Last week's trip to Matsu was as excruciating as I expected. The only consolation was that there was no on-the-bus karaoke as the islands of Matsu are so small, there are no extended periods of time on the bus, and there was more Mandarin spoken, not just Taiwanese, so I didn't feel totally shut out and isolated.

The place itself was well-worth visiting for its historicity. The reason why Taiwan holds several islands so close to the mainland is because right after the Nationalists lost the Chinese Civil War to the Communists in 1949 and retreated to the island of Taiwan, they immediately established strongholds on Matsu and Kinmen with the intent that they would be the footholds from which to launch attacks to re-take the Chinese mainland.

That never happened, but the islands became highly militarized, with posturing not totally unlike between North and South Korea or India and Pakistan. Enemies warily watching each other across the border.

Taiwan ended decades of martial law in the 80s, and by the 90s began demilitarizing Kinmen and Matsu, allowing them to develop their economies, which largely are comprised of Taiwan's signature liquors (Kinmen Kaoliang 56 and Matsu's Tunnel 88) and tourism.

The Matsu archipelago consists of, well, many islands, but just a few main islands. We visited the two biggest ones, connected by a 20-minute speed boat ride, and they are tiny. From any place to another destination was a very short bus ride, sometimes less than a minute, which always made me wonder why we couldn't just walk the distance.

And unlike the Taiwan mainland, the islands still retain their character of old, with traditional architecture from the early 20th century currently undergoing refurbishment for tourism purposes.

It was excruciating just because it was traveling with my uncle, who although means well, still lives on a planet of his own. Interesting is that he had trouble sleeping, and as a man-animal who is driven by his desires and getting what he wants, he isn't the type who takes well to not being able to get that basic daily elixir called sleep.

As insomnia is old hat to me, sleep is take it or leave it, and it was almost with delight that I lay pretending to sleep to hear someone else going through it, the pacing, the grunts of frustration, finally turning on the TV. Newbie. Apparently insomnia loves company.

Not social company in my case, though, I for most part was listening to music through the night, and him not being the most observant person in the world, likely didn't even notice that I wasn't asleep, even when my hand moved every few minutes to adjust volume or check a song name.

There was one point on one of the two nights, I forget which, that I had an experience that I'm not sure what to make of. I've been trying to re-create it and have been unsuccessful. It may have been the product of that specific situation with those particular stressors, including someone else awake in the room, from whom I was concealing that I was awake.

On one of the nights, probably around 4 in the morning, I turned off my iPod shuffle and determined to mentally will myself to sleep. It sounded counter-intuitive to even myself at the time. How do you will yourself to sleep when sleep is a state where the will is lost?

I think I broke something. I ended up in a state where I wasn't asleep, but it wasn't anything like previous quasi-lucid dreaming states I've been in before.

My previous experiences were that I was lucid and clearly conscious in the dream, but I didn't have awareness that I was dreaming or control over the elements in the dream, which I think defines lucid dreaming. But it was more than normal dreaming because I was in a state of self-awareness, rather than just the mental-habit, subconscious meandering of ordinary dreams.

This time I immediately went into a state where I knew I wasn't consciously awake – my direct connection with my physical body was no longer there – but I was self-aware in a manner similar to my previous experiences. The way I thought to describe it immediately afterwards was that I felt I had accessed a separate "dream realm", where the energy of what forms dreams is channeled.

I wasn't dreaming, I wasn't in a dream, but I had access to dream images that I could "pull down" and sample. It sounds weird to me now, but that's how I would word the description. I don't remember if or how I "chose" what dreams to sample.

Maybe it was like window shopping for dreams, but what it felt like is that if I wanted a dream, this was where to go; this is where they come from. The energy is instantly transformed by our subjective experience and psychology into dreams, but the basic energy is clay, the medium that makes the dreams possible.

I know this is self-serving, me projecting my own theories on my own experiences, but it made me think of the bardo of sleep/dreams in some differentiations of the bardos in the Tibetan Book of the Dead. A lot of teachers in the West point to 4 bardos, the life bardo comprising one, and then the 3 death bardos.

But in the Tibetan Book of the Dead, the life bardo is separated into 3 as well: the bardo of waking, the bardo of sleep/dreaming, and the bardo of meditation. I think it's fair for the teachers to combine the living bardos. The subtleties may be too challenging for Westerners, and the pursuit of understanding them impracticable with the Western lifestyle. But it's possible that a state like that dream realm is what is meant by the bardo of sleep/dreaming.

Feeling that it was a special realm where the currents of energy are the source of dreams might add to my thoughts on human consciousness being formed from some basic, natural energy that pervades the universe that evolved in conjunction with biological life on Earth and became attached and enmeshed with it.

Dying releases it from a physical existence, but the imprints of the physical existence remain and as if it has been given a life of its own to be attracted back to another physical form, instead of melting back into the raw universal energy.

When humanity becomes extinct, the energy will have no choice to either melt back into the basic energy, or may continue attaching itself to whatever life remains and being reincarnated as lower animals and continuing to evolve.

Sunny (South Korea, 2008)

This intriguing film is set in 1971, starting in rural South Korea and ending up in Vietnam in the throes of the Vietnam War. The title character is living with her slightly overbearing mother-in-law, while, we learn, her husband has enlisted in the military.

It is suspected and suggested, that he enlisted to get away from his wife because the marriage might have been forced upon him, turning his girlfriend and lover into his mistress, a situation he is none too happy with.

Sunny is a good and proper rural Korean housewife trying to do her duty in a loveless marriage and living with her mother-in-law, but when she learns that her husband has been sent into combat in Vietnam without even telling her, and then being blamed for it by her mother-in-law, she decides to go to Vietnam, determined to find her husband.

The movie establishes from the start that she enjoys singing, and the only way for her to go to Vietnam is as an entertainer. Hilarity ensues. Or not.

It's intriguing subject matter. I didn't even know Korean troops participated in combat in the Vietnam War, and for Korean civilians going there voluntarily as entertainment profiteers is sort of whaaaa? I actually haven't done any research to confirm that occurred, though.

I think the Korean title (님은 먼곳에, Nimeun meongose) is the worst, generically translating to "My Love is Far Away". The English and Chinese titles are better, with the Chinese title perhaps being the best: 亂世玫瑰, which translates roughly to "A Rose in a Messed Up World".

The English title is good because it focuses on the title character. The Chinese title is better because it describes the title character. She is the rose, but I also suspect that being a rose symbolizes being a woman in a world full of men and men's affairs (the mother-in-law counts as being part of the men's world).

She is thrown in a world that is run by men, occupied by men. She's swept into its currents. The men make up much of the action and movement in the film, but she's quietly the film's center. The men busily buzz around pursuing only their own goals, while she has her own.

She holds onto her conservative rural values, but transforms when necessary with her one goal in mind: find her husband. We don't know how far she goes, but she eventually gets to the top of the U.S. command, and therefore Korean command, to get what she wants.

The male lead character also bears noting. He's a total sleaze, yet he has a likable charm about him. He's kind of an asshole, but not a total asshole. This is to say the actor did a really good job in the portrayal, balancing these different characteristics. 

I liked the film a lot, although it didn't hold up so well upon second viewing. Interesting to note about the film is how the Vietcong are handled. They were fierce fighters indeed, but the film also portrays a humane side to their struggle that we usually don't like to acknowledge, because, hey, we lost.

Fresh 7 out of 10 tomatoes.





Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Thailand, 2010)

She has sex with a fish!!! Wow, this film won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Really? Why? I want to say maybe because it's Cannes – the jury must have a much more sophisticated eye for subtle films like this – but no, I'm no newbie film-goer. I'm pretty open-minded and discerning in my viewing.

But, man, this is one weird-ass film. I just don't think I get it. She has sex with a fish. I did learn from it, though, that if the ghost of your wife who died 19 years earlier suddenly shows up at the dinner table, and your deceased son of 13 years ago also shows up, not just as a ghost, but a monkey ghost, looking a bit like an ethnic wookie of some kind with glowing red eyes, the proper and appropriate thing to do is to pull out the photo albums.

I don't want to just outright pan it and say it's horrible, but I didn't really get it. When I pan a film, it's usually for specific reasons – faults in logic, incredibility, character problems, poor filmmaking, etc. – but this film is just weird. The narrative is one that is just so unlike anything I've seen before that I have no idea how to comment on this film. Except maybe to point out she has sex with a fish.

It doesn't look like a filmmaking fail, it does look like the director was very intentional about what he was doing and how. And I do think this is the first Thai film I've seen, and though I'm sure this is pretty out there for Thai audiences, too, I'm amenable to the suggestion that there are aesthetic and cultural factors I'm not accustomed to.

The film strained my patience. You really have to be awake and alert for this film. At times I felt my eyelids get heavy and when I opened them I thought I'd fallen asleep for any number of minutes, then I'd rewind to find I had missed all of 15 seconds.

It's a slow film, much of the scenes and dialogue seem pretty random. Some shots are lingered upon for inexplicably long times, and I'm a fan of Hou Hsiao Hsien films, and he's king of the long shot, so I'm usually not fazed by a shot which seems nothing is happening. But HHH is often conveying something. In this film, nothing is happening in those shots.

There is something of a story arc, but it meanders and bends and then heads off in a weird direction, but then ends up not too far from where it started or where it's supposed to end, but then jumps into a different dimension altogether. It was with quite some relief and satisfaction when the credits started rolling. Couldn't have come too soon.

I don't think I can pass this film, but I don't think I'm qualified to pan it, so I'm going to give it a nominal rotten 5 out 10 tomatoes. I don't even think I can recommend it to anyone except someone in the super artsy fartsy crowd. I also think it needs to be viewed on a big screen in a theater where it demands your undivided attention. And don't be too put off when she has sex with a fish.

Matsu trip photos. Nikon N70, Ilford XP2 Super. Last roll of black & white film (a few more months of DSLR black & white will finalize my boredom and frustration with photography).

THURSDAY, MARCH 24

Tunnel 88 distillery. I typically drink their 100 proof liquor, made from sorghum if I remember correctly. They also bottle weaker and stronger versions.

This giant sign points towards the nearest coast of mainland China and might only be visible from there through binoculars. It's an idiomatic taunt that is most poetically translated to "keeping our spears by our pillows, we wait for the dawn" and means that we're prepared against any attack by China. 

FRIDAY, MARCH 25

MARCH 26

Iron Fort, it was a military shelter for elite forces dug into solid rock, perhaps with a high amount of iron which is why it's called that. It was a part of the defenses against the Chinese threat and would have been undetectable to them.

Final frame.

Attempt #2: Indefinitely on hold. On hold indefinitely. On indefinite hold.

And just as the window of opportunity opened again. Go fig. Or not. Shitfuck. And not. It's a huge disappointment and cause for all the little workers in the corporate structure of my mind to go into crisis mode. They are rushing around as we speak trying to figure out what does this mean?, what should we do?, is it going to get worse? What about our stocks? What about our credibility?

As these windows of opportunity open every 2 months, I'm not ruling out a May attempt, but knowing me, this is effectively an indefinite postponement until I go through all the steps again. I'll try to join the human race and be social and nothing will come out of that, same as it ever was.

I'll go back to work again, trying to maintain the hermit ideal of working just to survive and just cultivate a plain, satisfied living, but that will get untenable and unsustainable again. It won't stop the festering. About what, I don't know. It won't stop the desire for something else. What? I don't know. Same as it ever was.

There isn't anything I desire, but desire is the karmic habit that is the cause of suffering here. Even when there is no object of desire, I still have the desire to desire something.

Then I'll get existential angsty again and realize I'm not getting any younger or growing back any hair, or feeling any different about the issue, and get self-destructive and quit my job and tear everything down again and I'll be in for another round of attempts several years hence. See you then.

I'm going to the U.S. for the entire month of April. I'm like a vampire about going back to the U.S. – I can't go back unless my parents suggest it, and they suggested it and I accepted it on the day the window of opportunity opened.

Before that I'm going to the island(s) of Matsu with my uncle for 3 days, but I'm not really looking forward to that. Matsu, as well as the island of Kinmen, belong to Taiwan, but if you look at them on the map, they look like they belong to mainland China. They're that close to the mainland.

My uncle is well-intentioned, just difficult and single-minded. Traveling with him is to be avoided at all costs and I refused his invitation countless times in the past few weeks. Finally my parents urged me to go and as it just felt at the time connected to the U.S. invitation, I finally gave in.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 23 - Raohe St., Nikon N70, Ilford XP2 Super. Last roll of black & white.

Raohe night market entrance.

google hits

Buddhism how to deal with tragedy;
How might Buddhist make sense of/handle tragedy;
How would Buddhist deal with the tragedy in Japan

When it comes right down to it, I'm not sure what to make of these Google searches on Buddhism and tragedy. I guess I would still apply my previous post. Understanding tragedy isn't a matter of scope. Tragedy is tragedy, I shouldn't wonder.

Furthermore, I would find myself perplexed if there were any suggestion of Buddhists experiencing or dealing with tragedies any differently than anyone else. In my experience, there's no correlation.

Every individual has his or her own way of coping or not coping with tragedy. Anyone with a social support group or religious or spiritual affiliation can draw strength from it or not.

Buddhists have their practice, and if they've developed it wisely, it theoretically should help them through difficulties, but not necessarily so, such is the nature of tragedies.

And such is the nature of being human that we react emotionally. Intellectually we know tragedies are part of the deal of being alive, at least Buddhism actively emphasizes that. It doesn't lull people into any sense of 'everything will be alright'.

But theoretically being prepared for a tragedy is different from experiencing one, and Buddhism offers techniques to deal, but so do any number of religious and spiritual traditions. And I imagine none of them lessens the character of the tragedy. Just how we cope, and that's up to the individual.

Regarding the aspect of karma in a large-scale tragedy, it bears repeating that it isn't about what happens to us or what we do or what we deserve. I don't think there is some connective karma between people in a plane crash.

We live in the natural world and the natural world just goes on. Earthquakes occur, tsunamis occur, and they have nothing to do with karma. They're just natural or they're just phenomena that occur in the course of our human existence.

This aspect of karma, I'm proposing, is about the mind. It's a reflection of the plasticity of mind. At any given moment of a tragedy, every individual is constantly reacting and every moment is a karmic manifesting moment, meaning their reaction is the manifestation of how they were conditioned karmically to react.

Likewise, how they react creates karma that will manifest further. It might seem like a downer that this interpretation of karma doesn't reflect some grand design of the universe. All it does is explain why it is best to always cultivate, or strive to cultivate a positive state of mind, along with wisdom and compassion.

res ipsa loquitur

"How might a Buddhist make sense of an unexpected tragedy such as the loss of a child?"

I haven't done one of these in a while since most Google searches on Buddhism that have landed on this blog have been about jury duty, to which my answer was: If called for jury duty, go. Why are people who are interested in Buddhism so hung up about jury duty? Sheesh. Buddhism and organ donation is a legitimate topic. Buddhism and paying taxes is not. Do your civic duty.

This search is a little more compelling. It's a toughy. And just tonight, I found "Sophie's World" in the local municipal library and started reading it, and it contained this passage:

The red house was surrounded by a large garden with lots of flowerbeds, fruit bushes, fruit trees of different kinds, a spacious lawn with a glider and a little gazebo that Granddad built for Granny when she lost their first child a few weeks after it was born. The child's name was Marie. On her gravestone were the words: "Little Marie to us came, greeted us, and left again."

That is a very Zen attitude, a good Zen answer, but probably isn't very satisfactory for a question that should be handled seriously and delicately, and there are answers on many levels of Buddhism. Not that I'm speaking for Buddhism or Buddhists, just my own reflections.

The first thing that comes to my mind is to look at the question itself: "Unexpected tragedy" and "loss of a child" (and I'm assuming loss of a child means an infant, as the loss of a child, any child, is a less challenging subject as everyone is someone's child).

The question posits "unexpected tragedy" = "loss of a child", which is fair enough. But it automatically divides the issue into 1) an emotional one (unexpected tragedy), and 2) an objective fact (loss of a child).

If it's a question of making sense of the emotional impact, the tragedy of the loss of a child, then Buddhism has one approach which deals with our own selves and how we deal with our own emotions. There really isn't any sense to be made, only how we handle it among any other hardships and tragedies we naturally and normatively encounter in our (samsaric) human lives.

There are plenty of books by the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh among others, those are just the ones I know, that can help guide people through such hardship. Too often we only think of tragedies when they happen and that they're bad, without considering or facing the possibility during other times that they might happen.

Buddhism teaches to consider the possibility of those things happening as part of the transiency of life and to constantly prepare for them through meditation and contemplation. It even goes so far as to teach that there are always positive perspectives to any situation that we sometimes must search for.

And by "prepare", it can be retroactive. Even if you come to Buddhist teachings after a tragedy, they may still help make sense of it.

<tangent> During my time at Deer Park, there was a nun who was . . . if you remembered one nun, it was her. She was so peaceful and compassionate and wise and giving. Just being around her put everyone at ease. 

I forget how I fell into a conversation with her, but she told me her story, although I'm sure I'm forgetting details and making other stuff up, but the point is still the same. She told me that when she arrived at Plum Village, she was anything but peaceful. She cried every day, she was a mess. The senior nuns didn't know what to do with her.

She had been a medical student in San Francisco and she had a fiance. During that period, she had made a visit to Plum Village in France and returned gushing about the place. Her fiance told her that if that was a path that she was interested in, she could pursue it. But she was in love and was looking forward to a life with him.

Then one day much later, after she earned her medical degree and license, her fiance went on a day trip down the northern California coast, and while climbing along rocks on the coastline, a wave came up and swept him away.

She was devastated and inconsolable and the only thing she could think of doing was returning to Plum Village. Which she did. And ordained and never left.

There is a lesson for me in her telling me her story, but that's a different story. At the time, I was trying to be delicate about her telling me her personal story, but I wanted to tell her my impression of it and said something along the lines, afraid of saying something offensive, suggesting that it was his sacrifice that led her to become a nun. She smiled at me and knowingly said, "I know".

If you don't know what spiritual love is, if you met this nun, you'd learn.</tangent>

However, if the question is about making sense of the death of a child as an objective fact, then it's more of a metaphysical question and the first idea that comes up for me is karma. I've always wondered about the karma of people who die in infancy or in group disasters like plane crashes.

Contemplating karma is partly about making sense, joining point A to point B. My basic statement on karma is: every moment is a moment of karma manifestation; every moment is a moment of karma creation. This is because that was, that will be because this is. It's not "what comes around goes around".

But what's the sense in the untimely death of an innocent? Someone who hasn't done enough of anything to warrant a "karmic manifestation" of the end of his or her life. Well, that's partly the point. And it's not something anyone can know or be comforted by.

If it's karma, it's from previous lives, something we don't know anything about. Speculative reasons of why a child should die in infancy due to karmic reasons runs in the thousands. All we can do is deal with it in the present tense.

The child had his or her own karma. We have ours. The child died and it hurts like hell, but how we handle ourselves and our own emotions and reactions is also karma. It's not only our own karma, but can influence the child's karma. The effect of the compassion we put out, replacing grief, shouldn't be underestimated. I don't know the effect, but it's a matter of faith.

You lost a child you loved. Don't focus on the lost, but the love.

That's all.

However, I'm still a little intrigued by the wording of the Google search, "unexpected tragedy". What tragedies do we expect? Japan and individual citizens are currently facing a tragedy, was it expected? They expect earthquakes and tsunamis and prepare for them as best as possible. But when it happens, does it matter whether they expected it or not? It's still a tragedy.

And even in our own daily lives we don't know what tragedy might befall us, whether we will receive news of a loved one dying, or dying ourselves. Or an infant child dying. The nature of our human lives has unexpected tragedies assumed.

Whether they manifest or not, Buddhism teaches to prepare for them by looking deeply into the impermanent nature of our human lives. That may not be making sense of it, but rather how to cope.

I've been in an epic internal battle all this week. It still rages in running foot battles. Epic, but not dramatic. I want to say I'm stressed, but I'm not stressed. I want to say I'm not stressed, but I'm stressed.

I'm in an existential space where there are no absolutes. There is no life, no death. There is no suicide, no no suicide. But it has to come down to what I'm going to do on this physical existential plane. Am I here on it? I am on it, and I'm not on it. That's where I've been functioning all this week.

I'm conflicted, but I'm not conflicted. I'm not conflicted, but I'm conflicted.

The next window hasn't opened yet, but it will soon.

I made an overture to my old job.

Even if I make a wondrous life-affirming decision to not commit suicide, . . . um, I'm still gonna die. Living is not an answer to my problem. It doesn't matter whether I live or die, but I still have to make a decision on this physical plane of existence, and even if I decide not to commit suicide, I'm still gonna die. A decision to not commit suicide doesn't mean I'm not gonna die. What the hell is wrong with people condemning suicide when they have no idea what life or death is?

But I'm not concerned with other people. There are no other people. And there are no answers. Just what am I gonna do?

I read "The Alchemist" recently. It was recommended to me. If I had read it a long time ago, it might have had a bigger impact, but at my age it's all old news. Doesn't come close to my metaphysical staples: The Little Prince, Illusions, and The Character of Rain.

Actually, I call The Character of Rain by Amelie Nothomb my favorite metaphysical book that is not about metaphysics, but then I found the original French title is translated The Metaphysics of Tubes, so what do I know?

The French title, I suppose, is a reference to humans as tubes, food going in one end and out the other. The English title is clever because, set in Japan where Nothomb spent her formative years, the Japanese word for rain is pronounced "ame", the first part of her name.

The Alchemist didn't do it for me because I just didn't relate to the main character's journey. It didn't apply to me. Furthermore, elements, metaphors, and story arcs didn't resolve. And finally, the treasure he finds in the end is actual wealth. Arguably non-metaphorical wealth. Follow your heart, follow the omens, and you'll get RICH! Yay! And laid. Bigger Yay.

I joked before that the problem was that no one dies in The Alchemist, but I'm starting to think the greatest richness in life is set against and in conjunction with death. My appreciation of The Little Prince is probably because of the metaphor for death when he "returns to his planet".

Although that is apparently not a metaphor everyone grasps or accepts. Many people seem to miss the importance of that point or interpret in their own way for their own purpose, fair enough. It's regarded as a children's book after all.

My argument is that's why the author is so distraught when the titular character leaves. It's not like he got so attached to the little bugger in such a short period. He's going back to his planet, celebrate and be happy.

No, he's distraught because the Little Prince's "death" is a metaphor for real death. His planet being right above is a metaphor for his time has come. You tell your children he's gone back to his planet, but for adults it's a teaching on death.

And I don't think Illusions would have the same impact without the performance of death presented to hammer in the teaching not to be fooled or affected by appearances.

Even The Character of Rain looks death in the face from the perspective of a 3-year-old, albeit related by Amelie Nothomb as an adult.

It's been a difficult week, and a routine week not having a job or friends or requirements or responsibilities. I listen to my internal demons and internal superman having it out and I don't know what the outcome will be. I'm rooting for my internal superman to help me realize the obvious and what I have to do.

I've had insomnia and I've drowned in sleep within the past few days. Something makes sense in all of this. Something has to come to fruition. I've been lost in enjoying music which is my primary joy these days. I've gotten obsessed in downloading music while realizing I can't get attached to this or it will be the true death of me.

I'm waiting to see what I will do once the window opens again, fully aware I made an overture to my old job.

Harmony (2010, South Korea):



Another blind rental off the shelf at Blockbuster. I literally could have closed my eyes and chosen this for all I knew about it. It turns out it's a straight-out tear-jerking, emotionally manipulative South Korean melodrama. BUT! It's set in a women's prison. AND! It's about a choir in said prison.

Who thinks of these things and how can I get a hold of the drugs they're on?

Having no idea this film was set in a women's prison, it was a bit of surprise at the first frame the film thanks the Korean department of corrections. I don't know if they were thanking them for providing technical assistance or whether it was because they didn't sue the filmmakers for completely misrepresenting what prison life is like in South Korea.

Seriously, if I'm reincarnated in South Korea as a woman, I sure hope I get to kill my spouse and go to prison. Oh, that's one of the ingredients in making up this melodrama casserole: key characters are there because of acts done in self-defense or out of passion. They're not degenerates or sociopaths.

Other ingredients in the recipe include baby born in prison, baby can only stay with mother in prison for 18 months, death penalty . . . and of course the choir.

I think easily the biggest failing in the film for me is how unrealistic prison life is portrayed. I've never been in prison, but I would gather that even in the most lowestest security prison, prisoners aren't allowed to wander around or gather freely and unattended. These women are in the big house for serious felonies. And the film is otherwise littered with things that defy logic or credibility.

Where the film works is that it has good development. There's a definite progression in the plot, and the filmmaker takes care to address how any given character gets from point A to point B. The specific holes in the internal plotline are pretty well plugged. In that way, it was intelligently put together and definitely watchable.

Curiously, as a melodrama, the film doesn't directly address social issues it could have, such as the death penalty, domestic violence against women, incest, stigmas against criminals regardless of the facts, but they are there and a lot of the melodrama is set against that background.

For me, that's what makes this melodrama not only bearable, but effective. It's not a melodrama about love and broken hearts and people doing stupid shit because of it. It's about mother-child relationships, bad decisions, heat of the moment actions, forgiveness, etc.

I was inclined to give this a low fresh rating because it's tear-jerking and emotionally manipulative, but there is actually a little more in this film that makes it worthwhile. I give it a fresh 7 tomatoes.

Penguins in the Sky: The Asahiyama Zoo Story (2009, Japan)

First a movie about a choir in a South Korean women's prison, now a movie about a Japanese ZOO. Oy vey, I need a better way of choosing DVDs. Well, no. It's true that there wasn't much compelling about this one, sitting by its lonesome on the display shelf, but I was hoping for a serendipity. And this story actual had potential if it had been done right.

The story could've been a good one about the state of decline into which the Asahiyama Zoo fell, and how through ingenuity, forward-thinking and innovation, they were able to revive the zoo to become one of the most popular zoos in Japan – way off the beaten path, too, on the northernmost island of Hokkaido.

The film should have been an uplifting one about transformation and determination and thinking out of the box, but instead it gets convoluted in the little scenes of the zookeepers amongst themselves and with the animals, and totally forgets that larger story arc. More than an hour into the movie and I was waiting for them to get to what is special about the zoo. Why should I care? It looks like no one else does.

And the little scenes of the zookeepers are not particularly compelling. I'd say they're downright boring. The dialogue is incredibly mundane and the characters aren't compelling, nor is the chemistry between them. The scene where they come up with the ideas for which the zoo is now famous is brushed over and not particularly inspiring or clever. I'm no screenwriter, but that scene begs to be a turning point, they even gave it a God's eye view, but then it fizzles.

From both storytelling and filmmaking perspectives, I think this film just lost its way. The portrayal of the relationship between the zoo and the public is extremely myopic and makes no sense. The filmmaker panders to the insular scenes within the zoo to bad effect. The seasons are messily handled and jump back and forth until you have no idea how much time is being spanned.

And it seems to be suggested that all it took was money to turn the zoo into a world-class attraction. They secure the money from the mayor against all odds and suddenly we're getting scenes of the exhibits being built, the actual zoo and huge crowds and lines.

And the most interesting part of the film for me was the shots of the successful zoo today. Even the real footage run during the credits was more interesting. They probably should've made a documentary. I hate to do this to the animals, who are excellent in the film, but I give this a rotten 4 tomato rating. It's not completely beyond redemption, but I'm not even sure to whom I would recommend it.