DUO LUO TIAN SHI (Fallen Angels)
1995
Dir. Wong Kar Wai
Cast: Takeshi Kaneshiro, Leon Lai, Michelle Reis, Karen Mok

I admit it that I am a Wong Kar Wai fanatic and now here is another feature from the famous auteur. This film is also known as Fallen Angels. I just felt like sharing this wonderful film with you as it captures things I am worried about, it is a manifestation of certain circumstances I am going through of the late.




So here, there is the character Wong Chi Ming (played by Leon Lai) who is a killer and whose character I’m going to focus on. And I quote his wonderful line from the movie:

“The best thing about my job is that there’s no need to make any decision.
Who’s to die… when… where… it’s all been planned by others.
I like people to arrange things for me. That’s why I need a partner.”

If you take it literally, it implies that in his line of work he chose it as it doesn’t require him to rely too much on reason for decision making is tough like to the extent of choosing between emotion or . In Wong Chi Ming’s point of view, he believes it is better to have a partner do things for you and all you have to do is do what is asked of you. They do the thinking, he does the labor. Taking it beyond the literal, when he says he needs a partner it readily suggests dependence. And with dependence the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche has a strong dislike of. Wong Chi Ming practices dependence which also comes hand in hand with weakness; without a partner he is handicapped.



Now, you may think I am not making any sense. Well, let me put it this way. Regarding Wong, I find his condition similar to many. I often encounter these kinds of individuals and they often piss me off. I admit that I do have friends like this and it saddens me that they are afraid to think and re-evaluate things.

Suppose I say that I do not conform to the norms of this society (in this regard Philippine Society) and that I adhere to norms that are based on my own ideals, there are a couple of synonyms that come out of people’s mouths…demented, insane, and absurd. What is wrong with many people readily accept things like the law that is universalized. What is wrong with universalization? A lot. It is highly problematic as it is unacceptable because how can one imply the same rule on the other when we are all subject to our own biases. In line with this, things like Christianity also come across. In the Anti-Christ, Nietzsche talks about how Christianity creates this insane code of ethics. Such a religion has led us all into having artificial behavior meant to impress others such as humility and self sacrifice which for me is impossible. Wong Chi Ming displays this tendency among human beings. Taking it beyond the literal and the obvious, many are blind for they do not see the benefit of the doubt. Like the character played by Leon Lai, I could liken his stand as those people who follow the rules of the Catholic Church as they are. They take her instructions verbatim. In that regard, they are lazy because when you look at it, which is easier to think and reevaluate things or simply accept something that is there? Of course that is taking what is already there. If one goes a step further it would be something unassuming and unpredictable which makes it hard unlike believing in the Church, it is all readily made. Think of it cooking pasta, it is like choosing whether you will do it the usual way (the long step by step one) or an instant 5 minute packed one. Christianity is simply like an instant meal you get from convenience stores, it is already there and it is more convenient.

Going back to having your own set of ideals and claiming that you have you your own ideal society that is extant within your mind, once you start telling some conformist or lazy individual then they would easily conclude that you are insane. What’s worse is that some would even say you are hallucinating. In my case this made me realize that I aim to grasp the harder as Rilke always comes at the tip of my tongue; “trust in the difficult.” I know I am still far from being the Ubermensch or achieving the Will to Power but at least I have made my attempt and started my quest. Someone told me I am crazy with regards saying that I do not conform to society and have my own rendition of it…my answer to this is that I have seen things in a new light and never again will I be an automaton for any institution.

Fallen Angels is really a satisfying treat for me. The music, the cinematography, mis-en-scene…I loved it all. While watching it, my mom was telling me that there’s actually nothing happening (this is the effect of Institutionalization, she’s more likely to watch Hollywood movies which narrate everything [thanks to David Bordwell for the Classical Hollywood theory!] and requires little thinking!) but I went on watching it. Now, setting aside my philosophical insights on this film, I feel like channeling Leon Lai’s look here…effortless cool! And then I am still in some sort of wonder if Takeshi Kaneshiro’s character here had anything to do with the cop named Wu in Wong Kar Wai’s earlier offering Chungking Express. Michelle Reis had this really captivating presence on screen. I guess Wong Kar Wai IS NOT FOR EVERYBODY. His movies require a refined taste and an interest in the vague.

Director Wong Kar Wai has often raised the issue of morality and often uses non linear story telling which I think is really effective so as not to bore the spectator. At one point he enables the viewer the perspective of this character; one after the other. What I like about his characters is that they are not typical, in a way there seems to be a part of them that seem to be fighting a system (like society or tradition). They are fashioned to become unconventional and could be shocking to the point that you are driven onto their own subjectivity. Even the slightest flicker of the eye in his movie would pretty much make much sense.

2046
2004
Dir. Wong Kar Wai
Cast: Tony Leung, Maggie Cheung, Zhang Ziyi, Takuya Kimura,
Gong Li, Faye Wong, Bird Thongchai McIntyre, Carina Lau
HONG KONG

This has to be one of my favorite movies. I felt bad that it was one of the best films screened at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival yet it didn't garner any award at all. Once again the autuer Wong Kar Wai creates a spectacle of pure beauty and sophisticated style.

The main themes of the movie are Morality and Reality. There is that carefully put and conceptualized character put into each segment of the film. There is a non-conformist and there is an android.



The two most striking characters for me were the android (Faye Wong) and the aging Don Juan stereotype writer Chow Wo Man (Tony Leung). The android which was beautifully protrayed by Faye Wong could not feel, yet there was this guy who made her feel something. They had sexual contact. It took the android a hundred years or more before she actually remembered that before she used to love another man. What came to my mind was how reality takes time to fully occur to oneself. All that we see are shadows and often just mere representations of things thus we are deceived. The loss of innocence will let one travel the realm where the reality is extant. The moment she made out with the passenger in the train, only then did she begin to realize something beyond the confines of what she was, a mere being, incomplete in that sense. She was barely a human being then. She already had knowledge about love yet all she needed was an experience to rekindle it. It reminded her of it that it led to her full understanding of what she has for long, ceased to see. An awakening to reality starts from the loss of innocence and knowledge alone is never complete without experience.



Chow Mo-Wan is an aging Don Juan who in the end loses his wanting of women. He had also lost memories. And in this movie people ride a train called 2046 to recover lsot memories. It is a bit complex with all the inter weaved storytelling yet the main character is Leung. I really love this character for he exemplifies the Overman or the Ubermensch of Nietzsche. He is a strong individual who is not weakened by
his bodily whims.

This is a visually stunning film, with the mis-en-scene well thought of and teh actors only Asia's best. Wong delivers the age old question of morality into simple looking ideas like love and existence with a complex subtext. With all that, seeing 2046 made me realize how one is delusionized by reclaiming lost memories without even thinking whether it would still be relevant to your existence. With Chow, he chooses to live in his solitude and it is nothing that compares to love. Solitude is the magnum of one's life; a heightened aloneness as Rilke calls it. It defines our individuality and ability to choose. All that we do is a choice. Chow may be a Don Juan but what makes him compelling both visually and contextually is that he challenges the human emotion and goes beyond it in pursuit of proper reason.

Why Not Listen to Your Parents 101

1) They give the most absurd sermons.
>I remember my mom and me in a conversation that went like this:

Mom: Why are you not going to church anymore?
Moi: I am still questioning things. Frankly, I’m not sure if I still want to
Believe in God.
Mom: You see that is what happens when you get exposed to people who have
Long sold themselves to the devil.
Moi: Philosophy nurtures my many questions.
Mom: Because of that philosophy of yours, you neglected God. No wonder
You’ve been getting low grades.
> Intervention: Hmmm, I edited this a bit because I can’t recall the great exchange of lines I’ve had with my mom days ago. My assessment on this argument is that it is sooooooo fallacious! It is absurd! How can not praying and going to church affect my grades? I don’t see any difference besides last term it was really my choice to slack off. I was still undecided at that time so my days were rather wild and uncertain. It was simply my choice why I ended up with low grades.
My mom often gives philosophy a bad connotation. She associates it with Satan and anti-Christs. Well, I do believe in the idea that Hell is other people and that the concept of evil is subjective. What may be true for me may not be necessarily true for you. How I wish I could make my mom read Nietzsche then she’ll skin me alive! Speaking of Nietzsche, I’m hiding my Anti-Christ book because if she sees it…I’m dead!! I love Nietszche. There is nothing that would stop me from reading his works.
Lastly, I don’t really enjoy going to church except for those compulsory religion courses crap in my school. I never felt I would live life to the fullest as a Christian. It is just to idealistic and it goes against my own beliefs and I consider it one that would hinder me from knowing myself (the Socratic Dictum!).

P.S. >> If you saw this live…you might have laughed.

2) They bear the stench of a conformist.
>Eeeew! Conformists suck big time. Your life is a useless piece of shit (forgive me for the language!). I really can’t help it. You follow and follow the norms and you realize you just end up in circles and then if you are lucky, you’d realize you are not actually being a human being but a zombie. Most parents readily accept the norms thinking they are the absolute, well for me it’s just not besides doubting is a manifestation of your awareness and your existence.

3) They render metaphysics or metaphysical ideas as reality.
>My mom in particular talks about God as if they are close friends (I don’t want to start with her and tell her, have you met him? And so on and so forth). What’s worse is that I live in a household where my aunt also lives who happens to be a loyal church-goer and serves the parish here in our village. Now, more people are against me. I always hear this line every Sunday….

“You spend so many hours doing other things. All you have to do is a lot
an hour to the Lord.”

And I find it funny because they say I am becoming a handmaid of Satan. Well, as far as I am concerned….I am not. I am just getting rid of the constraints that limit my individuality.

4) They are concerned with what OTHER people think.
>Remember Sartre said “Hell is other people.” I consider that a maxim. There is no way that I am enabling other people to make me aware that I am like this and like that and later on living my life prior to what they say, again I repeat my favorite word Automaton which I would be if I do live according to what others think.

My parents always want me to behave in a way that would reflect them as good parents. Well, I often do not because due to the fact that “everything is subjective.” What is the point of living life when all you have to do is live under the dictates of other beings?

5) They force me to go to church.
>They drag me or should I say oblige me to go to church but if I go there, I do not actually participate actively or listen intently. And if you are that desperate to make me go to church, you could bribe me with any of the following; a pair of Tod’s Gommini, a Louis Vuitton Speedy Watch in Chrono, a sleek Dior Homme ensemble, an IWC diving watch, a Cartier Santos Watch in Steel and the easiest would be a breakfast/lunch/dinner and a box of Macaroon de Paris from Bizu. I would happily accept those but do not expect me to pretend “I am holy” in church.

6) They live by the rules of Christianity.
>Ugh! Do I even have to follow such rules? I have a counter argument to that and it is from Albert Camus (I think) “The law would be absurd without the presence of those who do not follow.” Another thing is that, I do not actually consider myself a Christian at the moment. My parents are firm believers and they are suspecting me as en route to atheism!

7) They like to manipulate your opinions/ views.
>It is simply a grave offense to the individual to make him grasp a general truth for it doesn’t take into consideration his own perspective; his own interpretation of things.

8) They oblige me to pray the very long rosary complete with all the litanies.
>They do this atleast once or twice a year and I try to escape this thing I consider a chore rather than a necessity. Each time this happens, I feel like Al Sayyid Ahmad in 1989 Nobel Prize for Literature Nauguib Mahfouz’s Palace Walk. In the novel, he is described as one who prays with the mouth and not of the heart. And this is what I feel in times like this.

9) They always live by the TRASHIEST rule in Phil. Society.
>What is it?

In Filipino, they say it as “Mas nakatatama ang matanda” which translates as the
Elderly are always right and you should not disrespect them. My stand on this…
It doesn’t mean that they are older, actually makes them wiser or right at all times.
I do have respect for other people but it takes time and effort to win my respect.

Let me now share a classic example of this in my life. Once upon a time when I was still a helpless little kid, I was playing with one of my cousins. I got annoyed and
so I uttered a word that is similar to “son of a bitch.” My uncle was furious of course and so was my aunt. I was unaware of the implication of such a word because I often hear it around older people. What my aunt and uncle did was spread the word to the other relatives saying that I am such an immoral kid. They say I am rude and garish and the world should know. They go around every household and made mention of it. The thing is how could elder people do such a thing? They were hurting the reputation of a kid (moi) who hardly knows a thing. I mean how they (my aunt and uncle) could do such a think when they already have the advantage of reason; they weren’t being reasonable as well. Each time I remember this, I think of them as real rotten bastards. I’m even planning to write a novel inspired by the way my uncles and aunts who mistreated me. Now the end of the story is that I have lost respect for them and it is not my fault. I do not RESPECT them and I am not even CIVIL with them because being civil is just a euphemism for hypocrisy. It is not a subdued form but rather a less revealing term. They do not deserve my respect and besides I was only 8 years old at that time and I hardly know which is which, I am still going through the process of learning the basics. They could have just told me not to do instead of spreading the word.

Maybe they hate me now even better, because it hurts their pride that we actually rub shoulders and see each other face to face in malls without me looking at them or even saying a word!

(In case a cousin of mine comes across this, I am just practicing freedom of speech…too bad were in a democratic country, I can ridicule any of you in no time.)

Confinement in the Material World

I still take pictures; record everyday life even though memory is one great burden. It brings to life Friedrich Nietzsche’s idea of Eternal Return. It torments me yet I still could not readily accept change and the best thing I could do is to grasp the moment, seize every single detail of it through a click of a device called a camera. Each time I look back, I realize life has no certain pattern but as the photographs show a recurring visual of pain and agony.

I pop a pill in the hope of making me feel better. I want to get well again to live a longer life. Why try to live longer when we are all beings that would lead to death? Would the elixir of life we are trying to find out make us feel worse? Why make life longer? This would only prolong absurdity and meaninglessness and end up like Sissyphus. The tobacco weakens my lungs yet I continue to smoke. At the moment, it feels pleasurable. There is no point in trying to make my existence longer or not, it would all be the same the battle for absurdity and the ridicule of my kind is lost. Now, the alcohol goes through my throat, I suddenly feel a sudden gush of warmth. I love it.

I wear clothes even though it hides the realness of the human form. These fabrics drape you and layer after layer, the more is concealed; the lesser is known of you. All you need is a little unmasking. Live in your nakedness, every hint of flesh seen. Shy away those eyes from malice and greed but it is unlikely. I can say there is only one from which that line came from, an institution of pure metaphysics and a dead cause. It aims for total domination yet it fails to see me as an individual.

I gratify myself with desire. What the appetites yearn for, I give in but a wise man tells me not to let them break loose. You use that latex ring around that weapon for libidinal release and you lessen the actuality of pleasure. Desire in itself goes beyond a simple whim. Life is all about desire whether bodily or materially. I do not cease to find out any further. I believe Oscar Wilde with the words, “I can resist anything except temptation.”

I love art because it offers an escape from reality. Schopenhauer talked about this and art is something that leaves us to a state of wonderment amidst the difficulty of this so called life that is always bound to suffering. I play Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin on the CD player, I do not understand the words and yet I feel the passion, the depth and the brilliance. That’s how art works. Armani talks to me in his minimalist notion for my trousers and Lautrec entertains me inside his world, Montnamarte and what goes on with those cabarets.

Shall you call me ethical or not? I do not care because I live by the Kantian belief that the question of morality should pursue your autonomy at any cost. It is me and always me who will be the master of me.

Short term memory is all that I have which is perfect in the context of today. We all live in a state of constant change and in order to move on one must leave behind things to let another.
I want it (memory) to last briefly for I try not to write a memoir on how awful life has been in a world that confines you and many of its beings cease
to recognize that sort of existence you were driving to.

All answers that I have are temporary, so far. Now, I confine myself with material wealth, overly indulge in it