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Culture

November 13, 2002

 

Anime Review

Nick Hogg
OP Animaton

 

Mobile Suit Gundam Wing:

The Complete Operations
Released: By Bandai Entertainment
Running time: 1225 minutes

What, no funnels. We have the series that made Gundam popu-
lar in North America, in one huge box set that includes all 49
episodes on 10 DVDs. This is probably the most popular
Gundam Alternate Universe to date, and there is no mistaking it,
it’s classic Gundam with a twist. Now there's no reason to get up
at 3:30a.m. to watch Gundam anymore.

The audio is good, with both English and the original Japanese
soundtrack presented in two-channel sound. You're probably
going to want to watch this in English, though, because this is
one of the few instances on a project this large that the Japanese
voice acting has been this awful. The picture is clear and superb,
versus the previous broadcasted version, it’s like cleaning three
years worth of dirt off the TV. For the set itself, it's nothing more
than the original 10 DVDs in a box, with some decent artwork
on it. For the DVDs themselves, the menus are awful for the first
six discs; they're suppose to be a view from inside Wing
Gundam, but look bad and are a pain to navigate. The last four
discs have a revamped menu, a view form inside Wing Zero, but
this time it looks much better and the menu is far easier to nav-
igate. Now, as for the extras on the discs, we get a clean version
of each of the opening animations and a clean close-animation.
As well, they include a mobile suit encyclopedia, along with

As for the story, well, it's Gundam. What we have is the usual
space colonies that are being repressed by the Untied Earth
Sphere Alliance. And the space colonies to retaliate against that
oppression have sent five Mobile suits called Gundams, to basi-
cally cause a lot of damage. Despite the fact that this sounds like
a pure action anime, it’s not. There’s a lot of political intrigue,
and it tries to take apart what war and peace really are. And then
we have are fairly large cast of characters. Now I like Gundam
Wing but I didn’t like some of the characters. First we have the
five Gundam pilots, Heero, the very driven unemotional loner,
Duo, the sarcastic “God of Death”, Trowa, the unemotional
loner with pointy hair, Quatre, the very emotional and sensitive
rich kid, and Wui Fei, the sexist jerk. There’s also Zechs, the
required masked man with a shrouded past, Relena, the psycho
stalker, and many more. But overall it’s an interesting story, that’s
entertaining, and if you get really bored you can always make a
bunch of crude sex jokes during the episodes to keep yourself
entertained.

And, in the end, we get a large, very expensive box holding ten
DVDs. This isn’t for everyone, wel,| at least for purchase anyway.
It's a great series but it comes down to whether you can part with
this sizable chunk of income in one go. Other than that, the set

character profiles.

Movie Review

Frida

 

Dawn-Louise McLeod
OP Contributor

The latest trend in facial hair for both
men and women is the unibrow. Oh,
haven't you heard? In the film Frida, a
portrait of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo’s
life, Salma Hayek sports a realistic version
of the artist's signature hairpiece.

The film is based on Hayden Herrera’s
bestseller Frida: A Biography of Frida
Kahlo, which was a bestselling hit with the
artsy fartsy crowd when it came out in
1983. So I was expecting a large but much
older audience than the mostly young,
hip, ethnically diverse crowd that filled
the Granville Theatre on Wednesday
night.

Prefaced by what sounded like outtakes

from Evita—the heady, rich tones of a fla-
menco singer—this film is Hayek’s
attempt, in her dual role as co-producer
and actor, to paint an accurate picture of
the diminutive icon Frida. Her efforts, not
only via her own performance, but also
through the sensuous texture of the film,
are what is best about the film.

The opening scene is of Frida’s home, in
deep, rich primary colours, tones as reso-
nantly resplendent as the singer’s voice—
and looking, I suspect, a lot tidier than it
ever did in real life. Salma Hayek, in full
Tehuana regalia, is hoisted aloft in the
four-poster bed to which she was confined
near the end of her life, enroute to an
exhibition of her artwork.

The story then flashes back to 1922,
when Frida was a young student. She
becomes enraptured with Diego Rivera
(portrayed by an_ inflated Alfred
Molina)—a well-known muralist, and
some would say, “a government whore” —
while spying on him trysting with one of
his many models. We see a little of Frida’s
style—her passionate affair with a young
man, her experimentation with androgy-
ny and cross-dressing, her energetic aban-
don—before the horrific accident which
leaves her body shattered and catapults
her into painterly self-expression.

During a painful rehabilitation featuring
her callow suitor bringing her roses and
philosophy books, we learn why Kahlo’s

is great and one any Gundam fan should own.

work features a high percentage of self-
portraiture—while confined to a full body
cast she had only herself as a model.
Despite her emotional and_ physical
injuries, she recovers sufficiently to dance
a mean and provocative tango with one of
the many women Rivera’s involved with.
Does she do it to tease him, or does she
prefer women? Is it true, as one of the
lovers she and Rivera have shared says,
that she is much better than her husband?
Do we ever really find out?

Pretending to be repelled by his status as
barnyard rooster—at a party, someone
remarks, “He’s had half the women
here”—Frida dresses as a man in his pres-
ence and demands he vow they remain
“colleagues, friends, comrades,” forever.
“Forever” lasts for about two seconds
before they fall into bed together. Things
progress to the point where Frida’s mother
remarks, “It’s like a marriage between an
elephant and a dolphin.”

Hayek and Molina are the most believ-
able characters in a film adorned with
familiar-looking actors wearing a la
Mexique coifs and spouting Spanish
accents. I was fascinated throughout by
Frida’s facial hair; would her slightly hairy
upper lip evolve into full moustache sta-
tus? And Hayek faces a daunting challenge
in portraying an age range between 14
and 47; her success depends on whether
or not the viewer believes that Kahlo was

not only amazingly good-looking, but
ageless and unscathed despite her shatter-
ing experiences.

Okay, so maybe the film wasn’t utterly
compelling when you're distracted by
details like this. Or perhaps the fact that I
was is significant—does the film ever real-
ly get down and dirty and show Kahlo as
a real person, or is it all about tamed-
down glamour? And maybe Frida, like an
ersatz-intellectual soap opera, does go on
and on, without much of a story or over-
all relevance.

But there’s much to watch—from
Mayan pyramids to sumptuous costumes
and authentic surroundings to the work of
both artists. There’s never a dull moment.
And both the stupendous flamenco
singers and surrealistic puppet collage
sequences add texture to the film, espe-
cially when Rivera is portrayed as King
Kong in New York, a successfull blending
of both Rivera and Kahlo’s artistic styles.
In fact, this film does a remarkable job of
merging Kahlo’s work, in particular with
the cinematic images and story.

And the film was provocative. As we
were leaving the theatre, the chat all
around was all about Frida, instead of the
usual, “Wonder if the car’s still there?” Go
see it. Who knows? After watching Frida,
you may feel the urge to run out and grab
a few buckets of cobalt blue paint, and to
cultivate at least a unibrow.

 

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