Schindler’s List~

Schindler’s List (1993) is a biographical film on how a German business man, who had rescued thousands of Polish-Jewish refugees’ lives from the holocaust during World War II. The film was directed by the famous Steven Spielberg, based on the novel “Schindler’s Ark” which was written by Thomas Keneally, an Australian novelist. The movie had received seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Score and etc. Besides, the American Film Institute has ranked the film at the position of 8^th out of of 100 best American films. Liam Neeson is another actor that impressed me deeply, after Robin William and Ben Kingsley.

Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson), a German businessman who gained business profit during the war time by supplying mess kit to the Nazi army. However, no one realized the “secret” plan behind him, except his Jewish clerk, as well as his factory administrator, Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley). Schindler tried his best to recruit as many Jewish workers as possible to work in his factory. The workers who worked in his factory would be protected from transference to the concentration camps, or being executed randomly. However, Schindler had faced a harsh problem when the army received the command from Berlin to diminish all the remaining Jews, including Schindler’s workers by sending them to the Auschwitz’s concentration camp. Schindler tried to bribe SS-Lieutenant, Amon Goth (Ralph Fiennes) in order to keep all his Jews workers alive. However, Goth tagged each worker with an expensive price tag and as the result, Schindler used up all his fortune and all his workers were eventually evacuated to a safety place. Although Schindler has to flee due to his identity as a Nazi Party member, after the Germany troops fall under the gun of the Red Army. However his name was being remembered by the Schindler’s Jews and their descendants.

No doubt that Oskar Schindler was a successful man, especially in the days when peace was not guaranteed. Schindler was a smart man, in terms of business opportunity and relationship management. As we can see in the movie, Schindler was able to build up close relationship with the German officers within a night and this hence brought benefits to him and his business. With the support from the military, Schindler soon founded his first factory in town. Relationship management is important in any occasions, especially in the business world. In my opinion, relationship is a valuable element in our daily life in which we cannot afford to leave apart. Reflecting from my personal experience, I have met a person who has the best relationship management skills ever in my life. This Mr. X could easily mix around with the people and as the result, he gained all the trust and assistances he needed easily. Nonetheless, it was stood as a bad example for me when I later discovered his fantastic relationship skills were actually superficially presented in front of everyone. Thus, in my opinion, I think relationship skills should be used in a more beneficial way but definitely not benefited in own personal gain.

Besides, the empathy displayed by Schindler was another highlight of the movie. As a German, as well as the member of the Nazi party, Schindler has no right or obligates to sympathize the Jews. However, as I have mentioned, Schindler was a smart guy in covering up his “secret”. In my opinion, Schindler was actually risking his life and his “Jews-rescue” operation can be seen as a rebellion against Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Army. Indeed, his actions required tons of courage.

Adolf Hitler, the dictator of the Nazi Germany who was well-known with his cruelty during World War II, especially in the Holocaust incident. Under Hitler’s inhumanity command, millions of Jews were being executed. Unlike Schindler who empathized and was compassionated toward the innocent Jews, Hitler was lived as a creature who only believed authority and coercion was the key that leads to success.

“They refer to me as an uneducated barbarian. Yes, we are barbarians. We want to be barbarians, it is an honored title to us. We shall rejuvenate the world. This world is near its end.” – Adolf Hitler.

Hitler was not frustrated or pissed off after being labeled as an uneducated barbarian. Instead, he enjoyed the title given by the people where victory and success, were the only things he concerned the most. By looking through all his political policies and strategies, it would not be a surprise IF we are being told that Hitler was actually a PhD holder in Psychology and his specialize was Psychology of Evil. Of course, the PhD was definitely not true but the point here is, Hitler was certainly a great master in mind game. His aptitude in mind game was far better than Sir Alex Ferguson, the Manchester United manager who always being criticized as a mind gamer on the field. In order to create a sense of loyalty and obedience to him as the mighty leader, he therefore used authority that he had to legitimate his ideology, which is “Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer (One people, one empire, one leader).” As we all know that authority is always the easiest way to get obedience and compliance from those who are powerless.

Besides, Hitler was always known as an evil leader and his behavior can be explained by the concept of deindividuation by Zimbardo (2000). According to Zimbardo, high commitment only happened when the existence of the leader was not enough; a stronger internal commitment should be retained even without the existence of the leader. In this case, Hitler was able to facilitate his evil plan even he was far away from his army. Zimbardo has mentioned several conditions of deindividuation and Hitler had actually fulfilled two of the conditions where he submerging his squad into groups and put them in the military uniform. In my opinion, the reasons behind these two strategies were actually quite clear. Putting them in the uniform will always remind them about their duty and obligation and where putting them in group was because he never underestimates the power of group influences.

Gandhi~

Gandhi (1982) is a biographical film based on the real life of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, or more well-known as Mahatma Gandhi. The movie was directed by Richard Attenborough, starring with Ben Kingsley as Gandhi. Besides of Robin Williams, Ben has put his name on my favorite actors’ list after being inspired by his outstanding acting in the movies Schindler’s List, Shuttle Island, and the current Gandhi. The movie was awarded for Academy Best Picture and eight other Academy Awards. Furthermore, 300,000 extras were employed during the funeral scene in the movie and had created the record of most extras for any film according to the Guinness World Records.

Gandhi (Ben Kingsley), who firstly built up his reputation through his non-violence resistant movement during the 20^th century, as well as his later contributions toward the independence of India from the hand of British. After realizing the injustice law against the Indians in South Africa, 24-year- old Gandhi had then decided to launch a non-violence protest campaign against the British, whom was the government at that time. Initially, his protest campaign did not have a smooth progress where he suffered from numerous imprison treatments during the campaign. However, his idea was eventually accepted by the British government after they have recognized his influences among the Indians in the country. Gandhi had practiced the idea of nonviolence throughout his life as one of his remark quotes: “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind”. Though it was just a simple sentence but it certainly carries a thoughtful meaning behind. As we can see from the movie, Gandhi was so frustrated after he had been acknowledged when some of his followers have murdered several British officers during a riot. In my opinion, violence against each other will only produce anger and hatred, or even death. I believe Gandhi might have the same thought as mine.

Besides of the nonviolent acts, Gandhi also stood up for the women rights in the mainstream society. By implementing the salt tax campaign, job opportunities have been offered to the women in India. Gandhi opposed to the idea of untouchable in which women are belong to one of the categories of untouchable group. By providing job opportunities and career to the women, this inferior population at that time was therefore able to restore their dignity, as well as increase their self-value in contributing to the society.  The existence of gender typing phenomenon is always be a myth for me where I have no idea on why majority of the people think female is always in the inferior side. Try to take a view from a different perspective. Besides of those tasks that demand physical strength, women are actually capable and have their rights to live in an equal status as the men. As I did mention in the Whale Rider, women are now started to taking up the roles which were previously viewed as the male dominance task. Female, are like male, deserves their rights and privileges that used to belong to them.

The courage and selfless attitude displayed by Gandhi has impressed me deeply. As what had mentioned by Gandhi, nonviolence act requires incredible courage and faith. As we can see in the movie, Gandhi was imprisoned frequently during his fighting in claiming independence for India. Prison was seen as his second home. Besides, credits were also given to the followers who fought bravely against the British. In one of the scenes, these followers were beaten badly during a nonviolence protest after Gandhi was imprisoned. However, no resistant can be seen from the followers and these people were even queued up to get beaten. Although the scene might be funny, but still, we shall not underestimate their enormous spirit and beliefs. Besides, Gandhi has served as a great role model for all the leaders. In my point of view, I think the reason behind that made Gandhi as an influential leader is mostly due to his selfless behavior. For example, in order to stop his people from engaging in the unnecessary riot, he used the strategy of fasting. In line with his nonviolence policy, Gandhi used his body and health as the final weapon to stop the tragedy event after his words are no longer working. I would not place any comment on his intention but to me, he was actually putting a huge bet on the scenario whereby his health, was his only bargaining tool he left. Frankly speaking, no disrespect of course, I think Gandhi was actually playing a mind game with his people, as he knew his importance to these people. Hence, Gandhi tried to utilize his influential status to influence the people. However, it seemed that his empathy strategy did not work for Nathuram Godse, who assassinated him during an evening prayer.

The movie was mind blasting and Ben Kingsley, who played the role as Gandhi has certainly done a great job in the movie. He is an English actor who was born in Snainton, North England. Nonetheless, he can speak in a typical Tamil accent in the movie and this has impressed me profoundly. I did not know he is a Britain initially and I even perceived him as an Indian when he started to speak in an Indian way.

As the conclusion, violence always lead to the negative consequences and I believe that many conflicts or problems that happen around us can be settled without violence or aggression, as suggested by Mahatma Gandhi.

“An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind”

Departures (おくりびと Okuribito) ~

We often encounter with various kinds of death scenes in movies. Nonetheless, do we ever pay any extra attention on those death scenes? I bet that we might always “unintentionally” ignore it as it has nothing much to do with the core storyline. Yojiro Takita, a Japanese director who has tried to magnify the incident of DEATH in the movie “Departures (2008)”. The film has then won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 81^st Oscars in 2009.

Daigo Kobayashi (Masahiro Motoki), a man who has lost his high payment job as a cellist in Tokyo and turned for a job which involves preparing the dead. Daigo has to face with numerous negative feedbacks and complaints toward his job, including his wife Mika (Ryoko Hirosue) who threatened him to quit his job. The movie has certainly drawn out several points that we might have been through it in our daily without realizes it consciously.

We have been exposed to the “career status” since we were young. For instance, professional occupations such as doctor and lawyer are always remain top list in the career chart where the occupations which involve less knowledge and expertise based would remain in the bottom of the chart.  In one of the scenes, Daigo’s childhood friend  were so proud of him as he is a cellist and things just turn the other way round when they realized that Daigo was actually working for the dead. This scenario is best fit in with the illustration of the “career status”. Besides, we have also exposed to some of the common statements from our parent or grandparents such as: “If you never study hard, you will then ended up as a street cleaner”. Perhaps, it is right that getting good academic result would indeed provide advantages in future careers selection. However, obtaining bad academic result does not guarantee failure in the future. The point here is why these “career statuses” exist in our mindset?

There are some jobs in our society that are not well accepted by the majority. Taking the dead service profession in the movie as the example, this type of profession is hardly accepted by many cultures, especially the Chinese culture. As a typical Chinese, we have learned that “Death” is something that associates with misfortune and bad luck. Therefore, death has been classified as a taboo by majority of the Chinese. This taboo has directly affects individual’s perception towards the dead service profession in the society, such as the undertaker. For instance in one of the scenes, Mika described her husband with the word ‘dirty’ as he engages in the dead service and as well as the advice from Daigo’s old friend : “Get a proper job”. Thus, this has proven that some Asian cultures are sharing the same norms on death.

We all know that death is inevitable and no any single individual could escape from that final stage of life. Life is always being illustrated as a candle where it starts burning when we were born and burn out when our life has reached the finish line.  The average life span for human nowadays is approximately 60 to 80 years. Human life is becoming much more fragile as the result of natural disasters, chronic diseases and other incidents that could easily cause death to human. To be honest, I am afraid of death and my fear towards death has even been aggravated after the movie. How do we feel when we are dead? What is feeling when we no longer able to meet with our loves one?  As what has been mentioned in the movie, “death is not an end, but a gate for the next stage”. According to my Buddhism beliefs, we believe that death is the gate we have to pass through in order to get in the cycle of reincarnation, in which similar with the afterlife concept that hold by the Christianity. Hence, I agree with the statement above as death is an opening of a new chapter of life.

Personally, I am deeply impressed with the Japanese culture, especially in their persistency in perfectionism and their manner.  They are practicing this idea in their daily life, even after a person is died. As we can see in the movie, the procedure in cleaning the dead body was superb complex and it involves patience and time. Besides, we can also view this as a form of respect towards the dead. Furthermore, the polite manner displayed in the Japanese culture is also something that worthy for learning.

As the conclusion, I have learned that we should appreciate those who are still alive, especially the ones who close to us. A person death is just like a player who has lost all his or her credits in a game where restart is impossible. Hence, we shall appreciate those who are important to us and live no regret in our life.

Sybil~

Sybil (1976) is a movie based on the book of the same title that written by Flora Rheta Schreiber. The movie was directed by Daniel Petrie, starring with Sally Field and Joanne Woodward, who had once won the Academy Best Actress Award with the role she played in “The Three Faces of Eve”.

Sybil (Sally Field), a girl who has experienced traumatic childhood experience as the result of her mother constant abusive treatment. Although she kept repressing her psychological trauma and emotional pain all the time in her life but still, the repression has reached its limit and eventually “burst out” one day. The consequence of the “burst out” has shaped 13 different identities or personalities in Sybil.  Since then, her life has changed dramatically and she was no longer able to live in a life that only belongs to her until she met with Dr. Cornelia Wilbur, a psychiatrist who later diagnosed Sybil with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). Sybil would turn into different identities with the aim of serving different needs from the situations. For instances, in order to play the piano, she turned into a girl named Vanessa who are responsible for her musical abilities. Besides, she even turned into a sophisticated and charming girl who named Vicky. She was able to speak French fluently which Sybil could not do so. However, with the help from Dr. Wilbur, Sybil was eventually able to overcome her traumatic past experience, as well as integrating the other 13 different personality states.

The causes of Dissociative Identity Disorder are still unclear but it is believed that it often relates to the tendency of the escaping from the memories that contain unpleasant traumatic events (Barlow & Durand, 2009). Sybil tried her best to repress her traumatic events that she used to store in the deepest part of her memories. Nonetheless, when her repression abilities have breached its capabilities, she was then failed to control her own thoughts.  Hence, this would trigger the defensive mechanism to take in action by producing several different personality states in the purpose of protecting her from being harmed by the devastating thoughts. As we can see in the movie, Sybil has literally turned into several identities that used to different from her origin personality. There was one scene in the movie that portraying Sybil formulated a protection towards the fear of her abusive mother. When Dr. Wilbur asked her to recall anything about her mother, Sybil regressed into Ruthie, a baby state of her who holds an extremely fear of her mother. Sybil turned into a baby state and slept in one of the corners while sucking her thumb. This sort of regression behaviors can be viewed as a form of avoidance towards the unpleasant memories. Besides, Sybil has also shown the typical symptoms for a DID patient, such as depression which lead to attempted suicide, and major physical differences in which with the occurrence of several different personalities (Swartz, 2001).

Hypnosis has been used in the movie in order to treat Sybil’s DID. Without the prescription of any antidepressant drugs or medication treatment, Dr. Wilbur chose to give Sybil hypnosis as the only core treatment. I agree with the treatment that chosen by Dr. Wilbur, in terms of accuracy and the effectiveness. In my opinion, hypnosis is best applied in order to understand the patients’ past experiences and from the description given, the therapist and the patient itself will able to draw some insight thoughts of the disorder, as well as the reasons or factors behind. The goal of this psychotherapy is to help the patient to re-experience the unpleasant traumatic event and therefore search for the best coping ways (Barlow & Durand). According to Swartz, Hypnosis is the primary psychotherapy for DID treatment and the therapist will try to establish a contact with as many alters (various form of personalities) as possible in order to understand their roles and the story behind of the patient’s life. In the movie, Dr. Wilbur has certainly tried to communicate with Peggy, Vicky and Vanessa which were all Sybil’s alters. Throughout the discussion with the alters, Dr. Wilbur was able to gather sufficient information on Sybil’s past and was able to implement the best treatment for her.

Hattie Dorsett (Martine Bartlett), the mother of Sybil has freaked me out all the ways on how she abused young Sybil. Why on earth a mother could show such cruelty towards her won biological daughter? I understand that the abuse took place was due to her paranoid schizophrenia, but it seems just way too much for me. Perhaps we might not able to understand how young Sybil feels since we have not been through such experience before. However, we could still feel her pain! In my personal point of view, abusive parent is equivalent with the neglectful or permissive parent and will straight away being labeled as a failure in terms of being a parent.

As the conclusion, the movie has overall portrayed DID in an accurate way and was fit in perfectly according to DSM-IV. Besides, there are several lessons that we could learn from this movie. First of all, we should learn that psychological disorder can be inherited from the previous generation such as parent or grandparent. Therefore, we should be more alert if any of our family members are diagnosed with psychological disorders. Secondly, a humble advice specially dedicate for those who have planned to have children in the future. If you have high aggressive tendency or any form of psychological disorder, please make sure that you have considered properly for the sake of the child’s emotion and physical health.

References

Barlow, D.H. & Durand, V.M.  (2009).  Abnormal Psychology: An Integrative Approach (5^th ed.).  Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Swartz. A. (2001). Dissociative identity disorder. Retrieved from http://allpsych.com/journal/did.html

Parenthood~

Parenthood (1989) is a movie directed by Ron Howard. The film was mostly based on the family and parenting experiences of himself. There were four different parenting styles have been portrayed in the movie.

Gil Buckman (Steve Martin), a father of three children who practiced the authoritative parenting style. Gil always wanted to be an active and interactive father, rather than repeating the same mistake that his father did to him when he was young. However, he realized that life was not that easy when he found out that his eldest son, Kevin was troubled with emotional problem due to his low self-esteem issue. On the other hand, he was also facing the unfair treatment in his work. As what the Chinese proverb says: “Bad things keep coming”. As soon as he discovered that his wife got pregnant accidentally, his relationship with his wife, Karen (Mary Steenburgen) has went down into a deep hole as they could hardly reach on a consensus either accepting the new birth, or take on an abortion. In my personal point of view, I can truly understand how Gil felt on the dilemma.  As we can see, Gil is a good father and he certainly loves to have a new family member in their house. Nonetheless, he understands that having a new child is equivalent to the increases of expenditures, especially during the hard time when he has lost his job. Men always play the role as the breadwinner of the house and they have the responsible to take care and make the decisions that best for the family. Standing in Gil’s point of view, he has the reason to ask for an abortion. Meanwhile, by standing in Karen’s shoes, we can also understand the reason that she wanted to keep the baby. Therefore, no one is guilty in this situation and a good discussion is always needed.

Helen (Dianne Wiest) is the sister of Gil. Helen is a bank manager that divorced with her dentist ex-husband, who has abandoned two children with her, Julie and Garry. Different from his brother, Helen practiced permissive parenting style where she overindulged her children. As the result, the children have no respect toward their mother. During one of the scenes in the movie, Helen was so frustrated when Julie tried to run away from home by threatening her that she would be prohibited to come home once she stepped out from the door. However, her attitude changed after a few seconds and allowed her to come home anytime she wanted. In my opinion, Helen has failed to become a mother, in terms of responsibility and the authority that a mother should has. It is a failure for a parent to lose their respect from the children.

Susan (Harley Kozak), is another sister of Gil. She is a science teacher who married to an intelligent scientist husband, Nathan Huffner (Rick Moranis). The parenting style of Nathan was totally different from Gil and Helen. Nathan put high hope on Patty, the only daughter in the house. He even taught Chemistry periodic table to a little girl who was younger than 5 years old. On the other hand, he looked down on Gil’s daughter, Taylor who always acted in the “non-understandable” behaviors. Thus, as the result of the influence from the father, Patty has therefore become different from the others children and was being isolated from the world of the ordinary children. I agree that children are like a sponge during certain period where they can absorb everything that they learned. However, forcing them to learn is not always a wise decision. In my opinion, children should have live freely during their early age and learning can be occurred steps by steps. We must always concern about the child willingness to learn but not utilize any force or threat methods.

Lastly, the neglect parenting style that practiced by Larry (Tom Hulce), the youngest brother of Gil was totally an irresponsible act and he should be shameful on himself. Larry gone into an affair with a showgirl in Las Vegas and got a bi-racial son, Cool. Larry does not have any feeling toward his son as he always dream on his rich-quick schemes. When he got into trouble with his massive debt, he put himself on his shoes and fled away, leaving Cool alone in his parent house. In my opinion, this is such a disgrace for him as a father.

In my point of view, authoritative is the best among the other three parenting styles. Based on my personal experience, I believe that authority of a parent is an important element that should not be neglected. The consequences of the permissive parenting style that lack of authority is the best example in supporting my point. My parent did include authority in their parenting style, especially my mother. After understand the various kind of parenting styles, I now agree with how my parent treated me and my brother when we were young, despite we did blame them before for their harshness.  As what my mom said, children should be taught when they were still young and it is hard to change when they have grown older. Therefore, being harsh in the beginning is always better than regretting at the later time.

As the conclusion, I think this movie is a must watch film for all the parents, especially for those who are practicing either permissive, neglect or over authoritarian parenting styles. The move has portrayed the consequences of each parenting style accurately and it could be a best reference for them.

The Fisher King (1991) is an American comedy film directed by a famous director, Terry Giliam, starring with Jeff Bridges and my recent favorite, Robbie Williams.

Jack Lucas (Jeff Bridges) was once a famous and egotistical talk radio host. However, after making a serious mistake on an unintended statement towards a psychotic caller who then committed a mass murder at a bar in Manhattan after listen to his “advice”, Jack has lived a bad and sloppy life in the following three years until he met Parry (Robbie Williams). Parry was a lonely widower who has just recovered from his catatonic disorder. Jack then soon realized that Parry was actually being traumatized by the horrific death of his wife in front of him during the mass murder which caused by Jack indirectly. According to Parry’s landlord, he has become obsessed with the story of the Fisher King after he was awake from the catatonic state. Since then, he was desperately trying to get the “Holy Grail” which located in a tightly secured castle. Parry told Jack that he was the right person that could help him to fulfill his “quest”. Jack rejected him initially but when came to the feeling of responsible and guilt of his wrong doing in the past, he decided to redeem himself by assisting Parry to declare his love to a shy woman, Lydia (Amanda Plummer) who worked as an accountant for a Manhattan publishing house. However, Parry was once again haunted by his imaginary Red Knight when he confessed his love to Lydia. Eventually, he was committed to the hospital after being brutally beaten by the thugs who have attacked Jack during earlier of the show. As the result of the incident, Parry fell back to his catatonic state again. Jack felt extremely upset and he therefore decided to fulfill Parry’s “quest” by infiltrated into the castle where the “Holy Grail” was. Eventually, Parry has regained consciousness after Jack placed the grail in his hand and at the end of the movie, Parry and Jack were reunited with their loves one and form a happy ending.

Do you believe that words can kill? I do believe….

Words serve an important role in the language that aids our daily communication. However, we should not underestimate the “power” of words. The nightmare of Jack Lucas has shown us a good lesson on that point. An unintended sentence can cause something unpleasant to happen, such as conflicts, argument or even tragedy events, like what had happened in the movie. Personally I believe that words can be an ultimate deadly weapon that can harm people physical or mentally without leaving any sign or mark on it. For example, we could not assure that everyone can accept any kind of jokes that we think are appropriate, where some people can get offended easily and this would eventually lead to unpleasant consequences. Therefore, we shall think precisely and analyze the consequences of what we said before we open our mouth.

Due to his guilt and sense of responsibility, Jack carried out his redemption by trying his best to compensate the harms that he brought to Parry indirectly. On the other hand, he hoped that he could resume his life after the pay back. As we can see, Jack contacted his agent for job right after he helped Parry in his confession of love towards Lydia. Can we hence address this behavior as a selfish act? Was Jack doing it just because he wanted to make himself feels better in his remaining life? Well, perhaps the answer might vary among individuals. In my point of view, I would think that this is a selfish act that used to make him felt better. Still, I would give credit to Jack as where he was willing to carry out the compensation instead of keeping his arms fold.

Is letting go an unpleasant memory always a difficult task to accomplish?

Parry has been traumatized by the death of his wife that happened in three years back. He started to experience hallucination on a Red Knight that chases after him all the time. The Red Knight appeared every time when he felt confident and as what we can see from the movie, his hallucination reappeared when he felt happy and confident after revealed his love towards Lydia. In my point of view, the hallucination serves as a blocker that used to stop Parry in regaining his confidence and trapped him in his helpless zone. Due to his fear towards the Red Knight, Parry dared not to fight his fear until he met with Jack. Letting go an unpleasant memory on certain event is hard, especially when the event was hurtful enough to be remembered. However, Parry was able to let go his past by saying “It is OK for me to miss his death wife. Therefore, I think that let go is always the first step to do in order to move forward to a better future.

However, I feel a bit sad for Jack’s lover, Anne before knowing the ending. Anne has stayed along with Jack in his three years of misery period. However, Jack has disappointed her when he has successfully overcome his guilt and regret of his life. It is hurtful when Jack replied “I don’t know” as the answer when Anne confronted him. Therefore, I feel that Jack should be more grateful and appreciate Anne in terms of her sacrifices and loves on him. It is difficult to find someone who can stay beside us when we are having troubles or hard time during our life and hence, we should learn and know how to appreciate when the person appears in our life.

As the conclusion, I love the symbolism techniques that used in the movie, For example, the existence of the perpetrator in the castle that used to remind Jack not to give up, the “Holy Grail” as a symbol of grace and the Red Knight, which I personally feel it was so cool. However, it is a bit unrealistic for a normal individual who does not receive any prior training to sneak into a high security guarded castle.

The Castle~

The Castle (1997) was an Australian comedy film directed by Rob Sitch, starring with Michael Canton as the main character of the movie. It was a low budget production and was filmed within 11 days. The movie has received great feedback in Australia and New Zealand.

The movie was basically about how the Kerrigan family protects their home from the eviction by the big fancy develop company. Darryl Kerrigan (Michael Caton) is the head of the Kerrigan family, everyone in the house respect him and he is satisfied with his current living condition and he loves his home so much. However, things have changed and his nightmare came one day starting from a knock on his door. Due to their “neighbor’s” expanding project, the Melbourne Airport, Darryl and his family received the compulsory acquisition order from the developers. Darryl was frustrated with the “compulsory acquisition” as he believes that no one could force him out of his “castle”. As a result, Darryl appointed his acquaintance, Dennis Denuto as his lawyer. However, Dennis was too incompetent when dealing with the Constitution cases. In the end, he failed to help Darryl twice. However, the appearance of Lawrence Hammill (Bud Tingwell), a former Queen’s Counsel twisted the story. With the help of Lawrence, Darryl finally was able to win the court case and it has become a landmark in the history of the Constitution case suit.

“Home is always a man’s castle”, this was what Darryl Kerrigan insisted throughout the movie. Darryl holds a great concept of HOME in the movie. To him, a home is always a place for his family members to gather around and share their stories, especially during dinner time. As what we can see, Darryl emphasized on the importance of communication among family members and watching television during dinner was prohibited.  Besides, Darryl also appreciates the time when he and his family can gather around. Therefore, he would organize vacations for his whole family, including his dogs. Personally I like the way on how Darryl and his family gather around and watch television together on every Saturday night. This scene has hence made me recalled some scenes in my mind where me and parent were watching television in the living room and having some great time together. Being alone in the place that far away from home and my family has indeed made me realized that how important are they in my life.

I would like to say that Darryl might be a good father, a good husband, or even a good neighborhood. However, I think that sometimes he was just too stubborn and persist in his opinion, for example like the “compulsory acquisition” issue. Many people around him, including his lawyer, Dennis have even told him he is not going to succeed when comes to this kind of cases but still, he insisted his opinion regardless of the objections but he has to give up eventually when he has lost the court case in the High Court. In my opinion, I would agree that home is important to every one of us and it is right to do anything in order to protect our home, but sometimes we might also need to give in according to the situation. For example the case in the movie, it is no doubt that a house is important to a family but in my personal opinion, there is always home when every family members stay together. In Darryl case, he could obey to the eviction instruction and looks for some others suitable places in order to build his new “castle” but not keep fighting.

From my point of view, I think I could understand the underlie reason behind Darryl when he refused to shift from his home that he used to stay for a long time and I believe that this is probably due to the comfort zone effect. Darryl has been staying in that house for a long period of time and he has already got used to his current living condition and naturally he would choose not to leave his comfort zone. I think this could explain why Darryl would react in such aggressive ways.

As the conclusion, as a low budget production, I think this movie has beaten plenty of those millions productions in terms of storyline and I still believe there are some times in our life we have to give in and sacrifice. Stepping back doesn’t mean a bad thing as we might actually able to gain some unexpected outcome sometime.

The “6th” Sense

The Sixth Sense was an American psychological thriller film written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan in 1999, starring with Bruce Willis and Haley Joel Osment as the main characters. Besides, the film was nominated for six Academy Awards.

The movie was basically telling a story on how a child psychologist, Dr. Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis) helps a troubled and isolated boy who has difficulty in dealing with others except his mother.  The story started when Crowe was shot by his former patient, Vincent Grey who sneaked into his house and later kills himself with the gun. After the incident, Crowe started to work with a nine years old boy, Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment) who has a similar condition background with Vincent. Initially, Crowe was once doubt with his capability in providing help to Cole while at the same time he is having some problem in his marriage due to his over dedication in his job. However, Crowe has eventually earned the trust from Cole, a “unique” child who always being recognized as a freak in school, a boy who stays with his mother and has no friend at all. After a successful rapport has been built between Crowe and Cole, Cole finally revealed his “secret” to him by telling that he can actually see dead people around him. Though Crowe think that it might be a delusion for Cole but soon he realized that it could be real and he suggested that Cole could help these “dead people” to fulfill their unfinished business before their death. With the encouragement from Crowe, Cole was finally able to help a girl who had being poisoned by her stepmother by giving an evidence videotape to her father. During the end of the movie, Crowe finally realized that his relationship with his wife was not decayed; instead, his wife loves him and misses him so much. Unfortunately, he realized that he has died after being shot by Vincent a year ago.

There are two types of relationships that has portrayed in this film, which are the relationship between a mother and her son, and the relationship between a child psychologist and his young little client. Firstly, I would like to talk on the relationship between Cole and his mother. As we can see, Cole’s mother has picked up the responsibilities alone in taking care of Cole and she has been portrayed as a tough mother who is able to withstand all those weird behaviors from Cole and even willing to let go her job just to take care of her son. The sacrifices that made by the mother were not fake but it was truly from the deepest of her heart. In my opinion, I always believe that parents are the only one who always willing to sacrifice everything for their children and never demand for any return, especially the mother. For example in my personal experience, my mother sacrificed her career when I was born, sacrificed her sleeping time when I was sick and a lot more sacrifices that had been made by my mother. Therefore, I truly appreciate what my mom had done for me and I respect her from the bottom of my heart.

Besides, the relationship between a child psychologist and his client was also another draw point of the movie. Crowe has been portrayed as a dedicated and professional child psychologist and his persistent towards Cole was a good example. The passion in Crowe can serve as a great role model for anyone who is working in the helping occupation. As the result of his persistent and dedication, he was able to help Cole to overcome his fear and distress that had troubled him for a long time. In my personal opinion, giving up is always easier than persistence and if a counselor or any occupations in the helping field requires such attitude and skills, I believe that it will bring a better outcome that benefits the counselor and the clients.

Overall, the unexpected ending of the movie has given a “stunt” to the audiences and I believe that no one would expect such ending in the end. However, if “The Sixth Sense” was a horror movie, I would only give 6 out of ten as the satisfaction of the movie. In my point of view, it would be better if more horrifying scenes in the movie. However, I will still put a “like” on the storyline and the actors, especially the small little kid, Haley Joel Ostent who acted as Cole Sear in the movie.

Mississippi Burning~ Burn!

Mississippi Burning (1988) is an old movie that based on the real life FBI investigation on the murders of three civil rights workers in Mississippi, United State that happened in 1964. Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe were playing the role of the real FBI agents John Proctor and Joseph Sullivan.

The story is based on a real life murders that happened in Mississippi where three civil right workers were being murdered. After the missing of the three civil right workers, agent Alan Ward (Willem Dafoe) and Agent Rupert Anderson (Gene Hackman) were sent to Mississippi for further investigation.  Agent Alan and his partner have experienced a hard time during the investigation as the local sheriff and other officers were refused to provide any cooperation and the Black people in the town were too afraid to provide any help to them. After an in depth investigation, agent Alan and agent Anderson discovered that these white officers were linked to the Ku Klux Klan, an extremist group of white supremacy. However, the turning point of the whole incident happened when the three missing bodies were found after the wife of the deputy sheriff, Clinton Pell (Brad Dourif), revealed to agent Anderson the location where the bodies were buried. As a result, the wife was being beaten severely and ended up in the hospital. This has eventually triggered the anger of agent Anderson. After a brief quarrel with agent Anderson, agent Ward finally agreed to use agent Anderson ways that violated from the ordinary bureaucratic rules. The story ended with the whole Klu Klax Klan in the town were arrested and sentenced to jail, except for Sheriff Ray Stuckey (Gailard Sartain).

The core themes in the story are prejudice and discrimination. In one of the scenes, where agent Anderson recalled what his father told him when he was a boy: “If you are not better than the Blacks, what could you be?” This simple sentence has indeed carried a strong sense of discrimination and prejudice. Why Blacks are inferior to the White? Is because of their skin color? Or is because they are immigrants that “intruded” their land and competed with them on the limited resources?

In the movie, the prejudice and discrimination towards the Blacks has rooted deeply in the people’s heart and these Black people were constantly under such unfairly treatment has lost their guts and courage to fight back and regain their respect from the White people and therefore, this inferior group of people hence portrayed learned helplessness. Like what we can see from the movie, the elder groups of Black people have lost their hopes and dare not say “No” towards the discrimination on them. They have learned that fighting back will eventually cause harm on them and their family as they have witnessed the consequences of the three civil right activists and the young black guy that was suspected in helping the FBI. However, only the next generations dare to speak and challenge their faith by persuading their clique member to tell the truth. This hence has shown a great contrast between the mindset of the younger generation and the elder generation who has already gave up their rights and pride.

Besides, I have also discovered a small part of a scene that can fit into the gender identity theory. This can be seen when the wife of Clinton has to answer the door after he refused to do so as he is having his dinner while watching his favorite baseball match. Clinton has portrayed himself as he is the king in the house where he has the authority to order his wife to do anything he wants, regardless of her wishes. Moreover, social learning theory can be used to describe the discrimination that happen in the movie and even in the real world. In my point of view, when discrimination and prejudice happen repeatedly, people will take it as normal and these people will hence look through others from a discrimination lens, especially for those younger generations who have been exposed under such influences since they were young.  This phenomenon will then pass down to the subsequent generations.  Therefore, it can explain why the discrimination issues can last for a few centuries and it is still happening now in this 21^st century!

The world is now working hard in spreading the idea of anti-racism everywhere, including on the football field. I think the hottest topic of month was the racial issues between Manchester United left back Patrice Evra and Liverpool stricker Luis Suarez. The scenario started with a sensitive word “Negro” by Luis Suarez towards Patrice Evra. “Negro” was refers to a person with black appearance and often representing a meaning of the people with lower standard. I was so shocked when I heard about the news and a question came into my mind at that point of time: How could a world class player can be so racism and discriminate his opponent who has a darker skin color? In my opinion, football field is a place for the “warriors” to show their talents and skills, but not a place for racist and prejudice to happen. From this incident, we can know that prejudice and discrimination are still exist in the world we live today.  I think all of us should hence aware on this phenomenon and try our best to stop it from happening in the future.

Personally I feel great with the ending of the movie and I do agree with the way on how agent Anderson settled the case even it has already violated from the bureaucratic rules. I would not mind to use some other unjustified strategies in order to deal with the problem when I know what is the best for the situation. Like the case in the movie, the murderers were not being charged from the legal law execution but eventually arrested by using agent Anderson’s “personal ways”.  However, I feel a bit unfair and shocked when Sheriff Stuckey was acquitted from his charges. That makes no sense and sounds ridiculous for me as the ending. Meanwhile, I also could not understand why Mayor Tilman will commit suicide at the end of the movie and perhaps the director should has gave us a clear reason on Mayor Tilman’s suicidal attempt.

As the conclusion, I do agree with what agent Ward mentioned in the movie: “Everyone should have equal treatment under the law”. Every human that live in this world should have been treated equally, regardless of what language they speak, what color of their skin and what nationality they are.

Forget Paris~

Forget Paris (1995) is a movie that combines the elements of romance and comedy that directed and produced by Billy Crystal.  Billy Crystal was also the main character in the movie, together with Debra Winger.

The story starts with a National Basketball Association (NBA) match between Phoenix Suns and San Antonio Spurs. Mickey Gordon (Billy Crystal) was the official referee of the game and he was being booed by the audience as he gave a controversial win to the Spurs. After the game, Mickey took a flight to Paris for his father funeral. Unfortunately, his father’s coffin has gone missing and this was where Mickey met his future wife, Ellen Andrew (Debra Winger). Ellen was an employee of the American Airlines. With Ellen’s help, Mickey was finally able to reclaim his father’s coffin. Mickey has then formed a friendship with Ellen after the incident and soon they fell in love with each other. Nevertheless, Mickey was then separated with Ellen after he realized that Ellen was married.

Eventually Mickey and Ellen got married but different from the normal love story, they did not “live happily ever and after”. Instead, they have to face the problems that were commonly faced by most of the married couple, such as loneliness, dissatisfaction with each other and etc. However, in the end of the movie, Mickey and Ellen were able to overcome all their problems and willing to give another chance for them to continue their journey of love.

Whenever I watch a romantic story, a question will always pop out in my mind: Is romantic love in the movies exists in our reality life? I believe that many of us, including myself would like to have such beautiful and romantic love story to happen in our life. But the question is, is the love in the movie realistically enough to happen in the reality of life? Perhaps not. As time goes by, I realized that love is not as simple as what has just portrayed in the movie. Instead, some of the romantic movies are just advocating unrealistic love in our life. Most of the romantic movies have created a misbelief where finding the right person would guarantee the success in their love life. Once again, this kind of unrealistic thoughts and beliefs did affect the way on how individual in choosing their intimacy partner nowadays. Due to these beliefs, people are hence putting high expectation on their dating partner and try to find the right person that matches their “unrealistic” expectations. Eventually, some unlucky people who failed to find their “Mr. Right or Ms. Right” would remain single all the time, as one of the famous quotes in Facebook: “Forever alone”.

Furthermore, Mickey and Ellen have portrayed the “real life” of many married couple would face in their marriage. There are a lot of matters that might happen after married and the most common thing that always happen would be hoping for changes. For example in the movie, Ellen hopes that Mickey can stay with her longer by giving up his “frequently travelled” job as a NBA official referee.  At the same time, Mickey was also hoping Ellen could get used of his life and adjusts herself in order to suit his lifestyle. In my opinion, the desire in hoping for changes in the partner is selfish. The person who asks for changes in another person is the one who refuses to change. Mickey has tried his best to change based on Ellen request by quitting his favorite job and work as a car agent that has a more rigid working schedule. However, when Ellen was able to switch to a better job, she had forgotten what sacrifices that has made by Mickey and ignored most of his requests. Eventually Ellen got mad when Mickey informed her that he would be back to the court that he belonged. Why Ellen would get mad because of Mickey decision? Is this because Mickey went against her wishes? Or she refused to change her own desirable lifestyle to suit Mickey lifestyle?

Besides, there are many stereotypical cultural concept that has been passed down from the past, where women should give up their job after they have get married and they must put their effort and time only on their family. For me, this is a typical demand of changes on female in a family. I have witnessed the same thing happen in my old neighborhood where the women who stayed next door was prohibited to work by her mother-in -aw and she has to give up her job after the marriage. Many of the women have to give up their favorite or high salary job due to the marriage and then become a full-time mother/home maker. This phenomenon is more likely to happen in the Asian context rather than the Western.

Is marriage is a graveyard of love?

Why there is some married couple can last until forever while some marriage could only last for couple of years, or even months? Is marriage so hard to be sustained?

In my point of view, marriage does not mean to “blend” two persons into a same person. A male and a female who get married can still remain their identity as a solely individual where they should retain their freedom that they have before their marriage. The two persons in the marriage are like the pillars of a house and if any of the pillars has gone, the house would collapse. Hence, same thing could happen in a marriage. A successful marriage should be managed by the two individuals who strive to achieve better marriage life. Besides, I believe that selfishness can ruin any kind of relationships, regardless of marriage or in the stage of romance relationship. We should learn how to stand in others people’s shoes in order to gain a better understanding on our partner.  As a result, we might be able to avoid many unnecessary arguments that can harm a beautiful relationship. Furthermore, bringing unrealistic expectation into a marriage would also kill the marriage. Conflicts may happen when there is a mismatch between expectation and reality. Therefore, we shall remember that there is no such thing as perfect match in a relationship.

As the conclusion, unlike the previous romantic movies that I have watched, the starting of the movie has indeed successfully attracted my attention where the background of the story has somehow related to my favorite NBA, especially when the appearance of the Lost Angeles Lakers legendary player, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. The movie has used a series of flash back in portraying the story and this was relatively new for me to expose in sure narrative technique. However, there are still some drawbacks in the movie where this narrative method could have missed out some tiny little fine point in the movie and it can therefore affects the overall feeling of the movie. Nonetheless, I think “Forget Paris” was indeed a meaningful title where marriage life is different from honeymoon and we should be realistic that honeymoon would never last forever.