What I would have done differently (FASCINATION PROJECT)

 Man... I love making funny/cool/informative Youtube videos of my travels/experiences. I am pretty good at it too. The problem with this though, is that these Youtube videos have no plot and are just for fun, so trying to think of a plot for this horror movie that me and my peers were trying to make was really hard. Given, most horror movies have crappy plots, I still wanted to make it good. 

Here is a link to my Youtube channel, give it a look. ;) 

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I think for next time, I would chose comedy because that is what I'm good at, and maybe Avant-Garde because that doesn't require much of a plot. We just put together a bunch of ideas without really any form or meaning and put spooky music in the background and we hope it gets people's heart rates rising. 

Our story was about a terrible case of sleep paralysis, where the main character gets haunted every night when she goes to sleep and she wakes up in a random place, not knowing where she is, or what she did during the night. The film starts with a shot of the protagonist waking up with blood on her hands. She doesn't know whose blood it is. The film ends with the "thing" coming at night to haunt her again. 

Objectification of Females in Films

 The director, Nina Menkes, talked about how she sees a clear connection between the visual language of cinema, employment discrimination and sexual abuse/assault. She broke down the common phrase: "The objectification of women". For example, "The man sees the woman"–– in this case the man is the subject and the woman is the object. The man is doing the looking and the woman is being looked at. This also describes male gaze which the film industry uses a lot of. In film, the woman is usually gazed at by the men. 

Men are often filmed in 3D lighting where their wrinkles and age are not being hidden because it shows them as masculine and rugged which is typically seen as attractive. However, women are "not allowed to age" and these same qualities that make a man handsome, supposedly make a woman look old and unattractive. And since in film, women are usually objects to look at that are pleasing to the eye, they are filmed in 2d and soft lighting in order to hide their "physical flaws". They are also filmed in a way so that the male protagonist or the audience can objectify them. This is because Hollywood is filled with straight, male directors and their ravenous hunger for women and their films typically reflect that. 

Research shows that after watching sexually objectifying media, men are more likely to engage in sexual harassment and abuse. 80% of the media content distributed around the world is made in Hollywood. 94% of women in Hollywood experience sexual harassment. 

How characters vary in different cultures...

There is a clear cultural difference in American and Spanish movies. In Pan's Labyrinth, the fictional character were portrayed in a very interesting way. In American movies, the "good guys" are usually handsome, or beautiful and portrayed nicely (Ex: Disney princesses, the Incredibles family, Harry Potter, etc.) whereas the "bad guys" are usually scary or gross (Ex: Voldemort from Harry Potter, Sloth from the Goonies, Syndrome from the Incredibles, I don't know who the guy next to him is but he's ugly, the Disney villains, and the clown from IT). 

However, in the Pan's Labyrinth film, it was hard to tell who was bad and who was good. This is because of the language and cultural barrier. At first, I thought that the fascist leader Vidal was a good guy because he seemed nice and put together, until he grabbed Ofelia's hand harshly. That made me start to question him, still I didn't think he was a villain but rather a strict man. I also thought the Faun was bad because of how ugly it was and I could not tell the tone of its voice because of the language barrier. Sometimes in the languages and cultures, things that people would usually think is harsh or insensitive would be seen as totally normal in that culture. For example, in Russian culture, it is weird to smile at people that you do not know and it is totally normal to tell someone they are looking chunky. People who have not experienced the Russian culture might think it's rude. 

Because of the way the Spanish auteur portrayed the characters through his personal lens, it was hard to tell who was good and who was bad until the film started to unfold. Even the fairies who were good looked creepy. Interestingly, Vidal was handsome but was probably the biggest monster in the whole film. 

Lost in Translation

I moved to America from Russia when I was three. Russian was my first language so I know it pretty well.   There are certain words and phrases that sound a lot better when you say it in Russian and when you try to translate it to English, the meaning and the depth gets shaved off. It is "lost in the translation". The title of this film is very clever. 

Two Americans are in Tokyo, Japan. They both came for a reason, but they seem lost. Though they are surrounded by many people, everyone seems distant. They are constantly reminded of their unbelonging. Both of them feel distant, disconnected, and confused about their relationship with their significant other. The language barrier and culture differences make it hard to connect with people. It's almost as if their meaning and purpose was lost in the transition from America to Japan. The film shows us many bright lights, and loud noises coming from the city, arcades, clubs. But when they are in their rooms, they are back to quiet, darkness, and loneliness. 

At first, merely smiles and short conversations are exchanged between the two but quickly a connection is made.  There is no language barrier between them, and they both bond over their longing for something deeper. I like how there is nothing sexual about their relationship, but rather they form an emotional bond with each other. They experience a doomed love for each other. Charlotte brings Bob's youthful nature out and he brings her the love and emotional connection she can't get from her husband. Despite their obvious love for each other, they do not escalate into physical intimacy, and know that they are bound to be separated from each other. They must go on with their lives and move on. 

I like how in the end of the film, the audience is not told what Bob whispers into her ear. The plot continues to go against all expectations, starting with an uncomfortably long shot of Charlotte from behind in the opening scene, to not fully giving the audience the satisfying ending that they want. In the end we are left unfulfilled, wishing there was a happy ending for the two and wanting to know what he whispered to her. But we will never know. (click this link to watch an interesting crash course on the movie to gain a deeper understanding) 

Why "Get Out" is so great

It addresses real world problems and brings to the surface things that members of majority groups might not understand. The very awkward and slightly rude interactions between the white party attendants and the main character, Chris,  may have been drawn from the director's actual experience. I hear about it a lot but to see an example of it in a film hits different. It helps me to empathize better and to understand the types of interactions that people of color experience. I can feel the tension and awkwardness of the interactions through the screen. It frustrates me even though I'm not the one experiencing it. 

Put yourself in Chris's shoes. Imagine the person you fell in love with, someone you trust and who you see a future with, turns on you in a split second and becomes an emotionless psycho. Rose pretended to care about and love Chris deeply and she did it well. Imagine if everything you had, every connection, every conversation, every moment you had together was fake. And even then, when Rose clearly betrayed him, he still loved her. He still called for her, sought for her. In the very end of the film, when he had the opportunity to kill her, he couldn't bring himself to do it. Thinking about this makes me emotional. 

Interestingly, at the end of the film when Chris is about to get murdered, we see Rose sitting on her bed completely unbothered, looking for her next victim. She has her head phones in and is eating a bowl of cereal. There's an ongoing joke about how people who eat their cereal wrong are "serial killers". If you pour the milk before the cereal then you're a psychopath. The irony is that she was eating the cereal pieces slowly, one by one and taking long sips of milk after. Now that is truly the behavior of a psychopath serial killer. It would have been cool and mysterious to show that in the beginning of the film to foreshadow it.