Happy April Fools!! I just got rejected from all the Ivies (except for Princeton, Dartmouth, and Cornell, where I got waitlisted) yesterday, and I was pretty disappointed. But then I got accepted into Duke this morning!! So I’m all good now, and can get started on what I watched and read in March!!
Okay. First. Stage Productions. The theater is finally opening up here in China, and I was finally able to watch an actual play for the first time in forever!!
March 3rd, The Pillowman
This was a Chinese production of the Olivier and Tony-winning play The Pillowman, which follows an author who is interrogated for the eerie similarities between his stories and the murders of children that have been happening around the town.
I watched this show with my mom and my brother, and I liked it. But both of them hated it. They said it was too gruesome, boring, and long-winded. I will be honest, I can see why they would think it’s gruesome (the entire topic, after all, is murder, and terrible, cruel murders at that), but I didn’t think it was long. In fact, the first time I looked at my phone to check the time was at the end of the play, and it was a three hour long play. It seemed, to me, to just fly by. So I liked the play.
The production itself was stunning. The beginning scenes, a re-telling of one of the stories our main character has written, is done with actors acting like puppets, moving their bodies in mechanic and grotesque ways. That was a stunning intro, and the usage of lighting and the stage itself (a revolving stage), was amazing. The technical aspects of this play were really, really good.
I do have inhibitions about the portrayal of the brother of the main character. He is meant to have the intelligence of a seven year old despite being a forty year old, and many of the ways he was portrayed made me wonder if this is why neuro-divergence is still so stigmatized in China. It was the way that his childishness was played for laughs, meant to draw jeers out of the crowd. I haven’t seen the original play, so maybe that’s a carry-over from the original play. Either way, I didn’t like it. I’ve worked with and continue to work with autistic children and children who are neuro-divergent: I’ve never encountered a child who acts the way he does. I get that all kids are different, but I doubt any kid is the way that this character was portrayed.
The story itself was fine. I loved the struggle of the artist to save his art. That sounds like something that I think anyone who likes the art can resonate with. But at the same time, many of the side characters I thought were just flat, without much for you to care about. And while I like the discussion of the Pillowman (it poses the same question as the thinking question, would you kill Hitler when he was first born?), I did think that many of the murders and stories were more created just for the shock effect.
Overall, would like to see the original before I judge this adaptation, but I think that if you are in China and get the chance, it might be cool to check this show out. Both to support Chinese plays– because Chinese theater is really under appreciated– and to check out the amazing technical aspects of the show.
Next, the one book I read this month: March 7th, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
This is the story of a young girl in Nazi Germany who's family takes in a Jewish man and the story of her life in Nazi Germany told from the perspective of Death itself.
I have to be honest. This book is immensely touching. Nazi Germany is always an emotional topic, because I can't think of a single person who could remain dry-eyed hearing stories about the horrors that people suffered through. But this book tells the story from the perspective of a Death who is cold and heartless but trying, for the first time, to tell a story. There are certain interpretations of things that are so different from the way we would see them that it's almost as though Death is viewing the world completely differently from us even though this Death is one that is fluent in human emotion.
And the writing in this book? Jesus. I'm never getting over it. The writing style of Zusak is at times, I think, similar to Eileen Chang, who uses metaphors in ways that are unique and completely unexpected (comparing one of her main characters who feels abandoned to being a Chinese character on a banner that is half stuck and floating in the air, for instance). It's beautiful, and it creates feelings and imaginary scenarios that are so realistic you can almost touch them. By the way, if you haven't read anything by Eileen Chang, I highly recommend her works. Especially Love in a Fallen City and The Golden Cangue. Her way of writing small people in big moments is stunning.
Anyway, back to the Book Thief. Honestly, just... Go read it. It's amazing. It deserves any and all hype that it might have. It deserves more than any of the hype that it has. Just go read it.
Okay, next we have films. I only watched one film, so I don’t know why I’m calling it films, but films it is!
March 8th, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (2022)
This film is a documentary about the photographer Nan Goldin, who is my personal favorite photographer. Okay, I’ll be honest, I know about a total of three photographers and two of them are my classmates so I guess by default she is my favorite but my point still stands. I love her photos and the stories she brings to her art.
The thing that resonated with me the most after watching this film was one of the last lines: “No stigma. No shame.” That’s powerful. That’s the entire reason why I have a sex education website, why I have a sex education organization, why I even care about representation or anything like it. Because shame and stigma are what lead to discrimination, are what lead to inequality, and without them we would be able to work towards both education and changing the status quo. That line captured the entire reason why I want to study sociology.
Honestly, I don’t have a lot to say about this film. I think it was shot beautifully, I had goosebumps for nearly the entire film, and I am entirely in awe of the way that Nan Goldin’s story is weaved in with her efforts with taking down the Sackler family. That in it of itself is enough for me to recommend this film to everyone.
And finally, TV! I watched two TV shows this month.
1. March 13th, The Glory part 2 (2023)
This is the sequel (or the second part) of the story that took the world by storm. I sound like a PR team. Hold on, let me try again. This is the second part of the Netflix show The Glory, which is about a woman who was bullied in high school taking revenge on her old high school bullies.
I’m obsessed. Obsessed. There is nothing else for me to say, like, just go watch it? It’s just so simply fun to watch. And I’m obsessed with Li Sa-Ra. I get that she’s a junkie and definitely not a good person, but at the same time she’s so present and completely her nasty, terrible self. That’s confidence that I admire. And plus, the biggest thing for me is the fact that her hair is super cool. That’s all, honestly.
2. March23rd, Bad and Crazy (2021)
Honestly, I don’t know what this show was about. I watched about the first 6 episodes (out of 12) un-ironically, and realized at about the 4th episode mark that I was wasting my life. This show is about a man who is a police officer and has an alter ego. He goes through a variety of cases, with his alter ego helping him win the girl and the awards, but also has to sort through the trauma that caused this alter ego in the first place and yeah. Something like that.
I’m going to be honest, the only reason why I watched this show is because the cast included Kim Heiora, who was Li Sa-Ra in The Glory. She also happened to be the only interesting character in this show, playing a drug lord known as Boss Yong. Of course, the reason why I stopped caring about this show halfway through is that not only does Boss Yong seem infinitely powerful for a long time and then suddenly becomes nothing, but she goes so out of character at the end, when (SPOILER ALERT) her henchman dies and she willingly gives herself up to the police because they promised her they would find the person who killed him. Like, I’m sorry, but she did not become one of the most powerful drug lords in South Korea only to give that all up for a henchman. You are not getting me to believe that. If she really didn’t want him to die she wouldn’t have sent him out on dangerous missions. She sent him out and so she should have known and accepted the risks that came with that, so for her to act so surprised and willingly let herself fall into demise because of his death, no matter how important he was to her, is incredibly out of character for her.
At least to me. I was honestly just mad that her character is taken out of the equation before she gets to do anything cooler than killing and threatening some people.
This show in general, though, is just too long. Each episode is a full hour, and there are twelve episodes when the show really does not need to be that long. It just dragged on after episode 4, and I stopped caring. And the characters were flat, the writing mediocre at best, and from the little attention that I paid to it afterwards I would say the plot wasn’t all that innovative either. The plot-twist of the alter ego also wasn’t really done well. So would I recommend this show? Maybe as background noise, if you’re looking for some of that. Other than that, though, I wouldn’t recommend this.
And that's a wrap on March 2023! And a wrap on my college application season. I'm really glad to have been able to have had films and TV and books to have helped me with the entire application season, and now I'm just really happy that it's over.
See you next month!
Happy Saturday!!
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