#tumbbad

Horror movies from around the world:

He's power hungry and wants everything under him. In the beginning, it's somewhat practical - violence gets him whatever he wants. But as he grows in power, he realizes not everything can be attained that way. But more importantly, no matter how much he gains, it never brings him satisfaction.

This dreaded realization has him s p i r a l i n g the whole book. The entire time he is chasing that peace and satisfaction and it's always out of his reach.

He makes an off handed comment to his realtor who married an actual pr-stitute:

Now that Jerry was tied to monogamy, of course he thinks this way. But when he lets Celia rot alone cause how dare she get pregnant with his baby, he goes back to changing women like clothes. And then all he wants is Celia back. Do you see the problem?

The biggest example is the baby - he can't just throw him away without losing Celia as well (but kudos to the book to make me dread inf-nticide was on the cards). Clearly, he can't just have what he wants: Celia without his baby. He had to change himself and accept them both - very very reluctantly - and it still didn't make him happy.

This is why his ambition gets bigger and bigger in hopes he will find some satisfaction somewhere along the road:

He saves Mite's life on 3 separate occasions, the 3rd after Mite quite literally tried to kill him, but he never gets Mite's friendship in return, only his betrayal over and over. Mite never forgives him for "stealing Celia" and only stays with Jerry because he knows he has no choice with the maniac known for snapping necks. He even gets a replacement best friend and Jerry has to watch him be affectionate to that guy while his interactions with Jerry stay limited. He finally won their chess game but lost Mite.

It culminates in a great scene where Mite and his bestie are chatting in the car and Jerry looks away and outside the window, disassociating and wondering just what can he do to fill this void in him. Earning power doesn't do that, having Mite and Celia close doesn't do that. He is always going to stay wanting:

It reminded me of a demonic Indian folklore where the demon has cursed treasure but the catch is that he is always hungry so that gold has no value to him. Villagers would throw him bread pieces and he would run to eat it, meanwhile they'd go steal some gold coins and run:

THE LAST TIME WHEN I SAW THIS 6 YEARS AGO, I HAD SOOOOOO MANY EMOTIONS. TOO MANY EMOTIONS. MORE THAN A MOVIE IT'S A FEELING, AND THAT FEELING WAS SAVED IN MY SYSTEM. NOW THAT I'M OLD ENOUGH TO PROCESS THE DEEP LAYERS IN IT, I HAVE SO MUCH BRAINROT. SO MUCH THAT I CAN UNPACK.

"Oh did you see the way they used different camera angels as metaphor?" "Oh did you see all the deeper spiritual concepts used?" "Oh did you see the politics involved?" "Why do you think this happened? What does it mean?" "Oh did you see how multidimensional the characters actually are?" "OH DID YOU FEEL THAT PIT IN YOUR STOMACH TOO? DID IT MAKE YOU FEEL WHAT IT MADE ME FEEL?"

My. Oh. MY.

FROM CINEMATOGRAPHY TO STORY TELLING TO THE LESSONS IT TEACHES TO THE DIALOGUE DELIVERY TO THE CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT. RAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH THIS MOVIE IS PURE ART. OH MY GOD.