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upfront
editor's note contents
Dear Readers,
You may have noticed that post- has come to press today, and not yesterday on the usual Thursday. We decided not to publish yesterday in order to give our editorial, illustration, and layout staff a day off to deal with (and possibly recuperate from) the results of the election (unexpected, for many of us). We will be back to normal next week. Until then, I hope you all take care of yourselves, and those others around you who may need it.
upfront features
Best,
3 • scott pilgrim and feminism Alexandra Walsh 4 • monotony of dining halls Anne Cheng
Yidi
lifestyle 5 • dating today Rachel Teller 5 • blurred memories Sara Al-Salem 8 • the world watches Colette Bertschy
arts & culture 6 • up where the air is clear Devika Girish 7 • just can’t wait to be queen James Feinberg Please send your photos to alicia_devos@brown. edu!
staff
Editor-in-Chief Yidi Wu
Features Editors Saanya Jain Claribel Wu
Managing Editor of Arts & Culture Ryan Walsh
Lifestyle Editor Alicia DeVos
Managing Editor of Features Monica Chin
Creative Director Grace Yoon
Managing Editor of Lifestyle Rebecca Ellis
Copy Chiefs Alicia DeVos
Arts & Culture Editors Joshua Lu Anne-Marie Kommers
Serif Sheriffs Logan Dreher Kate Webb
Head Illustratrix Katie Cafaro Staff Writers Sara Al-Salem Daniella Balarezo Anne Cheng Pia Ceres Sarah Cooke James Feinberg Anna Harvey Katherine Luo Jennifer Osborne Lindsey Owen Rica Maestas Ameer Malik
Chantal Marauta Isabella Martinez Randi Richardson Spencer Roth-Rose Ananya Shah Celina Sun Alex Walsh Joshua Wartel Annabelle Woodward Xuran You Staff Illustrators Clarisse Angkasa Alice Cao Tom Coute Socorro FernandezGarcia
Ruth Han Diana Hong Jenice Kim Kay Liang Doris Liou Emma Margulies Michelle Ng Tymani Ratchford Natasha Sharpe Maggie Tseng Claribel Wu Yidi Wu Stephanie Zhou
Cover Katie Cafaro
features
3
scott pilgrim vs. the bechdel test a tale of two interpretations
ALEXANDRA WALSH staff writer illustrator KATIE CAFARO
As I remind my friends daily, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is one of my favorite movies. I’ve read the graphic novels. I went as Ramona Flowers for four of the past five Halloweens. I will passionately defend the director’s adaptation, even his portrayal of the subspace highway, which could have been interpreted way differently. I am, in short, a big fan. For those who aren’t familiar with the movie, it’s basically the story of your average aimless Canadian 20-something. Scott is in a band, he lives with a sassy roommate, and people make fun of him a lot. The movie doesn’t really focus on his life in general but does focus more specifically on his love life. He’s had a rough time with women—he’s hurt girls, girls have hurt him, etc. At least, until he meets Ramona Flowers, the literal girl of his dreams. The movie is called “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World,” but a more apt title would be “Scott Pilgrim vs. Ramona’s Seven Evil Exes,” whom Scott has to spend the whole film battling. For those who aren’t familiar with the Bechdel test, it’s a series of three criteria designed to check whether a movie is sexist. (1) There must be at least two women, (2) the women have to talk to each other, and (3) they have to talk to each other about something other than a man. Although these seem pretty clearcut, there’s debate on whether Scott Pilgrim passes—it sneaks in a couple of trivial woman-to-woman comments that might make it qualify. While it literally passes the test, the internet has not reached a consensus on whether it actually passes. To avoid biasing the reader, I will present an argument for both sides. SPVTW is feminist: Ramona Flowers had a whole life before Scott. She’s a strong, independent character; in fact, she’s always the one to break up with her boyfriends. She disappears a lot and is clearly more capable than Scott is. But Ramona isn’t the only strong female character: Knives, Scott’s 17-year-old ex-girlfriend proves that she’s not meek when she dies her hair blue and goes on the warpath for Ramona. Kim, the drummer of Scott’s band (Sex Bob-omb) and another of his former girlfriends, is also unabashedly her own person. Likewise, Julie, Scott’s friend, and Stacey, his sister, are portrayed as more in control of their lives than Scott is. To preempt the argument that all of these women’s lives center around Scott’s, remember that the movie is about Scott’s life, so it makes sense for everyone to talk about him all the time. SPVTW is sexist: Maybe Ramona is supposed to seem strong, but she’s a classic “manic pixie dream girl.” She’s super mysterious, she dyes her hair a different color every week, she plays hard to get, and she’s literally in Scott’s dreams. Ramona’s character is flat: we only know her life as it’s told through her failed relationships. Once she meets Scott, “Scott’s girlfriend” becomes her pivotal characterization. Not to mention the fact that Knives and Kim—both of whom were dumped by Scott—talk al-
most exclusively about him. Despite Kim’s badass attitude, she’s clearly always thinking about how Scott hurt her. Compare these female characters to the other men in the movie—Wallace, Neil, Young Neil—and the contrast is apparent. Wallace is totally independent of Scott, Neil is passionate about his band, and Yung Neil is depicted primarily as an avid gamer. They all have defining interests, rather than being totally defined by Scott. I lean toward the second argument. Ramona Flowers is an awesome character to dress as for Halloween—neon wigs, cargo skirts, bright tights—but her
personality could use a lot more fleshing out. If I were to deliver a monologue as her, for example, I’m not sure what I would say, apart from discussing my past relationships. It does bear noting, though, that Scott himself seems to live in a world driven by his relationships: Envy (his Big Ex) and Ramona essentially occupy his entire brain space, pretty much all of the time. In other words, he may be subject to the same constraints as the female characters. Perhaps this is a commentary on Scott’s stereotypically “effeminate” nature—the movie portrays him as soft and easily influenced—or perhaps the
writer and/or director just want to make sure we don’t call the movie sexist. It’s hard to say. In any case, whether Scott Pilgrim vs. The World passes the Bechdel test isn’t really the point. If I had the chance to speak with the author or director, I would ask what his intentions were for the female characters. Even as Scott pines after Ramona and mourns Envy, we still get the sense that he’s got his own life to lead—he’s the protagonist, after all. And I think adding a similar depth to Ramona’s character, and to the female characters in general, would go a long way.
4 features
food and feelings chicken noodle soup
ANNE CHENG contribuing writer illustrator SOCO FERNANDEZ GARCIA
When you live about 45 seconds away from a dining hall, it becomes hard to seek your meals anywhere else. When you don’t even have to go outside to get there, it’s even harder. That’s college: You make all of your own choices, for better or for worse. At first, the freedom of having complete jurisdiction over my meals was, dare I say, thrilling. I could pool together meal credits right before midnight to buy an entire cookie pizza,
and no one would stop me or even tell me that it was a bad idea. I could eat a waffle for dinner, have pizza for a week straight, or eat breakfast at 1 p.m. on a Saturday, and no one would bat an eyelash. It really makes me wonder—is this what being an adult is like? However, after almost three months, college food is starting to get old. The weekly rotation becomes predictable and doesn’t inspire excitement like it used
to. I already know that weekends at Andrews are devoted to breakfast burritos and that on Thursdays, there’s going to be a ridiculous line for Make Your Own Pasta that I will internally debate joining. Likewise, I can only spend so many Fridays eating chicken fingers at the VDub before I start questioning my life decisions and my commitment to keeping off the freshman fifteen. And even though the muffins at the Blue Room are
phenomenal, at some point I’m going to have tried all the flavors. Granted, the dining hall staff at Brown provide a wide variety and are incredibly hard-working and earnest in their attempts to be creative. However, once I’ve exhausted all of the available options, there’s not much left that I can do. For those who are off the meal plan, maybe the familiar go-to is the large box of instant ramen you have in the corner of your kitchen, reserved for 2 a.m. study sessions or those days when you just don’t want to put effort into making dinner. Or maybe it’s the same few recipes that you cycle through because they are dependable and edible. Or maybe if you’re lucky, you’re a regular at a nice place on Thayer that you haven’t gotten sick of yet. For most people, though, they will reach the point where they begin adding strange spices and sauces in an attempt to jazz things up a bit, which will either end in surprising success or inedible regret. But in the end, it doesn’t matter. Regardless of which dining hall you frequent the most or which meal plan you are on, it’s almost a guarantee that everything will eventually fade into monotony. Home-cooked food is a distant memory, something nostalgic only brought to reality by our infrequent returns home. Despite the variety offered here, there’s still something everyone misses, whether it be grits, dumplings, or arroz con pollo. And it’s not just the food; there’s a marked difference between the obligatory “Credit or points?” and the irritated “Hurry up, dinner’s getting cold!” Eating with friends is great, but do you ever miss your mom nagging you about eating more vegetables just the slightest bit? Or sitting in your room and being able to know exactly when dinner is ready from the aroma wafting through the vents? Or even just the simple comfort of sitting in your chair, with your plate, sipping out of your mug? It’s not just the food we miss; it’s the familiar environment and the individualized care that we receive. It’s home. Of course, food is still an important part of our lives; we engage with it three times a day, and a good meal can work wonders for our mood. However, when students think about going off to college, they lament that they’re going to miss their parents, their friends, their pets, or even their beds. Food is rarely the main cause for worry, which is ironic because we end up craving the endless love that goes into our mothers’ meals. We take the food our parents make for us every day for granted, but once we’re in college, the yearning for familiarity grows exponentially over time. It serves as a reminder that although we are adults trying to carve our own paths in life, our parents have taken care of us for the first 18 years of our lives. We should be infinitely thankful for that. The next time you visit your family, which will most likely be Thanksgiving, appreciate the good eats your parents lay out in front of you. IA clear warm message is in every bite you take, a message every college student could use: welcome home.
lifestyle
5
dating today the trials and tribulations of my love life
RACHEL TELLER contributing writer illustrator JENICE KIM
When I was young, we used to sift through her old boyfriends. The cute, dumb one. The one who got away. The one on her freshman hall who called her in the midst of a mid-life crisis a year ago because he’s sorry he cheated and will he please forgive her and he’s broke and how does he get his life in order. And of course, the mistake we now refer to as “he who shall not be named.” We do our best to learn from these mistakes. I’ve always been an undeniable romantic— If I could picture a montage of my future love interests, it would be set to some Dean Martin or Frank Sinatra song (with the exception of the ones where Franky is traipsing around with multiple women, unless I’m Frank and those women are the members of the men’s U.S. soccer team). We would dance to slow music and share all our deepest feelings with each other, go for long walks and out to dinner. He would offer to pay out of chivalry, but we would split it because it’s a modern day relationship and we don’t like to perpetuate the idea that women have to pay later. We would bicker, but not fight, and he would understand my stress and occasional lunacy. We would be perfectly imperfect. I still categorize myself as undeniably romantic—I’ve just upgraded to the new and improved “undeniably cynical romantic.” This alteration has spawned from years and years of traumatizing experiences. THE BEGINNING OF THE END When I was applying to colleges I was often asked the question What is your biggest flaw? I’m sure I said something pretentious like I work too hard, and I’m sure both the person reading my application and I rolled our eyes. I’ve come to realize that my biggest flaw is not a trait but rather an addiction. An addiction to idealization. It started when I first took notice of Ryan in my sophomore year of high school. He was tall, with brown hair and eyes, but not the kind that twinkle. A starter on the soccer team, prominent member of the student government body, and holder of an untarnished reputation—he was athletic, smart, and innocent. Although a junior, he had never been with anyone before, so was likely unattainable. He met all the requirements for a good crush, hence the crushing commenced. So I began to attend the weekly student government meetings he led. Every Tuesday I showed up to school wearing my best outfit and a face full of makeup, thinking that I could woo him without ever speaking. Because that’s how it works— you just glance across the room, time stops, and BAM—you’re in love. But there was no moment, no bam, only the desire of a Ryan I’d created in my mind. And that’s where it should have ended—but it didn’t. I happened to be very good friends with Ryan’s brother, Johnny. Johnny happened to be the most persistent person I knew. Ryan, apparently, could be worn down. And Johnny was adamant that we would date. Date # 1: The Nice One My mother, being herself, had to have three 50th-birthday parties. As I prepared to go to the second one, I received a call from an unknown number and warily picked up. When I heard the words, “Hi, this is Ryan,” I almost shed tears of joy. Dreams really do come true. I told Marge (my mother) that I needed to leave her party because I had been asked out on a date. She was more excited than I—after years of harboring fears that she would remain grandchildless, I finally put her at ease. It was the perfect birthday present. He picked me up in his dad’s car, and we drove around. He wore some variation of a plaid
shirt and fitted pants. Despite my feeling like I was going to throw up, it was very relaxed. He was a nice, nervous guy—a good match for me. When he dropped me off back home I looked up to see if he was going to kiss me. He didn’t, and it was perfectly fine. I thought I could really like this guy. Date # 2: The Not So Nice One We did the classic: dinner and the movies. Again the feeling of vomit rose, and I told myself to suppress it. You must eat dinner, you must act normal I yelled at my stomach. It, like my mother, doesn’t like to listen. He asked me where I wanted to eat, and I said I didn’t mind. He suggested Athenian Room— Greek, and I cheerily agreed. I hate Greek food. I ordered a salad coated with green flakes, and spent the remainder of the night trying to make sure they didn’t pop up when I smiled. Then things got serious—we went back to his house to watch the movie. It was a real Netflix and chill situation but socially acceptable because Netflix and chill was not yet a thing. Browsing through the options he landed on something called Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I’d never heard of it before but I figured it must be good because Tom Hanks was in it. The movie was about 9/11. The movie was about a child trying to deal with the loss of his father on 9/11. The movie was 129 minutes long about a child trying to deal with the loss of his father on 9/11. I, being my awkward self, sat far away from Ryan. He, being his awkward self, did the yawn and stretch arm-around-my-shoulder thing. At some point he turned to me and said, “So, this movie is really long. Do you want to make out?” This is when I realized Ryan was not necessarily who I made him out to be. The Time Between (approx. four months) · Someone asks Ryan and I if we are dating. He responds yes. We never have a conversation about it. · I tell Ryan almost everything about my life, and I feel like I know a shell of him. I can’t tell if he likes me as a person. · I don’t think I like him as a person. · Ryan likes to kiss me standing up with the lights on. I’m very confused. This is not how it’s done in the movies. · He asks me to prom in the cutest way possible; maybe he is redeemable. · Ryan texts Luv you, and I am confused as to what this means. I don’t respond. · Ryan says the words me hungy, and I am done. · I don’t like Ryan. · I want to break up with him, but I can’t do it before prom. · Ryan opens up a bit and tells me he hates how people perceive him. He believes everyone thinks he is a goody-two shoes and an overachiever because of his reputation and activities. I feel guilty. · We make it through prom, and he is pushing very hard to show that we are a happy couple. I am pushing very hard for him not to grab my hand because I’m trying to dance, dude! · I escape after prom sex free. Phew! I knew that Ryan was disappointed because he looked like a grumpy sloth when I told him I was leaving the party. He was most definitely trying to move us past the level of Makeout, and I, most definitely, was not. · I know, because of the dynamics of my high school, that Ryan will be the last person I have anything romantic with until college. I decide that breaking up is still the right move.
The Final Date: The Super Scarring One Ryan was about to go on vacation, so I convinced myself I could not break up with him. He wanted to take me out to a nice dinner, and made it very clear that I could not be late. This prelude, naturally, warranted lateness. I was in the midst of the Old Town Art Fair, and cabs/buses were nonexistent. He was picking me up at 6:00 p.m., and I realized at 5:45 p.m. that I was in Deep Shit. I ran to where I’d left my rollerblades and speed skated home, praying that I’d make it in time. I threw on the first thing I found and, sweating and heaving, ran to his car, realizing that I had worn a dress that really needed and undershirt without an undershirt. The girls were out, and there was no turning back. We went to the hoity-toity country club he belonged to and ran into the parents of some people from our rival high school. “Hello, Mr. Schuler,” Ryan said. Mr. Schuler and his polo-clad friend looked down on me and my exposed breasts. This was the final straw. I’d decided that I was going to order the most expensive thing on the menu because I’d put up with Ryan for four months, and I wanted the goddamn scallops. Ryan made some racist remark about the waiter and this was really, really the final straw. I was sitting at the table, thinking about how I was trying, more than anything, to avoid any sort of sexual interaction. I was too uncomfortable with him to verbally say no, so I found evasion to be the best method. As we finished our dinner he complained that no place ever had his favorite dessert—Boston cream pie. I saw an opportunity. People who don’t bake don’t know how long baking takes. Baking takes forever. Forever. I knew for a fact Ryan did not understand this, and I figured it was a great way to make it to his curfew without him pulling any shenanigans. By the two-hour mark he was not having it. He had returned to the post-prom-grumpy-sloth face, and I made a decision, then and there, to gain some sexual experience. The next 10 or so minutes went as follows: Ryan led me up to the bedroom. He said, “Well I know what I want to happen
tonight.” He took off his pants. We had not even touched at this point. He was stark naked, and I was fully clothed. This was the first penis I’d seen, and I was confused/intrigued? Seeing me shirtless for the first time Ryan said, “Your boobs are a lot bigger than I thought they’d be.” Within moments he said, “You can touch it if you like.” You can touch it if you like. If you like. Give yourself a moment to let that seep in. *** I opened my mouth in awe as if to say, did those words really just come out of your mouth? Did you actually think that was acceptable? “What?” he responded, like he had just asked me what the weather forecast was or how my dog was doing. Mortified, I led him to the door. Afterwards I contemplated life and whether or not other people experience things like this. The Final Moments Ryan had just returned from vacation, and I was as nervous as when I first met him. I’d been trying to drop hints for roughly two months, but his social ineptitude had prevented him from picking up on anything. I could tell he couldn’t see it coming and, as much as I didn’t like him as a human, I didn’t want to hurt him. We stood outside the gate of my house for 45 minutes. He was surprised. He was upset. He was crying. This was the first time I saw Ryan vulnerable, and I realized that his feelings went far deeper than he had expressed. I went to work later and had to leave early because I couldn’t stop thinking about the look on his face. He texted me something mean and apologized a day later. We didn’t talk much afterwards. The After I find out a couple of months later that Ryan is blatantly racist, when he starts making aggressive comments on the soccer field. My mother is not surprised.
6
arts & culture
of mountains and movies the telluride film festival
DEVIKA GIRISH contributing writer illustrator CLARIBEL WU
The Telluride Film Festival is the potsmoking, capitalism-hating bohemian of the film festival world. While most of the major film festivals, from Cannes to Venice to Toronto, revel in the glitz and commercial spectacle of it all, Telluride runs a quieter operation focused solely on the movies. No competition, no paparazzi or free critics’ passes (“Telluride is proud of being unwelcome to the press,” declared one of the organizers on my first day there), no red carpets (everyone from Amy Adams to Rooney Mara showed up in jeans and a shirt), and a small, exquisitely programmed line-up of films that remain a closely guarded secret until the night before the festival (spawning obsessive speculators like this Oklahoma high school teacher who runs a blog devoted entirely to predicting the Telluride selection). The festival’s cult-like feel is compounded by its setting. Nestled high up in the Rockies, Telluride is notoriously complicated to get to, and a few of the theaters at the festival venue are accessible only by gondola lifts. The mountainous ambiance is breathtaking in every sense of the word: oxygen runs very thin at an elevation of 8,750 feet, leaving you constantly out of breath and dehydrated even as you marvel at the picturesque horizon. On top of it all, the weather is extremely mercurial. As you run uphill and downhill from theater to theater—bumping randomly into an entourage-free Tom Hanks or Werner Herzog—you are sleep-deprived and dizzy and sunburnt and freezing and utterly euphoric all at once. Cinephilia feels a lot like altitude sickness at the Telluride Film Festival. Every year, the festival selects fifty students from universities all over the world for its prestigious Student Symposium, a curated program of screenings and discussions led by film theorist Linda Williams and critic Howie Moshkowitz. The rigorous program begins at 6:00am every day with a group discussion of the previous day’s slate of movies, followed by a packed schedule of about five movies a day. The free hours between the screenings are taken up by the highlight of the symposium: up-close conversations with the visiting filmmakers, which offers the rare opportunity to unpack the movies
being shown at the festival with the very people who make them. The day usually ends at around 2:00am, at which point all the students retire to the cozy lodges into which they are all packed, sharing beds, couches, and floor-space in what feels like some fantastical summer camp for grown-up film geeks. This year, I was one of the lucky students invited to attend the Symposium. And so, early in September, I ended up spending a sleepless, caffeine-and-bagels-fueled week in Telluride, watching fourteen movies in the span of four and half days. On our first full day at the festival, the student cohort was holed up in the tiny Nugget Theatre for seven straight hours, watching three back-to-back features: Lost in Paris, directed and acted by Brussels-based duo Dominique Abel and Fiona Gordon; The B-Side, Errol Morris’ latest documentary on large-format Polaroid photographer Elsa Dorfman; and Toni Erdmann, German auteur Maren Ade’s celebrated Cannes winner. By the time the pleasant slapstick shenanigans of the first and the bittersweet, end-of-an-era melancholy of the second film wound down, the crowd was starting to descend into a hungry, stir-crazy distractedness. And then the unwieldy, utterly fascinating Toni Erdmann began to unfold on screen and we snapped into rapt attention, bemused and amused in equal parts. When his beloved dog passes away, ageing dad Winfried (Peter Simonischek) decides to visit his daughter Ines (Sandra Hüller), a frigid businesswoman working in Bucharest—and so begins a sprawling, three-hour comedy of flailing attempts at familial connection. Much to Ines’ chagrin, Winfried is an indefatigable prankster who only speaks the language of dad jokes and whoopee cushions. In a hilariously cringe-inducing scene, he tries to endear himself to her corporate colleagues by joking (rather elaborately) about getting himself a new daughter because this one’s too busy. The stiflingly straightlaced, deeply unhappy Ines is crumbling under the pressures of work and workplace sexism, and she lashes out cruelly at her father. But instead of driving him away, her outburst inspires him to crank the screwballing up
a notch, and the film takes a wild swerve towards the absurd. Winfried dons a wig and fake buck-teeth and transforms into “Toni Erdmann,” an odd, portly personality coach who inserts himself into all aspects of Ines’ life—from business meetings to coke-fuelled parties—with annoying persistence. Any attempt at characterising or typifying Toni Erdmann cheapens the glorious excess that makes the film so singular. You could label it a black comedy and describe it as a plot about a father and daughter trying to understand one another, and you wouldn’t be wrong. However, Maren Ade’s masterpiece is driven not by genre or teleology, but by an impulse as wonderfully complex, unpredictable and uncontained as it is human. Meandering erratically across its 162-minute runtime, the film simply “happens” in episodes that cover vast emotional and narrative ground. The last hour of the movie features, in succession, an awkwardly soul-baring singing performance, a naked party setpiece that had the audience in splits, and a touching, wordless exchange between a barely-clothed Ines and a heavily-costumed Winfried in a public park. Rendered by the actors and director with an immaculate eye for nuance and a refreshingly light touch, Toni Erdmann emerged as one of the gems at this year’s Telluride Film Festival. Fathers and daughters turned out to be a good card to play at this year’s festival. Cristian Mungiu’s Graduation, which we saw on our second day, also takes a splintering father-daughter relationship as its subject and Romania as its setting. But if Toni Erdmann is blackly comic, Mungiu’s socio-realist drama is soaked in sobering shades of grey—both literally and thematically. The social dysfunction that Mungiu sets out to capture is on display right from the opening scene, set within a dull, concrete housing block in the city of Cluj. Someone throws a brick through the window of the house of the respectable Dr. Romeo Aldea (Adrien Titieni), adding unease to the oppressive discontent that weighs down like fog on him and his wife Magda (Lia Bugnar). Their frustrated existence and fractured marriage is made bearable only by their knowledge that their daughter Eliza (Maria-Victoria Dragus), having received a scholarship to attend an English university, will escape their provincial existence. But the mysterious brick turns out to be a portent for something worse: On her way to school later that day, Eliza is assaulted and nearly raped by a strange man. The encounter leaves her with a broken wrist and post-traumatic stress that threaten her to interfere with her final exams — and consequently, her conditional university acceptance. There is nothing more poignant and telling of a society in crisis than Romeo’s turmoiled reaction to Eliza’s assault, brought to life by an excellent Titeni whose every glance and movement is heavy with his character’s self-loathing. Romeo oscillates, somewhat shamefacedly, between genuine concern for Eliza’s immediate well-being and desperate hope for her to escape Romania. He starts to seek out favours to ensure her
good grades—from a friendly local policeman, from the chief exam inspector who owes him, from the Deputy Major who needs a crucial favour in return— sinking deeper and deeper into the murky web of bureaucratic corruption as Eliza watches with growing, indignant disillusionment. With his aversion to frequent cutting and non-diegetic music—“any direct sign of a director in a film”, as he put it in his discussion with us post the screening—Mungiu combines vérité-style realism with gentle, but pointed political critique in a manner reminiscent of contemporary Iranian cinema (he cited Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation as an influence). Captured in desaturated blues and greys, the crumbling suburban setting makes the Aldeas’ despair feel textured and tangible, while long and naturalistic handheld takes, punctuated only by diegetic sound, imbue the tragedy of the proceedings with a horrifying matter-of-factness— the suggestion that this might not be too far out of the ordinary. And like the Iranian masters Kiarostami and Makhmalbaf at their finest, Mungiu’s greatest accomplishment is the way he entrenches the personal so searingly within in the political. While one may bemoan the state of things that lead to the tragedy of the Aldeas, it is nearly impossible to find fault in any of the actors in Mungiu’s theatre of corruption, each trying to survive by making little compromises that all add up to a social malaise larger than their sum. Fourteen years ago, Barry Jenkins, a young film student from Florida State University, participated in the same Student Symposium I was attending. Besotted by the festival, he kept returning to Telluride — first as a production intern or “dog”, then a volunteer, and eventually a “ringmaster” who introduced films. In 2013, he introduced 12 Years a Slave at the 40th edition of the festival and hosted a Q&A with Steve McQueen. There he met the proprietors of Brad Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment (the production company behind 12 Years), and they asked Jenkins what he was working on. He told them about a script he had just finished, an adaptation of Tarell McCraney’s play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue. Soon, Plan B read the script and signed on as co-producers. Three years later Jenkins’ Moonlight, with its magical Telluride origin-story, premiered at the 43rd festival to rapturous praise and multiple standing ovations, with the extraordinarily humble Jenkins celebrated as the festival’s own, homegrown auteur. The students, who had the opportunity to talk with Jenkins at length, responded to the film with a special enthusiasm: Our admiration for Jenkins was tinged with the hope that in fourteen years, perhaps we’d return to Telluride with a blue “filmmaker” badge, too. Based loosely on the lives of McCraney and Jenkins, Moonlight is a gorgeous, epic essay that traverses three stages in the life of young Chiron as he navigates extreme poverty, a broken family, and confused sexuality in 1980s Miami. From vignette to vignette, Chiron transforms dramatically, as does his name. We first meet him as the shy,
arts & culture wide-eyed “Little” (Alex Hibbert), running from bullies and a crack-addicted mother as he stumbles into the life of the self-assured, paternal drug dealer Juan (a mesmerising Mahershala Ali). He asks Juan at one point if he’s a “faggot”; Juan replies tenderly, “You could be gay, but you don’t gotta let people call you a faggot”. In the next act, this unutterable question of sexuality weighs down heavily on the gangly, adolescent Chiron (Ashton Sanders), the angst of alienation lurking just below his reticence. An intimate encounter with his best friend Kevin leaves him with a moment of beautiful clarity—but a brutal bullying soon follows and Chiron transforms, in the third act, into the intimidatingly muscular, grill-sporting drug dealer “Black” (Trevante Rhodes). It’s not as much a coming-of-age story as it is a coming-of-manhood. In a Boyhood-esque feat that owes much to the stellar actors, one can see Black’s younger selves just underneath Rhodes’ guarded performance of hypermasculinity. His gaze is still searching and fearful, and speaks volumes more than his occasional words; his movements betray the tenseness of a man uncomfortable in his own skin. Black may have learnt how to be—and to survive as—a black man, but he hasn’t yet learnt how to be himself. The same questions of identity that so frightened Little still haunt Black’s heavy, melancholic glances and silences, leavened only slightly by the film’s moving, deliciously indefinite conclusion. While there is much to be said about
the radical cultural work the film performs in making visible facets of black masculinity usually absent from the screen, Moonlight is not just an important film, but also a beautifully crafted cinematic work. Jenkins directs with an acute awareness of the voyeuristic consumption of suffering black bodies in the media and the potency of the images he puts on screen. His formal choices are deliberate and studied, consciously rejecting the sort of “gritty realism” that encourages passive voyeurism. Instead, he frames faces in close-up with a confrontational frontality that forces the audience to not merely watch, but enter into dialogue with the film. Characters regularly gaze piercingly through the camera’s fourth wall, directly addressing the viewer. “I didn’t want to put these really personal, dark things from my past on the screen and let the spectator stay completely outside of it,” Jenkins explained during a Q&A. In other instances in the film, he makes careful, powerful uses of offscreen space: As Chiron gets beaten up in a heartbreakingly violent scene, all the punches land offscreen — all we see is his bloody, defiant face entering the frame again and again as he picks himself up after every beating. Moonlight may be a film about dark, complex, and unsaid things, but it is also a film brimming with simple joys: a baptism-like swim lesson, a beachside first kiss, a wordless, passionate reunion. Jenkins colours these joys with confident, effervescent stylization, expressionistic editing, and Nicholas Britell’s soulful
chopped-and-screwed soundtrack that ties the film’s three chapters into a lyrical whole. Moonlight delivers affect, style and a radical politics with the impossible levity of a sad song. And it was the song that everyone was humming at this year’s Telluride Film Festival. The rest of the line-up was also more or less stellar (in addition to the above, Manchester by the Sea, Neruda and Arrival were standouts), and though there were a few duds (Wakefield, Bleed For This), it is hard to write about the festival with any kind of objective restraint. Maybe it’s the delirium-inducing altitude and the gorgeous scenery, but Telluride has the famous tendency to inspire hyperbole in its attendees. Press coverage of the festival follows a similar pattern every year: Headlines are all variants of “If you thought movies were dead, Telluride will make you think again”, and critics declare the festival an oasis of true cinema after a summer of artless sequels and blockbusters. When his new movie Bleed For This premiered at this year’s festival, Aaron Eckhart proclaimed to a cheering crowd, “Everyone in L.A. knows that this is the best film festival in the world.” A friend who attended the symposium last year told me it was “the best week of her life”. Having been to a grand total of one film festival in my life, I can’t attest to whether Telluride is the best film festival in the world. But there is something deeply affirming, especially for a young person, about the festival’s simple, modest pursuit of an appreciation for cinema.
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My fellow students and I left the symposium crackling with renewed inspiration, invigorated by the festival’s offduty model vibe: Its ability to convince hundreds of people to make an arduous journey up into the Rockies without the enticements of awards and glamour; its equalizing tendency that has everyone, from mega-stars to critics to young film students waiting in the same lines, eating in the same restaurants, and milling freely around the same streets; its insistence on critical conversations about cinema; and its commitment to movies that push the boundaries of the art and the industry. If not an oasis of true cinema, the Telluride Film Festival is certainly an oasis of idealism about cinema in an industry that feels more and more cynical, calcified and capitalistic. And that idealism is the lifeblood of a young film student.
royal treatment watching the crown on netflix
JAMES FEINBERG staff writer illustrator MICHELLE NG
Early on in the new Netflix series The Crown, which tracks the ascension and early monarchy of Queen Elizabeth II, the future queen’s father, King George V (the show’s breakout star, Jared Harris), gives her a movie camera as a wedding present. “If your marriage is as happy as mine has been,” he says, “I don’t want you to miss a single thing.” The twentyone-year-old princess, enamored, gets filming – but then comes the death of her father, five years later, at which point missing things becomes something of a necessity. What makes The Crown fitting for today’s political climate is not the reign of Elizabeth as it unfolds but the monarchy as it is attempted to be recalled. With that camera, or with the soon-to-be-late King’s increasingly frequent hunting retreats, or with the archaic glamour of a royal wedding or a coronation, Claire Foy, as the Queen, is attempting to capture a moment – the moment just before ours, just before things started to become confusing. It’s a moment the royal family only realizes is the Golden Age just as it’s ending. Foy, with her eyes like unfathomable glass and a nearly imperceptible quaver in her neck when she gets angry, both is the future and must bear the future, with all its indignities. Winston Churchill (wonderfully, John Lithgow) is a septuagenarian running a country he no longer recognizes, and dealing with a monarchy with which he’s even less comfortable. Prince Philip, as portrayed by Matt Smith with the leonine charm of a man who could play the Devil or James Bond
with equal flair, is dragged along by the skin of his teeth to kneel before his own wife. The general feeling is – we’ve just missed something, and if we could only get back to it, we’d be right as rain. As an equally shaky denizen of Trump’s America, it’s hard not to feel the same way. Its political ramifications aside, it is near-impossible not to love The Crown, if only for the beauty and professionalism it brings to a world that has increasingly less of either. It is by a long-shot the best-acted Netflix original series ever released, and besides which it’s pretty as all hell, ducking ably from Buckingham Palace to Kenya to the Bois de Bologne without missing a step – thanks in part to a visual style established by the director of the first two episodes of ten, Stephen Daldry, a brilliant stage director but usually a workmanlike filmmaker who here finds his groove and then some. At its best, The Crown declares itself the magnum opus of Peter Morgan, who wrote all ten episodes, as well as a Queen Elizabeth movie, The Queen, and a Queen Elizabeth play, The Audience, part of which covers similar ground to The Crown. Naturally, Morgan is not exactly an impartial observer of the British monarchy – he’s unapologetically reverent, actually, sometimes to the point of being pedantic. (Sample dialogue: “Ma’am, what do you know about the Royal Marriages Act of 1772?”) Each episodes covers a breezy character study of a member of the upper echelons of power in London in the 1950s (I found myself looking forward to Vanessa Kir-
by’s Margaret, evidence of that actress’s ability since I’m not the least bit interested in the real one). Though they’re marvelously acted and written to a one, I have a hard time believing, for example, that King Edward VIII (, who famously abdicated the throne for his American love, Wallis Simpson, was in fact an inveterate Anglophile who, after a while, would have preferred Scotland to his
wife. But it’s all relative, and the main thing is that it all comes back to Foy, who comes into her own with such vitality and inner strength over the course of the series that one’s tempted to set her up in our own monarchy on this side of the pond. There are certainly some who’d see it as an improvement, as our own singular dynastic moment comes crashing to a close.
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lifestyle
topten
First of all, i am not trash. I got a 31 on my ACTs
things that look like donald trump
1. An Oompa Loompa elder 2. An expired tangerine 3.A 70-year-old’s body stuffed inside a 5-year-old’s body stuffed inside a 70-year-old’s body 4. A particularly knobbly sweet potato 5. A stack of hay coated in cheeto dust 6. Just straight up garbage 7. A masticated Krispy Kreme donut 8. Jabba the Hutt’s mother-in-law 9. What you get when you cross Dolores Umbridge with a Kraft single 10. A shittily-carved Jack-O-Lantern
the world watches our planet’s latest entertainment: the 2016 u.s. election COLETTE BERTSCHY contributing writer illustrator DIANA HONG
I felt the pleasant buzz settle in as I finished off my bottle of wine. Swaying slowly in time with the music, my consciousness drifted among the sea of students celebrating the start of our mid-semester break. The dim lights illuminated my friend Sarah’s long, curly hair as she threw her head back and laughed for no apparent reason. “Wait — you’re from the US, right?” I turned to face the tall brown-haired boy with the dark green eyes and the lopsided smile. Our conversation was easy if a little superficial, and my attention strayed to his hands, mesmerised as each syllable was emphasised by a new twist of those long fingers. “You’re American?” “Hmm? Oh, yes.” A new song came on, the speakers booming out the base chords with enough strength that the walls trembled with each consecutive beat. I gently brushed Sarah’s flailing arms out of my immediate vicinity. “What do you think of Trump?” My carefree smile faded as the pleasant buzz shattered. ------------One of the first things I had to do upon arriving in New Zealand was brush up on my knowledge of the nominees for the upcoming election: Donald J. Trump and Hillary R. Clinton. The irony of having to read-up once having left the US has not been lost on me. It’s as though people here are equal parts horrified and fascinated by the decisions and actions of the two main characters in their favourite TV show. They’re not sure they really want to see how it ends, and yet they’re unable to look away. As an American, every other local I meet wants to discuss politics, to
get the informed inside scoop from someone who was “on-site” not too long ago. I’m sought out for a first-hand American perspective on the election, put in the spotlight and practically demanded to explain how the current situation was crafted. They want to know how I think it will and should resolve itself. The level of disgust with each candidate, and the system in general, seems to have become an integral part of the standard vetting processes for my New Zealand classmates during the burgeoning stage of any new friendship — a seemingly useful way to weed out Americans they would rather avoid. It should come as no surprise that an overwhelming anti-Trump sentiment permeates through most of New Zealand. The level of respect granted to Hillary Clinton, though, varies greatly from discussion to discussion. The general consensus, at least among the student population at the University of Otago, is rather simplistic: he’s insane, she’s corrupt. ------------Due to the time difference between New Zealand and the US, the presidential debates can be streamed live at 2 p.m. in the afternoon of what is technically the next day. Everyone on campus was settling down or meeting up to watch the last debate. “Are you coming over this afternoon?” “Oh, sure.” “Jarrod’s streaming it for us, putting it up on his TV.” Jarrod, the only Kiwi in a flat with four Americans. Why doesn’t it seem odd that he’s the one organizing the event? “I’ll be there, it’s too depressing to watch alone.” “I know. Bring popcorn?” ------------The US election has become entertainment for the rest of the world, watched with incredulous, mocking and disgusted eyes. But it is watched. What people in America don’t seem to realize is how much our nation is watched by the rest of the world. Our politics, decisions, rulings and stances hold a lot of weight in the international commu-
nity, setting a template that many follow. A small country like New Zealand almost has no choice but to keep an eye on the larger players. And standing outside our borders, the current situation seems almost impossible to defend. ------------“I hope Trump wins.” My head whipped around, knocking the bowl off the counter. Jordan’s hand darted out, catching the gnocchi before dinner became modern art floor decor. I stared, incredulous, visions of a future of turmoil, increased radicalism and racism flashing before my eyes. I tried to remind myself that my boyfriend was not, in fact, a Trump supporter by any stretch of imagination. I did not hide my disgruntled confusion. “Why?!” His eyes were dancing as he placed the gnocchi back on the table. “I want to see what happens.” “You know, some of us have to go back and live there once the election’s over.” ------------For so many reasons, I was nervous to discover the outcome of this election — yet it seems as though the damage has already been done by the lengthy campaigns. The US has been ruptured into strongly opposing segments, with radically different ideologies, fed by a questionable two-party system that has jeopardised our future as a united nation. The damage on an international level has been equally tarnishing. I have watched our nation become the subject of mockery, disbelief and entertainment. My classmates no longer look at the US as a strong, unshakable international power to emulate; rather they now see it as just another fractured state with an uncertain future. ------------I stood behind the counter, staring up at the colorful McDonald’s sign and trying to decide between nuggets or a burger. I had abandoned my spot at the library a few hours ago despite the final exam tomorrow afternoon, unable to focus as the votes poured in. It was now nearly 8:30 in the evening, and I’d finally
left the couch in favor of locating some food. We’d been streaming NBC news for hours, and the entire race was moving sluggishly. “Hillary conceded, Nicole just texted.” I blinked. Blinked again, and turned to look at Louise, who was poised behind me, eyes simultaneously sympathetic and startled. It wasn’t exactly unexpected, the distribution of electoral votes had turned grim, slowly trickling towards Trump — but NBC still hadn’t called Pennsylvania or Michigan, considering the states still too close to call fifteen minutes ago. A startled numbness gripped me, and Louise gently pushed in front of me to place her order. “Trump’s the new American president, can you believe it?” “Oh my god, no way. For real?” “I know. We left the TV for five minutes, and the world goes sideways. Honestly, I —” “Could… could I have a hug?” I interrupted Louise, the shock still running through me. I was afraid. We’re a resilient country, we will prove that. We will ride the coming waves of change and pull through; all the stronger for it as a nation. Louise slung an arm around my shoulders, pulling me forwards with a simple explanation to the woman behind the counter. “She’s American — lives in the States.” “Oh.” The sympathy on the woman’s face as I ordered nuggets was almost unbearable. It was the same look you’re given when a family member has died, and no one can quite figure out what to say. “Here, hopefully this will help you perk up. Free of charge.” I startled slightly, thoughts having drifted to friends and family, beginning to try and coldly calculate the potential impacts of the election. “Oh. Thank you.” When a complete stranger in New Zealand feels so bad for you that you’re offered a free McDonald’s ice-cream as consolation for the results of a political election half-way around the world, there’s not really much more you can say.