Sunday, August 28, 2011

ONE SUNNY MORNING (2011, BK Lim, Singapore, A+)


What I like very much about ONE SUNNY MORNING includes:

1.How the film opens and ends. I think there is some kind of poetic touches between the opening and the ending of the film. I'm not sure what the ending of this film means. Does Juan just think about his love for Nick? Anyway, I hope he returns to Nick.

2.The flirting scene at the swimming pool. I think it is quite sexy and funny. I like the bird's-eye view shot which shows Nick on the bridge.

3.The mysteries about the personal life and the motivation of Juan. Maybe the film doesn't intend to make them mysteries. I'm just not sure about them after seeing it for only one time. But I think it is good that the film doesn't tell them straightforwardly or explain everything too clearly.

I'm not sure why Juan leaves Nick. Does he really not love Nick any more? Does he ever love Nick at all? Does he have any other reasons why he leaves Nick? A Thai friend of mine guesses that Juan may have a wife and a child, and the photo near the end of the film may be the photo of Juan's child.

4.The film doesn't look down on both Nick and Juan. The film doesn't portray Juan as a heartless villain/anti-hero and doesn't portray Nick as just a funny, lusty gay guy. The film seems to indicate that their love might be real, at least temporarily, and each of them has a heart.

The mentioning of Michelangelo Antonioni in the ending credit makes me understand from which film the mime scene is inspired. I think it is inspired by BLOW UP. :-)

In conclusion, I like ONE SUNNY MORNING a lot, and I think it does quite well in portraying the problems in the lives or in the relationships of some gays. What I wish after I saw this film is that I hope Nick will find a true love after Juan. I hope Nick will find someone who really loves him, someone who doesn't have a wife and a child, someone who doesn't care about the oppressive society we live in, someone who will be truly worthy of Nick's love. That's the story of the sequel of ONE SUNNY MORNING playing in my own imagination. :-) :-) :-)

The photo below does not come from the film. It is just a photo of the main actor of the film.





1 comment:

celinejulie said...

To tell you the truth, judging from my first viewing of the film, I'm not sure if the mime scene blends in perfectly with other scenes in the film or not. But I think the mime scene is at least memorable and helps make this film "different" from other gay films. I mean the story in this film is not radically different from other gay films, but "the mime scene with the wedding couple and an empty cradle" is not what I have seen before in other gay films, so I think the mime scene is one thing that makes ONE SUNNY MORNING stand out from other gay films.

Another thing that I like about the mime scene is that it makes "the perfect family" seems like an illusion. I mean if Juan walks along the street and sees a happy husband, a happy wife, and a happy child on the street, and then Juan regrets being gay, that would make the film look like an "anti-gay" film. But because Juan runs into a miming "perfect family", instead of a realistic "perfect family", the perfect family pictured here is a parody and seems like an illusion. I think the film doesn't proclaim that the heterosexual family is "really happy", because their expression of happiness seems like "a performance", not a real thing.