'I Am Another You' & Its Exploration of Freedom

In I Am Another You, Chinese documentarist Nanfu Wang goes on a quest to find two things: one, elusive, that she’s missed her whole life, and the second her dream of another America, a free one, the America of Kerouac and Gump and Captain Fantastic. Ostensibly, she finds this in Dylan Olsen, a 22-year-old wild spirit, whom she follows in his Floridian street life with her camera. The result is visually, emotionally and intellectually stunning.

In documenting Dylan, Wang circumvents the voyeuristic nature of exploring homelessness and the divide between subject and object. Instead, she exposes a different problem, one that she readily acknowledges: that of privilege. It’s an immeasurable privilege to choose the street life, as Dylan says he has in Part I of the film, when you’re white, attractive, charming and well spoken. Wang’s subject has grown up in a loving home and dropped out of university. He has had the great luxury of choosing a romanticisable and romanticised life, closer to the agency of the beatnik way than to the helplessness of destitution and ostracisation that is reality for his counterparts who are nonwhite, did not receive a formal education or come from a broken home.

Hard Working Movies

But when viewed through the lens of mental health (or is it mental health being viewed through the camera lens?), Dylan’s story takes on another life, stripped of its control. In Part II, Dylan’s lovely, lovely father John, tells the filmmaker and the audience that Dylan struggled with “mental illness” growing up (he doesn’t specify, but Dylan later mentions “schizophrenia” as one of the labels he eschews, and describes haunting hallucinations and paranoia), in parallel to using heroin and selling his prescriptions. This revelation slowly shifts Wang’s and our perception of “mental illness.” I use the quotes here because this term is controversial, a point that is particularly relevant to this film, which poses this: is the term “illness” itself just another means of othering individuals who do not fit into our prepackaged idea of normality, of acceptability?

Part III evidences that Dylan does have a choice, but it is not the one we thought. He can choose between attempting integration, wherein he will face labelling, judgement and ill-function, or he can live up to his immense potential, his creativity, his love and his compassion. The film makes no overt political statements, but surely shines a light on how the U.S. health system is failing with regards to mental health, an issue that is far from being novel or unknown. I suggest you get your eyes on this gem of a documentary and spend some time thinking about it. Wang’s contagious empathy, as well as her use of montage and sound, invites reflection as much as it does emotion and wonderment — a must-see.

10/10

What's Not to Love About 'Love, Simon?'

There has been an epidemic shortage of rom-coms of late: Chrissy Teigen and I agree. But, friends, there’s a new rom-com in town and it’s a bit less white, a lot less heteronormative and a lot more awesome (lol omg cheesy sry). Love, Simon hits the spot, the nail on the head, two birds with one stone, all the clichés we know and love about Hollywood. It will make you laugh belly laughs and cry crocodile tears, more clichés but done well, touching, familiar, satisfying.

Fox

Simon Spier is a regular high school student with a big secret: he’s gay. He enters into an anonymous email exchange with Blue, a fellow student who’s also closeted, and things happen from there. There’s a climax and a resolution. It’s a story. Simon’s friends are great, his parents are great, his sister is great, even his vice-principal and his socially inept foil are great. Also, the acting is skillful, the dialogue is sharp and the soundtrack is bomb. 10/10 would watch with a couple of girlfriends and a tub of Ben & Jerry’s.

I try not to read anything about a film before seeing it, but a few days ago, I read that critics are saying we don’t need this kind of media in 2018 (read: coming out stories, LGBTQ+-led narratives). Let me take a deep meditative breath here before I go on. I just googled “Love, Simon” and one of the top results, before the Wikipedia page, before the iMDb, the Twitter and the Rotten Tomatoes, was this article. It’s about a fun-loving dude, “the head of a Christian anti-gay pressure group known as Americans for Truth about Homosexuality,” who associates homosexuality with propaganda, mental illness, sin and perversion. Yes, in 2018, of course, in 2018. All you need to do is open up Facebook to catch a glimpse of the hatred and exclusion that still runs rampant half a century after Stonewall, not to mention the army of well-meaning white straight liberals (that’s me) who constantly say the wrong thing and cannot, will not get it (go watch Get Out). So, yes, please, keep the representation of marginalised groups coming — and if it’s mainstream and predictable, even better. That means something’s working.

8/10

Holy Sh*t, 'Call Me by Your Name'

WELL FUCK. I’m not sure how I got through Oscar season without seeing Call Me by Your Name, and I hope the two of you who are reading this will accept this as my formal apology. I don’t remember ever being this moved by a motion picture. Maybe I have been, but I don’t remember it. I left the cinema shell-shocked, gasping for air, my heart thumping in my chest. This is a masterpiece, art that touched my soul for reasons not quite tangible. And worst of all, it crept the fuck up on me.

The first half of the film is slow, languid the way French and European films often are, the lazy pace of which feels unnervingly voyeuristic. It’s exceptionally perceptive and honest, presenting the elements of adolescent summers unpolished, raw and clumsy. Elio, Timothée Chalamet’s character, is far too clever for 17 and the elliptical conversations he has with his friends, his family and his soon-to-be lover Oliver drive the film forward quickly, never quite leaving you the time to pause and digest what he says, much less what he means.

And then there’s the second half, which just blows up in your face, if you’ll pardon the imagery. No words can do justice to the beauty of this relationship, of two bodies that were meant to find each other and then let go. Two bodies that come together because the alternative would be unbearable, even if the alternative contains the threat of shame and rejection and guilt, at least for Oliver. Two bodies that Elio’s charming parents absolve of shame and rejection and guilt, even in a decade where queerness was conditionally tolerated at best, ostracised and condemned at worst.

Throughout, there is powerful symbolism — fruit being the most obvious, parallels to Greek eroticism being inevitable — and burning questions, of attachment, of identity, of emotion, whether to hide or declare oneself as queer, Jewish, in love, vulnerable. As the end credits roll and Elio stares into the flames crying, before the celebration of Hanukkah, it’s pretty clear that he would rather speak than die.

10/10

'Black Panther' Is So Important

If a picture is worth a thousand words, Black Panther is worth a thousand academic treatises on systems of oppression. It is a blockbuster, reaching far and wide, old and young, liberal and conservative, that stars a nearly all-black cast and challenges your complicity whether you want it to or not. A superhero movie that throws around the word “coloniser” and makes explicit, accusatory references to slavery is so current and so fucking powerful.

Disney

Black Panther is still very much male-centric; the female characters mostly exist to support, save or accompany, thwart or kill the men. Nonetheless, there are several strong, memorable women, who are named and talk to each other, however much about men. Lupita Nyong’o as Nakia and Danai Gurira as Okoye are instrumental in the Black Panther’s various missions, but it is his little sister Shuri, played by Letitia Wright, who truly stands out. She is funny, irreverent, clever, and a brilliant scientist with a dope-ass sense of style, the kind of empowered woman we could do with more of on the big screen and in media as a whole.

But Black Panther doesn’t get lazy just because it’s breaking down barriers; it’s exciting as heck the whole way through — impressive, considering the 2h14min runtime. The plot is intricate, the pace suspenseful and the fight scenes, during which I just black out and wait for the outcome, plentiful. I don’t know much about Marvel, once fell asleep during The Avengers, but for me this was a good superhero movie, up there with The Dark Knight Rises (weird choice, I know) and both Sam Raimi and Marc Webb’s Spider-Man series.

Also, Michael B. Jordan’s midriff.

8/10

What's All the Fuss About 'Lady Bird?'

With dozens of award nominations, 99% on Rotten Tomatoes, “I Heart Lady Bird” buttons popping up everywhere and even themed school parties, Lady Bird has sparked something of a cult movement. It’s true, Greta Gerwig’s debut feature has a lot going for it: a spotless cast, a fun soundtrack, a soft early noughties aesthetic, lots of heart and humour. Not to mention it passes the Bechdel test with flying colours, a feat that still manages to be remarkable, even in an era where issues of gender inequality are front and centre of our news cycle.

I just don’t get it. I wanted to love Lady Bird so badly; I mean, this is my STUFF, guys. Maybe that’s precisely my problem — and forgive me if this sounds insufferably pretentious, but I’ve seen this movie so. many. times. Have the people who are so obsessed with it seen a coming-of-age flick before? Because that’s what Lady Bird is: a coming-of-age movie that, for me, has nothing on Billy Elliot, The Way, Way Back or Last Summer. Sure, it gets a lot of things right — female friendships, teenage sexuality, family dynamics — but all of that had so little impact on me, I came out of it like, “okay, whatever, I guess.” I’ve heard it described as “personal,” so it could be that it just didn’t resonate with my life. That said, I find the best movies always do, however remote from my own experience (Moonlight, Lion, Hacksaw Ridge, essentially the entire 2017 Oscars lineup, RIP).

Aside from everybody else being so much less knowledgeable than me and just a whole lot more basic, another explanation I have for Lady Bird’s success is this: my friend who works in the film industry (hi Andrew, love u boo) cited its “superb directing,” “quick editing” and “set design.” It’s not that these aren’t valid points, but they just aren’t things that your average moviegoer (that’s me, I’m speaking for myself) will pick up on, which is exactly my issue with film critique and why I’m projecting my rubbish opinions into thin air here. Cinema isn’t for the critics; it’s for the people, to change their lives, keep them company, carry them, broaden their minds and help them escape all at once. Lady Bird may have done this for many, although perhaps not so much for the Academy, but it really didn’t do it for me.

6/10