Blog Posts

The Philosophy of True Detective

11/6/2020

by Mason Leaver

This article contains minor spoilers for the first season of True Detective

The first season of the anthology series True Detective is, at its core, an exploration of philosophical concepts, wrapped in the shroud of a compelling murder mystery thriller. The two main characters, Rustin “Rust” Cohle, and Marty Hart, represent two worldviews which are antithetical to each other. Marty is a fairly typical “every-man”. Marty describes himself in the first episode as “just a regular type dude…”. He attends church, prays before meals, has a wife and kids, but he’s also involved in an affair. Marty represents the sort of man that’s common in America- he believes that his life has purpose and value, and he believes in good and evil, even if he can’t always follow his own guidelines. Rust is the absolute opposite of Marty. Rust lives alone, in a bare-bones house that just serves as a place to sleep. Rust describes himself as a pessimist- he does not believe in any kind of objective morality or purpose in life. There is no God, and there are no objective rules. What is ironic about this is that while Marty claims to believe in a greater purpose in life, he is a moral hypocrite, unable to act on what he claims to believe. Rust, however, follows his philosophy adamantly. Through Marty and Rust’s discussions, True Detective presents a number of interesting philosophical concepts, and also takes Rust on a journey of belief as his worldviews change.

“I'd consider myself a realist, alright? But in philosophical terms I'm what's called a pessimist”.- Rust Cohle

Pessimism is, philosophically speaking, an extension of nihilism. Nihilism is the view that life has no intrinsic meaning. Pessimism starts with this view, but takes it further, claiming that the very concept of progress is a myth- things are getting worse all the time. One very prominent pessimist is 19th century philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer’s basic philosophy regarding pessimism came from a focus on the tension between the Will and Reason. Reason can be seen as the human capacity to act rationally. Reason is what we use when we engage in philosophy, in art, and if we always followed it, the world would be great; perhaps as great as it could possibly be. However, man is limited in their capacity to pursue reason, because of the Will. The Will, for Schopenhauer, was our most base urges- an endless, driving hunger which can never be satisfied. Heavily influenced by the Darwinism of his time, Schopenhauer saw the world as a place full of creatures in a struggle to survive and mate. As such, these desires, the Will, drive our every decision and desire. We cannot help but pursue these things. We are bound as perpetual slaves to the Will, and in being bound we find misery in our constant striving for more, unable to do anything else. As Schopenhauer famously said, “Man can do what he wills, but cannot will what he wills”. Rust sees himself, and all of humanity, as being stuck in a path laid out before them by their Wills.

Rust Cohle in True Detective

“I think the honorable thing for our species to do is to deny our programming. Stop reproducing. Walk hand in hand into extinction… I tell myself I bear witness, but the real answer is that it's obviously my programming.”- Rust Cohle

Besides Rust’s philosophical pessimism, he also holds to a school of thought known as anti-natalism. Anti-natalism is the view that humans should stop procreating, because bringing a human life into the world is ethically wrong. Without higher meaning in their ethics system, many nihilists create a system of ethics which focuses on reducing suffering in the world. The pessimist is inclined to see all of life as prolonged suffering, and as such, to cause someone to enter into this suffering would be morally wrong. Anti-natalists also argue that no one enters the world consensually, but is thrust into the world without having a say in it. As such, nonexistence is far better, and so we should not create any new beings. South African philosopher David Benatar likely first coined the term “anti-natalist” in his book Better to Have Never Been, where he argues that it would have been better for him, and indeed everyone, to have never existed. However, the anti-natalist sentiment is not necessarily new. Consider the Bible verse Ecclesiastes 4:3, which says “But better than both is he who has not yet existed, who has not seen the evil that is done under the sun…”. Following his pessimistic outlook to it’s natural conclusion, Rust connects with the anti-natalist view, claiming that extinction is better than bringing another life into the world.

“Transference of fear and self-loathing to an authoritarian vessel. It's catharsis. He absorbs their dread with his narrative. Because of this, he's effective in proportion to the amount of certainty he can project. Certain linguistic anthropologists think that religion is a language virus that rewrites pathways in the brain. Dulls critical thinking.”- Rust Cohle

Nihilism has often tied in with it a great skepticism of, and animosity toward, religious institutions. Perhaps most famous among nihilists is the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who famously declared that “God is dead, and we killed him”. The world has no objective values, and God does not exist, and so religious organizations which seek to discourage or punish “deviant” behavior is clearly overstepping. In True Detective, Rust expresses this distrust for religious organizations when he and Marty enter a big-tent revival ministry, where he says that people who follow religions console themselves with a cosmic lie. Without God, there is no meaning in the universe, and our attempts to create values and enforce them are foolish. Existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre even took the claim regarding God’s non-existence a step further. He claimed that even if God did exist, our lives would still ultimately be meaningless, as the values assigned by God would be arbitrary, and therefore meaningless. Based on his previous explanation of his pessimistic outlook about the fundamental nature of the universe, and how existence is at its core only suffering, it is safe to say that Rust takes the Existentialist position that even God’s existence could not bring meaning to our lives.

Rust admires birds

The idea that religion is a “language virus” is an idea that is tied to Richard Dawkins’ idea of “memes”. Dawkins’ meme theory suggests that cultures evolve similarly to biological creatures, and that the ideas which spread the best become the most popular. These ideas which rapidly spread across populations are known as “memes”. One easy example of this could be children’s playground rhymes. Things like “Jingle-bells, Batman smells…” or “Ring around the rosie” had to start somewhere, and their spreading is a result of their effect on the person that hosts them. In this way, ideas can spread like a virus. In his book The Selfish Gene, Dawkins suggests that religion is one of, if not the most potent of all memes. Rust agrees with Dawkins on this topic. To Rust, religion’s popularity is not because of anything true that it says about the world, but instead it is a result of the chemical effect which religion has on our brains. To Rust, religion is like a virus we have come to love, and want to share with others.

“In eternity, where there is no time, nothing can grow. Nothing can become. Nothing changes. So Death created time to grow the things that it would kill. And you are reborn, but into the same life that you've always been born into. I mean, how many times have we had this conversation, detectives? Well, who knows? When you can't remember your lives, you can't change your lives, and that is the terrible and the secret fate of all life. You're trapped by that nightmare you keep waking up into.” - Rust Cohle

Here, Rust is referring to a concept Nietzsche introduced, known as the Eternal Recurrence of the Same. Nietzsche addresses this concept in both The Gay Science and Thus Spoke Zarathustra. The idea of the Eternal Recurrence of the Same is that, as Rust describes, the universe repeats itself infinitely, over and over again, eternally. Each of our lives has been, is being, and will be lived out again infinitely many times, exactly the same as it did last time. In Nietzsche’s writing it is difficult to tell whether he meant this concept to be an actual cosmological theory about the nature of time, or if it served more as a thought exercise to tell if one is living a good life now. Perhaps Nietzsche meant for us to ask if we would actually be happy if our life would live out the same way forever. Or perhaps he was suggesting an alternative way for the universe to exist (eternally recurring it’s own existence) without God’s creation. At another point in the season, a character (who will go unnamed to avoid spoilers) quotes Nietzsche by saying “Time is a flat circle”, which is to say, it repeats forever. Regardless of what Nietzsche meant, it seems that Rust takes this idea very seriously. In fact, it seems that this concept plays a part in Rust’s pessimism, suggesting that he may believe that the Eternal Recurrence is actually, literally real.

Marty and Rust on an investigation

“There was a moment-- I know when I was under in the dark that something... whatever I'd been reduced to, you know, not even consciousness. It was a vague awareness in the dark, and I could-- I could feel my definitions fading. And beneath that... darkness, there was another kind. It was--it was deeper, warm, you know, like a substance. I could feel, man, and I knew, I knew my daughter waited for me there. So clear. I could feel her. [Voice trembling] I could feel... I could feel a piece of my--my pop, too. It was like I was a part of everything that I ever loved, and we were all... the 3 of us, just-- just fadin' out. And all I had to do was let go... and I did. I said, Darkness, yeah, yeah." And I disappeared. But I could-- I could still feel her love there, even more than before. Nothing... There was nothing but that love. Then I woke up.” - Rust Cohle

At the end of the season, after a near death experience, Rust describes having a sort of out-of-body experience where he encountered the love of his dead daughter and father. This experience radically changes Rust’s worldview. Where Rust used to be a pessimist and an atheist, he now seems to be an optimist, and a sort of pantheist. Rust later says that it “seems like the light is winning”, suggesting that he is beginning to believe that things are getting better, not worse. His reference to light, which is winning over darkness, also suggests a sort of objective morality that he might now believe in. Rust’s reference to his daughter and father’s love being at the very core of existence, where there was “nothing but that love” suggests that he might believe that they still exist, in some disembodied sort of way. While this is not stated explicitly, I would suggest that Rust believes that “God” is in everything and is everything, a sort of pantheism, which, when we die, we participate in. It is an absolutely radical change in worldview for Rust, but one that the show helps to set up throughout the season. Through Rust’s character development, True Detective also exposes us to a huge host of philosophical worldviews, exploring them deeply and tactfully, not just through exposition, but also the actions of the characters.

Fans of True Detective may also like Prisoners, Twin Peaks, Fargo (2014), and Zodiac.

Works Cited

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, et al. The Gay Science. Dover Publications, Inc., 2020.

Guignon, Charles B., et al. “The Humanism of Existentialism.” Existentialism: Basic Writings, Hackett, 2001.

Benatar, David. Better Never to Have Been: the Harm of Coming into Existence. Clarendon Press, 2013.

Schopenhauer, Arthur, et al. The World as Will and Representation. Cambridge University Press, 2018.

Dawkins, Richard. The Selfish Gene. Oxford University Press, 2016.

“True Detective.” IMDb, IMDb.com, www.imdb.com/title/tt2356777/episodes?season=1.

0 Comments

Environmentalism in a Galaxy Far, Far Away

11/2/2020

0 Comments

by Landen Kennedy

Ezra Bridger encounters a Loth-wolf, a creature with a very unusual connection to the Force

While originating on the big screen, television has recently become a home to many new adventures in everyone’s favorite galaxy far, far away. The Star Wars franchise has achieved great success in television with programs like Star Wars: The Clone Wars, an animated series following the events between Episodes II and III of the film series, and The Mandalorian, a live-action show that helped launch Disney+, Disney’s streaming service. These two are the most popular Star Wars television shows, but another animated show was made that seems to have found a devoted fan base, but seems to have missed the larger appeal that The Clone Wars managed to achieve.
   Star Wars: Rebels tells the story of the birth of the Rebel Alliance before the events of Episode IV. The show ran for four seasons and told one single story, as opposed to The Clone Wars’ more anthology style storytelling. Rebels has been criticized by a subset of Star Wars fans for being too childish and having a different animation style, however, the concepts that the show approaches and discusses make the show often more engaging. Among these themes present in the show, environmentalism is frequently discussed and used to further both the plot and the characters.
   Nature is prevalent at the core of many episodes across the show’s four season run. Star Wars is known to throw in some interesting creatures here and there, but usually these creatures are obstacles for our heroes to overcome rather than victims of abuse for them to help. Where this show makes a critical difference, which alters its approach to animals, is that it gives our protagonist, Ezra Bridger, the ability to connect to animals through the Force. This allows him to empathize and connect with them in meaningful ways that both help progress the plot and also drive the themes of environmentalism forward.
   Throughout the show, Lothal is used as the home base for the crew of Rebels that comprise our main cast. Ezra is an orphan from the planet, so his connection runs even deeper than everyone else's. Native to Lothal are a species of critter called Loth-cats. These are cat-like creatures with chicken-like legs and wide mouths. In the episode “Legacy” (Season 2, Episode 11) Ezra receives a Force vision of a Loth-cat. Believing this vision to be a clue to his parents’ whereabouts, Ezra heads to Lothal to find this Loth-cat. What Ezra finds is not his parents, but a man who knew his parents. The Loth-cat was used as a connection between Ezra and home, both his planet and the people he loved.

Ezra finds the white Loth-cat he believes will lead him to his missing parents

In the final season, the Rebels encounter another species native to Lothal, the mysterious Loth-wolves. These are massive wolf-like creatures with bird-like legs. What makes these animals so interesting and useful to the group of main characters is that the Loth-wolves have a deep connection with the Force. In Star Wars lore, the Force is an energy field created by and connecting all living things. This is the strongest connection between the franchise and the idea of environmentalism, as the Force is necessary for and dependent on life, nature, and harmony of living things. The Loth-wolves are more connected to the Force than any other creature, which allows them to view our Rebel heroes as friends rather than foe. The Empire builds factories all over Lothal, damaging the air and the environment, so the Loth-wolves recognize that our heroes want to save the planet from The Empire’s destruction.
Ezra and his Jedi master Kanan both have connections with these wolves that further develop their characters. For Kanan, the wolves represent a connection to the Force, to nature, to life. Kanan was a Jedi learner when the Jedi were destroyed by the Empire, so he lived most of his life neglecting the Force, but over time he has come to reacquaint himself with it, and the wolves seem to recognize this. At first they seem scary and dangerous, but as Kanan gets to know them, they become more comfortable and Kanan actually learns and grows because of them. Ezra is also frightened of them, but he is able to recognize that they need his help as much as he needs their help, and together they are able to fight the Empire.
Kanan and Ezra learn a lot about themselves from another species as well. They encounter a dangerous species of giant spider on a planet that they build a secret base on. After Kanan receives some teaching from an ancient being called Bendu, who himself resembles a giant ape-like animal with coral or plant-like appendages growing from his head and back. Bendu is almost an anthropomorphized version of the Force as a connection to life. Bendu teaches Kanan and Ezra not to fear the spiders, but to realize that fear and lashing out at the spiders is what causes them to be hostile. Again, the show is promoting the idea that nature isn’t something that should be conquered, but can be lived in harmony with. The spiders aren’t vicious beasts looking for a meal, they are scared and want to protect themselves, just like the human characters.

The Rebels encounter a group of mysterious purrgil

There are several other episodes where animals make a significant contribution to the plot, but perhaps the most important are the purrgil. Purrgil are like whales with squid tentacles that live in the vacuum of space. In the episode “The Call” (Season 2, Episode 15) the Rebel crew encounters the purrgil when they try to steal supplies from an Imperial mine. Hera, the captain of the Rebel crew, thinks the purrgil are extremely dangerous, as run-ins with them have historically not ended well for space pilots. However, Ezra is able to use the Force to connect with the purrgil and learns that they want the same thing the rebels do. At the mine, the Empire is trying to exterminate the purrgil. By teaming with the rebels, they defeat the Empire at the mine and the purrgil use the fuel to travel through hyperspace. This is a feat only starships with special engines can pull off, so the rebel crew is astounded at the impossibility of what these animals are doing.
At the end of the show, during the final battle against the Empire’s forces on Lothal, Ezra is able to connect with the purrgil and use them to win the day by dragging the Empire’s giant battleships into hyperspace and taking them who knows where in the galaxy. The show seems to be promoting the idea that if we help nature, nature will in turn help us. As we cut down the rainforests, we are cutting down the possibility of never-before-seen medicines. When we pollute the air, we damage our own ability to breathe. When we burn holes in the ozone layer, we increase our own likelihood of developing illnesses. Star Wars: Rebels uses various creatures to develop the main characters and to teach the audience that balance between humanity and nature is not only important, but vital to the continued existence of both.

0 Comments

Thought + Concentration = Flesh : Empty Man Review

10/30/2020

0 Comments

Philosophers have spent their lives trying to rationalize reality, all boiling down to the question “how do you know for sure?” The Empty Man (David Prior 2020) explores this idea as a means to propel the story. The blur between what we think is real and what isn’t makes for some interesting, and sometimes confusing story elements. The truth of reality is explored throughout the film, peeling back the layers of our day to day lives and into the true nothingness of it all. The film throws a lot of ideas at the audience, conveying them both visually and audibly. Visually, the film is well shot, the camera angles show character dynamics and the imagery becomes very haunting. There are a variety of locations and good production value, keeping the audience's attention the whole time. However, there are some problems in the screenwriting. The dialogue becomes clunky and out of place that it pulls you out of the story. I’m more focused on the on-the-nose dialogue instead of the captivating visual story. Overall, The Empty Man is a philosophical head trip, but don’t expect to be fully immersed.

The rest of the review contains spoilers for The Empty Man, and contains descriptions that may be disturbing to some readers, discretion is advised.

The story is set up with a cold open that almost feels like a short film. It introduces the start of the Empty Man, the process of how a normal person turns into a transmitter of energy. Set in 1995, a group of tourists hike up a mountain in Bhutan. One of them is tranced and mindlessly falls down into a religious shrine. Whatever power that dwells down there takes hold of him, emptying him of thought and feeling. From this, I thought the film was going to be a survival film, his three friends trying to weather the cold while also trying to figure out what is wrong with him. But this story ends as soon as it starts, everyone but the now Empty Man dies, while he is left muttering in the cold. This intro sequence is very compelling, and is a nice reversal of expectations. It makes us think we’re in one kind of movie, but really we’re in another. It is a bit confusing at first, but it does set up the end of the story, giving the audience that “aha” moment along with temporary catharsis.

For the remainder of the film, we follow James, a retired cop, who is forced back into action when his neighbor’s daughter, Amanda, goes missing. In the chase to find her and her friends, he finds the true meaning of his existence. As James investigates, we come across some distracting dialogue. For example, a guy James has never met before says, “hey, you’re the famous retired cop, undercover right?” I couldn’t let that go for the rest of the film. The guy isn’t even introducing himself, he’s just in the room and awkwardly says it. After watching the film, I understand that dialogue was meant to establish James in the world. Characters beside James confirm his extenstence by saying that they’ve known him for a long time. It’s a way for the dialogue to reveal plot, but it didn’t maintain audience immersion through its delivery. That line along with a few others were not realistic enough to be believable, which made it hard to stay immersed.

The story is structured around an unconventional philosophy. The idea that thought is the creation of all things, That nothing is real unless we think it, anything outside of understanding through thought doesn't exist. James finds that Amanda and her friends are connected to the Pontitfix Society, which believes in this line of thinking. Furthemore, they believe that to truly understand this notion, you must receive energy waves transmitted from the Empty Man. The Empty Man is no longer a person, but a tool for understanding the “black endless chaos” of true reality. The monster of the film transmits messages through the Empty Man to the members of the Pontitfix Society. They become hive minded, subdued into spreading its ‘truth.’ The previous Empty Man, the hiker from the beginning of the film, has been left to be cared for in a hospital, where all the followers of the Pontitfix Society go to receive the truth.

We discover that all of this thought, no matter how outlandish it may seem, is true in the film’s universe. That flesh can be made through thought and that only what can be thought is real. This is proved by James, who we discover is not a real person who has a life and relationships, but a man, about 3 days old, constructed by the Pontitfix Society to become their new Empty Man. Before this discovery, James is talking with others, remembering his past, and working to find out who is behind the murders. James' realization of this reverts his mind into a state of hallucinations and non-being. It blurs the line between what we think is real and what we think are hallucinations. The end is a collage of imagery, revealing James has been in multiple places at once and that those he had talked to don’t actually know him. We ask ourselves if what we saw even happened, or if it was all some sort of dream in James’ mind.

0 Comments

The Legend of Korra: Humanizing a Hero

10/23/2020

0 Comments

by Landen Kennedy

SPOILERS FOR THE LEGEND OF KORRA

     Avatar: The Last Airbender (Nickelodeon, 2005-2008) was a popular show about a fantasy world in which some of its inhabitants have the special ability to “bend” the elements: air, earth, water, or fire. One person in the world is the Avatar. This person can bend all four elements, and is reincarnated throughout the world’s history. After The Last Airbender met with critical and commercial success, and with a plot device like reincarnation, a sequel show was a no-brainer, and thus The Legend of Korra (Nickelodeon, 2012-2014) was born.
     The show follows the next reincarnation of the Avatar, a girl from the Southern Water Tribe named Korra. She trains under the son of previous Avatar Aang in Republic City, the seat of the new government that Aang helped create. The show is self aware in the respect that this new Avatar is living in the shadow of Aang, quite literally in fact, as a massive statue of Aang rests in the harbor near Korra’s new residence, Airbender Island. The show is even more self-aware in that the creators address the crowd immediately as a young child Korra yells, “I’m the Avatar, and you gotta deal with it!”
  The fanbase of The Last Airbender is torn on Korra, with some praising the show and the new directions it takes the world, and some wishing the franchise had been left alone. I find myself on the side which favors the show, as it not only continues the themes of the original, but also pushes the envelope and the world in new and fascinating directions. The biggest of these changes is that the world has seen significant advancement since the original show. There are new technologies, like early automobiles and moving pictures, aka “movers” in this world, as well as new governments and more intermingling of the world’s cultures. This creates a setting that is simultaneously familiar and foreign to the viewer.

The world of The Legend of Korra is much more technologically advanced than it was during The Last Airbender.

Korra is a much different Avatar than Aang was. She starts off with the brazen confidence and tenacity that Aang had to learn over the course of his show. Some might see this as making Korra too powerful to start, but as her story unfolds over four seasons and encounters with various villains change her outlook on herself and the world, she learns to be more like Aang. By the end of the show, she would prefer to talk to the villain first and try to reach a peaceful resolution to conflict, whereas in the first few seasons she would rather beat the enemy into submission.
The show is not only about the Avatar, but also the people she surrounds herself with. Tenzin, her master, is the only Airbending master in the world. Bolin and Mako are brothers, an earthbender and a firebender respectively, and Korra’s Professional Bending teammates. Asami is a genius and daughter of a famous inventor. Lin Beifong is the gruff chief of the Metalbending Police in the city and the daughter of one of Aang’s best friends. There are also Tenzin’s children, Jinorah, Ikki, and Meelo, as well as Lin Beifong’s extended family, and several others. There are so many side characters that the world feels genuinely large, however, because there are so many, we do not get to see nearly as much development for their characters as we saw in The Last Airbender. Fortunately, a lot of time is spent on Korra’s development, making her the most engaging character to watch.
One way this show greatly expands on the world we know is by exploring the spiritual side of the Avatar’s duties. The Avatar is not only supposed to keep the four nations in harmony, but also the physical and spirit worlds. In The Last Airbender, we touch on the tip of the spiritual iceberg, but in Korra we dive right into the deep end, especially in season 2. This season is often regarded as the lowest in quality of the four, however, this is due to how much is spent focusing on spiritual matters rather than the more grounded politics that fans are used to. We deal with a villain of metaphysical status and abilities, as well as spiritual concepts that never get brought up in The Last Airbender.

The main cast of The Legend of Korra, from left to right: Asami, Bolin (and his pet Pabu), Korra, Mako, and Tenzin

The villains are often a highlight, as they are all used to further Korra’s character and act as a foil to her. The first villain, Amon, is the leader of the Equalist movement, who wants to take away the bending abilities of all benders so that the non-benders can finally be equal. The second villain is Korra’s uncle Unalaq who wants to merge with a spirit of chaos to become a Dark Avatar to replace Korra. The third villain, Zaheer, is the leader of a terrorist organization who gains the ability to Airbend and wants to rid the world of the Avatar. The final villain is a metalbender named Kuvira who wants to unite the Earth Kingdom to bring peace, but uses fascist ideals to do so.
Korra starts the show very confident in her abilities and her role as the Avatar, however, she often thinks too highly of herself. Each villain lowers her confidence in herself by dealing devastating blows to her, until she is finally broken and afraid. She has to learn to find confidence in herself and to see the value in everyone. She has to realize just how human she is to truly be the hero she knows that she is destined to be.

0 Comments

The Killing of a Sacred Deer Analysis

10/19/2020

2 Comments

By Ravi Ahuja

“I believe the most logical thing, no matter how harsh this may sound, is to kill a child. Because we can have another child. I still can and you can. And if you can't, we can try IVF, but I'm sure we can.”

In the lore of Greek myth, King Agamemnon was preparing to sail off and conquer Troy when he unwittingly killed one of Artemis’ sacred deer. Artemis, furious at this transgression, stops the wind from blowing and prevents Agamenon and his fleet from sailing to Troy. The only thing he can do to atone for his mistake is to sacrifice his daughter, Iphigenia. Some versions of the myth end with Iphigenia being sacrificed to Artemis, while some end with Artemis providing a deer to replace Iphigenia at the moment of sacrifice, reminiscent of the story of Abraham on Mount Moriah.

Steven (Colin Farrell) and Martin (Barry Keoghan) talking at the hospital

Yorgos Lanthimos retells this story in a modern setting with Steven Murphy, a renowned heart surgeon, taking the place of Agamemnon. Steven is married to a beautiful woman, well respected in her own field of medicine. His two children are obedient and intelligent, participating in after-school activities like choir and piano practice. The one blemish in an otherwise pristine life is his secret friendship with Martin, a teenage boy who he occasionally spends time with. The nature and cause of their relationship is a mystery until we learn that Martin is the son of a patient who died on Steven’s operating table. Their friendship is stable for a while, until Martin invites Steven to his home for dinner, where his mother makes sexual advances on Steven. He quickly rebuffs these advances and leaves their home. Following this dinner, Steven stops talking to Martin, who knowingly tried to set the two up, thinking that they would be a good couple. Soon after cutting ties with Martin, Steven’s son Bob becomes paralyzed. Martin explains the situation very simply to Steven. Bob will remain paralyzed and refuse food to the point of starvation for a while, then his eyes will begin to bleed and he will die. Steven’s daughter and wife will soon follow. The only way to stop this fate is for Steven to kill one of them.

Bob (Sunny Suljic) collapses at the exit of the hospital as Anna (Nicole Kidman) stands by

Despite both this movie and the myth it’s adapted from appearing on the surface to be about sacrifice, it is actually much more concerned with the idea of justice. A sacrifice made unwillingly is not a sacrifice but a punishment, a price for some mistake. In this case, a death for a death, or as Martin states, “just like you killed a member of my family, now you gotta kill a member of your family to balance things out”. This idea of balance is entirely relative, and one can see just how much it changes depending on the perspective you take. From Martin’s point of view, Steven killed his father through a surgical mistake. Justice is straightforward; Steven must kill a member of his own family to undergo the same suffering he made Martin go through. Martin tries explaining this to Steven straightforwardly through the film, but he refuses to listen. “I just want to show you an example… just one little example to show you what I mean,” Martin says, viciously biting down on Steven’s arm and leaving a bloody wound. While Steven recoils in pain and shock, Martin explains in simple terms, “Should I apologize? No… No, there’s only one way to make you and me both feel better,”. He doesn’t hesitate to chomp down just as brutally on his own arm, tearing away a chunk of flesh. To Martin, justice is punitive. The only right way to treat a culprit is to make them face the same consequences and pain that they put others through.
Yet, from perspectives other than Martin’s, this idea of justice is completely imbalanced. Steven is a skilled surgeon who rarely makes mistakes, but he still can’t be expected to save the life of every patient put in front of him. Even if it would be right to find blame in Steven, other people are being punished for his mistake. His wife, Anna, even directly confronts Martin about this, telling him, “I don't understand why I should have to pay the price. Why my children should have to pay the price.” Punitive justice is never perfectly balanced, because no two actions have the same consequences. The context surrounding each crime, culprit, and victim will always be unique and can never be replicated. Even Martin realizes that perfect balance can’t be achieved, responding to Anna, “I don't know if what is happening is fair, but it's the only thing I can think of that's close to justice.”

Bob’s eyes begin to bleed, signalling that he will die soon

Aside from the theme of justice, fatherhood is also a recurring idea throughout this film. It is notable that Martin doesn’t enact his punitive justice on Steven until he rejects becoming Martin’s father. Steven does play a paternal role to Martin in the beginning of the movie, showing him around the hospital and giving him a watch as a present. In being ignored, Martin may have felt like another father figure was being taken away from him. It is also interesting to examine Steven’s parental relationship to his actual children. Although he is a very providing father, giving his children gifts and opportunities, he seems somewhat absent from their lives. He is also extremely strict and even downright cruel at points. When Bob first falls ill, before Steven knows that Martin is the cause, he treats Bob with no compassion at all, letting him drop to the floor on more than one occasion and forcing a donut into his mouth to get him to eat. It seems that Lanthimos is criticizing the idea that a good father is merely someone who provides for their children, as Steven does that to both Martin and his own children while still being detached and coldhearted with them.

Anna looks at Steven through a pane of glass

Of course, Steven’s characterization is also a product of Lanthimos’ directorial style, which I would be remiss to not discuss. If there is one thing Lanthimos is known for, it is his treatment of character; or more specifically, the way he wields his actors. Lines are consistently delivered with a flat and unaffected voice and emotion is avoided whenever possible. It’s a style not unlike how Wes Anderson uses his actors, but instead of the charming and whimsical worlds those characters populate, Lanthimos opts to place his characters in much darker contexts. In his previous films The Lobster (2015) and Dogtooth (2009), which feature inherently absurd premises, this style works wonderfully to create moments of absurdist black humor. The Killing of a Sacred Deer, while far from a realistic movie, does have a much more grounded and plausible foundation, transforming the feeling of Lanthimos’ usual style from comically absurd to unsettling and even horrifying.
Along with the dry and unemotional acting, characters also frequently say or do things that would be considered extremely socially inappropriate or awkward, with other characters not even batting an eye. Both Anna and Kim (the Murphy’s daughter) discuss Kim’s menstruation in polite conversation with guests, Steven publicly tells Anna that he does not value her medical opinion in this case, the list goes on. This combination of stoic acting and lack of social norms features in all of Lanthimos’ films, and seems to be done at least in part as a way to explore the idea of what makes us human. There are many moments where it feels as if the characters on screen are aliens or machines rather than human beings. They aren’t totally lacking human emotions like love and anger, but they don’t seem affected by them the same way that normal people are either. With this in mind, exploring very human topics like justice and fatherhood is an interesting choice by Lanthimos. Perhaps he sees punitive justice as a rational, but inhuman solution. We often like to think of the legal system as blind and objective, abstracting from human emotion, but maybe this isn’t always for the best. An eye for an eye is rational, but we would be better off seeking restorative justice than seeking to make the whole world blind. Similarly, it could be that Lanthimos is rejecting the idea of rationality being all that is needed for fatherhood, as true fatherly love is irrational. Whether or not this is his goal, his direction is always interesting, even if its motivation is ambiguous.
Not everyone will love this slow psychological horror, with Lanthimos’ style being too off putting for some, but it’s still worth checking out for arthouse film fans looking for a unique movie. The Killing of a Sacred Deer is streaming now on Netflix in the United States.

2 Comments

Re:Zero - A Review

10/16/2020

0 Comments

In almost every video game, the player is able to experience the world created by the developers through the eyes of an invincible character. Although the player’s character might die in the game, the player always has a second chance since the character can always respawn. In other words, the death the character experiences is temporary. Because of this, the player has the freedom to do whatever they want, since the only repercussion they have to experience is a temporary death.

Re:Zero - Starting Life in Another World (Re:ゼロから始める異世界生活), directed by Masaharu Watanabe in 2016, is an Japanese animation series that brings to life a character that must live life as if he was living it in a fighting video game, where each death just results in a resurrection at a “save point”.

Although Re:Zero was released a couple years ago, a second season has just been released in the summer of 2020. Since the original series was so successful, there was a lot of excitement and anticipation for the new season. However, because of the time gap of four years in between the release of the first and second season, many viewers have been returning to the first season of Re:Zero as a refresher before venturing into the second season.

Re:Zero follows the life of Natsuki Subaru (voiced by Yuusuke Kobayashi), an ordinary human who has been swept away from his ordinary life into a fantasy world. Almost every being in that world has some sort of magic or fighting ability, but Subaru quickly learns that he does not have one. Low-level thugs immediately pick on him, since he is physically and magically weak compared to the other , but he ends up being saved by a mysterious white-haired girl (voiced by Rie Takahashi) who calls herself “Satella”. In return for saving him, Subaru agrees to help Satella, but they eventually get cornered in the slums. Subaru is powerless as both of them are brutally murdered.

A couple seconds later, Subaru reawakens, and the exact events that had happened to him previously are happening again. After following a similar path and getting murdered again, he begins to realize that every time he dies, he gets brought back to where he began.

As the story progresses, it becomes evident that only Subaru can remember events that happen in previous timelines where he has died. Information about the environment becomes his only weapon. Although he is physically weak, he can fight to survive by making decisions, so the difference between video games and Subaru’s situation becomes apparent as he continues to die and resurrect. It begins to take a heavy toll on Subaru’s mental health, and at some points in the story, it seems like his only fate is to die repeatedly with no way out.

Although Subaru lives in a fantasy world, the plot tackles themes of reality by showing Subaru’s human emotions as he goes through trials of death and despair. In video games, the main character does not usually suffer upon death, but since Subaru remembers his deaths, he is forced to endure the pain. The series is successful in displaying the humanity of Subaru through his emotional trauma.

Many story-based video games have the problem of being tedious and repetitive. This is because a player might have to keep repeating a part of the storyline if they keep dying or making the wrong decision. However, Re:Zero manages to avoid monotonous storylines and at the same time make each of Subaru’s “attempts” necessary for the plot to continue. Parts in the story that have already been experienced by the viewers are often either skipped or completely changed. Duplicate or identical scenes almost never happen, allowing the story to always be evolving in a new and interesting way. These evolutions allow the plot to contain numerous twists and turns, keeping the audience on their toes.

Another reason Re:Zero is able to avoid predictability is because the characters are so versatile. Just because a character does something in one timeline does not necessarily mean they will do the same thing in another timeline. If Subaru knows the future and acts differently, supporting characters could suddenly become opposing characters. For example, in the first timeline, Subaru and Satella immediately become friends. However, after Subaru is killed, he finds Satella and starts to act as if he knows her. Never having met Subaru, she suddenly becomes enraged and warns Subaru not to call her by that name. Just because she helped him in one timeline, because of the way he acted with the new information, she refuses to help him in the new timeline.

The series as a whole has a colorful, crisp feel. The bright colors during comedic moments of the fantasy world allow those scenes to shine, but when the dark and terrifying moments happen, all of the happy saturation disappears. The contrast between the different tones of the series is accentuated through the art. Each character in the series has a distinct design. They are easily recognizable, and like most anime, each of them has a distinct hair color and clothing style. The main protagonist has black hair, while the main supporting characters have hair colors ranging from red, blue, and all the way to white.

Re:Zero at its core is a video game in the form of animation. Although, like most video games, it may seem like a fun, happy story, it may surprise audiences by tackling darker themes such as suffering and the mental strain the main character has to endure. Themes of human weakness become very apparent even in a fantasy setting. Anyone who appreciates a great story, filled with multi-faceted characters and unpredictable events, would definitely enjoy watching the series. For a storyline about living the same parts of life over and over, Re:Zero is anything but repetitive.

0 Comments

Role Reversals in The Hustle

10/12/2020

0 Comments

By Zoe Leininger

The 2019 film The Hustle directed by Chris Addison is a clever remake of Frank Oz’s Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson star in the roles previously held by Micheal Caine and Steve Martin respectively. The premise of two con-men in a turf war over an affluent tourist town is given a whole new perspective by making the main characters female. After thoroughly enjoying the film I was surprised to find that it was only given a 13% on Rotten Tomatoes. As a remake the film had to field a lot of negative reviews comparing it to the original, but I think that even though the film follows the 1988 version virtually scene by scene it finds something new in the story just by changing the gender of the characters.

The scene in the original where Freddy (Steve Martin) meets Lawrence (Micheal Caine) establishes the idea of the con as a way to get money out of women instead of the traditional man providing for the woman. Rebel Wilson’s character Penny has a deeper reason for why she performs her cons: she sees men using women’s sensitivity and emotions against them and decides to turn the tables. Instead of just being a humorously flawed rationale like Freddy’s, it sets up a deeper theme that is developed throughout the film. When Anne Hathaway’s character Josephine is teaching Penny how to do the sophisticated cons that she does she modifies Penny’s approach by saying that what men want from women more than sex is to be a hero. Men like to be able to come to the rescue of vulnerable women.

Penny (Rebel Wilson) and Josephine (Anne Hathaway) meet on a train

Freddy (Steve Martin) and Lawrence (Micheal Caine) meet on a train

What Josephine says goes beyond the idea of creepy men using women for their own pleasure. It speaks to an underlying societal tendency of men viewing women as weaker and a refusal to truly see them as equals. As Josephine says while explaining why her methods work “no man will believe a woman is smarter than he is.” Instead of fighting against this tendency, they exploit it for their own gain. This idea does come up in the original story when the men are themselves conned by a woman at the end of their own elaborate con, but when the con artists themselves are women the theme takes on a whole other meaning. Having the women be the focus of the story gives us a look at how it feels for strong minded women to have to operate within the confines of patriarchal society.
Alongside this is another theme of women supporting women. Penny initially spills everything about what she does to Josephine because as another woman she would understand her reasons for it. But after they find they are trying to do the same job in the same town they are at odds with each other. Josephine is trying to drive Penny out of Beaumont Sur Mer so that she can remain at the top while Penny sees an opportunity to expand her petty crimes to something bigger.
In a competition to see who can get money out of their target, Thomas, Josephine is pretending to be a psychiatrist helping Penny with her supposed psychological blindness. A scene in a club has Penny talking to a nearby group of women while Josephine dances with Thomas. To try to get him alone with her Penny tells the women that he was her boyfriend until Josephine stole him from her. The idea of sisterhood and women supporting one another is shown by how angry they are on her behalf and their willingness to confront Josephine to help Penny. In the 1988 version this happens but it is the bond of Naval service that is exploited by Freddy to get rid of Lawrence.

Penny explaining to the women at the club how Josephine stole her fiance

There is a significance to the fact that with Penny, there were no club or community ties needed for the women to feel connected. The burden of the patriarchal society is enough of a commonality that the women were willing to help a fellow woman. Penny, and then Josephine, betrayed that instinctive trust by using it in their conflict with each other. The scene highlights the phenomenon in culture that when women try to get ahead in business and their careers they often have to choose between supporting the other women around them and making sure they get ahead themselves.
Remakes of well loved movies tend to be judged more harshly than most movies. However, I felt that this film deserved a lot more recognition than it got. The plotline was nearly identical to the original, yet it was able to address some really key issues that get left out of films. Recently there have been quite a few films like Oceans Eight (Gary Ross, 2018), Ghostbusters (Paul Feig, 2016), and What Men Want (Adam Shankman, 2019) which have taken original films and gender swapped the characters to retell the story. They haven’t tended to have very good receptions because they were viewed as old and repetitive.
Even with stories that have been told before, it is a valuable exercise to look at how different the meanings of scenes can be just by switching the main characters from men to women. The Hustle is an enjoyable comedy that is cleverly made and employs phenomenal actors, but a lot of its value lies deeper within the context of the scenario the audience is presented with. Looking at the original and the remake side by side shows that the female lead version is about more than just having female leads. The film points out the disparity between the ways men and women experience the world. In the recent times of the #metoo movement and the 4% challenge to have female directors take the lead in studio projects this is an important message to spread and one that shouldn’t be glossed over just because a film reuses old jokes.

0 Comments

Prisoners: A Review

10/9/2020

1 Comment

by Mason Leaver

Denis Villeneuve is a director who is, in my opinion, criminally unrecognized. While his work has received great critical feedback, he is not the household name that he deserves to be. The man has an absolutely amazing career. The French-Canadian director started his career with a series of well received small budget films, such as Maelstrom (2000) and Incendies (2010). More recently, he’s directed films like Enemy (2013), Sicario (2015), Arrival (2016), and Blade Runner 2049 (2017). He is now directing the highly anticipated adaptation of Dune. There’s no doubt that Villeneuve is one of the most prolific directors working today, producing six films in seven years, all very well received. But I feel that his first film in this six film stretch, Prisoners (2013), is perhaps his best, and also least appreciated. Prisoners is a film packed with quality performances, cinematography, and story, and it represents Villeneuve at his very best.

Prisoners is the story of a father, Keller Dover, played by Hugh Jackman, searching for his daughter and her friend, who have gone missing on Thanksgiving day. Investigating the case is Detective Loki, played by Jake Gyllenhaal. The film follows the two men as they go to greater and greater lengths to find the missing girls. As Detective Loki dives deeper into the case, he must also reign in Dover, who begins a vigilante search for the girls. As the film continues the mystery unravels itself with plenty of fascinating twists and turns. The film is like Taken meets Zodiac.

Hugh Jackman as Keller Dover

Prisoners has a phenomenal cast, and their talent is put on full display. Hugh Jackman is by far the most notable of them all. He portrays Dover as a man of faith driven to the edge, willing to do absolutely whatever it takes to get his daughter back. The rage that Jackman brings to the character is often reminiscent of his time playing Wolverine. Jake Gylennhaal also does a great job, but he is given less to work with than Jackman. While Jackman gets plenty of opportunities to go absolutely off the rails and push his limits, Gylennhaal only really gets one very brief moment to lose his cool. This is no fault of the film’s: it is in the nature of Loki to be cool and collected. But Gylennhaal works within the limits of the character to bring about a great performance, even if he cannot be as loud and attention grabbing as Jackman. Terrence Howard and Viola Davis also bring great performances as the parents of the other missing girl. While avoiding spoilers, be prepared to enjoy unsettling performances from Paul Dano and David Dastmalchian.

Paired with the ever talented Roger Deakins (who also worked with Villeneuve on Sicario and Blade Runner 2049), the film is beautifully shot. While it’s not flashy, Deakins’ use of light and shadow creates an atmosphere that draws the viewer in. Some shots are nearly totally dark, save for small beams of light illuminating the subject. The lighting all feels very natural- no great differentiation in saturated colors. Instead, Deakins use a grounded style that makes for a “realistic” feeling to the dreary Pennsylvania landscape, homes and offices that highlights the most beautiful and brutal aspects of the environments we find ourselves in every day. Of course, this approach to drawing out interesting lighting from our everyday surroundings also plays into the themes of the film- what lies just beneath the surface of suburbia is very dark. The “every day” world is much more complicated than it can seem.

A use of Light and Shadow in "Prisoners"

Prisoners is a very dark film, forcing it’s audience to face some very difficult questions. One of the most prominent of these questions is the tension between the rule of law and frontier justice. Detective Loki, a man committed to serving and upholding the law, has to face a challenge to his principles as he sees the system failing. Every moment he is tempted to give in to his desire to ignore the law in order to find these children. Meanwhile Dover, a man of faith, beholden to a higher power, pursues a kind of frontier justice to rescue his daughter. The film does not answer the question of who is in the right here, it simply introduces us to this tension and asks us to wrestle with it.

Each of us has people in our lives who we say we would do anything for. Prisoners asks us if we truly mean that. Dover, in his frontier justice hunt for his daughter, resorts to horrible methods of torture. Yet he does what he does because he believes it is the only way to save his daughter, to protect what he loves most. The film asks us to question: is torture ever acceptable? Would we be able or willing to do what Dover does? Prisoners forces us to ask these questions and to see the reality of what torture is and where it comes from.

Paul Dano as Alex Jones (left) and Jake Gyllenhaal as Detective Loki (right)

Prisoners is some of Villeneuve’s finest work. The plot and performances are top-tier, and while it is a very long film at two and a half hours, Prisoners creates a tension so gripping but chilling that you cannot help but watch on.

Viewers who enjoy Prisoners may also enjoy Zodiac and the HBO miniseries True Detective.

1 Comment

Discussion: I'm Thinking of Ending Things

10/8/2020

1 Comment

Did you enjoy Charlie Kaufman's new film I'm Thinking of Ending Things?Hear our writers' discussion about it and leave a comment with your own thoughts on it.

1 Comment

The Reality and Imagination that Creates Insanity: Color Out of Space Analysis

10/5/2020

1 Comment

by Samantha Shuma

When we think of aliens, we may think of creatures from Star Wars or Alien. They typically have a humanoid or animalistic shape with weird, often slimy features. Although they look like something out of this world, they are easily comprehensible to the human mind. We do notably understand their reason for being, but we see them as a threat and do anything we can to destroy them. What if, like the concept of infinity, aliens were something completely incomprehensible to the human mind? You go insane from the amount of stress your brain is experiencing from just looking at it. Color Out of Space (Richard Stanley, 2019) takes aliens into this realm, and lets audiences watch a family go insane as they become surrounded by the Color (the alien of the film). It corrupts the minds of the family, making them hear, see and act differently. While they suffer mentally, their surroundings are affected as well. The Color absorbs into everything it touches, affecting plants, water, air, animal, and time throughout the film. The combination of physical and mental changes the family and their reality undergo is intense, and it is this combination that makes the family’s minds surrender to the Color.

The rest of this analysis will contain spoilers for The Color Out of Space. This film is a horror movie, which may contain some material of blood and gore. Reader discretion is advised.

The Color travels to Earth via a meteorite, crash landing in the Gardener family’s front yard. The meteorite glows a bright magenta, which is a color that can only be seen by the human eye. It’s a color that doesn’t actually exist, it’s our brain’s way of interpreting certain types of light (when you mix red and violet light, your eyes should see green, but the brain interprets it differently as a way brings the ends of the visible spectrum together) (Helmenstine, 2019). We don’t actually SEE magenta, our brains create it. So to literally see magenta would be incredibly taxing for the human mind to comprehend. Our minds would be affected differently, which is explored in film. The Gardener’s face some severe mental trauma from merely looking at it. The youngest child, Jack, falls victim first, believing he is talking with the Color, and that the well (the place the Color mostly resides) is his best friend. A little later in the film, The rest of the family, Nathan (husband), Theresa (wife),Lavinia (daughter), and Benny (older son), seem to go insane. Each character is affected by the color differently. Their downfall based around their initial mental problems. For example, Nathan is constantly worried of becoming his father, who was abusive to him growing up. The Color works that towards its favor, as Nathan becomes abusive towards his family, making sure his children don’t leave the house. Levinia believes in witchcraft, she hurts herself to perform rituals and believes the Color is her rituals being fulfilled. Since the battle against the Color is mainly a mental one, it exaggerates the mental weakness of the creatures it possesses to subdue them. By the end, the whole family has lost their sense of reality and becomes husks of their former selves, existing on a plane of existence different from anything we have imagined.

The family is basically doomed from the start, as the mental battle against the Color is already impossible to overcome. Their resulting mental state makes it impossible to be rational, but their minds aren’t the only thing affected by the Color. The environment surrounding the home along with the family’s physical bodies are heavily affected as well. The physical transformation everything goes through makes the Color not only a threat to the family, but to the whole planet. The meteorite the Color travels from is not made of any kind of rock we would recognize. It’s made out of some plastic material that dissolves over time. As the meteorite dissolves into the ground, the Color fuses into the surrounding land. This affects the growing of plants, which affects the animals. There are alpacas, a horse and a dog on the property. The horse and the dog become hostile and run away. The alpacas have a worse fate, from rooted grass and drinking the Color filled water, they get very sick. They lose their form as their bodies melt, eventually creating a slimy pile of unrecognizable flesh and bone. When Nathan goes to check on the alpacas, their form does not immediately bother him. It isn’t until their screaming makes him angry that he puts them out of their misery. If anyone in their right mind saw them, they would have ran, but Nathan didn’t seem to care. The fact that the family’s mind is being taxed so heavily by the Color makes it impossible for them to act rationally to run away or defend themselves.

The video below has content that may disturb some readers, discretion is advised.

The fact that the Color is incomprehensible makes it uncontrollable by anything on Earth. Since the Gardeners cannot process the Color fully, they have no means to fight against. Going back to the example of a Zenomorph from Alien, we can tell just by looking at it that it is dangerous. Its sharp claws and teeth make it anybody’s worst nightmare. Since we can look at it and understand it, we can find the Zenomorph’s weakness and ultimately kill it (as it is killed at the end of almost every Alien movie). Think back to the Color, it’s only physical representation is a misty gas of a color that doesn’t exist. The family never realizes there is something exterrestrial in their mists, the Color is never seen as a friend or a threat, making it impossible for the family to fight against.

A typical alien movie would have a crew on a spaceship fighting a slimy, flesh eating monster, but the Color is something much scarier than that. Although we the audience can see it, it is an unknown killer to the Gardeners. We see how it makes them hurt themselves and act aggressively towards each other, but they never realize what is happening themselves. Even when they do try to leave, they forget that they were trying to leave and mindlessly go off to do something else. Their minds wither away as the Color seeps into their air, water and plants. The Color isn’t something the anyone’s mind can really process. We do not know how to react when we cannot discern something as good or evil. As the film shows, we wouldn’t react at all. The family goes around like everything is okay, even as Nathan sits in an empty room talking to herself or Benny going down the well to save the dog (which isn’t down there).Their minds change as their environment changes, making the whole reality in around the home slowly change as the Color becomes more powerful. Everything, body, mind and environment, all changing at once helps the family adjust into insanity, making it easy for the Color to control them, shape them and kill them.

Work Cited:
Anne Marie Helmenstine, Ph.D. Why Magenta Is Not a Color of the Spectrum. 2019, www.thoughtco.com/what-is-the-wavelength-of-magenta-606166.

1 Comment

<<Previous

Forward>>

The Philosophy of True Detective

Environmentalism in a Galaxy Far, Far Away

Thought + Concentration = Flesh : Empty Man Review

The Legend of Korra: Humanizing a Hero

The Killing of a Sacred Deer Analysis

Re:Zero - A Review

Role Reversals in The Hustle

Prisoners: A Review

Discussion: I'm Thinking of Ending Things

The Reality and Imagination that Creates Insanity: Color Out of Space Analysis

by Samantha Shuma

Categories

Archives