Heavy Trip is a living proof that European cinema isn’t always serious or weird or confusing; it can be pretty fun and funny too! Jukka Vidgren and Juuso Laatio’s Heavy Trip is a musical comedy about a group of a wannabe heavy metal band that plays “symphonic, post-apocalyptic, reindeer-grinding, Christ-abusing, extreme war pagan, Fennoscandian metal,” according to the band’s bassist, Pasi. They’re a group of 4 aspiring artists who have been practicing for 12 years in one of their parents’ basement, but never once played in front of an audience. When they finally get the opportunity to do so, they grab it. When a music promoter visits their town to buy reindeer blood from the lead’s family-owed reindeer store, the band rushes to record a demo and gives it to the promoter. The fun continues from there on.

Before watching the film, our professor introduced Heavy Trip by saying that it’s one of his favorite films that he really enjoyed watching and that he wanted to end the semester for us graduating seniors with this beautifully fun movie. His remark hyped up the film for me, so I felt really excited to watch the film that would conclude my European film class. And boy was Sir right! Heavy Trip is a heartfelt movie that talks about family, friendship, love, and passion, and they presented this beautifully in the film. Although I’m not a fan of heavy metal music (in fact I consider it as the music genre that I really can’t tolerate even if I try), I feel that there’s a heavy symbolism for its use, making it the most appropriate kind of movie for the story of Impaled Rektum. The film suggests that heavy metal music can be an outlet for the marginalized and the oppressed because of the loud music and screaming voices that could represent their anger and frustrations. This is of course given Turo’s context who is always bullied and mocked by the people in his village for not fulfilling that expected masculine stereotype. Another thing I liked about the film was its humor. The film made us effortlessly laugh without being offensive; simply just because it was naturally funny and genuine. The characters were also very dorky yet lovable. They made you feel sorry for their situation and their circumstance so you feel bad for them, making you really empathize and want to support them. They may be going through tough realities, but they also made you laugh so hard that it’s overall just a good time watching the film.

Overall, I think this was the best way to end the semester. It was such a light-hearted film that not only makes you laugh but also inspires you to work hard for your dreams. I may not be able to relate directly to their problem in terms of their music, but I’m confident that they were able to speak to those who face challenges and hardships with trying and working to get the recognition they deserve in the music industry. This movie is definitely a must-watch!

There are many ways to describe this lip-biting (pun intended) movie, but the best phrase that fully encapsulates the movie is “a realistic zombie movie”.

There are many jaw dropping scenes in this psychological horror movie. The movie features a vegetarian teenager that studies in one of the most prestigious veterinary schools in Germany. She was a gifted student that aced nearly every test. Her cannibalistic instincts are awakened once she eats a raw rabbit kidney for her initiation in the school. After the rabbit kidney, she starts to crave for meat – specifically raw meat. She would go on frenzies by looking for raw meat everywhere she met until eventually, there was literally nothing that could satisfy her other than the taste of blood.

After she got the taste of human meat from her sister’s finger—which was undoubtedly the most graphic and shocking scene in the entire film. The scene leaves no room for the viewer to breathe. As I was watching the scene along with my classmates, I could not help but scream and cover my eyes as she devoured her sister’s finger as if it was a piece of chicken wings. The scene ended with her eating it to the bone as her sister woke up to what she was doing.

After the incident, the movie revolves around her denying her craving for human flesh. Her sister, who was a cannibal like her, tried to show her how to get “fresh meat” by causing cars to crash and eating off the victims’. Additionally, she would get serious allergies and caused her to hallucinate. She even tried to eat her hair to satisfy her cravings. Her denial bubbled up her cravings until she could not handle it anymore. Her built up desires and cravings led her to biting one of her schoolmates’ lip when she was at a party. This caused her to have a reputation of being a freak.

The movie ends with her dad revealing that her mom is just like her, and how the cannibalism runs in their family. Furthermore, he mentions how he allows her to eat parts of him to keep her sane by opening his polo and showing her his scars. Through this scene, I realized that this is why they were brought up to be vegetarians – to suppress their cannibalistic nature. It also explains her mom’s aggressiveness when a cafeteria mistakenly put a meatball in her mashed potato.

It is not your typical zombie movie wherein the main characters go on a zombie-killing rampage like in World War Z. What differentiates this horror movie from all the zombie movies I have ever watched is that it feels real. There are no hordes of zombies running towards the main characters or human beings trying to kill each other in order to save themselves. Just seemingly ordinary people who are mentally sick. I personally find this much more terrifying.

After watching the movie, I became skeptical about who I was close to and thinking to myself: “I wonder if he/she is actually a cannibal”. Then it hit me: this is what a psychological horror is.

The movie left me scarred but interestingly hooked. For some reason, I left the classroom wanting more.

Yay! Another film that follows a straightforward narrative that was very easy to understand! The Edukators is about individuals who break into rich people’s houses, not to steal anything but to rearrange their furniture and mess up their homes to leave a message that they are being watched and are unsafe in their supposedly rich people secure homes. They leave notes in the houses they visit that would say, “Your days of plenty are numbered.”

The Edukators is a film that captures the frustrations of people who feel deeply disturbed and unsatisfied about the unjust political and economic systems. It revolves around different conflicting oppositions such as rich versus poor, old versus young, and Capitalists versus anti-Capitalists. I personally liked this film because it reminded me of the eye-opening lessons I learned from Theology 141 that introduced me to the unjust realities of the world, and how sin is not just personal but also social, as it is also embedded in the sinful systems and structures that surround us. In the film, we see how the rich live comfortably in their mansions while the poor, who work just as hard, struggle to survive and get by each passing day. The rich is not necessarily at fault because perhaps they were fortunate enough to be born into their wealth, but it becomes a problem when they continue to want to be rich just for the sake of having more, while others barely have anything. Or worse, if their desires start to affect the lives of others. The pivotal lunch scene in the film shows Hardenberg guilty of this, and he doesn’t even seem sorry for it, defending himself by saying, “I play the game, but I didn’t make up the rules.” This is a reality that we face in the kind of world that we live in, and I appreciate the film for talking about it. I also found it empowering and inspiring to see how much passion the young characters had for fighting for their ideals. But I also thought that their methods for doing so is very radical, impulse-driven, ineffective, and obviously unethical. They tried to scare off the rich and they did so successfully, but it doesn’t really do anything about making the rich realize the structures they are in that would move them to action against the system. I think the only thing that that would probably make them do is to tighten their security even more, and just move on with their luxurious lifestyles. The only person they actually got to educate was Hardenberg when they kidnapped him. They had good intentions and the right ideals, but not the best methods.

Production-wise, the film was very simple. There were some awkward scenes, inconsistent angles, and weird use of music, plus its unnecessarily long running time, but I’d still say it’s a good effort for a movie with a message like this one.

Overall, The Edukators is a very hopeful kind of film that calls its viewers to reflect on issues relevant to the society today and urge them to respond to these issues and take action in the ways that they can. It’s one that touches one of my personal advocacies, and that’s my most favorite thing about this film.

I’m not a fan of thriller or horror films given my very low tolerance for scary movies, but watching Timecrimes was honestly an enjoyable experience for me. Prior to watching the film, I had no idea that it would have a hint of horror into it so I was caught off guard when the first jump scare scene rolled out. To my surprise though, I found myself glued to the screen.

The film was about a man named Hector and how he was caught in a seemingly unending time loop. Wanting to resolve this problem and go back to his normal and peaceful life with his wife, he ends up “messing up” the future and harming a few people along the way. Although I have seen different kinds of time travel films before, Timecrimes for me was unique and different. First of all, it felt relatively more realistic compared to other time travel films that are more adventurous and mystical. Another interesting element was the way the plot unfolded and how the film interacted with the viewers, because it felt as if we were going through the realizations and surprises along with Hector. The film was enjoyable to watch because it makes you really want to know what happens next. You don’t want to miss any important and relevant details about the character and what he does, so you stay focused. It keeps the audience on the edge of their seats waiting for what Hector is up to next (and if their predictions about what he’s going to do are right). How is he going to get out of this one? Will his actions, in his attempt to go back to his normal life, actually ruin the course of events of his life? I had a bunch more questions in mind while watching the movie and while some of them were eventually answered as the plot went on, like, Why was that girl naked in the forest?, or Why was there a weird phone call?, the ones that bothered me the most were never really answered: How did this all begin? What’s the history behind the time travel machine? Is Hector’s life just going to be an unending cycle of what all happened? Even though it was very frustrating not to have the answers to these questions, I think the fact that the film makes us think about it and the questions it left unanswered even after a few days after watching the movie, is one of the things that makes it really effective as a film in its genre.

In terms of the movie production, I found it really impressive how this film was able to effectively pull off its thriller/time travel/sci-fi genre given that it was produced with a limited budget. Usually, you would expect movies like this to cost a lot given its supposed use of advanced technology, but Nacho Vigalondo’s Timecrimes was successfully able to make do with limited characters and setting, and simple machines and props. All it took was a well thought-out storyline.

Overall, it was a very creative film especially as a low-budget one, and it’s one that I would probably recommend to my friends who like movies from this genre.

When I first heard the title of the film that we were going to watch, I got a bit excited because I thought it would be a fun and adventurous type of film with a slight hint of comedy in it. A few minutes into the movie, I found myself slightly disappointed to see that it was a found footage mockumentary type of movie. I think this was my first time watching a film in this genre and although it’s creative and witty in the sense that it tries to appear as if it were a real phenomenon since it’s supposedly a found footage, I don’t think I could say that I’m a fan of it. Some of the scenes were difficult to watch because of the shaky recording and for a time, a broken camera. The CGI also wasn’t very convincing that the trolls were real.

Nonetheless, Trollhunters was still somewhat interesting given that it’s a fictional movie with a bit of a suspense factor that made me want to know what would happen next to the characters. I also didn’t know anything about Norwegian culture and folklore, so I got curious about the trolls and the associations and descriptions that came with them. One of the troll “facts” that surprised me was that they can apparently smell Christian blood. I got curious as to why they specifically could smell Christian blood, so I researched more on it and found that apparently, trolls are demonic entities cast out by God into the darkness and that’s why they only become alive at night. Because of this, trolls developed a grudge against God and His Christian believers. Pretty cool. Although I didn’t feel any personal connection or engagement with the film, (probably because I didn’t understand its history or context especially that of the trolls) it still found a way to piqued my interest. Throughout the film and even afterwards, I found myself thinking: Why were trolls so special? Where did the idea come from? Are they our version of the duwende, the aswang, the kapre? The film urged me to get to know not just Norwegian folklore, but also their history and other cultural practices.

Overall, the film was a good break from the previous films we’ve seen that were more symbolic and weren’t as straightforward with its storyline as this one is, especially coming from watching Holy Motors which was admittedly a very difficult experience for me. While Holy Motors “wasn’t meant to be understood,” this one definitely was. It was entertaining and some parts were exciting, and I appreciate how the film tried to be as authentic and real as it could be. If there’s anything that left me in awe in the movie, it would definitely be the beautiful scenery and landscapes of Norway. The place has always been in my bucket list for my future travels and the film just made me want to see those vast lands for myself all the more someday in the future.

Holy Motors is by far the weirdest and strangest film I have ever seen. Most of the movies we watched in class also fall under ‘weird’ and ‘strange’, but this one was the most challenging one for me in terms of understanding the film and keeping myself engaged with it. When our professor warned us before the movie started that this one won’t be easy to understand and that we should focus on the acting and performance instead, I already knew I wasn’t going to like this movie or the experience of watching this particular one. True enough, I found myself really disturbed and confused. It felt like so many things were happening in the movie and I couldn’t keep up.

The film was generally about a man named Mr. Oscar and his “appointments” where he would dress up and act out different roles in each of these appointments. He started off as an old beggar, becomes a motion capture actor, then turns into a madman in a green suit, and plenty more roles. None of these roles were connected to one another, but each one was played out with so much effort and passion that his role playings or acts felt like they were real and were actually happening to him. He was so invested in each of his roles to the point that he bit a finger off of one of the photographers’ hand in his appointment as a madman and kidnapped the model, and even to the point of stabbing and killing in his other appointments.

Before Holy Motors, I have never watched a film that was “not meant to be understood” in terms of its plot and storyline. Films to me are meant to entertain in a way that tells a story and manifests this concretely through the actors living out the plot. Although Holy Motors probably did have a story, our attention wasn’t meant to be drawn to it, but rather to the performance of the actors themselves, particularly Oscar’s. Although this movie really weirded me out, I can’t deny the fact that the performances were truly remarkable. As I said, all his acts felt real even if none of those roles were indeed his actual life. I guess the point of this film is to show how flexible art can be expressed, and the different beauties that come with passion for someone’s art. But one thing I noticed in the film aside from the all out performances was how Oscar didn’t really look happy doing what he does. He looked tired way more than he looked like he was fulfilled with his career. Having said this, I believe it’s also a reality that many people are faced with when doing things we love to do. We aren’t robots; we also get tired even when it’s from doing something that means a lot to us. But sometimes, when it’s really the thing that makes us most magnanimous, it doesn’t mean that we should just stop. Oscar says this himself when he was asked why he continues to do what he does, and he says that it’s because of why he started.

Overall, the film was a challenge to watch, digest, and write about. But I believe this is what I signed up for when I took this class. So although there was difficulty, I’m still looking forward to the rest of what this course has to offer.

Good bye Lenin! by Wolfgang Becker captures the struggle of a young man named Alex to keep his mother Christiane healthy and alive by recreating the world as she knew it before she went into a coma. Christiane is a loyal socialist from West Germany, and she gets a heart attack and eventually falls into a coma when she saw Alex protesting against the regime. Shortly after this incident, the Berlin Wall falls, the GDR collapses, and Germany is reunited. Knowing full well that this would be a shock and a heartbreak to Christiane who had just awoken from a coma, Alex and his sister Ariane exert extreme efforts to rebuild the old Germany for their mother.

This, to me, is the most enjoyable film we have watched so far in class. Not only is it easy to understand, but it’s also incredibly comedic and subtly but smartly educational (for people like me, at least, who don’t know much about the history of Germany). What kept me hooked throughout the film was its unique storyline; I don’t think I’ve come across a movie with a plot like this one yet. It keeps you enticed because you want to know how much further the children are going just to protect their mother, and also if their mother is ever going to find out about the truth.

To me, the film was all about love and the means that you would go to just to protect the ones you love, whether it be a person or a country. Christiane loved her country so much that she chose its beliefs and ideals over her husband, resulting to her family being separated. Meanwhile, Alex loved his mother to the point that he went through extreme measures to keep her happy and healthy, even if it meant lying to her about the world she lived in and even getting other people to lie to her as well. The love these characters have and give is truly noble, but what made it somewhat questionable was its moral and ethical implication. I understand that Alex just wanted to make sure that he is able to keep Christiane from possible triggers to another heart attack, but how much more lies did he think was acceptable to keep up this charade? How many people would he have to involve to make sure his mother doesn’t get suspicious? Was he just planning on keeping her in her room the whole time? Initially, I was fine with him covering up what happened while Christiane was in a coma, but I was hoping he would gradually break the news to her so she could start adjusting and live normally again. But this dilemma kept the plot more and more interesting, so I slightly kind of wanted him to keep going. Eventually, Christiane finds out the truth because of Lara, Alex’ girlfriend, but Christiane chooses to go along with Alex’ charade. This, I believe, is Christiane’s way of showing appreciation to Alex. Although I’m sure it was painful finding out the truth about the country she ever so loved, she understood why Alex did what he did, and it took that much love for Christiane not to get angry at Alex and let herself die with Alex convinced that she never found out, passing away happily.

Overall, the movie was beautiful and delightful for being able to encapsulate the themes it had in such a unique, witty, and understandable way. It’s a refreshing movie to watch after all those difficult films we previously saw, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I find myself searching for this movie and watching it again.

When our professor said that the next film we would watching was a film from 2003, I felt relieved because I thought that maybe this one wouldn’t feel so foreign and different as compared to the other films we watched which I found very odd and ~old~. I wanted to understand and at the same time enjoy a European film on our list for once, and I was hoping this one would be it.

The Five Obstructions by Lars von Trier is a documentary that involves two filmmakers challenging each other on their expertise on art and cinema. Protégé Lars von Trier summons his mentor Jorgen Leth to recreate one of Leth’s most popular films, The Perfect Human. His challenge came with a twist: Leth has to recreate his own film five times, with five different obstructions for every remake that gets more and more amusing.

To be honest, it took me some time to understand what was going on in the film. I was initially confused why there were two men arguing about something about 12 frames and why this younger man seemed to be bossing around this older guy. When I finally understood what was going on, things started to make more sense and things got a bit more interesting. Though it didn’t take awhile until I felt confused and lost again; I couldn’t seem to figure out why von Trier was giving those kinds of ‘obstructions’ and what its purpose was. It felt so random to me. He loved the original film, didn’t he? He’s the student in their relationship, right? But towards the end of the film, I realized that it wasn’t really about making fun of Leth nor was it in any way disrespecting him. Leth was a lot older than von Trier, and based on my research, he’s a good and experienced filmmaker. So maybe this wasn’t von Trier being bossy and arrogant; maybe it was his attempt at challenging Leth’s filmmaking style and creativity, and helping him develop his technique in this new generation of arts and filmmaking. We see this initially in the film when von Trier gave his first obstruction, and Leth reacting negatively because he thought it would be impossible to shoot in just 12 frames. Yet he ended up doing it flawlessly, just as he did in the original. In a way, it can be said that von Trier was helping Leth push himself outside of his comfort zone and evolve as an artist. More than it being a good message for change and progress, I think it’s also an empowering message for mentee-mentor relationships in general, as it teaches students to constructively criticize, give valuable input, and even challenge their mentors.

In a more general, relatable, and non-film-related perspective, I think The Five Obstructions is a good reminder that humans are, contrary to the film title, imperfect. From the snippets of The Perfect Human that we saw from the documentary, it just shows how the “perfect human” (or at least the idea of it) is only in a box, which is perhaps our imagination or our concept of this kind of human. But what von Trier tries to show us through his obstructions is that humans exist outside this perfect box with a constantly changing environment and factors that makes genuine human life and interaction unpredictable, unautomated, and perhaps perfectly imperfect.

Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’Avventura was easy to watch compared to the first two films we saw in class. I say ‘easy’ simply because I was able to follow and understand the storyline and because the plot kept me intrigued. I was hooked to watch until the very end hoping to get answers and confirmations to the questions and theories that were piling up in my head, only to finish the film feeling disappointed over the fact that the reason why I kept watching – to figure out where Anna went and how things between her, Claudia, and Sandro would play out once she returns – was never resolved.

The title of the film was “The Adventure”, and the film starts with a group of rich friends going on a fancy yacht cruise, so I was expecting a movie that would involve thrilling escapades on a beautiful and mysterious remote island in Italy. Halfway through the film, however, I realized that it wasn’t anything like the adventure I was expecting. The island went off to was nothing but big rocks. Aside from the pretty view of the sea, there was nothing captivating and exciting about it. The succeeding events after Anna’s disappearance also didn’t feel much like an adventure, but rather a broken love story of two lonely people seeking for an escape or a distraction from their real problems. What I initially thought was the mystery of the film that had to be solved or ‘the adventure’ that the characters were going to embark on – Anna’s sudden disappearance after arguing with her boyfriend and declaring that she wanted to be alone – suddenly only became a catalyst to the main events in the film and merely fades into the story of Sandro and Claudia.

Something I found weird in the film was how sexually driven the characters were to the point that cheating was being normalized and even romanticized. Sandro was quick to move on from her supposedly fiancé Anna in a span of 24 hours and went after her best friend Claudia. Although Claudia initially tried to resist, she gave in to her lust and attraction eventually. Their friend Guilia also had a sexual affair with a teenage boy who had a crush on her while she was also in a relationship. Something equally disturbing was how men during that time looked at women; it was as if women were mere objects displayed for them to look at and admire in a sexual way, particularly in selected scenes where men would flock around a beautiful woman and ogle her body as if it was their first time seeing someone from the opposite sex.

In a nutshell, L’Avventura to me is a film that depicts the lavish, shallow, and possibly even toxic lifestyles of these rich characters who attempt to make their lives more meaningful but end up only covering up their loneliness with more problems. It shows how people find comfort in avoiding conflicts rather than solving them, and in quickly jumping into their selfish desires rather than thinking about other people involved. It’s a story about the struggle to find and experience true happiness, which I guess is life’s real adventure after all.

Persona by Ingmar Bergman tells a story of a theater actress turned psychiatric patient named Elisabet who suddenly became mute after a performance where she unexpectedly stood blankly in silence, and her nurse Alma who was assigned to live with and take care of her in a summer house.

Watching this film was an unsettling experience that left me confused and puzzled. To begin with, the movie started with a montage of disturbingly eerie clips of a spider, a lamb being drained of its blood, a bleeding hand being nailed, and some old people who were either sleeping or dead, to name a few. Some of these clips appear again in the middle of the film. I assume there’s a meaning behind the addition of these random snippets, perhaps a foreshadowing of some sort in relation to the events in the characters’ lives, but I couldn’t quite get the connection. That, or I was too focused on feeling uncomfortable. There were also other parts of the plot that I had difficulty in trying to interpret: the growing attraction between Alma and Elisabet, Alma sleeping with Elisabet’s husband while Elisabet let it happen, the repetition of Alma’s narration of Elisabet’s attempted abortion story, Elisabet biting Alma, and even the quick appearance of the cameramen at the end. I think the vagueness of it all is Bergman’s way of leaving the film open to the audience’s own interpretation. Although initially it seems as though the plot is simple and straightforward, it develops to become a complex one that begs you to wonder. It’s a type of film that doesn’t give you the complete story right away and leaves you with unanswered questions. I believe it’s creatively brilliant to an extent, but it can also be confusing for some who are watching films made by Bergman for the first time. In terms of the film’s audiovisual presentation, I enjoyed its use of a monochromatic style as an added dramatic tool to emphasize the strong emotions in the film. The use and choice of music also helps heighten the film’s touch of horror and intensity.

Overall, despite it being a perplexing unorthodox type of film that left me feeling uneasy, I believe it is still captivating in its own way.