Yasaman Rafiei 2017-08-09

The Three Burials is a great movie, mostly because of Tommy Lee Jones and his spectacular talents as an actor and a director, besides the touching screenplay of Guillermo Arriaga. The storyline was simple, inspired by a true story and right to the point: Pete Perkins (Tommy Lee Jones) was a middle-aged rancher who became a friend of a young, decent, timid cowboy named Melquíades. He was more than a friend to him, he was more than a friend to everyone; he was the father figure. When Melquíades was killed by Mike Norton (Barry Pepper), Perkins saw it in himself to carry out his will to have a worthy burial in his homeland while dragging Norton all the way with him.

In my opinion, Lee’s acting was perfect. He was so attached to his character as if he was a rancher his whole life. Moreover, as a director, he worked on the details of every other character and gave them a back story, each of which grabbed the attention of the viewer. One of the most breathtaking characters was the lonely blind man with a radio.

The movie was full of beautiful sceneries and splendid sunsets, full of impressive rural landscapes. All these were mixed with the colourful interiors of the Mexican side. On the other hand, the two predominant colours of grey and white in the American interiors mostly were reflected sadness and sorrow. This is why Pete pictured Mexico as the land of felicity and dreamed of living with his, so called, lover over the border. However, Mexicans had an opposing opinion and did their best to cross the border into their dreamland.

In this movie, all Mexicans were depicted welcoming, noble, and kind. The only Mexican who expressed some reasonable violence was Mariana, who after saving Mike, poured hot coffee on him, hit him on the nose and said: “now we are even!” However, even Mariana did not hold back her smile from Mike in the next scene. Given these differences, Jones mostly took sides with the Mexicans rather than his own compatriots.

We can see three turning points in Norton’s character. At the beginning of the movie, he was a violent and narcissistic person who saw himself superior to the others (Mexican). He came all the way down to Texas with the idea of saving his country’s borders as a patrol guard and tried to be the wall who stops the “others”. He saw everyone who passed the border as enemies and easily moved ahead to beat them. His violent, cold, and apathetic character was not only evident in front of Mexicans but also appeared in his behaviours towards his wife. In the second quarter of the movie, his personality is humiliated by Pete. In Mike’s eyes, Mexican were considered as low lives, thus, Pete forced him to go to Mel’s house, drink water from his mug, and wear his clothes. Another way of looking at this is that Pete, the father figure, wanted to teach Mike a lesson “before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes.”

After crossing the border, in the last half of the movie, Mike transitioned into his new personality by familiarizing with Mexicans. When he saw how he can interact with the “other”’s culture, and how intimate they could become, the space between him and the “others” collapsed. He started to accept Mexicans and comprehended the depth of the catastrophe that he had committed. These all shaped his new identity. He started experiencing the hybridity on the borderland. In the end, it is time for Mike’s redemption; mourning for Mel’s death and seeking forgiveness on his knees. His cries “I’m sorry, Melquiades! For taking your life, I’m sorry!” helped him free his soul.

Maybe the best line of the movie was the last one where Mike asks Pete “You gonna be all right?” This emphasizes how he had changed during his borderland journey. In just a few days, his whole life turned around, he saw many ups and downs and learned the meaning of loyalty, justice, and friendship.

Yasaman Rafiei 2017-08-04

The movie is inspired by a true story when a businessman takes advantage of a troubled country to fill his pockets. He plans to overthrow an authoritarian government and replace it with another one to fulfil his interests, using military power and the fanatic Walker.

Walker betrays all principals and his lunatic, psychopathic, and pathetic character is exaggerated throughout the movie. Moreover, the use of car and helicopter (the earliest known helicopter is for 1906) did not match the year in which the story was taking place. Despite all this, the movie neatly depicted the true face and hegemony of Americans in Latin America. To them, Nicaragua was only a means of connecting two oceans. It is sad that the Americans insert the idea of fraternity into the society by telling them that “it is a privilege to be Nicaraguan”; insofar, the Nicaraguans mourned more for the death of their American brothers than their own people. They even blamed themselves for what has happened, “God Bless Americans, … They come to improve our civilization, to develop our country …but we killed them!”. This brotherhood didn’t last long and ended up abusing them in the worst way possible. In the final scene, when Nicaraguans were begging for their survival, they only received bullets as they did not carry any official American documents!

Another important theme of this movie is religion. The abuse of religion for the stability of power is sorrowful. Religion has been abused throughout history by Christians and Muslims, since the medieval ages, and the same trends are still going on around the world such as ISIS, al-Qaeda and even Donald Trump. Walker promoted Christianity and claimed that “God is on our side, victory is with us”. He even believes that God has given him the authority to do whatever he wants. That is why he says “we are here as a guest and we act with a moral dictated by God”. He is so sure and confident about his religiosity that he pushes back the one who is sympathizing with him over his lover’s death and says, “What do you know about God?” In this scene, his hypocrisy becomes obvious when he curses God when he is alone.

The Nicaraguans believed in him as their prophet who has come to rescue them from misery. “You are victorious, you broke cholera, you won.” The Nicaraguans see the image of God in him and he accepts it with open arms, “This is my destiny, I can’t lose”. However, as the story goes on, all these values are taken apart one by one and Walker turns into a political and moral loser. He claims to be a social democrat but finds the solution in slavery and dictatorship. Walker reminds me the Hitler’s words in 1936: “I am not a dictator, I have only simplified democracy”. Walker keeps on abusing the moral dictates of God until he becomes a cruel dictator.

In “Walker”, the main slogan of Americans was “we are here to unify this nation”. This lie had only one purpose to bring people together; however, liberals were their true friends and conservatives were, in fact, their enemies (based on the movie’s definition of liberal and conservative). To Walker, he himself was the Democrat, but he defined democracy as he wanted and ended up building a wall between the two political parties rather than unifying them.

Natives in this movie are shown as welcoming and friendly folks.  In the beginning, they guided Americans to find a path to Nicaragua, but Americans were cruel to them. Americans were cruel to black Americans as well, like the last scene of the movie when the faithful black American soldier was shot in cold blood as a response to his request to the Colonel to join them in the helicopter.

Walker is a smart man with signs of narcissism who is looking for an opportunity to get to power. He had some mental visions and once he reached them, he became a villain who is ready to do whatever it takes to maintain his position and his power. He had the illusion of being a representative of God on earth, who is born to be a winner. He couldn´t accept defeat and be willing to stand and die with the tag of Nicaragua´s president rather than returning to his country as a guilty American citizen. All in all, the idealist fanatic William Walker (Ed Harris), who lead the bloody and barbaric invasion of Nicaragua, under the influence that the United States has a moral right to protect its neighbours from all the oppressions, barely achieved his goal.

Yasaman Rafiei, July 24

Touch of evil is about the unlimited decline of the human nature. The plot is suspenseful, well written, with good pace. The movie is about the battle between an American policeman (Hank Quinlan) and a Mexican policeman (Ramon Miguel Vargas), who are symbolic representatives of their countries.

The opening scene of the movie (tracking the bomb) is dramatic. I enjoyed the suspense in which I knew the bomb is going to go off but without knowing what and who is going to be hurt and why?

The music reminded me of the music in Tarantino’s movies that induces a different sensation from the scene itself (romantic music on violent scenes). In Touch of Evil, the Latino and Jazz music throw me off balance and for me was a bit distracting (e.g. the hotel scene, where they wanted to inject heroin into Susie).

In this film, Femininity is arguable as it is defined as a symbol of desire. Women in a hyper-sexualized way are mere sex objects; this includes Susie (Miguel’s wife) and all other women of the movie, who are mostly sex workers and play passive roles with weak minds. Touch of evil, like many other Hollywood films, objectifies women and claims that the only reason for their existence is to please men. The depict of a weak woman is tangible in the scene in which Susan wants to go back to Us. She crosses the border to Mexico and her first impression of the new country is that Mexico is not safe; thus, she requests to go back to a hotel in the US border to be “safer”. Vargas as a Mexican tried to prove the true face of his country and he emphasises that “you know this is not a true Mexico”. Vargas believes that the image which is shown from Mexico in the border of United States is the false representation of his country. Susan after seeing the chaos on the border wanted to go back to her country, but she easily changed her mind when she got a letter from Pancho. The sexual attractions of Mexico seduced her to stay.

Another important theme of this movie besides decline of human nature is the matter of identity. The very first sign of identity and changing the identity is when at the border, the officer asked Susan “what is your surname?” she said her paternal family name and then Miguel (her husband) emphasised his Mexican surname (Vargas); this moment is important in two aspects. Firstly, in terms of gender and the dominant masculinity that shapes the woman’s identity, the personality of Susan in the entire movie is framed as Vargas’s wife. Secondly, in terms of nationality, he tries to impose his Mexican origin over hers, as an effort to familiarize her with his country, culture and origin.

On the other hand, Hank as a symbol of the United States is trying to prove that Mexicans are the cause of all chaos and sabotage on the border. While the only way for Vargas as a Mexican to deal with these lies is through consistent resistance and struggle. He tries hard to prove himself and his words. When Miguel Vargas understood that the American policeman pretends that he has found a dynamite in a box, nobody believed him and the American police accused him of covering up for the Mexican delinquent. In the story, the Americans are not being investigated as much as the Mexicans; moreover, the two policemen don’t have the same level of influence on the issue. The process is such that the Mexican part is to blame unless otherwise is proven with a valid certificate, such as a voice recording. In Touch of Evil, the colonized side, which is symbolized by Miguel, could conquer the colonial power (i.e. Hank) by resisting and challenging him and looking at him as the colonist.

Finally, what I really enjoy about this movie is its characters, especially the ambivalence character of Captain Hank Quinlan, played by Orson Welles, who demonstrated his acting skills as a hero and a villain. The general ambient of the movie is dark, gloomy, and melancholy; but, the drama benefitted from this. The events continued in their dark aura until the climax of the movie was reached with the karmic cliché and moral conclusion that the world will get back at those who do evil.

“Down Argentine Way” is a love story between Ricardo (the Argentinian boy) who crosses the border to sell his horses in the USA and Glenda (a beautiful American girl) who is looking to buy the horse; but once Don Ricardo understands that the girl has the Last name of Crawford, he changes his mind.

Undoubtedly, this movie is not a masterpiece. The only admirable things about this film were the musical piece of Carmen Miranda and the amazing dance of the Nicholas brothers. Miranda’s parts, with coquettish face emotions and her body language in seductive red, were catchy. These could be recognised as a good advertisement for both Miranda and the Nicholas Brothers; however, these were not interwoven into the narrative of the movie. Therefore, neither the songs nor the dancing performances advanced the plot and neither helped develop the main characters. Regardless, these musical scenes could serve as breaks in the storyline or, merely, as a touristic advertisement for Argentina. In “Down Argentine Way”, the role of Americans (Glenda and her aunt) are more important and centric. They are always in the middle of the scene and take the leading role with their impressive moves, while Argentinian spectators are standing to watch, enjoy, and admire them. This is heightened during the song “sing to your señorita”, where Binnie dances in the middle of the villagers which emphasises the sense of superiority of Americans over the Argentinians in a more tangible fashion.

In this movie, like the movie “Flying Down Rio”, Argentina is defined by its seductive and charming people, splendid, and lavish lifestyles, place of night life, clubs, dance, romance and so on. Director had filled his shots with exuberant images and exaggerated lifestyle. When Ricardo says, “in this small village you can find the true Argentina”, he means that here lies passion, and happiness filled with the music, rumba, and colours. Argentina appears with all sorts of exaggerations from 1940; While Argentina continues to be neutral during WWII, it is being pressured from other countries.

The theme of freedom was another theme for this movie which could be implied from the horse-riding. In this film, horses symbolised the power and grandeur of Quintana’s family or Argentina. The rebellion and glory of horses are metaphors for Ricardo. Binnie also mentioned this twice; once when Glenda was watching Ricardo’s riding, and said “- it’s wonderful.” And Binnie asks, “The animal or the beast?”, and again in another scene said, “South America has wonderful horses and wonderful men”. Horses are symbols of freedom and rebellion in south America; also, riding a horse gives the sense of being free. Just like the previous movie, “Flying down Rio”, the honor of the family in which Don Ricardo must obey his father was interesting, but at the end, he rebelled and participated in the horse riding without his father’s permission.

The shadow and hegemony of the north America are also evident throughout the language. English is a common language in Argentina; but the fact that Quintana’s family talks English in their home with each other, or the stable boy talks with a horse in English, was ridiculous. The only Spanish words which were repeated along the movie and were indicators of their origin were: señor, Señoria and Don. These are indications that Argentina was not truly represented in this movie.

In my view, “Down Argentina Way” is much more about the actors than the clichéd happy ending story. The story ends with everyone turning out to be happy, with vibrant colours and luxurious mise-en-scene, which add a high energy to the movie.

Perhaps no other country has produced as many heroic movies as the United States. The Mark of Zorro (1920) directed by Fred Niblo with a wonderful acting of Douglas Fairbanks is one of the very first of such movies at the very birth of Hollywood. For me, the best thing about this movie was that, for the first time, I could enjoy watching a silent movie photographed in Sepia! This may be the result of its fast-paced story and the magnificent dual role of Fairbanks as Don Diego and Zorro. He was genuinely attached to the two characters. His ambivalence character of easygoing and fatigued persona, who enjoys handkerchief tricks and shadow playing, artistically contradicts with the athletic Zorro with all those climbing scenes and super romantic persona.

One of the main themes of this film is oppression. This movie well depicts the oppression and exploitation of the natives and the poor people of California. The movie starts with a man with a wounded face who had beat a native Californian and got revenged by Zorro. Here, natives mostly play an observer role, hidden in the background of the battle between Zorro and Capitán Juan Ramon or Sgt. Pedro Gonzales.  Unfortunately “The Mark of Zorro” never depicts the obvious political conflicts between the Californians -sons of the Spanish who colonised California- and the authorities. It also missed mentioning the theme of corruption in politics and the role of the natives. It is just a symbolic showoff of a Spanish hero.

Lolita, Zorro’s love, matches the women stereotypes of its era. Lolita was in constant sorrow, longing for love, and waiting for the perfect wealthy man to arrive and conquer her heart. Although the high pace of the story suited my taste and grabbed my attention, it took away the required suspension for the viewers to feel connected with the main characters of the story. The lack of suspense makes the scene, in which Zorro won Lolita’s heart, superficial, and winning a woman’s heart a piece of cake. The lack of suspension also caused the final scene, which should have been the peak of the story, to pass quickly with no excitement. Besides, the sword battle scenes were very amateur and, at the same time, family friendly not to let anyone die to get injured.

To wrap it up, “The Mark of Zorro” had the same characteristics of Hollywood action movies. Full of shallow action scenes, pursuits and escape scenes, superficial love story, white and black, angel and evil characters. However what interests me the most is that all these ingredients have not changed over the past hundred years.

Francois Merlin is a writer of an espionage series books. In my view of Merlin, a clumsy man who is not taken seriously and can’t do anything right, lack of being perfect is the central concept of negating the real world. Merlin lives his imagination and tries to fill his “lacks” in his story. In his story or “imaginary world”, Francois is a well-known spy Bob Saint Clar. As Jacques Lacan mentions in his psychoanalytic philosophy, lack or better said manqué is a concept that shapes the desire in life. He has the desire of being a charming, jack of all trades, real “macho”, wealthy, well-shaped man. He uses the power of writing as a vital framework for thinking through subjectivity. The subjectivity of existing in the mind of his readers rather than the external world. In this case, his favourite reader is his beautiful neighbour Christine, the student of psychology who appears as Tatiana in his book. Merlin tries his best to approach Christine under the cover of his protagonist Bob. The peak of the movie is when he wrote the love scene as an excuse to kiss Christine and got rejected as not being Bob Saint Clar. This was a slap in his face that brought him back to reality. From that moment, we see the battle between the author and his protagonist to destroy Christine’s hero. Francois starts to hate Bob as a payback for his love and desire, I think that is why Merlin tried to kill him and come back to live his real life.

This movie is full of slapstick jokes and the narcissist characteristic of Bob that cares a lot about his appearance, creating funny scenes. He totally enjoys himself, it is clear when he kisses his biceps while playing the piano and abruptly looks around to make sure nobody is looking. “Loving oneself” as Freud maintains is the “libidinal complement to the egoism of the instinct”; thus, we can not separate this desire in Merlin from his sexual desires directed at Christine.

Although Merlin had never been to Mexico, he chose it for his book as an out of the box thinking. All he knew from this place was from brochures, pictures, and recognised stereotypes like Mariachi, sombreros, ancient history, dance, and so on. As a matter of fact, he knew nothing about Mexico; that is why the Mexican characteristics are limited to the background and only appear in the English title of the movie. He knew his culture and country well but to be a hero he needed to go to an unknown place to pass the borders and limitations of his mind and away from his ordinary life.

Finally, I think “Le Magnifique” the James bondesque parody was a success in mocking action movies, with bizarre and exaggerated acting, love story, and bad ending. Also, I really enjoyed the surreal scene cuts that came between his everyday life scenes and those that originated from his book, such as where the housecleaner passed through soldiers, vacuuming sands, or the one where his son is entering the Temple on Wednesday to have lunch together.