a high note when Suraj drapes a flag representing the former Nepalese monarchy over the body--a government Suraj and their father supported and fought for. Chandra finds this a rude provocation; Suraj insists it was their father’s dying wish.
A still long shot from the mountaintop outline the steep and windy path down the river, the brothers are tiny figures in the bottom-right of the frame, dwarfed by the scale of landscape. They struggle to sidestep rocks and traverse uneven terrain. Then the camera zooms in, the brothers’ bare feet grip into dirt paths as they wind around tight corners. Suraj snarls at Chandra to slow it down and steady the body.
It’s an accident waiting to happen. Rauniyar teases at it; whereas many of his scenes are shot with a patient scenic pan of the mountainside and bright sun rays, this descent is a close, urgent, and quick affair. Chandra slips a bit, and it looks like his father’s body is about to tip over. The two recover at the last second, but the tension is far from defused. They start to jeer at each other, much to the scorn of the elders. Chandra snaps, telling Suraj he recently learned about Suraj’s upcoming marriage to Durga, a personal betrayal that compounds upon the existing ideological divide. Their father’s death--what brought them back to the same village, is now the only physical separation between Chandra and Suraj. And even that collapses as they drop the body and start throwing punches. Suraj storms off. Chandra vows to go to another village to find better help. The village elders, too weak to carry the body, and the village kids resign to waiting on the mountainside for the brothers to come back. The body lies on the ground. It’s a pathetic sight, and the elders say as much.
The singular action of carrying a person down the mountain, encapsulates many of the themes that White Sun sets out to explore. It intertwines the three central conflicts plaguing Chandra: the conflict to preserve traditionalism, the tensions from his anti-regime stances, and his personal battles with Suraj and Durga.
There’s immediate frustration that this tradition of carrying the body down the mountain still exists. The same elders that insist this ritual must happen are all too old and weak to carry it out themselves: clear delineation that their way of living is dying before their eyes. Yet, they are still able to command a certain level of respect--it’s hard to break custom. The death of Chandra’s father might signal the end of a generation, but the body remains. It reflects the burden and uncertainty of the aftermath; White Sun was released a mere 10 years after the Nepalese Civil War. The rebellion of the Nepalese monarchy by the Communist Party, the Maoists, might have ended with the peace accord a decade ago, but its costs linger.
Regardless of how Chandra feels, he still goes along with the ritual. The antagonism from Chandra’s political stance and power is also palpable. The elders joke about how Chandra didn’t fly in via a helicopter, the transportation of choice for the political elite. As a Maoist, Chandra’s fight was against the existing monarchy, and by proxy, the traditional way of life. He’s supposed to fight for the people, and yet, in the eyes of many villagers in rural areas, he’s the enemy. Chandra is seen as an out-of-touch elite and an abandoner, even as he insisted his role in the party is a minor position, and his leaving was a difficult choice. In the end, Chandra still bites his tongue and proceeds with the process.
The breaking point comes with the last and most personal of conflicts, the one between Chandra and Suraj. This strained relationship holds shades of all the other disagreements, but the intimacy makes it sting the most.None of these disputes operate in isolation. This entire mountain sequence is resonant because it ties together these ideas.
In the last scene in the film, the adults are still bickering until they turn and find the body gone. By the river, the kids of the village have already carried the body down for the adults. They’ve taken things into their own hands. Without understanding (or perhaps specifically because of their lack of understanding), the kids have followed through with an action that the adults were unable to accomplish. Embedded customs and ideologies lead people into deadlocked situations, preventing collaborative work from happening. White Sun doesn’t purport to find a solution to the problem; many of the conflicts that surfaced are still left unresolved. Rather, it ends on a cautiously optimistic note: perhaps the future generation can do better.
White Sun (dir. Deepak Rauniyar). Originally published for subtitle.
Yasujiro Ozu is no stranger to tales of family strife. He’s spent much of his thirtysome-year career documenting marital strain and generational struggle. Yet, Tokyo Twilight feels different. It possesses a dark streak that festers and lingers in ways that Ozu’s other works, such as the Noriko trilogy--which includes the famously melancholic Tokyo Story, never did. His stories often tackled powerlessness in the face of societal norms and they often end in gloomy finalities, where redemption is only found in the character’s understanding of the human condition. But what if that point isn’t even reached?
Tokyo Twilight spends much of its time comparing the two daughters of Shukichi Sugiyama. There’s Takako Numata, the married, elder daughter--played by Ozu’s frequent collaborator Setsuko Hara, and there’s Akiko Sugiyama (Ineko Arima), the rebellious younger daughter. The relationship the two have with their father and how outsiders view them are deeply rooted in the choices and attitudes they make and carry.
The film opens with Takako moving back in with her father, kid in tow, citing an unhappy, abusive relationship. Her father is understanding, but pushes for her to reconcile. He’s flustered and at a lost on how to connect with his daughter since his wife left the picture many years ago. Meanwhile, Akiko is secretly seeing someone while her relatives openly worry about her single status. Takako and Akiko are both defined as smart, independent-minded women, and yet they are tethered by strict gender expectations.
Takako is spends the majority of her time caring after her father and her son. Even in a different environment, away from her husband, her role remains the same. This isn’t to insinuate she can’t do or enjoy housework, but rather, her limited mobility is a given. Save for a few key scenes, she’s only seen at home. This is in sharp contrast to Akiko, who frequents night bars and mahjong parlors, disappearing so often, her family rarely knows about her exact whereabouts. This draws the ire of her father, but it even gets her arrested, the crime: staying out too late.
However, these physical limitations don’t bother Akiko. Her relationship with her father has long been strained and distant, and her mother left the picture early in her life. Instead, she’s preoccupied with a more urgent development, an unexpected pregnancy. Akiko tries to track down her boyfriend to settle matters, but is met with a childish man unwilling to take responsibility. As with Takako’s husband and his behavior burdening Takako with the brunt of the responsibility, Akiko is stuck supporting the family. A child out of wedlock would ruin her reputation, but more importantly, she’s saddled with understanding the role of motherhood, without a mother of her own to use as a template.
She decides to get an abortion. It’s a still, haunting sequence. The establishing shot looks outward from inside the clinic, instead of the usual outside-in perspective. It’s what Akiko sees, stuck behind windows that promise freedom. The abortion takes place, and the film immediately cuts to Takako’s child playing at home. It’s a gut punch, a cruel contrast. Takako has what Akiko can not obtain, family and home. The same goes the other way, Takako will never have the freedom and mobility that Akiko--at least appears--to have.
But Ozu includes another key element with Tokyo Twilight. Tokyo may be big, but it’s not too big for Akiko to stumble into her mother’s mahjong parlor. The chance meeting (in which she doesn’t immediately recognize her mother) introduces a new strain for all parties. Both sisters are angry and upset that their mother left them, and it’s hard not to deduce that they blame some of their unfortunate situations on a missing mother figure. Shukichi states it plainly, he’s a poor substitute for a real mother.
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It’s interesting to note that much of the film is propelled by gossip and secrets. Akiko’s pregnancy and eventual abortion or Takako and Akiko’s mother and her role, their reveal, the how’s and when’s, all come from gossip and hearsay. It’s the mahjong patron, the idle coworker, the bartender that pass on vital clues in the family puzzle. It would be easy to see many of these acts play out differently, or not at all, if the community did not gossip around. It may point to how the family would be better off without external societal influences. Or it may indicate how perverse and prevalent external factors are. But it’s hard not to draw the conclusion that Ozu is extending the influences of then-current society onto the viewer. Many of these conversations and interactions play out in low angle, close-ups with the character staring directly at the camera, directly at the audience. The curiosity and voyeurism of the community contributes towards the downfall of the family, and yet that’s exactly what the audience is doing with the film. Tokyo Twilight is direct in many ways, but this element acts as a persistent subtle theme that plays out throughout the film.
For a film that’s patterned by slow pacing and still imagery, the climax comes swift and furious. After a drunken fight with her boyfriend, Akiko gets hit by a train and dies in the hospital begging for a do-over. Their mother, knowing that her children resent her--and after learning about Akiko’s death, leaves Tokyo. On the train ride away, she looks out the window desperately, praying Takako might show up for a send off, some form of closure. She never gets it. As for Takako, she decides to try to make her relationship with her abuser work, after all, she doesn’t want to raise her child in the same broken home she grew up in.
Time and time again, the women suffer. Ozu bluntly unravels the cyclical nature of it, accept reality or be driven away by bitterness. Or even worse.
Many of these problems can be pinned on societal limitations for women. Their usefulness and autonomy is deeply tied with their ability to be married, and maintain a good family. Generational conflict comes from parents that want their children to succeed and live good lives, which require them to give up their independence and sometimes their desires to marry someone wealthy or of status. This creates a paradox. Takako comes around to seeing and accepting this reality, Akiko doesn’t. Even as Shukichi laments early on that Takako should have married Sato, an early sweetheart, Takako shrugs it off. Takako must compartmentalize her feelings, purge fantasies, and be as empathetic as possible just to survive.
Takako is often seen walking down small hallways, frames always in sight, walking into darkness. Both women in fact, are frequently shown in silhouette or shrouded in shadow. It sets the dark mood, but it also alludes to the many facets of the women that never get seen in public, either by choice (for Takako) or by force (for Akiko.) As for the hallways, Takako keeps walking, but never gets far. She never escapes the physical door frames that she’s bound to perpetually enter and re-enter.
Tokyo Twilight (dir. Yasujiro Ozu). Originally published for subtitle.
For the ever popular 36 days of type project, Vinicius Araújo designed an alphabet of 3D letterforms representing a variety branded electronic devices.
Each represents a brand’s namesake product and is modelled around Helvetica.
‘A’ for Apple becomes the Apple Classic, ‘B’ for Beats is transforms into padded headphones, an jumping along, ‘S’ for Sony, is modelled to represent its iconic `walkman.
Vinicius extended the project past ‘Z’ (Zenith Electronics) to include numbers and some animations. Take a look at the complete set on Behance.
The difference between a millionaire and a billionaire is often hard to pinpoint, but parsing the difference three zeroes makes is significant--Oil Tycoon, and richest man at the time, J. Paul Getty (Christopher Plummer) is no mere Jordan Belfort-type.
Ridley Scott crafts a Getty whose existence feels otherworldly and inhuman. Much of this is contextualized by the plot of the film; Getty’s grandson, Paul Getty III (Charlie Plummer) is kidnapped and even with insistent pleas from Getty III’s mother, Gail (Michelle Williams), Getty refuses to pay the ransom. The amount is a pittance compared to Getty’s immense wealth, but his extreme frugalness stands in the way.
There’s a scene when Getty comes into a room with a briefcase of money. He negotiates with a man and the language insinuates that it’s for the ransom. Turns out, Getty was just driving a hard bargain for a painting. This is all happening as time is running out for Getty III to be saved; it feels surreal.
Another example is when Getty finally decides to pay the ransom, instead of sending the requested amount, he only sends the maximum amount that can be tax-deducted. It’s a cold, calculated action, and yet Getty, in his rare points of vulnerability, expresses a real fondness for Getty III. His refusal to comply isn’t a dismissal at all, but rather a more complicated conflict that digs into Getty’s values.
Gail has full custody of Getty III after a messy divorce with Getty’s son. So in many ways, Getty III represents something Getty lost, and can not own, both losing him in the form of lineage, but again with the kidnapping. Confronting that destabilizes a wall of comfort that Getty has padded with money and nonliving artifacts.
This dynamic, which patterns a few key scenes, showcases All the Money in the World at its best. There’s the scattered discussions on how money and wealth is often a stand-in for something greater, unraveling what that might mean for Getty is a fascinating progression, especially as it gets contrasted with Gail’s priorities and a few enlightening moments with the poor kidnappers and their interactions with Getty III. There’s also Getty’s death during the climax; Getty, alone and sweaty, stumbling down his dark and moody mansion draws comparisons to Xanadu and Kane’s death, also alone.
Unfortunately, most of All the Money in the World is a simplistic crime thriller following the kidnapping with a horribly miscast Wahlberg taking on the role of Getty’s security advisor. Suspense is rarely a factor, and certain scenes, like a mid-film escape and the climax chase are framed in ways that feel too convenient and predictable. All the Money in the World could have benefited from simply letting its story breathe, instead of unnecessarily dramatizing every moment.
Ridley Scott, having all the budget money in the world, couldn’t hone the story into something less rote and more focused. Whether like Getty, it was greed, a compulsive desire, or something entirely different, both men ended up doing too much, obscuring themselves from doing what’s most important.
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