Old

Posted on November 17, 2022 by Tennyson

Vampire Owl: I wonder if they are trying to say that Uncle Dracula is old.

Vampire Bat: Everybody knows that he is very old.

Vampire Owl: But nobody ever dares to mention that.

Vampire Bat: Why should they keep mentioning that when it is well-known?

Vampire Owl: There might be vampire apprentices who wish to know.

Vampire Bat: They are have joined as vampire apprentices because they know.

Vampire Owl: They still don’t know enough, do they?

Vampire Bat: Well, you can’t expect them to know that much until they reach the next level.

Vampire Owl: You know that Uncle Dracula is planning to dismiss those partial vampires before reaching the next level, so that he doesn’t have to give them a bigger salary.

Vampire Bat: It is expected from the oldest miser in the realm. His habit goes back by so many centuries and vampire resurrections.

[Gets a green apple cake and three cups of mint tea].

What is the movie about? :: Guy Cappa (Gael Garcia Bernal) and Prisca Cappa (Vicky Krieps) are going through a situation which makes a divorce on the way. They decide to go on a vacation with their children Maddox Cappa (Thomasin McKenzie and Embeth Davidtz) and Trent Cappa (Alex Wolff and Emun Elliott) for the one last time, and then talk to them about the upcoming separation. Prisca does seem to have a medical condition, but is adamant about the divorce. The family is treated very well at the beach resort which they visit, and the children are really happy to be there, despite having to listen to their parents shouting at each other regularly. The next morning, the manager of the resort invites the family to a beach located further away, where not many people goes. They are taken to the area with a few others, who also join them on the journey. The others are also really happy to be there, as it seems like a really beautiful area, with no rush at all, a world where they could actually do whatever they wanted.

So, what happens with the events here as we just keep looking? :: But the place doesn’t seem to be that serene as they had thought earlier, and earlier told by the van driver (M Night Shyamalan), who is not ready to come to the beach with them, even though the tourists surely need some help. They find a fully naked woman (Alejandra Useche) in the sea, and they soon realize that it is a dead body. Agnes (Kathleen Chalfant), who is oldest member of the group dies, and the children quickly turn into teenagers, making them difficult to recognize even for their parents. Kara (Eliza Scanlen), the smallest among children come up with the biggest surprise. At first, it seems like a problem with the kids, and the old woman seems to be just having those old-age diseases. But it soon seems that everyone there are aging rapidly, like one year in every thirty minutes. They try to get out of there, but ends up having blackouts and waking up where they had started. Almost everyone out there seems to have a medical condition out there. When they have injuries, they quickly heals. The dog out there also dies.

What more would happen in a situation from where there might be no escape? :: Jarin Carmichael (Ken Leung) and Patricia Carmichael (Nikki Amuka-Bird) are from the medical field, but they don’t seem to have any clue about what has been happening. Brendan (Aaron Pierre), a famous rapper is also there, but it seems that he has been there for longer than any of them, and has no clue about what is happening around there. Prisca is revealed to have cancer in her stomach, which also grows very quickly, and it has to be taken out. Charles (Rufus Sewell), a surgeon with schizophrenia is the only person who seems to be qualified enough to save her, but is not in a state which will prove to be helpful to anyone. His wife and Kara’s mother Chrystal (Abbey Lee) has low calcium level and is continuously suffering as she gets older. They think about swimming all the way around the beach, but that seems to be a really difficult task, and a person had already died while swimming.
Climbing the steep hills also seems to be a difficult task, as they are not really the healthy adults required at the stage. Now, is there a way out before all of them will be dying soon enough?

The defence of Old :: M Night Shyamalan always has something different for us, and he seems to choose from such topics or materials which possess such a scope. This seems like a divergent thriller for sure, and has some interesting moments in the form of not just an adventure and struggle for survival, but also as a distant science fiction. As it nicely moves towards what awaits us, we are surely engaged early. The strange incidents at the beach also keeps us guessing, and the characters from different backgrounds nicely adds to the same. Along with the same, the scenery is nothing less than enchanting, and it surely feels like that unexplored beach which we really needs to explore, even if it means that we are all going to get older quickly and die around there. Well, all of those rich celebrities having crores which they need to somewhere might really want to check out this place – after all, they escape nicely from India whenever there is a problem here. In the current situation, being a big film star, cricketer, politician or political businessman is necessary to survive around here, unless you are a government-salaried employee.

Positives and negatives :: The execution cannot be considered as that perfect, as there seems to be some problem with how it has been edited, and regarding how a few things seems to be intentionally left out, but as we see the aging process done so well, there is a lot of smartness involved. Some dialogues also seem to be strange, and a few male characters seem rather unnecessary in comparison to the female characters who come up with something to note throughout the movie’s run. There could have also been something special added around here, as it is a movie set on a strange beach. But none of these seem to matter when we look at the entertainment level of the flick. The best performers here are the children jumping to their teenage – Thomasin McKenzie, Alex Wolff and Eliza Scanlen are the ones we look out for, as they deal with their too quick a jump. Vicky Krieps and Gael Garcia Bernal makes a good couple around here too. Abbey Lee’s work is also notable, as she plays one character who has always been in trouble. In the end, the movie seems to come up with the message that we don’t really have that much time as we think in our lives, and it is always best to do what we need to do as early as possible – instead of gaining regret late.

How it finishes :: M Night Shyamalan seems to be the right kind of director who comes up with the movies which feels so beautifully strange – the last one I remember is The Visit, a movie which remained divergently different in its own way and style. We also remember how well he managed to finish with the two movies of one interesting series, Split and Glass, with some special qualities. This one is based on Sandcastle by Pierre Oscar Levy, which he received as a gift for the Father’s Day a few years ago. Even though most of us do not know that much about the original work, we can be sure that he has managed to recreate the world in his way, as he has done in many other films. Well, if Shyamalan would do a movie on Corona virus pandemic, that would be very special, unlike any other film on the same topic. When we consider the same, we know that this movie surely has something special from his imagination, adding to the original material – as we won’t be reading that one, for now we will just have to think it is so, and enjoy the very interesting adventure here.

Release date: 23rd July 2021
Running time: 108 minutes
Directed by: M Night Shyamalan
Starring: Vicky Krieps, Gael Garcia Bernal, Abbey Lee, Rufus Sewell, Alex Wolff, Thomasin McKenzie, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Ken Leung, Eliza Scanlen, Aaron Pierre, Embeth Davidtz, Emun Elliott, Alejandra Useche, M Night Shyamalan

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@ Cemetery Watch
✠ The Vampire Bat.

Ema

Posted on July 8, 2020 by Tennyson

Vampire Owl: I almost didn’t notice the absence of one “M” here.

Vampire Bat: Yes, this is not the Emma we know from the novels or its adaptations.

Vampire Owl: I had guessed the same because this was a Spanish one from Chile.

Vampire Bat: Even though a movie with the real Emma Woodhouse did release this year.

Vampire Owl: Yes, the movie which has the girl from The Witch, right?

Vampire Bat: Yes, Anya Taylor‑Joy who was also seen in Shyamalan’s Split.

Vampire Owl: I haven’t read the Jane Austen novel yet, and that is a disappointment.

Vampire Bat: I would definitely agree to that, because I consider it to be her best work.

Vampire Owl: Even better than Pride and Prejudice, the much appreciated and adapted one?

Vampire Bat: Yes, indeed. My doubt is just regarding this Ema with a missing “M”.

[Gets a beetroot cake and three cups of iced tea].

What is the movie about? :: Ema (Mariana Di Girolamo) and her husband Gaston (Gael Garcia Bernal) were leading a fine life and had dance as part of their world. But their adopted son Polo (Cristian Suarez) is the big problem which they invited into their life, and he has an attitude bigger than her mother who has already been strange enough as far as Gaston is concerned. The boy was becoming more and more violent every day, and had caused a fire which had burned the face of Ema’s sister. Polo was not asked to change, but was sent back to the orphanage from where he came from, but Ema just can’t stop thinking about him, even though Gaston blames her for making the boy what he had become. They do not hate each other yet, but are not able to stop blaming each other for the situation where they had reached, from a premise which was good enough for both. It has been a long way down, and it was achieved too quickly.

So, what happens with the events here? :: Ema is quick to begin some new relationships, as she plans to file for a divorce, and the lawayer she chooses is Raquel (Paola Giannini). At the same time, she becomes very close to Anibal (Santiago Cabrera), a firefighter, and she also begins to live with Sonia (Giannina Fruttero), leaving her husband behind after a talk related to the boy who set fire to the house. She had also left the dance troupe run by her husband, and Sonia was with her along with a few friends in doing the same, as they begin dancing in the streets, following the form which her husband considered to be inferior. They find joy in the same, while Ema plans to get closer to Polo, even though the child security services forbids her from going anywhere near him, as he is now adopted by a new family where he is having a good life. But Ema is not someone who would stay behind, as she has her own plans with her life, and would stop at nothing to get what she wants. But will she choose the right path for the same?

The defence of Ema :: Whenever you look at the movie, it is a visually beautifully thing, whether the dance moves or the world which they live in – the flames are also as beautiful as it can get. The world is full of some lovely colours, and the streets with the buildings have some special charm – this is the first movie from Chile that most of us would be watching, even though we might have watched Spanish flicks from Spain and Argentina before, and in that case, this is a special experience too. The dance moves are particularly charming, as the lead character is specialized in the same, along with her friends too. The music is also lovely. There is the idea of parenting and motherhood being talked about, even though the mother-son relationship remains strange throughout the movie’s run. The twists happening throughout the movie which comes to that even more weird end is indeed a satisfactory thing. There is that wonderfully strange feeling which runs through here.

The claws of flaw :: The movie might feel too strange for most of the people, and it does travel a twisted path which doesn’t really bring the justification or poetic justice as one would expect to have. There is no positive message given here even though you did feel that there would be something coming up soon. The flick also feels rather indirect on many occasions. You also see that it is difficult to care for the characters here, and the motives are rather strange, not just for the main character, but also for a kid. We don’t really like the people in here, and when it applies to so many people, we will see this to be too uncommon. Some characters just feel unnecessary in the scheme of things. The manipulation seen here seems to be too complex as well as strange. It is also the kind of movie which cannot be put into any category. Some of the imagery are rather going too far, and a few of the dialogues could have been avoided.

Performers of the soul :: You just cannot take your eyes off Mariana Di Girolamo playing the titular character Ema here. We have a very complex character here, but she has made it feel perfect, and with the dance moves she has further perfection in moving her body around with the delightful music. She seems to be come the character with such precision that if we look at her on Google otherwise, it feels that she is an entirely different person, nothing from her beyond the movie coming into this particular character. Gael Garcia Bernal has a lesser role in comparison, and he manages that fine. This makes Paola Giannini the next person whom we get to focus on, and she is lovely as her character who goes through another path, but nicely has herself attached to the main character with the help of a little bit of manipulation. She is also joy to watch, while Giannina Fruttero seems to play another character which has some more change than one would expect – we see her contributions to be delightful too, as female characters score high in this movie, thanks to the performances.

How it finishes :: Not to be confused with Jane Austen’s Emma, this Ema comes with something very much divergent when you look at many other movies which have dealt with a premise like this, with an adopted child as the centre of attraction. The film’s biggest advantages are its visuals, music and an unpredictable character in the centre who is more than what meets the eye. Ema might not be the movie for everyone, but it is the kind of film that we would consider to be a successful experiment, even with its troubles which comes from the same areas where it has its positives. Chile is another South American country that you feel the need to visit, and you get to see some of it in this movie, even though the film doesn’t go on to show us the glorious side much – until we visit those charming areas like Santiago Metropolitan Cathedral, Chilean National Museum of Fine Arts, Sanctuary of the Immaculate Conception on San Cristobal Hill and many others, we will be happy with having watched one Chilean movie, and another Spanish film to the credit.

Release date: 26th September 2019
Running time: 102 minutes
Directed by: Pablo Larrain
Starring: Mariana Di Girolamo, Gael Garcia Bernal, Paola Giannini, Santiago Cabrera, Giannina Fruttero, Josefina Fiebelkorn, Paula Hofmann, Paula Luchsinger, Antonia Giesen, Catalina Saavedra, Mariana Loyola, Susana Hidalgo, Cristian Felipe Suarez