Movie Review 10

Hunt for the WilderPeople

Summary

This Movie tells a story about a delinquent orphan named Ricky Backer and his adopted parents Paula and Hec. Paula has adopts Ricky despite knowing that he is a stubborn teenager. At first, Ricky is being defensive with Paula while Hec does not really care about Ricky being their new family. Even though Ricky shows disobedience however Paula manages to break through his defensive and delinquent behavior through unconditional love portrays by her. She accepted Ricky for who he is and Ricky could feel that. Within that short time, Ricky and Paula manage to create a bond, however that does not last long as Paula is pronounce dead afterwards. Due to the absence of a mother-figure in the family, the child services will collect Ricky back. Hec at the same time is allowing that to happen. Ricky feels desolated hence making a decision to run away from home by faking his own death in the burnt barn. His desperate trial to run away however find an obstacle where he gets lost in the woods. Hec is the one who searches for him and found him, on the way back, Hec’s leg gets injured, so they need to camp out while waiting for Hec to heal. At the same time, the authority finds that both Ricky and Hec are gone. Assuming that Hec is mentally unstable due to his wife death, Ricky is suspected to be abducted by Hec. Then, the search for them begins. In the wood, they meet with a group of hunters. The claim that Hec has sexually abused Ricky has emerges due to Ricky’s statement. Hec suggested that Ricky goes back to the child center. However, Ricky declines and stubbornly stays with Hec. Together, the hides from the authority for several months in the woods until they are discovered and caught by the police. During the short period of escaping from the poloce, both Hec and Ricky have develops bond for each other.

The Themes

Unconditional love is portrayed by Paula as she is willing to take care of Ricky even though knowing that he has a bad record. Unconditional love portrays by Paula manage to break through Ricky cold heart for the perception of family. Ricky being an orphans who has changing adopted family from time to time might has given up to the idea that someone will love him for who he is. He might have also been disappointed many times hence might explain why he is being defensive and not accepting of a new people in his life to avoid from him getting hurt again. Giving a sense of getting loved by someone is indeed the most needed by Ricky at the time. This is true because Paula manage to make him trust her that she will always be there for her. So he has develop a secure feeling that Paula will never betrays her. This is shown in a scenes where he actually being touched and always hope for Paula’s hot pack on his bed.

Overall, during the period of escaping in the wood. The character of Hec and Ricky has reconcile and start acknowledging that they need each other. Besides, the escaping process itself might be the perfect timing for Hec and Ricky accepting that Paula is no longer with them. In a way, the process of grieving is being processed and comprehend during their journey in the woods. Besides, their minds are also focusing on other matters so it helps them to keep busy and active hence provided some relief for their sad feeling of losing someone.

Movie Review 9

Grace is gone

                                                                                                     

Summary

Grace is gone tells a story about the grief of a husband towards his wife death. Stanley Phillip is a veteran army, married to Grace and have two child 8-year-old Dawn and 12-year-old Heidi. One day, two army officers visit his house and inform the news about his wife’s death while serving her duty at Iraq. As he hears the news, he does not know how to response. He is so shock to the sudden news that he becomes numb. After the army officers leave, he sits on a couch to comprehend what just happens. Later, he gets ready and wait his children to be back from the school and inform them about their mother. However as the two gets home, he cannot brings himself to tell them so he just take them out to dinner. Later, he finds himself unable to bring out the topic. Thus, at the moment he decides to bring her girls to Enchanted Garden, a theme park located at the Florida. Throughout their trip, they stop at the grandmother house (Stanley mother) and find John (Stanley younger brother) instead. Stanley asked John to take the girls out for lunch. When John and the girls are out, he lays at the bed and start to break down. He cries and mourn for the loss. After John and the girls are back, John receives a phone call. He now knows about Grace’s death and start to question Stanley why he’s keeping the matter secret to his children. To his surprise, Stanley gets agitated and tells John to stay out from his problem. John later hugs and comfort Stanley. Subsequently, Stanley and his girls continue their trip to Florida. They arrived at the Enchanted Garden and have fun. During their trip back home, Stanley stops the car near the beach. Together, they sits and talk. Stanley informs the children that their mother is gone. They sits and cried grieving for their loss. Heidi has written a eulogy to his mother and reads it during his mother funeral.

The Theme

The main theme for this movie is death and grieving. Throughout this movie, the audience could empathize with Stanley. I could feel his longing to Grace. He fights so hard not to show his sadness in front of his children. Stanley has illustrated the emotional journey of grief that has been proposed by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. The emotional journey of grieve is not a rigid stage that a person will go through phase by phase instead it is a mix of intense emotions that has no fixed sequence. So, the stage or phase described next is only a model to illustrate how the grieving process is sometimes related to each other. The first ‘stage’ is disbelief and denial. When Stanley received the news about Grace’s death, he just stay still and calm. He is in shock and in disbelief of what he just heard. He is also in denial for a seconds. This can be described by the way he response to the army officers saying that he was in a shower and they cannot just barge in to his house and deliver this kind of news. He basically saying that he is not ready to accept this fact. His denial is also portrays where he does not allow his children to eat some food given by their neighbours as eating that would be acknowledging the condolences expressed by their neighbour towards his loss. Besides, his action of taking his children to Enchanted Garden might also be a way of him to deny that Grace is no longer with them. He might just want to feel the presence of Grace in their trip while getting close to his children to be able to tell them the news.

Secondly, Stanley shows a little sign of ‘resentment’ towards Grace’s death. For example, he calls their home number just to hear Grace’s recorded voice saying to leave a voice message to them. He leaves his message as if he is sending the message to Grace. He also ask Grace what should he do now. How about their children? Perhaps it can be translated as him to resent Grace’s death and leaving him with a great responsibility. However, the resentment period only last within a short duration as he enters the bargaining and guilt period. During his call, he mentioned that he is so sorry about everything and how he should not be angry the last time they met before Grace deported to Iraq. So he feels very guilty by sending his wife with a bitter feeling.  During the phone call to his own home, he leaves a voice message saying that it’s supposed to be him who goes to the war, it would be better for the children. It can be translated as him saying that it supposed to be him that dies because it might be better for Grace is more capable to raise the children instead of him. Next, he enters into depression when he realizes the reality that Grace is no longer with them. Perhaps this can be illustrated in the scenes where he just lays on the bed and cries when John and his children go out to have lunch. In this period, he might feel overwhelm and become depressed as he also fighting his sadness so that it would not be shown to his children. Finally, he accepts the truth that Grace is gone. During their trip back to home from Enchanted Garden he tells the children about it and they cries and mourn for their loss.

The Character

I applaud for John Cusack brilliant interpretation of a person who is in grieving process. A brilliant script and interpretation of the cator has allowed me to feel the loss and longing of Stanley towards Grace without even viewed of Grace’s character in the movie. However, I totally could feel the presence of Grace throughout the movie from the remembrance of Stanley and his children towards her. Besides, John Cusack character and behaviour as a person who is losing someone and at the same time restraining his sadness is really hard to be done. If it was me, I do not think that I am able to restrain myself from expressing sadness if I loss someone that I really love.

                                                                   

The Milgram Experiment

The Milgram Experiment

Summary

This movie was based on the true story of Dr Stanley Milgram, a psychologist who did a research on the Holocaust and found out that the obedience factors were the main reason why people were able to perform a cruel act. The movie depicts Dr Milgram journey in conducting his famous and controversial experiment. The experiment is done in the lab where a participant, an authority figure and a confederate are involved while Dr Milgram observes the situation through a two way mirror without the participant’s awareness. Through the experiment, it was found that most people follow the authority to perform electric shock to the confederate even when they know that the electric shock can be detrimental to the people who receives it. Dr Milgram conducted this study in several different places as well as variety of scripts and the proximity between the participant and the confederate yet the result still yield the same conclusion. Even when the experiment finished, it is still being the talk of the town due to the unexpected result concluded by him. Besides, Dr Milgram is being called to the ethics board meeting to clarify the ethics behind his experiment as it involves the deception.  His experiment has unveil the inconvenient truth about human behaviour and the consequences.

The Lesson

Throughout this movie, I realized that it is hard for society to accept any facts that are not compatible with our beliefs. For example, the experiment showed that people are willing to do cruel act simply because an authority figure asked for it. Hence it may explain why the army are willing to be a part of holocaust: conformity and obedience to instruction. Many people disagree with the conclusion because they expect that human will comply with their own value instead of following other people instruction that goes against their value. So, they are quit resistance to believe the result of this study. Besides, a researcher must also stay true to themselves despite of getting pressure form the society. If the researcher is confident with his conclusion he should stand to his point. One main point is that, the researcher should not manipulate their conclusion so that the experiment will be accepted by the society instead they should be authentic and present only fact even though the truth may be bitter.

Experiment

I am interested in looking at the topic of leadership in Malaysia. Do we have a racial bias when electing a leader?Malaysia has gain peace and harmony among diverse community and races, however we could not deny that there are still tension that happens among the races due to the feeling of entitlement of being a member of certain culture and races. The experiment can be conducted by having the participants from 3 major races in Malaysia. Three participants will be gathered in a room with three confederates from each races. They will be given a situation of being deserted in a dessert with other participant. A situation has called for an emergency meeting where they need to elect a leader to manage their group. At the mean time all participants are allowed to pitch for the position. The three confederates are given the same script so that they can give an impression of a leader. Later, all the participants will elect their leader by voting.

Movie Review: Amadeus

Amadeus

The Plot

Amadeus tells a story about Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart from Antonio Salieri perspective. The story begins with the scenes where Salieri tries to kill himself. He keeps repeating that he killed Mozart and he deserves the punishment. Then, he was admitted to a hospital and a young priest come to him to hear his confession and to offer him the God’s forgiveness. Salieri does not want the God’s forgiveness so he tells a story to the young priest. He begins his story by saying that he loves music as a child, however his father opposed to his dream. The disapproval makes his love for the music grew stronger. Due to the passion he has, he even made a sincere vow to the God saying that he would dedicate himself to Him if he would be given a chance to pursue his interest. As if the God answers to his call, his father suddenly died. So he went to the Vienna and learn music. He managed to get through many hurdles and achieve a post as a court composer. During that time, he always heard about the genius Mozart. He was curious about Mozart and was curious to know whether the genius would be reflected upon his personality and presence. To his disappointment, Salieri found out that Mozart was actually a perverted and playful young man.From that time, he had a bad impression towards Mozart. However, he could not deny that Mozart had the god given talent. The feeling of envy had made him blamed God for giving such a talent to those who did not deserve the talent while leaving him feeling worthless as if his dedication to Him is not enough. On the other hand, Mozart was blessed in such a rich environment where he was particularly groomed to become a musical prodigy. Salieri with an envy started to plan a sabotage to Mozart. As a result, Mozart faced a lot of hardship. Despite of all the sabotage, Salieri could not refrain himself from loving Mozart’s work. He hates himself to feel that way, however that was his true feelings. Before Mozart died, he was the one besides him instead of his wife. Well, even though he had a bad intention of extracting the requiem from Mozart and to let him die, but sill it was a moment where he sincerely worked hard to finish up his rival’s work.

The character

Antonio Salieri

I believe Salieri is actually a good person. However, the threat and anxiety that he felt towards Mozart has lead him to become a sort of manipulative person. He might have envy as a way for him to cope with Mozart’s threat. Not only that, Salieri also might have a greater sense of external locus of control in associating the situations that happened to him. That was also the reason why he was so angry with the God for not giving him the talents that he wanted to have. He also perceived that he can be like Mozart if he was brought up in a rich environment that thought the value of music instead degrading the music. The only situation where he showed a high degree of internal locus of control was when he blamed himself for the Mozart’s death because he asked the corrupted maid to give him some drug that affect Mozart’s health. In addition, I think he had a low sense of security for himself as he thought that Mozart will take over his place and overshadowed him when in fact Mozart did not think that way.

Themes

This movie brings upon the topic of jealousy and envy towards a prodigy. I think this theme is relevant to almost all people when they face a genius. I believe some people might have a thought of becoming like them and to acquire the talent like a prodigy however that is just not happening so envy will be a choice for them as a way to cope with the feeling of devastation for not having the talent like them. For normal people, jealousy will just be manifested throughout their feeling and cognitive not their action. While, Salieri actually did manifested his envy through his action by providing difficulty in Mozart’s career path in this movie. I think we can learn a lot from this theme as Salieri has showed sabotaging was not the way to handle his envy, instead he felt bitter because deep down inside he knew that he could not do what Mozart can do. So he felt guilty and at the end destroying himself.  In addition, cognitive dissonance was also being portrayed in the film. Salieri admired Mozart’s work but at the same time hating Mozart for having such talent. As he could not accept the truth he began hating Mozart. Devising plans to kill Mozart was one of his way to reduce the dissonance that he was feeling at that time. However, he did not know that by killing Mozart will not reduce his dissonance but adding up to the dissonance that he felt and making him more miserable. This was because, the feeling of hate for the Mozart and at the same time still amazed with his work despite his death was added to the feeling of guilt for killing Mozart’s music career.  Hence, making his life worthless to always be compared to the dead people. He was also forced to live to see Mozart’s work getting the appreciation while his music was getting forgotten. Personally, I think that it is not healthy to have such an envy and resentment towards a person who has more than we have. Everyone has their own uniqueness and advantages. For example, it is so sad when Salieri could not see a good quality that resides within him. He was a good teacher and still have a talent to make a good music. So rather than hating people’s work, he should have strengthened his talent and that will make him a more credible talent in the market.