Babel

source: Google

Running Time (Screen Duration): 2 hours and 23 minutes

Genre: Drama

                         It is a genius and very interesting movie involving 4 stories of different kinds of people from different countries (Morocco, Japan, Mexico/USA) that are interconnected with each other. 

                        The movie didn't really follow the traditional flow of a film. It has its own style wherein the plot doesn't reflect the exact sequence of events on the screen. For example the story started in Morocco and then it suddenly set in Japan, and then U.S.  and Mexico. At first it doesn't make sense. However, along the middle you would already feel the thrill and excitement from the film. It makes you think deeply. One thing that is good about the film is that it isn't predictable like most movies nowadays. The flow is somewhat similar to the movie 500 days of Summer.

Wide, Eye-level Shot
source: Google

             The story started in a remote desert in Morocco. A goat herder buys a rifle from a neighbor and gave it to his two sons to protect their goats from jackals when tending the herd. The rifle was entrusted to the eldest son Ahmed, however he isn't that good enough in using the rifle compared to his younger brother Yussef. It is clear that their is a competition happening between the two brothers because Yussef as young as he is possess qualities older that his age and because of his abilities his older brother seemed to envy him. 

Medium, Eye level Shot

source: Google

                     When they were send out to tend the herd, they became doubtful of the power and the said range of the rifle. They both agreed to test it with Ahmed trying it first. Yussef being competitive, gets the rifle and tired shooting twice. The second try he aimed it at a tourist bus. They thought Yussef hasn't hit it not until the bus stopped in the middle of the road. They both run and went home keeping the secret between themselves and hid the rifle. 

Medium, Eye-level shot

source: Google

                     Later when their father arrived home they learned that an American was shot dead by terrorist delaying the trip of their father. Yussef and Ahmed just kept silent not until they saw policemen looking for their father. Yussef and Ahmed seemed to know the reason why the police was looking for their father thus they deceived the police and made up a story. They hurriedly went home and confess to their father.

Medium, Canted shot

source: Google

                   While traversing the mountains the three were cornered by the police. They were mistaken to be terrorists. Ahmed got shot in the leg causing Yussef to get the rifle and shoot back. Yussef, being a sharp shooter hit a policeman aggravating the situation.

                

Close-up, Eye-level shot

source: Google

Full-Body, Eye-level shot

source: Google

                  The police kept on shooting until it hit Ahmed again in the back. Yussef surrendered to the police and asked for immediate help for his wounded brother.

close-up, eye-level shot

source: Google

                      Meanwhile in another situation, a couple(Susan and Richard) went for a trip in Morocco to fix their problem with their marriage. 

medium, eye-level shot

source: Google

                     While they were in the bus, Susan was shot on her left shoulder. They all thought that it was the doing of the terrorist therefore the people in the bus were also worried for their safety. 

  

full body. eye-level shot

source: Google

                     Since Richard didn't found any doctor near the place and the hospital is hours away, he with the help of a personnel in the tourist bus brought Susan to a small town where someone could aid Susan.

wide, low-angle shot

source: Google

                      The person whom they asked help need to stop the bleeding of the wound to save Susan's life. In this case, he with the consent of the husband sews Susan's wound without any anesthesia. However, Susan still needs to be brought to a hospital thus Richard reported to the U.S. embassy and ask them to send help.    

medium, canted shot

source: Google

                    On the other hand, the passengers of the tourist bus were starting to fear that they may be attacked by the terrorists. They left Richard and Susan in the place prompting Richard to call again the U.S. embassy (where they are from) and demand for immediate help to save the life of his beloved wife. 

Medium, eye-level shot

source: Google

                        Back in their home in the U.S., Richard and Susan's children were taken care of by their illegal nanny. The nanny is supposed to go home to Mexico to attend  her son's wedding. However, there was a delay of the expected arrival of the children's parents. Since the nanny haven't found anyone to take care of the children and she cannot afford to miss her son's wedding, she brought the children along with her in Mexico.

medium, eye-level shot

source: Google

                     After the wedding the nanny had to go back to U.S. together with the two children and her nephew,Gael, who is drunk driving. They encountered another problem when they reached the border of U.S.

medium, eye-level shot

source: Google

                      Another problem arises when the police suspected the nanny and her nephew for kidnapping the children as they don't have any consent letter coming from the parents allowing the children to travel with them. Because of this Gael was forced to trespass the border and left his aunt and the children in a desert to lead off the police. 

close-up, eye-level shot

source: Google

                       The fourth story is set in Japan. It is a story about a rebellious deaf Japanese teenage girl "Chieko" who is traumatized from the recent death of her mother. She shows bitterness to her father. 

medium, eye-level shot

source: Google

                        She is also sexually frustrated as she thought no one would like her because of her condition. When she went home from a party, she met two detectives who were looking for her father. She find one of them cute and invited him to their apartment. There she narrated the suicide of her mother as she thought that it was what the detective came for. However, she found out that the detective was investigating another thing involving her father's rifle. 

                        

                       Chieko's father is a hunter and has went for a trip in Morocco where he gave his rifle as a gift to his skilled hunting guide. Accidentally, this guide was the neighbor of Yussef and Ahmed's father.

                            

                       

                      The rifle has a very important role in the story. It is used to initiate a problem that connected all the four stories as one. The movie has a great cast that justified the role of each character. It also has a very good production and costume design.   

Pride and Prejudice

Running Time(Screen Duration): 1 hour and 69 minutes
Genre: Romance/Drama

              The story is set in England during the 19th century. During these time people are very much particular with good manners and right conduct as it defines the kind of family a person has. It is also the time where women are still inferior and men are superior. Women don't have the freedom to choose for what they really want compared to our generation where women are strong and could do the things the men does.

              It is also a time where social classes are very much evident and the value of marriage is such an essential subject.

               In the movie, marriage is viewed as an important thing to each of them especially the women. In the case of the Bennet  sister's, all of them are girls causing their parents to worry for their future. That is why their parent's especially their mother is doing everything she can to make her daughters presentable to men, especially to those wealthy ones, hoping that someone would ask any of her daughters for marriage.
               
               The Bennet sister's is composed of 5 lovely girls that differ in terms of attitude and behavior.

 JANE BENNET (22 years old)

Jane Bennet is the eldest of them all and considered as the prettiest. She is a sweet, shy, and fine lady. She is the favorite of their mother because of her beauty. She is close to Elizabeth.

 She fell in love with Mr. Charles Bingley, friend of Mr. Darcy.

ELIZABETH BENNET (20 years old)

She is the second Bennet daughter which contrasts the behavior and attitude of her older sister Jane. Unlike the sweet and shy Jane, Elizabeth is playful, stubborn,intelligent, and has a strong personality. However, because of her intelligence she has the tendency to judge others even without knowing the person. Most part of the story revolves around Elizabeth. 

In the latter part of the story, Jane fell in love with Mr. Darcy whom she once despise for his pride and arrogance.

Mary Bennet (18 or 19 years old)

She is the  third of the Bennet sister which is considered as plain or not that pretty.

Catherine"Kitty" Bennet (17 years old)

She is the fourth daughter who is close to Lydia, the youngest. They are always seen together in the movie. Despite being older than Lydia, she always follows what Lydia does.

Lydia Bennet (15 years old)

The youngest of the Bennet sisters. She is not serious and doesn't have a clear purpose in life. She is also flirty as seen on the movie, as she always love to socialize with the officers of the militia. At such age she doesn't care about the moral code in her society and live the way she wants without thinking of the troubles that it may bring to her family. 

In the later part of the movie, she eloped with George Wickham and married at an early age, earlier than all of her sisters.

                      The story made use of representation. From its title "Pride and Prejudice", Mr. Darcy represents the "pride" of every men and Elizabeth represents the "prejudices" that every women does. It is shown in the movie that the two characteristics possessed by the men and women leads to a misunderstanding between the two gender. It could only be solved by eradicating such characteristics that men and women possess same as what happened to Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy. Mr. Darcy swallowed his pride and Elizabeth overcome her prejudices.    

CAMERA SHOTS

                                          Extreme Wide Shot

                                          Wide Shot

                                               Full Body Shot

                                          Medium Shot

CAMERA ANGLES

                                         Low Angle Shot

             

Minsan lang sila Bata

source:Google

Running Time (screen duration): 50 minutes
Genre: Documentary Film


                       This is a 1996 documentary film that tackles the issue of child labor in the Philippines. It features children from 3 different places in the country that were forced to work and gave up their rights of being a child just to help their family.

                       The first part of the film shows the life of children who works for a slaughterhouse in Cebu. The second part is about the life of children who works as a "Maghohornal"in some haciendas in Ormoc. And the third features the life of children who works as cement "kargador" in the port of Dapitan.  

sample slaughterhouse
source:Google

                         In the first part of the film child laborers were shown shaving the remaining hairs of a slaughtered pig with the use of sharp blades and knives and cutting the skin of a cow despite the foul smell and the numerous flies that are circling their hair. They shared that their were times that they got wounded by the sharp knives they use however they have to go on just to help their parents. They only earn a few pesos from their jobs which eventually will come from selling pig fats that their employer give them as an exchange for their service.
                   
                   In this particular part of the film, it is very scary to see children as young as them already being exposed to a bloody and brutal kind of environment.
               

A "maghohornal" trying to cut the weeds from a sugarcane plantation.
source:Google

                        From the bloody and brutal killings point-of-view from the slaughterhouse the story then transitioned towards a peaceful environment in the haciendas of Ormoc. However, with the peacefulness of the place lies the broken dreams of each "batang maghohornal". These children were forced to give up their studies just to pay the debts of their family. A child shared that when he was still studying his parents would tell him to spend 2 days for work and 3 days for school until it became 2 days for school and 3 days for work. Because of these many children have difficulty in catching up with the lessons and decided to stop schooling to avoid being bullied by classmates. 

                   When asked if they still want to go to school their answer is yes. However, hopelessness is very visible in their eye. Because even though they want to go to school they know it would be impossible since their parents has no funds to send them to school.      

"Kargadors" from the Port of Dapitan resting and waiting for the adults
 to finish eating so that they could eat their lunch.
source: Google

                           The last part of the film traveled all the way from Ormoc to the Port of Dapitan. At first you can see the children playing and enjoying the sea breeze at the Port. They seem to be very happy and free. The kind of happiness and freedom that those children from the first and second part we're deprived of.
               
                      However, when the night came the joy of these children fade away like a blink of an eye as they are about to carry heavy burdens of cement on their young and fragile backs. They work from night till morning. They will never stop working until they unload all the cement inside the cargo ship. Their work is very risky and health threatening as they carry heavy weights of cement (heavier than their weight) while sniffing and breathing all the dusts of cement. Aside from these, they usually eat late since they have to wait for the adults to finish eating. At a young age they already learn to drink alcohol since it is what adults advice them to do to avoid getting sick from sniffing too much cements.

                      In the interview these children really doesn't want their work however they are just sacrificing because their family is in great need of money. At a young age they want to help their family in their own ways even if it means to sacrifice education. One of the boys shared that he works not only to help his family but also to fund his siblings studies. Another boy jokingly asked if the interviewer wants a house boy because he will apply just to get away from their life threatening job at the Port.

             

Philippine children in poverty.
source: Google

                        Representation is used in this documentary film. The children that are featured are just representation of the many child laborers here in the Philippines not only during the 1996 period but until at present. Child Labor still remains a controversial issue that the Philippine Government failed to solve. This documentary used the Realism category of a film for it showed reality to the viewers. 

                     

                  It is a black and white film that used camera shots like wide, full body, medium, close up, and extreme close up shots. While it uses the Point-of-View camera angle shot.  

Here is the youtube link for the documentary film "Minsan Lang sila Bata". see for yourself...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PXscl_d7UQ

Little Miss Sunshine

source: Google

Running time(screen duration): 1 hour and 50 minutes

Genre: Adventure, Comedy, Drama

          The movie is about a dysfunctional family that was revived and strengthened by series of challenges and unfortunate events towards a beauty pageant that their youngest daughter wants to join.

Olive fulfilling his greatest dream to be part of Little Miss Sunshine
and to hopefully bring home the crown.
source:Google

From left to right:
 Grandpa- A retired veteran who uses heroin; Richard's father
Uncle Frank- gay brother of Olive's mom who stayed with them after a suicide attempt
Dwayne- Olive's half brother, son from first husband of Sheryl
Olive- an optimistic and happy girl whose greatest dream is to be a beauty queen
Sheryl- divorced mother of Dwayne and Olive who married Richard; sister of Frank
Richard- proud and arrogant husband of Sheryl who loves success very much
source:Google

  The family is composed of a divorced mother, a proud and boastful stepfather, a drug addict grandfather, a gay uncle who just committed suicide, a silent-not-speaking  brother and a cute, lovely, and optimistic young girl Olive who serves as the only hope of the family.

          The story started when Olive was invited to be one of the contestants of a beauty pageant called “Little Miss Sunshine.” The family with financial and personal issues supported the little girl towards reaching her dreams. Together they all went on a trip using an old and crappy minibus to California where the said beauty pageant will take place.

Olive trying to convince her family to support her dreams in
joining Little Miss Sunshine and winning the crown.
source: Google

          During their trip they faced many unlucky events that triggered their individual disappointments among each member of the family. 

Their crappy minibus went crappy giving them no choice but to push it
so that the engine would start and they can go on with their journey.
source: Google 

They were all pissed with the unfortunate
situations they have gotten into.
source:Google

          It is a kind of story that tells us how important a family is. Not all families are perfect however we have the power to make every imperfection perfect. We just have to learn to look at the bright side and reach out to every member. Understand the reasons why the person feels that way and make it up to him.

The family were brought to the Police station for the damage and
chaos they caused at the "Little Miss Sunshine pageant."
source: Google

          It has a good set design. The use of lighting and color were also great because it somehow connected to the audience the kind of environment their family has. The color of their clothes and the make-up and hairstyle also helped a lot in establishing the role of the character. 

CAMERA SHOTS

                                            Wide Shot

source:Google

                                         
                                           Medium Shot

source: Google

                                          Extreme Close-up Shot

source:Google

                                           Full-Body Shot

source:Google

CAMERA ANGLES

                                          Low Angle Shot

source:Google

                                        

                                          Eye-Level Shot

source: Google

                  The movie shows the importance of support among family members towards each other. If every member supports each other through whatever challenges any problem would be easier to face.