#14. Reflection of Music

1. Aha moment

    When I learned how American white people admired African American musicians and their music through Blues history, I thought it was ironic because white people discriminated African American. However, they covered blues music and adopted as a different style. Thus, blues became roots of American music and shaped American culture. I think that reason people like blues that much was that it expressed well emotions of people. In many cases, music makes people forget their belief, race, religion. Also, I think that music is one of the purest tools for expression of people’s emotions. Regardless which side someone is on, anyone listens to touching music will feel the same way at the moment.  

2. Bumper Sticker

Everyone same in the music

3. Critical Insight

    I learned that most of popular songs are getting similar through reading an article “Scientists just discovered why all pop music sounds exactly the same”. Also, the more certain music sells, the more similar music is produced, and music industry makes same music and promotes because they want to make more profit. When I saw American Top 40 chart, there were several songs by same musicians. Before listening that songs in the chart, I already could see that a few famous musicians dominate most of the chart and I could expect that the music will be similar. It didn’t look interesting anymore because I felt like I already knew the end of the movie. 

    In addition, it became true that radio stations play a lot of specific music purposely. Prof. Gitte said that every time she turned on the car radio recently, a same song from Adel’s new album played. She might became a big fan of Adel now because she forced listen to Adel’s music every day. Of course, I don’t doubt that Adel’s new music will be good. However, I’m sure many listeners are missing the opportunity to listen to diverse music. 

4. I didn’t know that

    I didn’t know that hip hop is a culture because I thought it was just one of the music genres. However, I learned hip hop is a culture including rap, graffiti, fashion, break-dancing through a lecture in class. I could imagine that people developed their hip hop culture as a street culture because I learned it started from poor neighborhood. Also, it was interesting that rap started at a party. Maybe the characteristic of rap that has free style came from this natural beginning.   

#13. Playlist

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1Wi68WJgh4b9K0bqAdHqZR?si=b37b1abd1def4a72

1. A song that is from a genre that is new to me

Ladysmith Black Mambazo - Jomba Mlaleli

World music is a genre that is from non western countries. Ladysmith Black Mambazo is a South African group. People call the music genre is township jazz. Township is urban area of South Africa. 

2. A song from my parents' generation

Lee mi ja - Dongbaek Agassi (1964)

Slow and sad song that a young lady waits someone who won't come back. This song expresses about women's suffering from the war at that time.

3. A song that shows my generation's values

Seotaiji and Boys - 난 알아요 (I know) (1992) 

This song is mixed of genres (hiphop+rap+rock+electronic+remix...), dancing performance, lyrics that has no meaning, sometimes resist older generations. My generation consider that performance and styles of music and artists are more important than lyrics. Many young people copied Seotaiji and Boys dance and fashion style at that time and older generations dislike it.   

4. A song from a different culture 

Afro Cuban All Star - A Toda Cuba Le Gusta (1997)

The genre of this song is Afro Cuban jazz or Latin jazz that is a kind of jazz with Latin American rhythms. It developed by Cuban immigrants in the U.S. They brought Afro-cuban rhythms and instruments such as the conga and the bongo. 

5. A song whose lyrics I can explain

Mitski - Your Best American Girl 

If I could, I'd be your little spoon
And kiss your fingers forevermore
But, big spoon, you have so much to do
And I have nothing ahead of me

You're the sun, you've never seen the night
But you hear its song from the morning birds
Well, I'm not the moon, I'm not even a star
But awake at night I'll be singing to the birds

Don't wait for me, I can't come

Your mother wouldn't approve of how my mother raised me
But I do, I think I do
And you're an all-American boy
I guess I couldn't help trying to be your best American girl

You're the one
You're all I ever wanted
I think I'll regret this

Your mother wouldn't approve of how my mother raised me
But I do, I finally do
And you're an all-American boy
I guess I couldn't help trying to be the best American girl

Your mother wouldn't approve of how my mother raised me

But I do, I think I do

As an Asian-American girl, she feels that she is not accepted by white community. Her mother is Japanese and the mom maybe raised her daughter Mitski based on Japanese culture but she looks like confused because she is not complete Japanese nor American. Also, she says that the American boy can't understand her because they have advantages as a white American people and don't have experiences that she has suffered as an Asian-American girl. 

6. My all-time favorite song

Smashing Pumpkins - Mayonaise (2011)

I loved the album "Siamese Dream" that included this song. I don't understand the lyrics well but it feels like comfort me. Also, intro guitar riff makes me relax and the arrangement makes me feel nostalgia and the melody move my heart emotionally. 

#11. A song that moved me

 Alison - Slowdive

Listen close and don't be stoned

I'll be here in the morning

cause I'm just floating

while your cigarette still burns

Your messed up world will thrill me 

Alison I'm lost

Alison I said we're sinking. 

There are nothing here but that's ok...

    When I became a college student after graduated high school in Korea, I thought that everything would get better. However, the school wasn't good fit for me. It was a nursing college. The only reason that I entered the school was getting a job, but I didn't like every classes and I skipped classes a lot. I didn't want to stay at home neither because it was unhappy to stay with my family. I started dating with boys but I felt no one loves me. I felt lonely and useless. 

    One day, I met one guy who was a musician and 12 years older than me. He invited people every weekend, had a party, and turned on lots of music with a CD player at his shabby apartment. When I heard this song first time there, I felt like I was in the heaven or dream. Because the drone guitar sound and beautiful melody took me an another world from the pain in my real life. Also, the lyrics was like talking about friends who I met his apartment, looked lonely and had some problems like me. It was comfort me because I wasn't the only one. It still reminds me the apartment, people who were there, and the nights when I listen to this song.

#9. Unit Reflection: Movies

1. Aha Moment

I read that 90% of the audience of Tyler Perry’s movie was African American from Tyler Perry’s Money Machine. I was surprised how many African Americans had waited for their own movies. In addition, I realized that most movies and TV shows that I’ve watched were white people centered. Despite the growing numbers of movies and TV shows with various races, most of the important roles are white. Thus, it is quite understandable that Tyler Perry runs his own business related to black community. 

2. Bumper Sticker: Movie is Life

3. Critical Insight

    I’ve learned differences of Hollywood movies and indie movies. However, when I went to the CIFF, I was confused. I saw two movies. The first movie Cinema Sabaya has a simple and relatable plot. The second movie Memoria has a weird plot and was quite experimental. I chose Cinema Sabaya in the movie list because it looked interesting, and I chose Memoria because it was one of the best movies the festival picked and starred Tilda Swinton. I liked both. Cinema Sabaya was fun and emotional, and Memoria was serious and a new experience. However, only the theater where Memoria screen was crowded, and the audience clapped. I thought both were indie movies but sometimes the boundaries were ambiguous. There might be no money for indies but at least authority. 

4. I didn’t know that

  I didn’t know when and how the American movie industry developed. Through watching video and lectures about film history, I learned that most inventions about photography occurred in Europe such as in France and the UK. However, it seems that American movie industry has developed quickly from the 1910s more than Europe. It shows that the U.S. had many resources and a lot of money to make movies at that time. The U.S. was probably making lots of money when other countries were suffering from wars, poverty, and colonialization. Therefore, they could invest in their movie industry and make a lot of movies. People who lived in countries where they couldn’t make well-made movies would love American movies. Thus, I could imagine how American movies and culture could spread all over the world. 

#8. The Movie Poster

Movie Poster<RAIDERS>  by Jeehye Ham 

    Cathy is a single mom who lives with her father and her young daughter. She is working as a secretary at a news company. She is very kind but she makes a lot of jokes, so people around her laugh at her. One day, she gets a phone call from a stranger at work. He says that some people are trying to take over the world and sould report this dangerous situation to the world. Cathy thinks that this is the opportunity for her because she always wants to be a journalist. She wants to make a report, so she sneaks in to the enemy's base and disguises herself as a spy. She finds there are two groups of people. One is a cult group and the other is a rich group who is using the government to make the profit. Two groups are planning to take over the world by spreading a virus. Unintensionally, Cathy starts destroying the relationship two groups with her weirdness...

https://www.canva.com/design/DAEuoKPwW1s/view?utm_content=DAEuoKPwW1s&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link&utm_source=publishsharelink

Movie Review "Memoria" at CIFF

The 21st century’s cinematic view of the Melting Clocks (The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dali)

The movie title that I saw at the CIFF is Memoria that was made in 2021. The director is Apichatpong Weerasethakul who is from Thailand, and the movie filmed in Colombia. Not only Thailand and Colombia participated in this movie but France, Germany, Mexico, China too. The film stars Tilda Swinton (Scotland), Elkin Diaz (Colombia), Jeanne Balibar (France), Juan Pablo Urrego (Colombia), and Daniel Gimenez Cacho (Mexico). Memoria was produced by Kick the Machine (Thailand), Burning Blue (Colombia), Anna Sanders Films (France), The Match Factory, Piano (Mexico), Xstream Pictures (China), and iQIYI (China). This movie overturns the concept of sense (of time and space) that people are aware of surroundings, and makes the audiences experience how the memories from thousands of years ago or the memories of others can be delivered to others through surrealistic techniques. 

    Jessica (Tilda Swinton) visits Bogota, Colombia where her sister is living with her Colombian husband and she started listening to loud, metallic bang sound from her room. She visits young sound engineer Hernan (Juan Pablo Urrego) to make the same sound that she has heard. She also meets Agnes (Jeanne Balibar) who is studying human bones from 3,000 years ago. Later, she encounters old Hernan (Elkin Diaz) in the woods near the construction site where the human bones were found. Then, they start a conversation and share their memories with each other. Each event isn’t connected and so audiences can’t see the narrative as a whole.  

    There is interesting camerawork and no background music in this movie. Shooting techniques are very simple compared to complex ideas. Most of the scenes were filmed with fixed long shots so the main character always exists with the surrounding landscape and people. It makes the audience focus on the overall atmosphere and not on the characters’ emotions. It feels like each scene is a fixed artwork and realistic with no background music. For this reason, when something strange happens in the movie, it looks even more strange.

Memoria is a special movie because it will expand people’s thinking. It can linger in your mind so much that it’s burdensome. However, it will change the concept of space, time, and sound that we had in our daily life. Even though there are lots of metaphors that people can’t understand immediately, it can lead people to the joy of interpretation that lasts longer than the movie’s actual running time. In fact, I could see many young people discussing the movie after it was over at the theater. Also, people can learn that movies have more diverse functions than just entertainment. Memoria is different from Hollywood movies that audiences only passively enjoy. By destroying the narrative but making each scene independently, it allows the audience to connect the divided events and find the meanings actively.