10 Movies That Formed My Outlook on Life
1. AUTUMN EXECUTION (1969)
My childhood in Hong Kong was soaked in Chinese language movies. This one is particularly good. Directed by Li Shin, the Chinese Kurosawa, in his prime in the sixties. It is a moral fable about the redemption of a condemn murderer’s soul. Beautifully shot in black and white, flawlessly edited. The film won best film, best director, best screenplay at the 1971 Taiwanese Golden Horse Award. Looking back at it now, it seems tear jerking, heavy handed, unapologetically sentimental and self-righteous. but when I was a kid, I took it in lock-stock-and-barrow. The Confucius moral code the movie expounds formed my bone marrow. The Taoist philosophies of freedom and truth became my blood. The Buddhist principals of love and compassion pumped my heart. I am a full bright light worker because I was raised with good intentions. The down side is, ultimately, this film is the symbol of the moral prison I put myself in. The operating system running all my programs is invisible to me. I was wallowing in guilt about how inadequate a Confucius daughter I am or acting out of duty instead of from my heart. Everything has a “proper” way and the “proper” way is the only way. I met Otie, a young “white devil”, which is what westerners are called, he lives unblushingly for his highest joy and consistently being true to himself. He does things because it gives him excitement and not according to some ancient moral conduct. I suddenly saw the operating system that is running me all these years without my conscious knowledge! Confucius said, I am my father’s daughter, my husband’s wife and my son’s mother. Who am I? I had no idea! A head strong woman like me being run by some old folks back home without even knowing it. Frightening idea! I woke one day watched this film over and over examining each and every frame, I found all the hidden agendas and I found amazing beauty too. Coming to terms to what this film is and what it means helped me to come to terms with myself. I didn’t throw away the baby with the bath; I kept some of the old country and I threw away some. Balance. Confucius said that too, take the middle road. Wise old geezer.
2. THE RED SHOES (1948)
Oh Moira Sheara is so beautiful dancing in those pretty red toe shoes. I must have been five-years-old when I first saw it and right away I fell in love. Hopelessly in love with ballet – the life style, the costume, the music and I fell in love with England too – so classy! I started ballet lessons with a beautiful Royal Academy trained prima ballerina. Those were fun years of performing on stage at the Hong Kong City Hall, traveling to far away places to dance for children, sewing tutus, getting my sister in Australia to buy Bloch’s black satin toe shoes, wearing tight tight dancer outfits to show off my firm tight tight body, smoking cigarettes to show how much I don’t care and romancing other dancers. Oh, my head stuck in a pink cloud for a good fourteen years. Until I hit the cloud bursting brake wall of The Juilliard School. Juilliard killed the romance I learned from The Red Shoes and replaced it the reality of competitive dancing. Off with the pretty rosy glasses and on with the hard work of becoming a prima ballerina! Those four years at Juilliard were sobering, gut wrenching, fire dowsing and pink dispelling. Shortly I graduated from Juilliard I quit dancing all together. I never came to ballet for the hard work, I came for the romance! Long live the Red Shoes!
3. BLOW-UP (1969)
Oh my god, so hot! I became a still photographer because of it. I have watched this movie more times than I have any other film. With every passing year I watched it again and again to relive the hip feeling it gave me the first time. Oh, how cool how intelligent how romantic how deep! I know every frame. I once printed out every frame in the entire film and studied the composition. I am endlessly fascinated by the story. The last sequence is a trip. A group of mine is playing an invisible ball. They toss the ball up, the camera follows it up, they toss the ball down, the camera pans down. Nothing, of course, you see nothing because it’s an invisible ball, but you see the ball. The ball is in your mind! Just like the invisible dead body (the main plot of the film is about a murder.) You know you saw it but it’s not there. So cool! Miracles in life are like that. You don’t see it physically but you do see it spiritually. Ahhhh! I love this film!
4. 8 ½ (1963)
Well, I became a film director as a result of seeing this film about a film director. It’s a film made from the heart and not the logical mind. It’s poetry. Every frame stayed with me. I want to be a disciplined idealist, a skilled craftsman and a poet just like Fellini. So in my late twenties, I quit dancing and went to UCLA Film School. I wrote and directed two feature films. Lived my own 8 ½. And discovered the hard way I wasn’t Fellini after all. I am, well, Jenny Funkmeyer, one-of-a-kind individual, not like Fellini. Following someone’s footsteps lead nowhere. We all are unique. Buddha’s enlightenment is not my enlightenment. I have to find my own way. These days I watch the movie with glee. Marveling at how long I have come as my own person. In my garage, Fellini has nothing over me, I am as good a filmmaker as he.
5. RAN (1985)
Epic! Everyone said it’s Kurosawa making Shakespeare’s King Lear but he was only aware of the similarity after he finished the screenplay. Nakadai plays the king driven to madness by his own bad judgment. Oh, just thinking about his face when he realized what a fool he is makes me kick my legs up and scream. Haha! Seeing the man’s total ruin makes me laugh and cry at the same time. Life is so impossible! All your good intentions go to pots, nothing works out, fine castle burns to ashes, good family kills each other for peanuts. Life is unreasonable and shitty, yes, but also crazy beautiful. What a beautiful movie!
6. DUMBO (1941)
Dumbo, the baby elephant who saves his mom, was my first born baby Weixin’s favorite movie. She started watching it when she was about two-years-old and didn’t stop until she was about five. At some point she watched it at least once and sometimes three times a day. That means I did too. The funny thing is, Weixin is indeed the baby who came to save me from ruin. So far in twenty years she did it four times. I was a two-pack smoker when I got pregnant with her. From day one, every time I think of a cigarette I’d threw up. If I smell cigarette smoke I’d threw up, I reached for one I’d threw up. Yes, it was easy to quit when your baby makes you! Weixin held my hand when she was learning to walk. And that was the first time in my life I stopped running, I took baby steps with her, smelling the flowers. That was a revelation. The world looks so different when one takes the time to explore. An earth shaking event in her thirteenth year made me realized I literally don’t see what’s in front of me. I lived in my fantasy. The experience started me on my spiritual quest, looking for something deeper than what meets the eye. Then Weixin joined the Naval Academy. My life was shattered again. I am a died hard liberal convinced the military is bad. Through Weixin I learned the military is great training for young people. She is disciplined, honor bounded and physically fit and I have my soft tai-chi belly, wishy washy “spiritual” questing searching investigation of life. Once we were to meet in New Year City when she will be in town. It was months ahead and I, of course, have no idea where I would be. She said, “Ma! I’ll meet you at sixteen hundred at the corner of… Be there! I have to be back at the same corner at eighteen-hundred.” Geese! What time is that? The military is 99.9% good – with one little modification – focus on peace not war. Why not go building houses instead of knocking them down? The way the military train our young people is good news; how the weapon industry uses these young people is bad news. I pray the leadership makes a drastic change of heart before my daughter graduate and serves her tour of duty. I don’t want my baby waste her beautiful mind and body on greed, hate and power. I want her to make light not darkness upon the earth! Life is so magical. Relationships often are not what it seems on the surface. One can’t think what a relationship should be but feel it with one’s heart. I teach Weixin how to eat and walk but she teaches me much bigger things. I know Weixin and I are eternal souls in love, intertwined, life after life to have fun with each other. Just like Dumbo and his Mama.
7. THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939)
This is my younger daughter baby Sasha’s favorite movie. From age two to age ten, she watched it often, sometimes three times a day. Well, yes, that means me too. Dorothy, who needs help finding home, is my baby Sasha. My biggest connection to Sasha is she needs me to help her. Weixin is an independent baby, Sasha is different that she needs a lot of help. Sasha is a magical being, like a fairy, she is all light worker. She radiant love. That’s what I get for all the work, incredible love from Sasha. I love her and she loves me. This life is good for the love we share. Now Sasha is grown and one of her favorite movies is Amelie, about a angel like vigilante girl who goes out of her way to help others. A full circle, the girl who needs helps is helping others.
8. BURDEN OF DREAMS (1982)
Desires are trouble, Buddha said so. A life without dreams is not worth living but a life with dreams is a burden. This dilemma is life itself. Sigh! I watched this film so many times already that I don’t want to watch it again. But each time I get sucked in. Oh, the sight of the boat going over the hill. Life is not only eating cherry pie, life is also about pulling the burden of your dreams. There is no defense, no way out. Once I am born I have to have dreams and I have to bear the burden. Sadness overcomes me sometimes. Life is so so impossible.
9. ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND (2004)
This movie etched itself in my heart. Clever, simple, complex, poetic, insightful, a brilliant movie, well acted, directed, edited and, of course, great script. Otis and I say “meet me in Montauk” to each other. Meaning after this life is over and our bodies deaded, our spirits return to God (or All That Is or Source or the Zero Point Filed) and no longer in our current ego identities, we will meet each other again. Our love for each other creates a desire. A desire that God doesn’t understand because God is one and one can’t love. God will have such a desire, an itch really, to be not one but two again. Love is for two – only two can enjoy true love – love the other side of self, the shadow side. To be two is to be in the physical reality. So God is reborn again as human. And than one day, not knowing why, but feel this itch, this desire, to go to Montauk, for no good reason. There… I, who will not be I but a whole new person, will meet Otis, who will not be Otis but a new person too. We will meet again, reinvent life again…. Our love is a love intoxicating enough to make me not want to be God (one) but to be born again to be two (human)… just to meet him again … in Montauk… again and again… life after life. I love you Otis….
10. HAPPY GO LUCKY (2008)
This movie makes me feel so good. Hey, Life can be rotten, sick, stupid, unpleasant, sad…. all bad things can happen. In fact, bring them on. No worries. If you have that happy-go-lucky heart, you can take it all in stride. My life has been enriched by watching this movie. I got the message, I know what it look like to process that happy attitude. Yes, I can! Happy go lucky, Pollyanna, stubbornly focused on being happy. Go Jenny! Jenny is the name of my chicken. I knew her well when I was growing up in my family’s chicken farm. Jenny hen was cocky, a Pollyanna to the end. I took the chicken’s name because that mindlessly relentlessly happy attitude is what I want in my life.
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