Some Thoughts On Phenomenology: Dumplings

So guys,  phenomenology. Something I spent months grappling with a few years ago during my undergrad, and something that I never felt  truly acquainted with. I suppose the most general understanding of phenomenology in a film studies context (that is to say, “phenomenology of perception”) is that the act of watching a film is an experiential one. That the spectator is to digest individual sensory impulses on a somehow “bodily” level.

It goes against most schools of film criticism that either praise the manipulation of aesthetic strategies or the psychological implications of narrative devices.  Instead, scholars like Dudley Andrews and Vivian Sobchack write about rejecting schools of thought that impose codes and false meanings on films, and call us to reflect on the perceptual experience of film going. This was something I agreed with after learning about it, something which went alongside my existing beliefs of medium specificity – that a film was great if it could appeal to the spectator on a sensory level in a way no other medium could. So I loved Fruit Chan’s Dumplings as a teen, a film that spends most of its 90 minutes focussed on people eating, but watching it again recently made me question how much value we can place on a film through an academic rubric.

Ozu Series: I Graduated, But

Last week we looked at Ozu’s I Flunked, But in an effort to discern how the conventions of silent filmmaking intersected with a director’s “auteur” style. This week we look to I Graduated, But (1929) for a slightly more unfortunate reason – much of the film has been lost since it was made, 80 odd years ago. The original film was apparently around 70 minutes in length, but the edit we have today barely makes it to 11 minutes.

If Ozu is a filmmaker defined by his refined sense of pace, his “classically” slow method of unravelling complex narratives, how does I Graduate, But succeed when all its breathing space is lost? Unfortunately, not that well! What we do get is an interesting use of title cards and some minor appearances of his famous “pillow shots”, like the image above.

Ozu Series: I Flunked, But

I Flunked, But is a silent film directed by Ozu in 1930 as part of what is known posthumously as his Student Comedy series. The film tells the brief story of a collection of university students in their final weeks before graduation. Played by Tatsuo Saito, the protagonist, known only as “student”, is the only one of the group to fail his final exams, and we follow him as he interacts with his more accomplished peers.

Ozu is often discussed as having a very rigid, formal style that varies little from film to film. This might be true for the films he made in later life, but by looking back to older films like I Flunked But, we can see how Ozu’s style was a constant work in progress that was often more diverse than people admit to. This was my first foray into Ozu’s intimidating body of silent films and I found the interaction between his definitive style, and the conventions of silent films in general, to be fascinating.

Late Night Ramblings – Peppermint Candy

Lee Chang-Dong’s Peppermint Candy is often mentioned alongside Irreversible and Christopher Nolan’s Memento, for apparently obvious reasons. All three films use a reverse narrative structure – they start at the end, and finish at a suitably poignant beginning.

Peppermint Candy struck me as the best use of this structure for a few reasons, and it seems unfair to me to simply lump it into the same categories as those two other films simply by virtue of narrative progression. Both Irreversible and Memento employ the structure for a rather clinical and singular purpose, whilst Peppermint Candy does so with far wider reaching implications.

Robot Geek Series – History Lesson: Super Columbine Massacre RPG!

[This article was originally written for Robot Geek in September, reprinted for posterity]

On April 20^th, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold entered Columbine High School with an arsenal of weapons and explosives concealed under their trench coats. During their rampage they killed thirteen people and injured twenty-one others before committing suicide in the school library. The shooting provoked a series of debates in the American media about the state of the nation’s gun laws, violent video games, explicit music, and “goth culture”. Klebold and Harris, members of the school’s “Trenchcoat Mafia” were reportedly big fans of Doom, Wolfenstein 3D, Natural Born Killers and Marilyn Manson – all of which received a great amount of blame in the weeks after the shooting.

In more recent years the discussion of violent media and subculture has taken second place to an analysis of the psychological condition of Klebold and Harris: two students, isolated from their peers, bullied by their classmates, who suffered severe depression and insecurity. This is thanks, in part, to the intervention by cultural figures like Michael Moore, whose questionable documentary Bowling For Columbine aimed to place the blame on social conditioning and lax gun laws as opposed to violent media. But this move was also thanks to a rather more controversial cultural product – The Super Columbine Massacre RPG! – a video game made by Danny Ledonne in 2005 in which the player guides Klebold and Harris through the events of April 20^th, 1999, under the familiar trappings of a Japanese Role Playing Game.

Robot Geek Series – Indiana Jones and the Videogame Imagination

[This is another article in the series, originally written for Robot Geek back in August, and posted here for posterity]

This week I had a rather strange gaming experience. An experience which called into question my perceived reasons for playing games, their effects on children and their imaginations, and the necessity of objectives.

Robot Geek Series – Gameplay As Story

[This article, written for Robot Geek is, in part, a response to Line Hollis' article “Pieces of Story”, available to read, surprisingly enough, on Robot Geek!]

Last week Line discussed the difficulty video games face when trying to tell a story. The conflict between the player’s ability to be active agents to the unfolding story and the restraints of the story-beats placed upon them by the developer. The article reminded me not only of the intimidating variety of narrative structures in video games but also of the lack of variety when it comes to the gameplay of those games. The space in between narrative events is almost always filled with fairly inconsequential fetch quests and action sequences, disjointed from the narrative progression and awkwardly wedged into the story through passive cutscenes.

Robot Geek Series – Killing Call of Duty: Jordan Magnuson’s “The Killer”

[This was an article I wrote for Robot Geek, reprinted here for posterity]

Early morning in the Russian countryside. Outnumbered and abandoned, accompanied by your squad members, you approach a Russian convoy. As you get nearer, word reaches your captain, air support is available. The plane flies over, bombs are dropped, the convoy is destroyed

“That’s bloody outrageous mate!”

Your team cheer in exaltation as you wade through dazed Russians to collect your bounty and continue your mission. Out of all the repetitive fire fights in dilapidated cities found in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, this was by far the most memorable, but for the wrong reasons.

Spotlight: Jason Rohrer – Part Two

A few days ago we turned our attention to the first three games of art-game developer, Jason Rohrer. Today we continue our look through his work with an investigation into the three games he developed after The Passage, being Gravitation, Between and Primrose. (As with his previous games, they are best played before reading about them, here’s the link, get playing!) So without further ado, let us begin!

I Won’t Do What You Tell Me

I have always had a problem with quota requirements in video games: when the player must amass a specified number of stars, or their equivalent reward-collectable, in order to progress through the game. Two games I have played recently have highlighted a couple of problems with this mode of game design: Saints Row 2 and Crayon Physics Deluxe. Vastly different games that fall at similar hurdles.