I question mark

noreply@blogger.com (ASLI ERTAN) — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 11:40:22 PST

ASLI ERTAN

Do we need salt in our relationships?

noreply@blogger.com (ASLI ERTAN) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:10:00 PST

Vicky Christina Barcelona

Woody Allen discusses the question that which character is the most closest one in the way of finding fulfillment or meaning of life.

Vicky : Vicky is shown as realistic and grounded character at the first parts of the movie. She is a grad student and studies Catalan identity. She has a "lovely" fiancee,Doug, whom she will marry soon. Narrator tells us that Vicky's requirements in a man were seriousness and stability. She had become engaged to Doug because he was decent and successful and understood the beauty of commitment. However, after spending a god dammed weekend in Oviedo with Juan Antonio, she found herself confused. She is not sure about her thoughts, plans and expectations of life. While she was speaking on the phone, Doug always said "I love you" before hang up the phone but Vicky didn't give any responses to Doug. Certainly, she has no love for Doug. She thinks that she wants her life perfectly in balanced and yet Doug is not a character who makes surprises so he is a perfect match who can spend life with in tune. Thus, this is the only reason that she married with Doug in Barcelona although she always thinks Juan Antonio and the unrealistic time that they spent together.

Christina: She is the impetuous character who is ready for any love adventure. She directed and acted in a short film which is about the hardness of love identification-not a surprising subject- She is not satisfied with the success of her movie. At first, she had a romance with Juan Antonio then his ex wife joined them and three of them began to have a relationship. Allen here describes that love can be built for three. But, unfortunately Christina feels discomfort in this relationship although she doesnt have any problem and reason. She again became dissatisfied. She always says she doesnt know what she wants but she does know what she doesnt want during the movie. She lets herself with the flow of things by not knowing whether she wants or not then at the end she is dissatisfied because she ran into things that indeed she didnT want but she was not aware of this situation. Maria Elena perfectly figures out that the problem in Christina's unhappiness that is because of her chronic dissatisfaction.

Juan Antonio:

"we are perfect one to another but not meant for eachother"
"life is short,dull and full of pain .life has no meaning and the trick is to enjoy it even though it has no meaning"

He gave up trying to discover himself and life. Thus, It is too hard to understand the characteristics of Juan Antonio.

Juan Antonio's father: He hates life because he knows what life is.

Doug: He is the most boring character. He represents the boring parts of real life namely daily life.

Asli Ertan

Alienation in Modern Society

noreply@blogger.com (ASLI ERTAN) — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 14:09:05 PST

I will compare and contrast Mike Newell’s Dance with a Stranger and Danny Boyle’s Shallow Grave in terms of alienation. The reasoning behind my choice is that these two films have explicit characteristics in the frame of alienation. Both highlight modern alienation in terms of alienated sexuality, isolation, normlessness whereas Newell discusses alienation also in class and gender difference perspective; Boyle discusses alienation in the working place as an alienated labour.
To begin with, when we examine Dance with a Stranger, we see Ruth, David, Desmond and Andy as film’s main characters. Ruth is the most alienated character in this film. Firstly, she was a manager of a night club, she was taking care of the customers, singing, dancing and seemed all right but after having met David, her life was totally changed she lost her job and she began to have obsessive feelings about David. She sheltered near Desmond with her son Andy and day by day she started to get distant from the world. She began to feel despair and disconnected from social world. The scene in which Andy was watching the television, in the background she was drinking and looked like a ghost then in the next shot Desmond entered the room shouted at Andy, and the child goes to another room without knowing what he is going to do, and then cuts to the Desmond and Ruth’s alienated making love scene. Because of Ruth’s powerlessness situation she couldn’t sustain anything her self identi
ty became normless, so her bad experiences alienates her.
Secondly, at the beginning of the film David describes nightclubs as “glorified brothels”, and Ruth ironically introduced herself “glorified brothel keeper”, in the film characters’ relationships are cheap and rough like in glorified brothels. Sexuality in these places are alienated and uncertain, there is lack of love. Also the relationship between Ruth and David is uncertain and cheap. Ruth fancies David and David likes the way she looks like, there is no sign of an ideal relationship among them also David hit Ruth, treated violently and Ruth as an alienated one has no power over him accepted his attitude. Moreover, David has a fiancée however he was interesting in Ruth to fulfill only his sexual needs. Thus, this whole situation provides alienated sexuality with violence.
A further indication that, in the ballroom scene while Ruth and Desmond were dancing, Ruth didn’t pay attention to Desmond but her eyes followed David and his fiancée. Dancing requires paying attention to your partner, however Ruth failed to do this, she couldn’t overcome her desires and create self-sustain bounds. So these failures of her, lead to social alienation in modern society.
Yet another means, the visual elements of Dance with a Stranger displays specific lighting techniques to clarify the ambiguity about the characters behavior and relationships. In the foggy scene, everything is in dark; there is incapability of seeing the whole. This emphasizes the uncertainty in the world by means of alienation problem, lack of understanding the whole. Soon after foggy scene, sequence goes on in darkness, just two characters in shots and there is no other people around them their relationship alienated from society’s regular relationships. there is impossibility of clear vision which points out our perspective is limited to see and give meanings to all the things which are going on in our social world, this brings meaninglessness likewise alienation.
Similarly, Danny Boyle’s Shallow Grave has alienated characters in modern society. David*, Juliet and Alex are the main characters of the film. After having cut the dead body of the forth roommate, David* began to behave strange. He isolated himself from others and moved to loft. He escaped from his social responsibilities and didn’t go to his workplace. He realized that how he could be violent, he feels insecurity because the modern life seemed unpredictable and dangerous to him. Therefore, he is alienated from social world. He tries to overcome his alienation by violation, when two murders came to find Hugo’s money. They bounded Juliet and Alex and went to loft one by one then we hear fighting sounds but there is a shot of Alex and Juliet then David* threw dead bodies of murders from top to down. Alex started to worry about David*’s weird behaviors because day by day David* gets away from his friends and lives isolated and therefore alienated from social world.
In the same way with Dance with a Stranger there is alienated sexuality between characters in Shallow Grave. There was an implicit relationship between Alex and Juliet but then Juliet began to be with David*, although she didn’t feel anything to him. Also she put a “LOVE” writing to Alex’ table but she chose David* who knew the place of the bag with full of money. Here we see Juliet is alienated from true love and friendship in order to get money, she lost her norm. So the relationship between Juliet and David* is an example of alienated sexuality. In the last sequences of the film, we witness that each of them made plans not to share the money between them. Every single of them displays that their friendship has no trust at all. They are alienated characters by the power of materialistic reasons.
Furthermore, before David hides the bag in loft, Juliet and Alex consumed some money. They bought meaningless things without knowing where to spend money. They lost their identities and became someone else; they have no responsibility for the money they just consumed without consciousness. They don’t care how much costs the camera that they bought, they exchanged their self-control with self-benefits and they became alienated individuals in society.
Similarly to the Dance with a Stranger, Shallow Grave represents visual aspects of ambiguity and uncertainness. The film opens with David*’s spinning head and voice over, the close-up of David* topsy-turry image describes a complex and uncertain situation. Later on we see that the owner of this head experienced confusion and uncertain events and became alienated.
If we go back to the Dance with a Stranger, we observe explicit class difference between Ruth and David. David belongs to upper class and Ruth was an ex-prostitute. Although she left her past behind, she can’t be belong to David’s world. The scenes in which Ruth and David went to David’s home, Ruth expressed her discomfort. In the scene that she looked at David’s house, she realized that she cannot enter David’s world. She cannot put herself into neither David’s world nor her past, she again alienates from social world because not having any clear social strata.
On the contrary, in Shallow Grave there is no class alienation and difference. Juliet is a doctor, Alex is a journalist and finally David* is an accountant. There are shots in film from David’s boring workplace. There are other people like David who work for a man to make him richer without gaining any personal fulfillment while doing their jobs. They are just a wheel in the machine, they don’t know the whole job so they generate false consciousness they don’t find do display their talents. So David as an accountant shows us alienated labor in modern society.
Thus, the modern alienation in Dance with a Stranger and Shallow Grave is similar in terms of losing self identity, normlessness and isolation and apart from these norms each film come up with a different type of alienation. Alienation which caused by class difference is discussed in Dance with a Stranger, on the other hand there is no class difference in Shallow Grave but there exists another type of alienation which is caused by modern work places that leads to alienated labor.