Central Station

            My favorite film that we saw in our International Film Class was definitely Central Station. The film takes place in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. It starts off that people go to Dora who is a retired schoolteacher who works on the station writing letters, so that she can write letters for them so that people around the country can receive them since the illiteracy level is so low in Brazil. She meets Josue and his mother in which they are attempting to write to Josue’s dad whom he never met. Josue at first acts like a pest which annoys Dora. The following day, Josue and his mother come back again to send a letter to her husband. Dora begins to write but Josue is not sold that Dora will mail the letter. He and his mother then leave the station, which then tragically ends with Josue’s mother getting hit by a bus leaving her to die. Josue is then left to be alone in which he spends the night at the station, alone and scared. The next day Dora notices that Josue spent the night at the station so she offers him food but he refuses because she always acted so mean to him and just in general. The safety patrol man of the station then talks to Dora, which ultimately causes her to take Josue home with her. Once she took him home he realized that most of the letters that Dora was supposed to mail out were still in her house, causing Josue to see the letter that she was supposed to send of his that his mother had asked her to write and send out. The next day Dora takes Josue to a “Family Shelter” in where they tell Dora that they will make sure Josue gets good foster parents in which they will most likely be in the U.S. or Europe. Dora receives compensation for bringing Josue to the home. When she gets home Dora buys a new tv that leads to her neighbor asking where she received the money for it. After lying where she got the money she told her neighbor that she had taken Josue to a home in where he was going to be with good foster parents. Her Neighbor then reveals to her that those are not foster homes but instead they kill children and sell their organs. Dora finally feels bad and takes Josue back from the home, in which they soon leave the town after they were threatened to get killed. From there Dora and Josue’s journey in finding his father begun. Throughout the experience Dora and Josue had their moments from wanting to kill each other to soon enough having a strong friendship. They eventually found the family of Josue and she leaves him there to stay with his brothers and she returns to Rio.

            The theme of the movie is based on the poor slums of Brazil in which they demonstrate how low the level of literacy in the country is and also how they really do kill kids to sell their organs. I personally found the film to be one of my favorites. I also almost shed a tear when Dora left Josue with his new family and she was returning to Rio as she’s writing a letter saying how much she grew to him. :’(

Tsotsi

            One of the last movies that were viewed in class was, Tsotsi. The film takes place in South Africa and it is about a petty crime gang leader called Tsotsi who goes around doing mischievous things. At first him and his boys walk around their poor town and go to the central station to look for mischief. When Tsotsi, Boston, Aap, and Butcher get into a train they see that there is an elderly man there in which they are plotting to rob. Tsotsi tells the man to be quiet but suddenly Butcher stabs the man quietly, finally killing him and letting him die on the train. Boston becomes sick from what he witnessed and then gets mad and confronts Tsotsi, which then leaves Tsotsi to fight and beat up Boston. He then flees eventually finds a woman in her car, which leaves him to rob her. After he robbed the lady for her car he shoots her and drives away. Little does Tsotsi know that there is a baby in the car, right after he notices he decides to leave the car and take the baby with him. Tsotsi brings the kid back home and tries to take care of him and make sure that the baby is clean and eats. He tries to avoid his friends to be with the baby and take care of it. Although he still continues to have his same street mentality by forcing a local town mother to take care of the baby you see that he starts to be more open with the lady as she nurtures the baby. You also see that he reminisces on his childhood and how cruel his father was to him. He also goes back to where he grew up in a poor part where homeless kids would go to. Tsotsi becomes closer to the kid as it were his. Eventually he decides that he can no longer keep the kid because it was not right. He decides to give it back to the family in where they had already surveliance and cops working with them hoping that the kidnapper would appear. In this case Tsotsi appeared with the baby, and handing him over to the parents. While the cops were already outside they arrested Tsotsi soon after he retrieved the infant.

            The theme of this movie was based on the slums of Africa which shows you the poverty and how people go on with their lives daily regardless of the conditions. In this case Tsotsi wanted to be a father figure to the baby he kidnapped. He never wanted to hurt it but only make sure that he took care of it any way possible. I think the film was well directed but I think it could of ended better.

Legend of 8 Samurai

The legend of 8 Samurai takes place in Japan and starts off that a princess (Shizu-hime) is running away from her enemies in which they are trying to capture her so that they can turn her in to the evil queen Tamazusa. In which they are trying to use her as a sacrifice so that Tamazusa can use her blood to rejuvenate herself. She is then rescued by Dōsetsu who then tells her about the story of a legend that has a curse on her family, and of eight crystals that identify eight dog-warriors who can lift it, Dosetsu and his companion have two of the crystals. They then go on a journey to find 6 other warriors that have the crystals. Throughout their journey they find the 6 individual warriors in which they ultimately find the princess and they all join together to fight the evil queen Tamazusa and her Son. It is then left up to the princess to make sure that all the crystals are together so that she could be the one to kill the queen and her son. She eventually shoots the arrow which is what happens when you gather the crystals and kills the queen, leaving the castle in which they stay to be destroyed, leaving all 7 warriors dead minus her and her rescuer Shinbei left alone to survive. She then returns back to her royal family where then she realizes that she had fallen in love with Shinbei. Her and Shinbei then meet and tribute the 7 other warriors who died in combat to save the princess, they both leave and stay together.

            The theme of 8 Samurais is that all warriors come together to fight the evil queen. The film takes place in Japan in the villages where people are not so wealthy. Shinbei who starts off as a wannabe warrior eventually becomes the one to rescue the princess and make sure she is safe for the remainder of their journey. I personally enjoyed the movie and found it very intriguing with their kung-fu style fighting. 

Fresa Y Chocolate

            Another movie we saw was Fresa Y Chocolate. This film takes place in Cuba of the time that the Communist and Fidel Castro Regime was set to take gays out of Cuba. The Film starts off when David the main character is going to meet with his girlfriend and she tells him that she does not want to be with him and eventually leaves him. David then goes to an ice cream shop the next days and he then encounters Diego. They both make their orders at the ice cream shop in which David orders Chocolate and Diego orders strawberry. Leaving David with the impression that Diego is gay because his order of strawberry ice cream. Diego then befriends David and invites him over to his house in where he discovers that Diego has many imports of American Products. David becomes suspicious of Diego and begins to spy on him. During the time that he spies on him they begin to become close to each other as friends and begin to trust one another. David being an ardent communist makes him not trust Diego as much before establishing a friendly relationship but as time passes he soon notices that Diego is not the person who he thought he first was. Diego also starts to like Diego’s neighbor in which they start to have a relationship themselves and eventually causing them both to have sex. Towards the end of the film both Diego and David become good friends causing Diego telling David that he is going to leave Cuba to go to the United States for a better life and also because Castro was kicking out most gays. He also reveals to him that he cares about him and likes him as a friend, hoping that David understands.

            The theme of the movie is based on Cuba during the 70’s where Cuba was taking over by Fidel Castro and how much the country itself was changing to becoming different then what it was before. I thought the Strawberry and Chocolate was a good movie and also teaches the effects of how to not judge a book by its cover by which in this case David learned to have a friendship with Diego and realize that he was not the person whom he thought he was in the beginning of the film. 

Wedding Banquet

            The fourth film, Wedding Banquet is about Wai-Tung and Simon who are a gay couple living together and establishing a gay relationship. Wai-Tung rents a house to Wei-Wei who finds Wai attractive and always questions on how a man that has his “beautiful” features can be gay. Throughout the movie Wai receives letters and phone-calls from his parents urging that he should get married soon and have kids so that they could finally have grandchildren. What they don’t know is that their son is gay and he has yet to open up and let them know of the secret. His parents even get a Chinese Opera singer to go to New York to meet Wai but of course since he is not interested in females he shows no interest towards her. Wai then finds out that his parents are coming to visit him so that they could see if he has any females in his life. Slickly Wai tells Simon so they get the idea to use Wai’s tenant Wei Wei to make believe that she is Wai’s wife. In compromise they agreed to give Wei Wei papers so that she could stay in the country without a visa. When Wai’s parents come they see Wei Wei, Simon, and Wai. They tell the parents that Simon who is Wai’s real partner just rents a room and is a roommate. Throughout the rest of the film, Wei and Wai put up a front that they’re a happily couple. They eventually get married but that causes Wai and Simon to be apart from each other since they have to act as if they are only friends and not a couple. Wai’s father starts to get suspicious of Wai, Simon, and Wei sensing something is not right. One day when everyone went out besides Simon and Wai’s father, Mr. Gao reveals that he knows Simon and Wai are a secretly gay couple and accepts the fact of it but tells Simon to not tell anyone and keep the secret that he knows between them. Mr. Gao also gives Simon the gift of money of when a couple gets married. Showing you that he accepts it.

            The theme of the movie is in New York and it is during that time when gays were becoming more exposed in New York City. Although it was still a secret most had to put up the front that they were attracted to the same sex. I think the movie was real good and I really enjoyed it because you got the chance to see how everyone in the movie got to grow together as a family.