I’m supposed to do a six word review of it all… but I thought I’d best give you, dear reader (whomever you may be), a little bit of background information first. Which is basically that paragraph above, so knock yourself out.
Also it seems I am forever bound to be unable to escape Carol Ann Duffy. Her name cropped up on the second floor of the exhibition and I tried very hard not to run out of the Tate cringing – after a mildly torturous AS Level English Literature year on her work and running around Manchester Metropolitan University’s main building hoping she wouldn’t show up in my poetry seminars, I try not to break out in hives every time she’s mentioned just because that first year of college was terrible.
Moving on, here’s my review of post-modern art – my six word review:
Colourfully bland juxtaposed, fragmented geometrics.
I tried to be clever with it but I’m not entirely sure it worked.
At first, I was a little reluctant to read Hopler’s short collection, Green Squall. Anyone that knows me knows of my dislike for a good 90% percent of poetry. It’s just not a medium that I’m comfortable with – reading or writing. And, upon first read, I was inclined to throw Green Squall onto the pile with the other hastily shoved aside poetry that I never enjoyed. As it is, I honestly still want to do that with most of the book but repeated reading and discussing it with my peers has chastened me a tad.
It’s not that I like the whole collection – similar to poetry, I’ve never been a fan of gardening or the outdoors, and there’s a dull sense of repetition throughout the book that runs like a bad, overdone Family Guy joke – though there are several poems I actually found myself enjoying, these being: The Boxcars of Consolidated Rail Freight, Meditation On Ruin, The Frustrated Angel, Memoir and Green Squall.
Throughout the book, the imagery appears to stay constant with a focus on the world of gardening, with the birds and the flowerbeds, a backdrop of Florida. Occasionally it veers away, describing a woman in red although this too comes back to the recurrent theme of birds when Hopler mentions the cardinal. Emotional tones run their course, a streaming constant of regret and frustration with Hopler’s narrative voice endlessly self-deprecating his or her self. This appears prominently in one of my favourites, The Frustrated Angel in which the guardian angel seems to give up on Hopler entirely;
That’s mighty big talk, isn’t it, Hopler — coming from a man who
lives with his mother?
Hopler, I’ve had it with all your crying and complaining. If I
wanted to hear whining, I’d kick a dog.
The angel introduces a sense of humourous comedy to the text; after all, one hardly expects a paragon of virtue and goodness to speak of committing a less than holy, loving action (of course, on a tangent after watching much Supernatural and reading Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s Good Omens, I’m honestly left wondering how ‘good’ are angels and how ‘bad’ are demons? Perhaps they are more chaotic neutral than wholly virtuous or troublesome).
Personally, Green Squall seems to me to feel almost too auto-biographical in its narrative. Hopler’s poems here are definitely mostly narrative based, with a good deal of repetition, emphasising those aforementioned tones of disparagement and frustration with this idea of Floridian paradise. Interestingly though, he creates his own words and, somehow, we as readers manage to understand – in some way, shape or form – what he’s trying to convey to us through the term ‘lizarding’ or ‘vampired’. Points have to be awarded for his creativity in that, at the very least.
Directed by Sofia Coppola and starring Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson, Lost in Translation is a filmic text that focuses on two insomniac-ridden Western travellers, thrown into a shock of Eastern culture, each suffering from communication issues.
It is not just a language barrier that causes frustration to Bob Harris and Charlotte, but their slowly faltering relationships with their spouses, regardless of the distance between them. The film focuses on this unlikely couple (he, the mature, experienced actor and she, the young, unknown wife of a photographer) with their vastly different lifestyles often mirroring each other.
At first, Bob and Charlotte’s narratives seem so completely different to the viewer but as the film progresses, we grow to realise just how similar they are. Their experiences in Japan, a world so far from their own and from what they know and recognise, bring them closer, as does their insomnia and their marriage problems. There is the idea of the cliché in a holiday romance and, although Coppola hints at a romantic spark between the couple, she never defines it, choosing to leave it to us as a viewer to decide our own fate for the two. We are left trying to decide whether the two could really have the potential to embark on a romantic relationship or whether it is one of patriarchal affection. Coppola directs each scene between the two so exquisitely that the borders of their relationship blur.
It’s interesting to watch how Japan slowly becomes less of an alien place to both Bob and Charlotte, but only when they are in each other’s company, suggesting that each finds a sense of grounding with the other. Regardless of the language barrier, Charlotte has plenty of English-speaking friends whom she introduces to Bob. These Japanese natives seem to be fascinated with their Western counterparts, engaging with them as much as possible and encouraging them to let themselves have fun. What makes this so captivating is the culture shock; although Japan is a world far-removed from our own Western one, there are so many similarities between both. Even a country so far east draws on Western philosophies and fashion, combining together to create a hybrid blend that both alienates and familiarizes simultaneously.
Lost in Translation’s ending may leave some feeling frustrated but that all depends on how much you’re willing to read into the characters’ stories, rather than being drawn into the smooth, flashy cinematography of night-time Tokyo. It is most definitely a character-driven plot and if you can get past the visual aspects of the film and look deeper, half the work in finding the various meanings hidden in the text is mostly done. And it’s worth it.
One Way are… I guess you could term them an indie/independent r’n’b hip-hop group? Three friends who work together writing and producing music not just for themselves but for a number of other artists as well. They take a lot of inspiration from the classic jazz and soul musicians and if you listen to this or this, you can really hear the influence in not only the song choice but also Peter’s vocals.
Fluent in both English and Korean, the tracks on their mini-album and full-length album combine these two languages in a perfectly fluid fashion, easily conveying a broad spectrum of emotions with a song suitable for any mood that takes you.
Rainy Days features Junsu of 2PM and, in the unplugged version, the acoustic guitar is played by Charm Park. The soft lull of the guitar and the backing track of gentle rainfall don’t dominate the song or detract from the stunning harmonised vocals of Chance (Michael Kim) and Peter (Peter Hyun) during the chorus or the carefully paced rap of the group’s youngest member, Cho Junyoung (known on stage as Young Sky). Instead, they enhance the song, adding to overall mood and meshing seamlessly with the varying vocal layers.
Considering how difficult translating back and forth between Korean and English can be, given that many words and phrases don’t always translate perfectly or have an English/Korean translation, Rainy Days has a smooth composition and is easily comprehensible, regardless of whether you listen to the English unplugged version or the Korean edition. The empathetic song flows as easily as rain downhill, no hitches or awkward pauses. Despite the melancholy tones in the lyrics and the music, this song is surprisingly calming. It has a cathartic feel to it, a sense of release from the tight knot in your chest from a tough day or a bad break-up; after listening to Rainy Days, there’s the sense that things can be approached with a more level-head and a clearer outlook.
For the last few years, I’ve had people ask me ‘How can you listen to music in a language that you don’t understand?’ The answer is really quite simple: music itself is a language – and that language is universal. The Hallyu Wave is making Korean music more approachable for many western fans and Japanese music has long been popular with western audiences (consider Japanese pop, Japanese rock, visual kei, etc), if only in a niche audience which has grown over the years.
To understand the language of the songs that foreign artists produce is easy enough; people post translated lyrics daily. But to understand the music emotionally is all up to you; how a song makes you feel, what mindset it puts you in, whether you like it or not shouldn’t be dependent on if you can translate the words you hear instantaneously. If that weren’t the case, then how could anyone, as an example, enjoy dubstep or wordless dance music? Personally, I find it elitist to want to limit a certain language or genre to a specific culture, gender or country. The artists themselves wish to expand globally and, even as a writer, there is always that idea in the back of our head that it would be really cool to have a piece of work translated into another language.
Regarding One Way, it could be said that they are a perfect gateway into Korean music with their talented blending and weaving of both languages. Their music is approachable on most levels, fusing pop with hip-hop, jazz, r’n’b, soul, dance beats. One of the greatest things about One Way is their cohesiveness as a group whilst still maintaining their own individuality and being able to hold their own as a solitary unit. That’s not to say they’re perfect; everyone has off-days but One Way are constantly learning, experimenting with and experiencing new things.
It’s a lesson all artists can learn from – musicians, visual artists, writers. To improve our work and better ourselves, we have to be willing to put in the effort and hard work, push our boundaries and stray from our comfort zones without clutching a map as a safety-net.
Life’s but a a walking shadow,
A poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more;
It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
William Shakespeare
and a musical accompaniment that resonates within you, echoing a sense of loss and hopeless foreboding, Ark plunges you into a desolate world; a world with restrictive borders, no freedom, no light – for the inhabitants own safety.
Throughout Ark there is a permanent sense of darkness, aided not only by the collectively grim and murky mise-en-scène, but by the haunting non-diegetic string musicians who have the power – literally at their fingertips – to instil in you the faintest candle-like flicker of hope with the merest shift in notes.
Ark is eerily similar to humanity’s pessimistic outlook on life. Or, for some, perhaps, it is not just a perspective but also a mirror. Once we cross one hurdle and hope for a moment’s respite, a split-second chance to catch our breath, another is set in front of us and we must either take it in our stride or crash and tumble.
Grzegorz Jonkajtys’ choice to include Shakespeare in the opening scene of the short is a clever use of foreshadowing, bringing the entire seven and a half minute film full-circle, urging you to look further than the post-apocalyptic narrative, to move you and compel you to challenge the way you – and others – perceive reality; that our reality is not everyone’s reality… Something we are all guilty of not taking into consideration, too wrapped up in our own constructed worlds.
separationdrip 