Change Your Image
shizofree
Reviews
Rak haeng Siam (2007)
Extremely Amazing
I am normally not a fan of romance stories. It's deluded and fantastical that it raises the viewers' expectations for their own sweet and happy ending. It's a pessimistic point of view but that's the reality I've seen so far, I'm used to it.
Rak Hang Siam (The Love of Siam), a Thai film by Chookiat Sakveerakul, tells an amazing story that cross cultural differences, and this maybe the prime reason why the movie is amazing.
Despite it being located in Bangkok, familiar food, traditions and even localities makes it transcendent towards a broader audience, especially in the Philippines. It feels like a Filipino film without overacting and overrated actors doing their own dramatic sequences. This movie is grounded in subtlety and silent epiphanies, which we never do.
At 2 hours and 59 minutes (Director's Cut) and 2 hours 30 minutes (DVD release), the movie tells about a story about neighbors Mew (Witwisit Hiranyawongkul) and Tong (Mario Maurer) who are separated after the loss of the latter's sister, Tang (Chermarn Boonyasak). Five years later, they cross paths in a commercial district named Siam Square. This district becomes a meeting point between all the main characters. Even in that length of a movie, it's justifiable for its capability of developing the characters involved.
The movie's cinematography is its weak point. Chookiat may be used to horror and thriller films that it sometimes shown within the film, but it's unnoticeable at first. Some metaphors he used could've been better shown in a horror film. Scenes mostly alternate between schools, rooms, studio and Siam Square. It may be that way to express the universality of this film. Product placements are subtle and funny but it fits within the film, iMacs and Pepsi Max mostly.
The cast is amazing. Young Mew and Tong closely resemble the older counterparts while still making Tang and their mother Sunee (Sinjai Plengpanich) look like they are related. Tong's father, Korn (Songsit Rungnopakunsri) looks like a man on the verge of alcoholism. The acting of each character is remarkable. Sinjai, most of all, played an extremely broken woman but still manages to keep her family intact. Witwisit and Mario had noticeable chemistry while still keeping it subtle. I sometimes think that they may be playing characters too young for them. But age was never stated so I forgo the suspicion. The character development is the movie's highest point.
The music is why I watch it repeatedly. As one of the characters are musically inclined, the melodies involved in this movie should be amazing, which I think it is. The movie delivers the music as part of the movie, but not as to intrude the realism. It's not a musical yet, the feelings of the characters are said thru music. Ticket (Day Trip) by Chookiat Sakveerakul & August Band is the arguably the best track of the movie and the OST, followed closely by Gun Lae Gun กันและกัน (Acoustic) sung by Witwisit during the movie but not available in the album. I may not understand the lyrics but the melody itself is enough to make me listen more.
Rak Hang Siam proved itself as an effective film that tells the story of the reality of love. Situations maybe different, but the main point is there. There's always the meeting and a separation, no matter what kind love exist between them.
Urduja (2008)
It Could've Been So Much More
I am not a cartoonist, nor an animator, nor a general 2D person. Professionally speaking, I avoid projects that require animation and movement. I hate it and I hate the technicalities involved with it.
Now Urduja is a good try, considering the various factors that dictate that everything else that could make it so much MUCH worse.
I would want to tell you the plot of the movie (probably spoil it too because I'd want to save you from ever watching it... too mean. Forget what I said), but there were too many subplots that within half of the movie you ask, "What's the story about again?" True story.
The plot in itself is simple, but layers upon unnecessary layers of plot-fat, the premise (and the focus) of the movie invariably gets lost in translation. With the plot-fat comes, as a lack of a better word, plot holes that render succeeding scenes WTF-able, watch it and you will see, don't watch it and save yourself some time.
The animation is good. In the beginning. You see a highly photographic-like atmosphere in the introduction of the movie, but as you continue on (more like struggle to) the middle, 3D becomes more apparent, textures become less obvious until ultimately, it's just flat cartoon, with no hint of the previous standard set earlier in the same movie.
The one thing I noticed just watching the trailer was the fact that there are no ambient light to reflect on the characters. There were no changes in the colors when they move environments, night scenes, day scenes, flying through the air scenes were all of the same lighting, except for the underwater scene (KUDOS! plus points).
There were no varying shadows and highlights whenever the characters move. As a matter of fact the shadow Urduja has was the one below her chin to show a bit of dimension. The most detailed shadows of any of the characters were the badjaos. Racism is also hinted within the dialogue.
Glitches are apparent, for example, having two right hands of the same character appearing on the same frame, I think they forgot to tween it or something.
The camera panning was exhausting. It pans too fast too soon even when the dialogue dictates that "ang ganda ng tanawin!" WHAT SCENERY?! it was too fast to appreciate! There were also inconsistencies with the actual character animation. Some scenes lacked frames, making the animation choppy, even rushed. Some scenes were extremely detailed, especially the close up talking scenes. The attempted slow motion scenes were a failure, instead of it being slow motion, it just feels choppy and incomplete.
Plus points for the extremely detailed monologue scenes though.
I'm not even going into the animation of the song and dance numbers.
Audio is relatively okay. It gives of the dubbed soap opera audio feel. The dialogue was "in-your-face" direct but still inconsistent. At least it was clean.
There were not much ambient sounds to realize the scenes comprehensively. You hear nuances, but rarely. Ocean breeze, or waves crashing? barely. Birds chirping? When there were birds around. Even the rustling of the trees when they were fighting in the jungle was missing.
The script? O no. no no. no. no. no no. The story is initially focused on the main character Urduja (Regine Velasquez), but as the non-story progresses, Lim Hang (Cesar Montano) becomes the de facto lead. Even then, both characters fail to spark an interest. Comedy relief characters such as Mayumi (Ruby Rodriguez), Daisuke (Epi Quizon), and the Disney-archetype talking animals (Allan K. and Michael V.) were far more interesting.
Historically, The story was painful and lacked research. It lacks the depth of primitive Philippine culture. Textiles within the Philippines, if not imported from China, was mostly dark reds and browns (as far as i remember from Philippine Art History) Not blue or green.
I do understand the need of plain clothes as the animation process is extremely hard. Textiles in the Philippines tell a story. It's like the Grecian vases but with cloth. This makes Urduja a failure as a culturally relevant movie.
Without the Filipino voices, there would barely enough visual evidence to suggest that the movie was pre-hispanic Filipino era. It could have been easily some other indigenous tribe anywhere in the world.
What irkes me is the semi-frequent use of the English language in a pre-colonial Filipino culture. Considering that only the comedic relief characters were the only ones talking the wrong language, but the already lost Filipino hint fades completely even for a second.
So what's left as purely good with the movie? Well... They give the succeeding Filipino films an extremely big room for improvement.