Category: Documentary

It is hard for me to relate to the magnitude of filmmakers’ disappointment after being handed a NC-17 rating in America (no children 17 and under admitted) when here in Singapore, we have the R21 rating (for above 21s). Nor do I necessarily agree with the proposition that rating should be given and can be appealed based on precedence because though I do not necessarily agree with the censorship here in Singapore, one thing I learned is that films should be rated based on the current tolerance of the society.

But if I could put myself into the shoes of an American independent filmmaker, I would certainly feel the frustration having to go against the MPAA’s film rating system (Motion Picture Association of America) that in general favors the big studios.  “This Film Is Not Yet Rated” attempts to uncover the mechanism behind this rating board.  The original cut was given a NC-17 rating and the new version – that is not yet rated – includes the appeal process undertook by the film director Kirby Dick.

Overlapping a set of at times entertaining and at times serious interviews is a rather interesting journal that documents how Kirby Dick hired a private investigator in an attempt to uncover the identities of the MPAA rating board members.  Some parts of the movie are entertaining such as when different movie clips are shown as an illustration on how inconsistent the rating system is.  Some commentaries are informative such as the topic of why violence is so much easier to obtain a non-NC-17 rating compare to sex.

Maybe I am secretly comparing “This Film Is Not Yet Rated” to my favorite documentary film “Bowling For Columbine” by Michael Moore (or even “Super Size Me”).  “This Film Is Not Yet Rated” seems to lack the depth and authority and probably not as funny as what some critics have mentioned.  While I wouldn’t go to the extend to say that it is a must-watch for those who are frequent movie goers (like some reviewers actually do), “This Film Is Not Yet Rated” is certainly a good starting point to understand how the MPAA rating system affects the mainstream Hollywood films that in turn may affect the American culture.

Is “This Film Is Not Yet Rated” going to change how films will be rated in America?  Only time can tell.

When I first saw the bombs landed on Iraq’s capital Baghdad on CNN, I felt the tears at the back of my eyes. I had the same feeling when I watched the Japanese in “Nanking” dropping the bombs onto the city of China, Nanking – even a more intense feeling. I was gasping for air. It is hard to watch because wartime documentary films are not Hollywood films. Those were the real houses built by real people lived by real people and the corpses scattered on the ground were real. The crying of the survived ones was as real as those who were dead. Since young, I spent lots of time reading the history of China during WWII – especially on the Japanese invasion. The atrocity of the war and the suffering of the people. I have read pages and pages of historical articles and I have probably seen more gruesome pictures of the execution of the Chinese by the Japanese than I should have at that young age. One picture that still vividly lives in my mind till today is a sea of dead semi-naked Chinese women lying flat on the ground with long sticks inserted into their private parts. I read that the Japanese wouldn’t want to waste bullets on Chinese women, sticks would do the job.

War is horrible and of course, I don’t despise the Japanese (though I am angry with them for not admiting what they have done in the past till today). I despise the war. The documentary film “Nanking” was played out by a group of contemprary actors taking the role of the missionaries, university professors, doctors, and businessmen. These foreigners witnessed the cruelty of war and they stayed behind to establish a safety zone for the Chinese refugees in Nanking. The interviews of the war survivors were conducted with the real people who did survive the war. Hearing them recounting what they had been through made me want to tear. The emotion is so real and overwhelming. These are people of over 80 years of age and you could visualize the scenes with their words.

“Nanking” also displays some of the video clips taken during the war and some, I would suppose, are unofficial interviews with the Japanese soldiers. What “Nanking” has brought out is aligned with my expectation on how the history should be told. At the end of the film, my friend and I turned to each other and hope that we won’t see a war at our doorsteps in our generation, and the next, and the next after, and the …

When I was young, back in Hong Kong, I used to watch my mother making fish balls. My mother would first choose the fresh fish from the wet market, bring it home, painstakingly remove the bones, marinate the meat, put it into a blender, and to make it into fish balls, she would place a serving of the paste into her palm, squeeze out the paste, and scoop it up with a spoon. It took ages to make, tasted relatively fishy, and at times I could still feel the bone fragments. Though fish balls made this way is nutritious, I would be more than happy just to grab those ready made fish balls from the supermarket if I was to cook fish ball noodle these days (before I watched this movie that is).

In a way, we all embrace the fast food culture. We value convenience and the taste of our food more than its intrinsic nutrition value. We hardly have time to think about what goes into the processed food we eat daily. “Fast Food Nation” comprises of short stories that portray the different aspects of a particular food business of turning living cattle into the burgers on our tables – a process that not many of us care to know.

My movies buddy Tong Kiat and Cynthia both have a very different view of the movie from mine. I like this movie but it doesn’t work for them. “Fast Food Nation” is not a documentary movie like “Super Size Me” nor it is a fight against a specific industry with witty script like “Thank You For Smoking”. It is a humanistic view of the culture we have and is presented in short stories that have no satisfying resolution. Co-written and directed by Richard Linklater (“Before Sunrise” and “Before Sunset” … notice that both movies have no satisfying resolution either), the script does have its brilliant moments (“Right now, I can’t think of anything more patriotic than violating the Patriot Act“) and the transition between stories is smooth. I personally love Ethan Hawke’s performance that reminded me of his “Before Sunrise” and “Before Sunset”. He is such an engaging conversationalist. Bruce Willis’s star appearance was a surprise to me (and subsequently Avril Lavigne too though her acting was less impressive) and I just love his cool acting. As he bit into a juicy burger that he knew somewhere between the process of turning cattle into pate, a fair amount of manure found its way into the burger, Bruce Willis delivered such a cool speech on why we have to make sure that the pate is cooked and just don’t fight the system. The Mexican counterparts have acted their parts well too. To me, those heart warming stories played by the Mexicans are the glue of this movie.

Fast food restaurant executives brainstorming on their next big hit, a Vice President of the fast food restaurant sent to investigate why so much manure found its way into the burger’s pate, a group of Mexicans crossed the border illegally to find a better life working in US abide being exploited in many ways, a young cashier whose dream was beyond her counter, a food packing factory that was portrayed inhuman towards both cattle as well as its Mexican employees, and a group of high school activists that believed in freeing the cattle was a first step to raise awareness on the environment hazard posted by the cattle ranches – all of which are the ingredients of “Fast Fast Nation” presented in an intertwined fashion.

There may not be a lot of money and sex in this movie, but there are certainly lots of blood in it (money, sex, and blood – the key success of movies nowadays). Be prepared for the final scene. It is gruesome. After watching “Fast Food Nation”, I personally have made an effort to stay away from processed food. I guess I have set down what I like about this movie and I also would like to point out that there are others that don’t. This movie has a mixed review so do watch it with an opened mind if you so wish to.

If indeed true that this is a documentary film made with real people in real situations, I really pity some of the people who were caught in this one big giant reality TV series in the expense of the audience’s laughter. Borat, played by Sacha Baron Cohen, left his home country Kazakhstan traveled into America hoping to learn the American culture that is going to benefit Kazakhstan. I can buy that plot. What the movie is tying to achieve is to bring out American’s racism, anti-Semitism, sexism, and the mentality that they are number one in everything. That I can also accept. It is the execution that at times I found it hard to watch.

Don’t get me wrong. I did laugh very hard almost throughout the show. But when the storyline switched from a series of interviews to cover various topics such as American’s humour and feminism into Borat wanting to travel all the way from New York to California in order to meet and marry Pamela Andersen after watching her acting in Bay-watch at his hotel room, that I found it senseless and hard to believe. In keeping up with the tempo, the practical jokes have gotten cruder and cruder. You will see Borat entered into an antique shop that sold items related to American heritage and he accidentally tripped himself destroying a room full of antiques. You will see Borat carrying a plastic bag of feces out from the restroom asking the hostess of a high society what to do with it (I was surprised to see that in the end credit, it was mentioned who that belongs to). You will see Borat’s face buried underneath a big hairy fat naked man’s ass – Borat’s co-actor – and both of them run out of the hotel room naked crashed into a company function continued the fight on stage till both of them were taken down by the security guards (What are they trying to say except that they have balls to go naked in public and make a fool out of themselves?). And you will see many more worse than this.

I can’t help but ask myself what some of these scenes really trying to say. Shall I be, for instance, laughing to Borat’s success in humiliating hundreds of real people to bring out certain points, if any, or shall I feel pity for those innocent people that are portrait unfairly on a big screen? I don’t know. What I know is that this movie has really gotten high ratings across many sources and the general response is that you either love this or hate this movie. Borat could be one of the funnest shows (and pretty original too) I have seen but I feel awkward watching it.