Up to this point, I have been talking about the contents of the movie and the themes therein. For this post, I want to do something a bit different. I want to get a bit meta.
The Daniels basically throw everything they want in their project and then winnow it down a bit afterwards. They can do this because they are independent and don’t really have to answer to anyone. They did have a production company (A24), but it seemed like they were mostly hands off.
I see this in games all the time. The Triple A games are impressive from a visual point of view (except on PC for reasons I will not get into here. The ports for PC have been such a hot mess in the past few years). You can tell that millions and millions of of dollars have been put in the game. That doesn’t make the game itself that good, but it does tell you something.
It’s the same with big budget popcorn movies. You can tell that money was poured into them so the production value is pretty decent. That doesn’t mean the movie is good, but that’s not the point.
It also means that the content is probably pretty safe. So many big budget movies seem as if they were QA to death before they ever saw the light of day. Basically, directing by committee. There is always the audience is mind and how the scene would play in Peoria.
It’s one reason I don’t like movies, to be honest. They often feel as if they are made for the masses and more about not offending anyone than speaking to the vision of the director. Or, in the case of movies like Knives Out, it’s an auteur who is too up his own ass and is not able to be reined in.
In the case of the Daniels, they truly believe in everyone having a voice. Which comes with its own issues, obviously, but at least they don’t fall into the auteur mentality. In addition, they’re fearless in their ideas.
This movie is four or five different genres. It’s sci-fi. It’s action. It’s adventure! It’s comedy. It’s superhero. And it’s a family drama. If I told you all the different versions of the villain that Stephanie Hsu plays, She is a tour de force in the movie, but this post is not about that. It’s about how the Daniels went outside of the box. Or more to the point, don’t even see there is a box.
It’s a true visionary. Not caring about what they can or can’t do. I honestly don’t think it enters their mind as they are creating. Of course, the producer will rein them in if need be, but he seemed to be more of the ‘hands off’ mentality.
The reason I’m bringing this up is because I need to cultivate that mentality. All my life, my mother has drummed it in my head that I had to always care about what others were thinking. My emotions didn’t mean shit. I was supposed to tend to hers first and foremost, any guy within my radius, and then everyone else.
I was supposed to be an afterthought in my own life. I had bought that to the point that I buried my emotions deep inside me. (There are other reasons I didn’t know my emotions, but I’m not going to get into those right now.)
Side note: The reason I started writing the novels I did was because I did not see any that had someone like me as the protagonist. I’ve heard that shouldn’t be the reason to write (using your own life as inspiration), but why not? Especially when someoneo like me literally does not exist in any pop culture I’ve consumed?
Everything Everywhere All At Once could only be made by indie directors. If this was done by a big studio, it would have been pared back in so many different ways. They would have been told that they should cut out a universe or two. And I will admit that one of them was my least-favorite and baffling (the universe itself), but the relationship between Michelle and Jamie in it was so tender and sweet that I eventuallyl forgave the universe itself.
And the big symbol of the game? It’s ludicrous. I get what they’re going for, and I get the nihilism of it all, but it’s…a lot. And it’s very silly. Even when Jobu explains it, it’s silly. I mean, I get what the Daniels are trying to do with it, but it doesn’t quite work for me.
That’s the beauty of the ‘throw everything at the wall’ method, though. Some of the shit WILL stick. Not all of it has to work for every person. Also, things are so fast-paced in this movie, you can easily let something go if it’s not for you.
For me, I agonize over everything I produce. I always think how it’s going to land, and it’s paralyzing. I have a voice in the back of my head telling me I can’t do this or that. Much like the movies that are over-tested and edited based on the feedback.
To me, the worst crime a piece of art can do is be bland.* I’d rather something be terrible to me, but actually have meaning that for it to be fine but meh. I know that’s the point of pop culture in general, that it’s pablum. It’s media that is made for the masses, which means it’s supposed to reach as many people as possible.
The reason I’m saying this is that all my life, I have heard what I could not/should not be doing. Why my ideas would never work–and, from my mother, that I should not say anything remotely controversial or try anything that is wild, weird, or different.
My mother is all about being the platonic ideal of what a Taiwanese woman should be. At least in her head. Loving wife and mother. Devout Christian (well, that’s not Taiwanese as it’s the minority there), etc. The dichotomy that her mother experienced and displayed contiuned on in her as well.
My maternal grandmother was the first woman to graduate from a certain college in Japan. She was also the first female ‘senator’ (the quivalent of) her prefecture in Taipei, and yet, her wish to my brother when he got engaged was that he have many boy children. Whenever we had a family reunion, she would drone on and on about the men in her husband’s family. The few times I met her, she said not a word to me, nor really looked at me because I was a mere girl.
My mother felt unloved by her mother. My mother wanted to have a daughter of her own so she could correct the relationship she had with her mother. Instead, she replicated it. In a different way, but it ended up being the same thing. Her mother preferred my mother’s sister because she (my aunt) was the pretty one. My mother internalized the message that to be a Taiwanese woman, you had to be ultra-feminine. Even though she was not herself.
I’m done for now. More tomorrow!
*Except for music. For whatever reason, I am not at all ambitious or adventurous when it comes to music. Probably because a lot of the dissonant music hurts my ears.