Bad Habit

 I am Ruminating Again

Not to Worry for I am Often Lost

    I wish I could honestly say that I were not the type of young woman to sit and think too deeply on problems that occur in her everyday life. However, I would therein be lying to myself and to you dear reader. Life is about holding onto the few and far between, so here's a deep dive into something that I had no clue would touch me, but it did.

Bagman23. 2011, Oil & Spray Paint on Canvas, 100 x 100 cm 

Watching Movies is Therapy 

My Sister has Impeccable Taste (and timing) 

    The film that I was able to enjoy with my family this week was a typical A24 kind of film, eccentric, manic, painful, sweet, comedic, and full of modal realism. It was a colorful film that felt overwhelming at times but just enough to share its message, it really was Everything, Everywhere, All At Once. 

    The film is fractured into three sections as it breaks down the main character Evelyn's challenges as a first generation Chinese immigrant who came to America with her young love. How she deals with the chaotic noise that is life and the objective absurdism that is a meaningless existence. If nothing matters, then does it not all matter? With so many lives and their own triumphs and tragedies what was the one consistency throughout the many Evelyn universes? Waymond Wang, the definition of the gentle handed fighter, full of optimism and kindness. In every lifetime he was hopeful, he loved, and ultimately just wanted to as he said "do laundry and taxes with you." He always brought meaning and light to the aimlessness that Evelyn allowed herself to fall into in the pursuit of the American Dream. In doing so she became resentful of the husband who looked easygoing, the father who abandoned her, the daughter whom she pushed away and her own failures. 

    Spoiler alert, the main antagonist of the film end up being her daughter Joy, who has a continuous consciousness that connects every version of herself with each other. She searches the multiverse in order to find her perfect Evelyn, the one who would share with her in the pain that is a meaningless exitance. To Joy life has been devoid of just that, joy... because there is pain in every variation of her life she has become fractured and angry, and ultimately nihilistic. It is in this nihilism that she creates the ultimate weapon, something to put an end to the endless pain, her blackhole. 

    Joy craves a release from the Rat Race that is life, and to her the only way out is an eternal death, to feel nothing forevermore. Fear not, for this film does have a happy ending. Evelyn is saved in her final hour, before being overtaken by the pain and sorrow Evelyn embraces Waymond. It was generational love that broke the chains of generational trauma, of learning empathy and being brave enough to be empathetic. Empathy is hard, its embracing the callous and the afflictions of a hardened life, and making that your strength. Compassion, true compassion is won after the longest and most brutal of battles, Evelyn does this. With compassion she is able to save her family and the Evelyn Universe... in the end human connections are messy and nonsensical. In the end the film really shows that love is a choice, its work, but most of all its worth every breath. In a world where nothing makes sense and there will always be pain, you give meaning to the meaningless, you give life to the dreary, and you give light to the dark. 

Color Theory

The Beauty of Cinematography and Storytelling 

A Science Lesson    

    What does color mean to you? White light exists as an amalgamation of every color on the spectrum, ultimately broken into the three primary colors. Visible light is perceived on a frequency spectrum that can be measures in wavelengths (nm), violet having the shortest wavelength and red having the longest. It is simply mind-blowing that within this range of 400 to 700 nanometers, the human retina made of millions of rods and cones can perceive light and color. In space light from celestial bodies emit light depending on the type of electromagnetic wave with things like ultraviolet and infrared being undetectable to the naked eye. 

How does Color Tell a Story?

    Psychologically why is it that colors evoke feeling? Is it via a learned association, or is it something deeper? Why does black signify solemnity and red sets our teeth on edge? Red is not red, however, but variants like magenta, maroon and burgundy... Passion or rage? Fertile or mundane? Each color on the spectrum has its yin and its yang, and how we interpret said color can be left up to the framing of the shot as well as the composition. Tight vs wide shots can mean the difference between feeling like you're in the protagonist' head or a bystander removed from the narrative. The change in color pallets can be separated into your associated colors and transitional, this all has to do with the emotive storytelling of the narrative. We have primary colors, secondary and even tertiary colors, with how they interact being complementary or in complete and utter discordance. 

What Does Each Color Mean?

In western culture, usually the following colors have the following psychological connections:

• Red: Danger, Strength, Desire
• Orange: Joy, Enthusiasm, Creativity
• Yellow: Energy, Happiness, Loyalty
• Green: Vitality, Harmony, Sincerity
• Blue: Sympathy, Peace, Compassion
• Purple: Ambition, Mystery, Luxury
• Pink: Vulnerability, Tenderness, Hope
• Black: Fear, Greif, Power
• White: Safety, Purity, Innocence

That being said, these colors can even draw out different emotions depending on the hue, saturation or even vibrancy of said color. 

Color and Film

    Piggybacking off of the film Everything, Everywhere, All At Once, color was used to show the sheer difference between how Evelyn, Waymond, and Joy interact with the chaotic world around them. In her rebellion against the world, against existence Joy is covered in about every color imaginable. Her outfits throughout the many worlds ranging from monochromatic to a hodgepodge of colors put together in an unsettling randomness until we reach the bagel. Here, at edge of her mind we are bathed in white with the only contrasts being Evelyn covered in a warm deep brown and the dark bagel. It is important to note here that for China specifically, white is not a color associated with purity, but mourning. It is the color of death, and upon having the blackhole dimension coated in said color, one gets the sense of nothingness that Joy expresses. She was a yin without a yang, constantly thrown around by the universe until she was pulled into balance by Evelyn who finally accepted her yang, Waymond Wang. They both spent the movie trying to work together to save their multiverse and Joy even though they were both equally representative of complementary colors, Evelyn in red and Waymond in green. It would be an understatement to say that the costume design and their team deserve every single award they receive as they managed to perfectly make a film that truly encompasses what it means to color your film. 

Well until next time, keep on budding flowers and I will keep on watching movies. 

With love,

Little Lady Blossom