FILM REVIEW: EMOTICON ;) By: Faiz No comments

Elena (Livia De Paolis) and Hanna (Carol Kane) in Emoticon ;).

Connections

By Don Simpson

Elena (Livia De Paolis) is fascinated by modern means of communication but she cannot seem to wrap her head around how to develop that interest into a graduate school thesis. But then Elena finds herself fully immersed into the very modern worlds of her significantly older boyfriend Walter’s (Michael Cristofer) adopted teenage kids, Amanda (Diane Guerrero) and Luke (Miles Chandler). This allows Elena to gain firsthand insight on how these two particular teens utilize different types of technology as existential tools to better understand themselves.

Though many of Emoticon ;)‘s comments on modern communication are annoyingly obvious, De Paolis’ directorial debut works well as a subtle contemplation of family that intimately observes how adoption and divorce may affect family units. Not only is there a natural generational divide between Walter and his kids, but they are not intrinsically bound by DNA. With sole custody of the teenagers, Walter has adopted a laissez-faire approach to parenting, focusing his time on teaching and dating. Having very little parental oversight, Amanda and Luke are forced to learn everything for themselves. Elena’s keen interest in their lives is resisted at first, but that tide turns quickly. Starving for parental support during their existential struggles, Amanda and Luke latch onto Elena. Not quite old enough to be their mother, Elena’s understanding of technology allows her to form an intimate connection with the Amanda and Luke, becoming their friend and confidant, something they have seemingly never experienced with a parental figure before.

Emoticon ;) also addresses the role that race may play in adoption. While Luke was able to easily adjust to his adoptive parents and their neighborhood (Gramercy, Manhattan) because he is Caucasian, Amanda basically had to ignore her Mexican roots and assimilate herself into their white, upperclass world. Once Amanda meets her first “brown” friend, her life is changed forever. Amanda is driven by the desire to learn about the biological past that has been hidden from her thus far.

De Paolis’ refreshingly feminine perspective is most apparent in her handling of unplanned pregnancies, specifically in the way the female characters are affected by these situations. Emoticon ;) serves as a perfect example of why we need more feminine directorial voices in the world of cinema.

LAFF 2011: BAD INTENTIONS By: Faiz No comments

Cayetana de la Heros (Fatima Buntinx) in Bad Intentions.

Death to the bourgeoisie

By Don Simpson

Writer-director Rosario Garcia-Montero’s The Bad Intentions is a coming-of-age story which centers around a quirky-yet-morose nine-year-old girl, Cayetana de la Heros (Fatima Buntinx). Cayetana’s parents (Katerina D'Onofrio and Jean Paul Strauss) are divorced -- which, as she learns at her Catholic school, means they are going to hell. Cayetana is raised primarily by the servants (Liliana Alegría, Tania Ruiz, Melchor Gorrochátegui) at her Valium-popping mother’s bourgeois home in Lima, Peru. Whenever Cayetana does spend time with her mother, she devises new and interesting ways to play torturous mind games with her. And though Cayetana’s father seems too preoccupied with life -- especially attractive young women -- to pay her much mind, Cayetana idolizes him nonetheless.

As her surname suggests, Cayetana is obsessed with heroes. It seems most of Peru’s heroes are losers and Cayetana is specifically interested in their heroic deaths. Cayetana’s fascination with death, especially violent deaths during battle, lends her the morbid air of a Peruvian Wednesday Addams. Death’s allure becomes even more personal when Cayetana suddenly -- and quite irrationally -- concludes that she will die on the day that her pregnant mother gives birth. Cayetana is not very worried about dying, but she seems utterly frightened of being rendered invisible.

Of her entire family, Cayetana’s most sane and rewarding relationship is with her cousin, Jimena (Kani Hart). When Cayetana becomes too much for her mother to handle, she is sent to spend the summer at the beach with her cousin. When Jimena becomes mysteriously ill, Cayetana is snapped back into reality. Death is more than just a magic realism-tinged dream; death becomes real for Cayetana.

The Bad Intentions takes place in 1982 and the brutal guerrilla attacks of the Maoist group, the Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso), hover around the periphery of the narrative. The terrorists always seem to be lurking around the corner; as the violence creeps closer to Cayetana, her mind is catapulted into more frequent and fervent daydreams about Peru’s past war heroes.

Garcia-Montero’s film functions as an absurd allegory for bourgeois feelings of ambivalence towards an uncertain future. The invisible yet always-present threat of death has warped repercussions in the mind of a nine-year-old child; Cayetana is riddled with Catholic guilt, consciously for her parents’ unholy divorce and subconsciously for being a part of a bourgeois household that is quite similar to the colonialists that her favorite revolutionary heroes fought against.