in his letter, he says, “you cannot trust him to know your needs as a nation, you cannot trust him to fold so easily on his pride just because you think he loves you. but i do think that mexico is worried enough that in 1912, when phili proposes a law that basically means america is obligated to give him independence after a few years (the jones bill, if any of you want to read up on it), he writes phili a warning. I can’t decide when mexico actually learns about america colonizing phili - if he finds out in 1898, when phili declared war on america and spain signed the treaty that’d give phili to america or he finds out in 1902, when the philippine-american war officially ends or in a different year, maybe, i’ll leave this up to you. Save yourself the mental and emotional distress. I personally don’t recommend watching this. Nonetheless, it’s a feat worthy of praise. However, I honestly don’t think I can willingly go through it again. I think what saddens me more is knowing that these experiences do not entirely remain within the imagination of fictional worlds. Here’s a coming-of-age story with all the right aesthetic elements justapoxed against the pure brutality of teenage adolescence.
The entire movie almost appears satirical. Catharsis is achieved still through violent means and it leaves a bitter aftertaste even when it attempts to paint a romantic image. Unlike other coming-of-age stories, there isn’t much of a happy ending in All About Lily Chou-Chou. Nothing that horrifying should look so beautiful.
Debussy’s Clair de Lune plays softly alongside scenes of outright rape, bullying, and complete anguish. It’s almost nauseating how the dreamlike sequences were made to depict cruelty instead of the moments where the kids were actually happy. It makes me wonder whether we knew exactly what was going to happen way before we got to this point.
Again, this series was created way before we had all this more sophisticated crap. While the show doesn’t offer any actual answers, it’s a disturbing examination of our interactions with technology and the internet, as well as how it complicates how we associate with identity. We’re literally caught between the characters’ attempts to mediate reality and the online world. Sometimes we end up inside Lain’s Ego and that’s just a whole other thing altogether. It’s hard to distinguish whether what you’re watching is actually happening or is merely a literal representation of The Wired. This is mainly because the distinction between The Wired and the real world is almost non-existent here. I admit having to rewind a couple of times just to make sense of what the fuck just happened. The questions raised by the series are often presented through allegorical or just downright bewildering scenarios. I’m going to be completely honest: you actually have to pay attention while watching this. Hard to believe this was made before social media or even Google was a thing. This book definitely succeeded in doing that. If anything, her real talent is in revealing the ambiguity of what we believe to be a rich and intricate social life. Now that I think about it maybe that was the point.
In true Didion fashion, she somehow makes it work. What makes The White Album in particular such an interesting read is Didion’s ability to capture the mysticism and absurdity of these events during the 60s and 70s without offering any actual insights about them. Is that considered good writing? Who knows. She’s intelligent, no doubt about that. But I can’t help but wonder: what does she really think? How does she actually feel about this? Does she feel anything at all? Didion has this manner of stringing words together without injecting any sort of attachment to them. Didion has always had a way of unmasking the ironic qualities of both the most unusual and mundane events and then turning them on their heads. My number one criticism of Didion’s work has always been the clinical detachment in her writing.