When the usual cocktail topic wants to slip away from heavy headed politics, money, sex affairs, the ideal conversation usually flutters around leisurely activities. In one of these social soirees I recently found myself in heated argument about "Once" a "well-received" film by both European and American critics. Everybody seems to like that film and I find myself dumb-founded whenever I have to explain my indifference to it. For that matter I went to see "Once" actually twice to really find out what was really the problem with me?
Milan Kundera redefined the term kitsch as disgust for participation in collective happiness. Kitsch can be manifested in past Communist May Day parades or in content American man's admiration for children playing soccer on beautiful green fields. In the past it was quite usual to see in the streets of UB grand posters of workers and peasants painted, in Realist fashion, with their heads always directed toward far away distance. The underlines would often spell something futuristic as "Towards Socialism!" Nothing could disrupt such harmony except probably occasional outbreak of violence repressed in the public. It seems today is a different world where nothing is suppressed, but on the contrary augmented to the extent it loses its shock value. There aren't anymore posters shouting loud and clear instead we find ourselves often in self-celebratory existence of "I am different, I am not your average American, I am not your average Filipino, and etcetera, etcetera". In a similar sense we see the demand of cheap material in fashion. Yesterday' stone-washed jeans (that ironically cost more than it originally cost when average worker used to wear it in the dawn of the century) are replaced in these days by obviously non-luxury elements as cotton and other cheap and raw materials. In other words what we see today is the mounting to the pedestal of collective worship, not velvet, gold, and silk, but cotton, plastic, and jeans. The public is choosing to distance itself unconsciously from mainstream, only unfortunately to find itself again in the ditch of self-celebratory orgiastic ecstasy of urban, hip bliss. All right, enough then about political or cultural agenda as many may accuse me, back to the film.
Success of "Once" is a reason why Hollywood is losing its share to indie boom. Film-wise I haven't encountered anything as engaging as I would expect from any classics. The film was original no doubt about it, plot was interesting, and soundtrack was amazing. However the picture failed to tell me its story. It was shot in documentary style; some of the still shots were manipulated by montage with usual video recordings. Again, nothing breath-taking. I would rather watch Pride and Prejudice, be a hedonistic viewer rather than sacrifice the beauty of picture to the fashionable trend of being hip and "refreshing".
