The Three Faces of Eve (1957)

This film starts out with a man giving a grave disclaimer, stating that the events in this film are based purely on true events. That most of the dialogue is in fact taken from the actual patient records of the so-called Eve White herself. The film is based on a real life account of a doctor's interactions with a patient who had multiple personality disorder.

We first meet Eve White in her psychiatrist's office. She explains that she suffers from blackouts and very bad headaches, and also that her husband seems to accuse her of things that she has no recollection of doing. It seems to be clear to the doctor that she has some sort of psychosis, but he's not exactly sure what... until during one therapy session she transforms into an entirely different personality before his eyes. He discovers that she has multiple personality disorder, and that she in fact is not the only person living inside her head. It eventually comes to light that three women reside within the body of Eve White. Eve White herself is a very timid, defeated housewife, and is completely unaware that she is sharing her body with another person calling herself Eve Black, who is the exact opposite of her. She's rambunctious and promiscuous and almost childish in her abject selfishness. She claims that she is not married to Eve White's husband and is not the mother of her child. She instead prefers to go out dancing at the local bar many a night. The final personality gives herself the name Jane, and we do not learn much about her when she is introduced. In fact, she knows very little of her own self. The psychiatrist works hard to understand how the personalities interact with each other, and tries to get them to coexist. He is also wildly curious about the event in Eve's past that may have caused this splitting on her personality and works very hard to discover it.

This is a pretty gripping film. Joanne Woodward does a great job of seamlessly switching between the different personalities, and performs each of them so believably well. Watching her work, I found that I did not even once wonder if she suit the role of the different personalities she was portraying because she performed them all so well. One could rightly believe that the performances were genuinely different characters, and she was able to transition from one character to another so quickly and smoothly also. There was no contrived 'transformation' from one personality to another, the transition took place largely in her head and she demonstrated that effectively.

Another interesting thing about film of this nature, in this era, is the fascination with mental disorders and the relation that disorder has to a past trauma. It's really fun watch the characters dig through the past to discover the cause of what ails them.

The characters and story went into just enough detail about the personal lives of the girls and displayed enough emotion each of them were feeling about their situation to create compelling hold on the viewer. Though I may not have liked all of the character types, I was genuinely interested in what was going to happen to them and how, or even if, the hopes and dreams they had about fulfilling each woman's own personal needs and desires would be fulfilled.

Rebecca (1940)

Rebecca is a film about a young girl who meets a rich widower who falls in love with her while they're both in France, and then takes her home with him. When they get there, the young girl discovers that the late Mrs. De Winter, the man's first wife, is far from forgotten, and haunts everything and everyone at the great estate she is now the mistress of.

The new Mrs. De Winter is a timid girl and, after her whirlwind romance, is quite unprepared for the aristocratic life that she's signed on for. She can't quite seem to get used to the servants and the large house and the routine of a 'great lady', or at least can't do it in the way the late Mrs. De Winter, Rebecca, did it. In fact, she's bombarded with traces of Rebecca from the moment she first walks into the manor. Rebecca's initials are embroidered on everything, and the housekeeper, who seemed to have had a very strong attachment to Rebecca, always looks at her with a stern, almost disapproving gaze as she directs her in following Rebecca's footsteps. Her new husband, Maxim, also seems very distant, increasingly so as the pair get to know each other better. She feels like everyone is comparing her to the beautiful, intelligent, genteel Rebecca, and are finding her sadly lacking. What exactly are the details surrounding poor Rebecca's death? Will the new mistress ever find happiness in her new home, or win the love of her new husband? Will the memory of Rebecca haunt her and every other person in the house for eternity? Who knows!!

This was an amazing film. It was two hours long and I was enthralled from the get go. The acting was really well done. Our protagonist emotes such a nervous energy from the beginning of the film, and it morphs wonderfully into a stronger self-assuredness as the film nears its end and as she grows more confident in who she in and how she fits in to her situation. The way Rebecca was portrayed was also very well done. Even though we never once see her image nor are told directly or in great detail about her life, we are subtly made to know her character and traces of her are in almost every scene, and yet not enough to satisfy us. Just enough information about her is provided so as to ensure that the viewer is aware of her distinct importance and impact, but not enough to know in what regard, sparking wild curiosity. The cinematography was also very well done. At one point in the story as Mr. De Winters is reminiscing about Rebecca, the camera is aimed at a couch as he remembers the situation, and then it moves as though Rebecca is there and the camera is following her actions, but there's no one there. You can actually get into Maxim's mind's eye as he remembers, and are forced to imagine the memory he's sharing. Usually that kind of experience is reserved for books, or even radio, as flashbacks are typically shown in film leaving little to the imagination. Everything about Rebecca had to be imagined by the audience, which is what I think makes this film so special. It crosses a threshold in that respect and is truly a piece of art. It makes film not only something to idly watch, but something you can actually interact with and can put your own imagination to work. Brilliant.

This is a wonderful film full of suspense, romance, and mystery. I highly recommend it.

Frankie and Alice (2010)

This is a story about a young black woman in the '70's who suffers from multiple personality disorder.

Halle Berry plays a young stripper named Frankie. She's living her life and having fun, but every once in a while she suffers from these blackouts, and when she talks about stripping to the new girl, speaks about a disconnect between her body and mind. One night, she goes to a pool hall and ends up going back to the apartment of the dj at the strip club for some fun, but before anything can happen, she becomes disoriented and then begins speaking to the guy like she'd never met him before, attacks him, and runs out of the apartment onto the street. She passes out there and ends up in a hospital, where a doctor checks her over. The doctor notices right away that Frankie has some psychological problems (he's a psychology professor also) and wishes to examine her further. This doctor discovers that when Frankie experiences these 'blackouts', another personality is taking over her body. He discovers that there are mainly three people inside her head, multiple personality disorder. There is Frankie herself, 'Genius' who is a very intelligent child, and Alice, a racist white woman. As the doctor progresses with Frankie, these characters are fleshed out, and they explore events in her past that may or may not have influenced her condition.

Halle Berry does a pretty good job of acting out the three different characters. Sometimes the transitions between one character and another felt a little superficial, but overall it was a job well done. The film overall was decent. It got the story across well enough, but for me there was an emotional element lacking. If you want another film that does a slightly better job, you can check out The Three Faces of Eve (1957). It's a similar storyline, but it packs that extra suspense and drama in there. That's not to say that this film isn't good though. It does a good job and is very enjoyable.

Holy Motors (2012)

I really didn't know what to think of this movie until about a quarter into it. It has an art- housey, stream of consciousness element to it, and you have to piece together what's going on as the film progresses. This is a French language film, so there may be some cultural barriers also impeding understanding, but once I got the general idea I found the concept to be quite intriguing. The main character, a man named Oscar, rides around Paris in a limo completing various 'missions', for what purpose we aren't told. The missions require Oscar to become different people, so the entire film is essentially a string of vignettes.

The film opens with a man waking up in a dark room. He seems disoriented and walks around the room, coming finally to a wall covered with forest-themed wall paper. He examines it for a moment, and finds a hole, in which he inserts a bolt attached to his finger, and the wall is revealed to be hiding a door. The man follows a corridor onto the balcony of a packed theater, the audience entranced with whatever is on the screen. A baby waddles down the aisle, and a threatening predator follows. Then the scene changes, and we begin viewing Oscar and his life.

Oscar leaves a huge house full of children and goes to work for the day. There are some very expensive cars in the driveway, but he walks past them to a limo waiting for him. He is greeted by the limo driver and once in the limo, finds a folder briefing him on his first assignment. Oscar is dressed in a suit, has an earpiece that he's talking into. From the initial shot, we get the idea that he's a business tycoon or somethings. He asks the limo driver how many assignments he has that day, and then picks up a folder briefing him on this first of the day... which is to apparently dress up as an old woman and beg for change on a sidewalk.

In each assignment, he is required to complete some task as a different person. He's an old woman, an old man, a trollish looking man who lives in the sewer, a thug, etc. In each of these roles, the people he interacts with seem to know him, as if there is a history between them. It's almost as if he is participating in small segments of several different movies. At one point, he meets with a person who appears to be his boss, and the idea that he's acting for an audience is reinforced. Oscar's last assignment is to go 'home' to his 'family', which are chimpanzees. The last scene we are left with is his limo driver parking the limousine in a lot full of limos, the lot is called Holy Motors. She puts on a plain, white mask, and calls someone to tell them that she was coming home. She then walks out of the parking lot wearing the mask.

I don't really know what this film is trying to say. It could be a literal interpretation of the idea that 'all the world's a stage'. That every situation we encounter is just a dramatization, with actors who are different people than who they're presenting themselves to be in a certain moment. That people alter themselves according to a situation. Maybe it's the idea that we all wear 'masks' in our every day lives. I'm really not sure, but the film was interesting to watch anyway. It's hard to choose a favourite assignment, but I think the one I liked best was when Oscar was an accordion player. He is determinedly walking down a darkened alleyway playing a button accordion, and slowly other people begin joining him with more accordions and various other instruments. It's a passionate scene, it reminds me of grassroots revolutions and the power of music to organize. The song is pretty good too. My second favourite might be the troll scene. He plays this weird man who is singled out by a photographer at a photo shoot and asks if he can join his model to do a 'beauty and the beast' shot. He ends up biting off someone's finger, kidnapping the model and taking her down into the sewers, and then creates this really symbolically charged scene where he has obvious desire for the model, but never actually touches her in an aggressive or sexual way. He takes a bit of her dress and turns it into a sort of hijab like garment, and then falls asleep naked with his head on her lap, flower petals sprinkled on his torso. Also, I don't know if there was a meaning behind the cigarettes, or if it's just a French thing to do, but this guy is a smoke-aholic. He's sucking back a cigarette in almost every scene.

There is nudity in this film, both a weird computer graphic version, as well as the actors themselves. So if you intend to watch this, you now know. It is also in French, so you will have to deal with subtitles.

While I don't really understand what this film means, I kind of like that about it. It's something that I have to actually work out and spend tie thinking about. It's not your average movie about angst or drama or explosions. It's something different, and is actually pretty good. I'm sure I would appreciate it even more if I knew what the 'big picture' was, but it's still very interesting. I couldn't look away. At first, because I didn't understand what was going on, and then because I wanted to understand the reason behind what was going on. Fun for the whole (almost) family!

And here is the accordion scene.

Gattaca (1997)

This is a really good movie. It's a sci-fi, so I was slightly skeptical and was half expecting the cheesy acting or second-rate plot line that can sometimes be found in some sci-fi movies. I can happily say however, that this movie was pretty gripping.

The film places itself in a not too distant future, a time that is more heavily practicing genetic engineering. Our protagonist is name Vincent, who was born at a time where more and more people were choosing to genetically modify the fetuses of their children to create 'ideal' children. They remove less than ideal tendencies, such as alcoholism or depression, and they also make more desired genes more prominent, such as desired height or muscle mass, behavioural practices. At one point the characters go to a musical show and the pianist has six fingers on both hands, which we can only assume were chosen by his parents before he was born. Vincent, being born on the turning point of this trend, is one of the last generations to have parents voluntarily choose to not modify their baby's DNA, and in fact choose to genetically modify his younger brother. As more and more 'ideal' people are being 'created', the people who were not genetically modified slowly become second class citizens. Because of his blood, Vincent was only able to get janitorial work, as no well paying or reputable company would employ a non-genetically modified person. The whole idea of an interview is replaced by a blood test to differentiate between the two kinds of people.

Maybe because of his blood, Vincent is obsessed with the idea of becoming an astronaut and traveling through space, and was since he was as a child. He studies hard, and steadily works hard to get into the company that dealt with this... but is only able to get in as a janitor. He seeks out a guy who, under the table, helps people like Vincent pass themselves off as genetically modified people by pairing them with a genetically modified person who underwent an accident or is in some way unable to work. The crippled person will give samples of blood and urine (which are tested almost daily in workplaces), and pieces of hair or skin that can be spread around a workstation, and in return, that person will be allowed to live with the non-modified person and receive a portion of their paycheck. Vincent it set up with a man named Jerome, and from that point on, becomes 'Jerome'. He applies to the company he wishes to work for, and gets in easily. Things seem to be going well for Jerome/ Vincent, until there's a murder at his work, and one of his hairs are found at the crime scene. The problem is that the hair registers as an invalid... aka non genetically modified person, and endless surprise DNA tests pop up all over, which endangers Vincent's secret identity. Worst of all, with this untimely murder, he is now selected to go to space, but will never get there if is secret is discovered.

This was a really great movie exploring both the mechanization of society and the idea of discrimination. The society is tailoring a new generation of people who are almost 'super people', with only the best qualities present in their genetics. It's like creating an army of robots, in that there is no chance left to their creation. They are intentionally selected to be smarter, faster, stronger, taller, etc. than generations that came before them, and indeed than they may have naturally turned out being. We can clearly see how this is beneficial to a workplace and how this can be seen as an ideal state by a society, so it follows then that we can understand why people who were not 'made' to be better, faster, etc. might be seen as and treated like second class citizens. Why would you want to hire or date someone not as smart, not as fast, not as amiable, when they could have someone better? Why would they  even waste time asking the question when a simple blood test will determine if your genetics were 'improved' or not? There's also a Big Brother aspect to this world as well. Everyone's DNA is in a universal data base and the government/ law has complete access to it and people are literally created to meet a social standard. A sort of caste system arises, wherein people who were not manufactured to meet the social ideal are worth less as individuals. For people who do not deal with racism or sexism or class-ism or ageism on a daily basis, this film provides an example of what living with that constant and completely bigoted and illogical injustice is like.

The interesting thing that the film does to provide a sort of counterbalance to that idea is to make Jerome, the man Vincent is pretending to be, unable to use his legs, and so even though he is this super person, is still limited to the flesh and is dependent. On the other hand, Vincent, who is a lesser being, is able to easily pass off as a person who was made to be 'ideal'. This suggests that he is mentally the same or better than some of the people he's working with, and the largest distinction between the two kinds of people is the general perception of their class.

This was an interesting film, and the acting was spot on. Jude Law, Uma Thurman, and Ethan Hawke all perform really well, and the plot keeps you guessing. It's worth the watch.

Danganronpa: The Animation (Trigger Happy Havoc)

This is a 13 episode anime that was originally a video game on PSP. It's a murder mystery story about a group of kids who are enrolled in this elite high school, based on a skill they specialize in, only to find that they may never be allowed to leave there for the rest of their lives. The school is abandoned except for the students, and this malicious talking bear. The bear tells them that the only way they'll be able to leave the school will be if they are the only person alive. If ever there is a death in the school, all of the students will meet as a council to try to figure out who the murderer is. If they guess correctly, the murderer will be killed. If they guess incorrectly, everyone except the murderer will be killed, and the murderer can walk free.

This was a surprisingly good show. When the rules of the school were being discussed at the beginning of the show, I initially thought that this plot sounded suspiciously similar to Battle Royale, but we quickly find out that there are some differences that make the two-story lines distinct. Another thing that made me kind of hesitant to get into this show were the character drawings. All of the characters are drawn in a way that is so stereotypically cliché that I almost didn't want to continue the series, thinking that the story would also be just as cliché. While the character artwork is definitely not my favourite, I was able to get past it by appreciating the actual plot.

The story was surprisingly intricate and well thought out. Murder mysteries can by kind of difficult to do, because it's a challenge to come up with a good plot that the audience won't be able to guess right away, but this show does it brilliantly. With each event that takes place, we are shown the evidence that the characters see as they inspect the crime scene, and then go with them to the trial and hear them deduce what they will. The first couple of murders are pretty straight forward, but as they go on, they become increasingly difficult to figure out. Also, as another person is murdered, a different section of the school is opened up, and typically the next murder will happen in the new wing of the school. All the while, the students are simultaneously trying to figure out how they will be able to escape this place and who is behind this torturous game.

It's a fast-paced story that keeps you guessing until the very end. They also play with a few different styles of animation, which keeps things fresh. I know it looks kind of cheesy, but give it a try. You will enjoy it.

You can watch the first episode here for the time being.

Lunch Queen (Lunch no Joou)

This is a Japanese drama about a young woman who really loves food. Her life isn't the best. She works at a cafe, really just putting the hours in, but really doesn't care about the work. What she does care about however, is when lunchtime comes around. She will do whatever it takes to take her lunch on time, and when that time does, she goes on a hunt for the best lunch in town. She even keeps a book full of notes on the places she's tried. It's just another day for Natsumi when, on her very precious lunch break, a strange man pulls her into an alley and begs her to come home with him, pretending to be his wife. He says that his father is dying and he wants to see him one last time, but he'll be so disappointed if he doesn't bring home a wife, she would only have to pretend for the day, etc. Natsumi is having none of it... until the guy says that he will give her the best omurice (rice omelet) that she's ever tasted, so she goes.

As it turns out, this guy's family runs a restaurant, and he's just back to con them out of some cash. Because Natsumi took pity on this guy, she lost her job at the cafe, and without that has no way to pay for her apartment. In addition, she has a very strong love for food, and fell in love with the restaurant's flavour. So she goes back to the restaurant, claiming that as their brother's fiancée, they have to help her. She will work at the restaurant until that guy comes back. At first, the brothers are understandably having none of it. But they slowly warm up to her, especially Jun, who develops a crush on her. She tries her best to do her job well, and she eats with such gusto that they can't help but enjoy her presence. As she lives with them, she learns more about the family and their struggles to continue the business and preserve their unique flavour. At the same time, Natsumi runs in with some people she used to know, people in a bad crowd, and she has to juggle the two worlds. Will her 'fiancee' ever come back to fix the mess he made? If he does, will he have to fight off his younger brother for Natsumi's supposed affection? Will Natsumi be able to hold on to this world she find increasingly dear to her? Watch to find out!

I liked this drama. The characters are all fun and energetic and genuine. As with most of these shows, they really try to capture that 'artist' essence and the importance to try hard and give it your all, which can be heartwarming. The biggest thing though, is that this show makes me hungry. I wouldn't be lost walking into a Japanese restaurant, but I've never been to Japan and have not tried 'authentic' Japanese food. I've never had an omurice, but watching this show... I want one.

You can watch the first episode here. http://www.gooddrama.net/japanese-drama/lunch-queen-episode-1