Art & Authenticy

As I watched through the short film, I was intrigued because this film felt very knew to me as the mother starts the film with a fight with another to protect her children. Even though she did not have much, was a single mother, she supported her children no matter what happened. It was interesting how the priority of her children was always first no matter what happened and no matter how harsh she would seem to treat them. The wasp seemed to be more beneficial than harmful as it reminded the family of how close they were. It makes me think about the extent to which parents would protect their children and watch out for them. Through watching these short films, I realized that they all showed a message in such a short time.

Looking at the events of the short movie it can be easily assumed that Zoe is an irresponsible mother. But is this assumption really justified? In my opinion she is a victim of her poor circumstances and bad choices. As can be inferred from some her action in the movie (the fight in the beginning of the move for the sake of her daughter or when in the bar the way she uses all her money to buy soda for her children in the bar), Zoe is trying hard to be a caring mother for her kids. Her poor state and her incapability to cope with the pressure of raising four small kids single handedly has led to her becoming a frustrated woman who longs for some personal, carefree time of her own.

Wasp- Short Film

Rating: 4 stars

Reasons:

I am a big fan of short films and the reasons are simple: they are short and straight to the point. And that’s why I enjoyed watching Wasp.

The main female character in Wasp is the epitome of teenage mothers in America– running around the street, trying to balance out their hormones and their children. It is scary to see the possible future for many women after they have kids and have no husband/boyfriend/family relative to help take care of their kids. This movie makes me wonder: is having kids at a young age without any support be a reason for the increasing of the poverty rate in a single-mother family household?

Short films are exactly what they sound like – “short”, “films”. The first two minutes was as confusing as putting together a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle.  The opening scene was a man getting out of the bed after intimacy. Malcolm, a man working to get others to convert to his faith, wasn’t converting Carmel’s faith, but her life.  She asks him to never return to her house, but he insists that he does. He wasn’t doing this for the sake of the church or god, but for his own interests and needs. When Malcolm was invited into the home of his mistress, I knew something bad was waiting to happen. Carmel was pregnant, “after years of trying”, with Malcolm’s baby, but Carmel’s husband does not know this. Miracles happen but not like this! As a woman, she, her actions, and her ability to continue standing disgusted me. Someone as filthy as that, should feel ashamed to breathe another breath or ashamed to lie about her baby’s father; she is neither. Maybe it’s “an American thing” as Chi likes to call it. If so, I am no American!

If you weren’t in class that day, click onto this!

He looks like a hero in the picture.. He’s more of a kid though, seriously.

Watching “Wasp” have changed my view on single mothers. It have showed me that they can selfish, but at the same time selfless. There wasn’t much of  a script and some of Zoe’s (single mother) actions had made me wonder about her judgment, but in the very end she did show that she cared for her children the most. Even though she had tried so hard to cover up the fact that she had children, she still revealed her secret in end because of her concern for their safety.  The acting was actually pretty good, considering that this is a short film. It was short, but sweet; all the information packed into those 11 minutes made it feel like a full-length featured film.

So I read other’s posts in the short film section and I notice a disturbing recurring theme in the blogs about Wasp. Everyone is talking about how hard the mother has it, and how she is a victim of circumstance . . . rather than her own actions. This is shocking and terrifying if it is truly a reflection of our mentality today. I understand that they are poor and struggling and she is young, but that in no way is an excuse for her behavior or the way she acts with her children. Having witnessed too many times young girls that get pregnant and neglect their children because they decide drinking and getting high is more important because they’re young and they want to act their age, I’m disgusted that everyone seems to find this as a reasonable excuse. Every action has a consequence and before they tried to act like adults, they should have thought about everything they stood to lose. I’m not a big fan of abstinence only programs, but if this is really how we treat young mothers then I’m ready to help Nathalay as much as I can so more girls (and guys) make the same mistake.

     Wasp is 23 minutes long, so there’s no way it can have any substance, why bother. These are my thoughts as I am introduced to this movie. I have never been one for short films, I always felt that you can never get the full effect and meaning of a film if it’s “short.” I always compared short films to watching one episode of a popular TV show only to have them take it off the air.

    However these 23 minutes were filled with education, judgment, sympathy, relation, and honest entertainment. Andrea could have dragged this movie out for another hour but there was no need. She successfully depicted Zoë as an unfit mother with her messy house and irresponsibility yet raised sympathy and understanding that Zoë is stuck in the single mother struggle while the father get a free pass. Very powerful short film, a pleasant suprise for a skeptic.

The main character's eyes burn with intensity yet have a singe of immaturity that drives the theme of the film.

There is a short story in Ray Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man that spoke of astronauts landing on Mars and trying to spread Christianity there.  The gentle martians at the end of the story kindly shook their heads and pointed at their 100% energy efficient Hydrogen generators, their streets empty of crime, their civilizations free of war and their schools full of eagerly-learning offspring.

“We do not need your religion here, we are perfect beings.  Perhaps you are better off solving problems back on your own planet.”

Continue Reading »

Modern films (regardless of the style) that are shown in black and white have a much deeper meaning than just a color malfunction. Nowadays we regard these films as depressing, sad and also, powerful. Much of today’s society functions just like the alien world that was conceived in the short film. We are working nonstop to meet the deadlines because that is how society has pushed us to become. Standards have been raised and thus, if we do not execute, we will be left behind. Similarly, the film featured the alien workers being whipped by the overseer to perform at maximum efficiency-anything less is unacceptable. When we are pushed to our limits, our moral drops dramatically and we seem to lose the will to work any further. And this is when the “genius” plays in. By inventing a device to alleviate our stress and perceive the world in “technicolor” so to speak, we find artificial ways to motivate ourselves to carry on whether or not they are truly motivating in a sense. The malicious, intimidating bosses, look like they’re having the time of their lives and the workers are lulled into believing they’re achieving a purpose when, in reality, they’re still stuck in the same old situation. The film featured a powerful ending, and that was to snap back into reality. While we may not be content with our lives, it is by no means an excuse to live in a delusional world that is too good to be true.

A desperate mother with 4 children is truly a spectacle. We take certain things for granted, however, “nothing comes easy” as NBA basketball player Zaza Pachulia of the Republic of Georgia once said in an NBA playoff game when his team, the Atlanta Hawks ousted the Boston Celtics in Game 6 of the 2008 Playoffs by winning 103-101 and forcing a winner-takes-all Game 7. These comparisons may seem ridiculous and far-fetched however, if you will hear my explanation, it will make perfect sense. Zoe, a struggling mother of 4 children needed a breather from her chaotic life to be with her boyfriend Danny. However, during this process, she lost her identity in that she couldn’t balance between her children and her rekindled relationship. It took a scary turn for the worse in order to knock her back to her sense. Much like Zoe, the Atlanta Hawks had an identity crisis in this playoff series. They could not win at all on the road and had to re-discover their winning ways at home, and they responded. Sparked by Joe Johnson’s ridiculous 4th quarter scoring outburst, the Hawks were resilient and finally got the wake-up call that they needed to stay alive in this series.