Well, I must say I approached the film with the old misgivings and contempt I’ve specially reserved for Disney (and of that kind) products. The change of setting, though, is welcome. The bodies of the characters broke stereotypes yet crafted new ones. For a start, the protagonist looked healthy. And the delineation of the hair, achieving milestones ever since Brave, was dazzling here. The deranged rooster as sidekick is hilarious, and especially so since I knew one of its kind, unbelievably daft and unfathomable. The story of the young adult girl having a ‘dream’ and pursuing it no matter what her father says or any stick-in-the-mud detractors might say, and finally achieving success and glory — same-old theme — is predictably boring.
That is, until Maui aka Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson started to sing “You’re Welcome”. The quirky animation, the genius of the “animated” tattoos (the only hand drawn animation in the film, ref. Wikipedia), and the cheeky suavity of the lyrics, found me actually, unconsciously enjoying it. I soon retained my composure, however, and was back at nit-picking, when alas! Continue reading “Formulaic yet Surprising: MOANA (2016)”
We are all going to die soon. So throw away your dumb rituals, your make-beliefs, your unfulfilling career race, your pretenses of aesthetic refinement and classiness. Embrace the despondent wait. Be like Justine. Lose control of your life. So that when the time comes you won’t be caught unawares. You will have known it was going to happen anyway. You can say then, “Because I know things. I know what the answer of the lottery is, I know that there is no god out there, I know that humans are all alone on a despicable planet, the only one in the universe that contains life, and that if it is destroyed nobody cares because nobody is there to care or know about it.” It’s like having the upper hand over surprises, like you know your friends are secretly plotting a surprise birthday party, and when they yell surprise, you think “yayyyy, whatever”.
You cannot help but pity poor Émile, condemned for no reason to a life of solitude and friendlessness, except for a grown-up pervert (read tutor) who is both know-it-all, comprehensive guide book and highly-evolved CCTV camera, and who is bent on making a junior double of himself out of Émile. From a little after infancy, Émile is literally surrounded, saturated, and manipulated by the sole presence of the sly tutor-master who claims to be Émile’s friend and equal. The child is like clay that can be worked into anything; and as far as clay is concerned, it is not hard to read. For fear of misleading him, Émile is not taught religion, morals, fables, stories of any kind, nor allowed to engage in solitary excursions, chit-chat, gossip, play with peers, chill time with the ladies, and in short, 
Clownin' 