Yes, I changed my blog totally. I am not sure how people find this new version since I unchecked the search engine visibility option. I just wanted to separate these “everyday” life things from my art related news. Everyday life things are so important and definitely related to my art very closely, though.
I watched Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence probably closed to 20 years after I had watched last time. Very impressive film. I am not sure why but it seems even NetFlix does not have the DVD in regular stock. It’s so shameful not to make this film visible, because it is one of the most graceful films I have seen. Violent and sweet, ugly and beautiful. This time, I was a little bit shocked by the scene where David Bowie’s brother sang around their house, since I had forgotten about the scene was actually from this film. The scene of this small hunchbacked boy singing with his purely beautiful boy-soprano. I did not remember David Bowie next to him walking along… Acting of David Bowie was surprisingly good. Ryuichi Sakamoto was beautiful, but his acting was not that great. Other actors were amazing mostly, Takeshi, Tom Conti, Jack Thompson were so great. And there were many tricky social issues embedded in the film, discrimination toward Korean-Japanese, people with disability, etc., but the issues around beauty of violence were most strikingly captivating. Friction between bodies in the critically extreme situation such as a POW camp smudged the fine lines that define violence, love, symbolic systems, mass-insanity and friendships.
