Persona (1966) - Swedish

Swedish director Ingmar Bergman weaves the vastly contrasted lives of a nurse and actress together in a blaze of envy and jealousy. Elisabeth, an actress who becomes mute one day on set, is taken into the care of Nurse Alma. The head nurse advises that the both of them take a trip to her summer home in order to keep recuperate. Elisabeth's muteness serves as a template for Alma's confessions of past sins, and eventually, Alma seeks to destroy all of herself and wishes to become Elisabeth.

The editing of the film suggests a zealous adolescence by beginning with a bright light, followed by a film strip, followed by dormant figure in beds. The only one to awake is a young boy who attempts to read only to be arrested by the projected image of woman. The tactile sense in the film is also quite evident considering the boy touches the projected image of woman very attentively. This beginning has nothing to do with the overall story arc and it only wraps up the film in the end. The fast paced editing is one to jolt anyone out of their seats.

After the non-linear beginning, Elisabeth and Alma begin to discover much about each other, but Elisabeth refuses to speak, so we are mostly learning of Alma with nothing to tell us about Elisabeth aside from what Alma assumes about her. The two become very close, touching and feeling each other's hair and body's. They stare deeply into one another yet Alma really loses it later in the film, even by attempting to destroy Elisabeth with a piece of broken glass. Alma's attempts to get her to talk reach insane ends and it deconstructs each woman's persona that they've lived in their individual lifestyles. The persona's each woman takes on is a permeable veil only in that one woman may act and live like another. In a beautifully constructed scene, Elisabeth enters Alma's room in ghostlike fashion. To Alma's relief, she stands in the billowy curtains just outside staring at Alma's awakened body. They then begin to wrap feel each other's hair and wrap each other in them. Strange? Yes! Ambiguously gay? Indeed! But the scene speaks for itself in its attempts to describe the envy of one another's soul to become and engulf another. Give this film a watch. It is Bergman's masterpiece.

Goodbye Lenin! (2003) - German

I would just like to mention that there is some spoiler-ish information in the text below. Just so I don't ruin any future viewing of the film. Although, I'm sure everyone is aware that the Berlin wall does indeed fall. And with that Goodbye Lenin!

The story of political change in a divided country told through the eyes of a young man and his recently comatose mother. Alexander (Daniel Bruhl) must hide the recent political shifts in his East Berlin town from his politically active mother(Katrin Sass), since her heart is too weak and can't take any excitement.

The lengths that Alex goes to prevent his mother from knowing the truth illustrates a struggle of covering up reality for the sake of continuing a life once lived. It seems this sin runs in the family since Alex's mother also has a secret of her own that has been covered up. The theme of keeping ignorance under control taps into the psyche of the consumerist, capitalistic, and communist decree that now runs rampant through Germany after the fall of the wall. With the spread of satellite dishes, knowledge of both cultures begins to seep through East Germany rather quickly. A good instance of this is the process Alex uses to sustain his lie by making videos about West German refugees entering communist East Germany in order to pursue different, anti-capitalist lives.

I love so much about this film, but what really grabbed me in the beginning was the score written by Yann Tiersen, a French musician, who also wrote music for Amelie. For what I thought would be a comedy, which it surely is, I was met with a sorrowful mood. It was delicate but the imagery of communist Germany was very passionate and powerful, drenched in red. This combination showed me a portrait of a mother who's life and vigor were cast in red like that of the Soviet flag, and the music showed me just how dire her health was, and how fragile her body had become. This is the perfect setup for what the film would explain in the coming chapters. 

ODST Commercial

The Halo ODST commercial directed by Rupert Sanders, was my first experience with video games being transposed to the video medium. It is also the first in a series of live action commercials for each sequential Halo game. The commercial follows the path of an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper who's brother was killed in battle. The candle lights at the funeral look like flaming pistols and the amphitheater that the funeral takes place in is large, gray and empty, like the faces of the fellow infantryman in attendance. The boy joins the ODST ranks and goes through a nightmarishly dark and gritty boot camp. He is then jettisoned  into a scenario straight out of Saving Private Ryan.

And with that, the transition to the scene is phenomenal. Jumping from a training wall, the scene has changed to that of interior of the pod in which ODST's are implanted behind enemy lines. In another effective transition, the young boy is slashed by a brute in the face, and his scars are healed through a cut to the boy as a grown man, again attending the funeral of a fallen comrade, only this time, they are in the field of battle during the burial. In these transitions, the boys journey to manhood is rapid and immediate. The scars of battle are given quick convalescence and the entry into battle is preluded by a mental scarring of training.

To see more from Rupert Sanders and the group of directors responsible for story prevalent commercials, look to http://www.mjz.com. Among the groups other notables are Spike Jonze and Micheal Mann.