Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Crying Out Love, At the Centre of the World

I watched the film again this time. While last time I didn't pay too much attention.

What is significant, is that all the important things and serious things had happened early in our lives. It sharp and color our later life. We are tied to a time, most pure in its trace on our young life. And we don't think much of it, but actually it affects deeper. Until some occurances, its comes back to haunt us like a typhoon, and we must deal with it, until it truely past.
ANd there are ritual for its passing too. For closure, as the photographer mentioned, we invented heaven, so we have a complete story.

Another aspect is the important of the city in leaving and preserving traces of our memory, it is lucky that the protagonist's small Japanese town is preserved intact, as if nothing has changed since his lover's passing away. It seems to wait quietly
until he comes back again.

Little things during school time affects us deeply, we didn't know that the scars and the bruises stayed, until we touch them someday, absentmindedly, and a torrent of memories rushes back. The tapes are significant as a systematic way to recall the momories, convinently structuring the films into carefully calibrated episodes.

Memories of my childhood, especially during high school years rushes back, our character forming, dreaming, realizing time passed without we know much about it until we look back. But the deep feelings and the impressions of things left indelable markings in our hearts and souls.

I think of Dreamtrips and the aspiration it is, how I want to master a certain memories and feeling in it with the optimism of technology and be able to see and rewind our past like a cassette tape. The masterly execution of Crying Out Loud is what I must learnt and of course the book was precise in its depiction of emotions. Therefore it serves as an important blueprint fot he images.

I must recall the feelings of those times, those are serious feelings and solemn moments, while these days everything are light, not to be taken seriously, how can we aspire true and deep love if we don't take matters in ways like those days, we tend to make things lighter, avoid the deeper affectation because how we know it hurts.

I have idea about this boy who is incapable of being funny and takes thing lightly, who try to be funny but not as successful as his classmate, as he also knows that the words are what get the girls. And so his seriousness was hurt by a girl, who actually takes an interest in him. The story can develop from there and expand my theme of creativity again.

As creativity is serious and obsessive emotions. And so this theme should be developed in Sites of Enchantment, and extension of my theme about creativity.

Friday, January 06, 2006

Reflections on Dreamtrips

After 6 years in making Dreamtrips, I finally come up with the DVD. It is the closing of a chapter for me, but there are
ideas from the film that I intend to explore further. Such as the idea of Creativity, what is behind it? What makes people
want to create? What pleasure that the creative process gives to the creator?

In the Christian religion, the belief that the world was created by God in the act of Creation is a notion that I want to
explore further. If human is made in the image of God, then this drive to create can possibly be a purpose of human
existence.

Dreatmrips touched the tip of a well of ideas and it is a good jumping board to develop new ideas and thoughts on
the creative act itself.

There are several ideas developing, one is to look at Jesus Christ as an artist, a sort of performance artist that changed
the course of history, creative force that ultimately led to the performance of the millennium, facing death and resurrect,
what a great show!

The other idea on creativity is the idea of Hitler as a failed artist trying to put his revenge to the world by forming the
Nazi party. If we look at these two person side by side, Jesus Christ and Hitler were promoting dangerous idea to the world
and ultimate changed it. They sort of lived through the handywork and principals they have created.

The third idea has to do with the process of creation, what is the mind going through in the creative act? And what inspire
creativity? What are the sparks and why are they the muse? I am particularly interested in places that inspire people, not
only the beautiful scenery but specific the light of a place, these are subtle things that may not be noticed by the people
who don't create but artists has been sensitive to light for centuries, from painters to photographers and now filmmakers,
it seems that we as audience has taken for granted the beauty of light itself. Of morning and dusk. We are so very hurroed in
our living that we barely notice day and night, especially everything seems to be non stop 24 hours these days.