The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion

Posted: 19 Oct 2012 07:26 AM PDT

OCT 20 ― I have to admit that Chelsea's unbeaten start to the season has surprised me.

Although they are European champions (remind me again... how on earth did that happen?), the Blues approached the new season with every look of a club in the midst of a turbulent transitional period.

Back in August I was convinced that they had little chance of mounting a serious challenge for the English Premier League title ― in fact, I said exactly that in my column on August 28, entitled "Troubled times ahead for Chelsea".

The reasons for that belief were a new and relatively inexperienced manager, Roberto Di Matteo ― whose previous job ended in failure with West Brom ― a number of departees including star striker Didier Drogba, a batch of new signings who would need time to settle, and a selection of old guard favourites who must be gradually eased into the background.

At the moment, it looks like I might have to eat my words. The Blues have won six of their first seven Premier League games, drawing the other, to open up a four-point lead at the top of the table, and have also picked up a creditable four points from their opening two Champions League group games.

Furthermore, summer signings Eden Hazard and Oscar have adapted quickly to their new lives at Stamford Bridge, while Fernando Torres finally is starting to look like a force to be reckoned with again and fellow Spaniard Juan Mata has been in brilliant form in midfield.

However, I'm still not convinced.

Although the results are indeed very impressive, the Blues have been helped in that task by a friendly fixture list that hasn't really tested them. Look at their opposition so far: Wigan, Reading, Newcastle, QPR, Stoke, Arsenal and Norwich.

With apologies to Newcastle (who are renowned for their historically poor away form), the only high-class opposition that Chelsea have faced is Arsenal, and they won that game (2-1 at the Emirates) purely because of poor Arsenal defending from two set-pieces. On the balance of play, they were second best.

In Europe, the Blues initially caught the eye as they raced into a two-goal lead against Juventus thanks to a wonder strike by Oscar, but they were unable to maintain that advantage and were eventually left to hang on for a 2-2 draw after the Italians belatedly started to impose themselves.

And most significantly, Chelsea's limitations were laid bare at the end of August when they suffered a 4-1 humiliation against Atletico Madrid in the European Super Cup in Monaco.

Atletico were sensational on that evening (especially striker Radamel Falcao, who may well end up at Stamford Bridge in January) but the meekness of Chelsea's surrender ― with a trophy on the line ― was shocking.

Maybe that will prove to be a horrible one-off and they'll never play that badly again all season, but it doesn't bode well for their ability to compete with high-quality opposition.

An extremely tough set of fixtures in the next ten days will be revealing: Tottenham away in the Premier League, Shakhtar Donetsk away in the Champions League, and then two home meetings with Manchester United in the Premier League and the League Cup.

If Di Matteo's men can come through that set of fixtures with their unbeaten record intact, I might have to change my mind about their longer-term prospects.

The most immediate of those tasks is today's early kick-off trip across London to take on in-form Tottenham at White Hart Lane.

The added spice of a game that hardly needs it is the reunion between Tottenham boss Andre Villas-Boas and his former employers.

Many observers ― including me ― felt that AVB was harshly treated by the Stamford Bridge club when he was unceremoniously dumped midway through last season, and the young Portuguese boss would undoubtedly derive great pleasure from picking up three points this weekend.

However, he won't be on the pitch and therefore his own personal mission is little more than a tasty subplot for the media to hype up rather than a significant factor in determining the result.

Even so, Tottenham have a great chance of picking up at least one point from this game. They went into the international break on the back of four consecutive victories ― including a 3-2 win at Old Trafford against Manchester United ― and are starting to look a very strong team as their challenge for a place in the all-important top four gathers momentum.

Spurs certainly have the individuals: Gareth Bale, Jermain Defoe, Moussa Dembele, Clint Dempsey, Aaron Lennon and Emmanuel Adebayor are all potential match-winners, and I don't think it will be long before summer signing Gylfi Sigurdsson starts to make a bigger impact as well.

With Chelsea lynchpin John Terry missing through suspension, I'd be surprised if the Blues come away from White Hart Lane with all three points. But then again, they've already surprised me this season so it's probably not wise to bet against it.

* The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist.

Obey

Posted: 19 Oct 2012 02:43 AM PDT

OCT 20 ― As Hannibal Smith famously, repeatedly and so succinctly puts it in "The A-Team": "I love it when a plan comes together."

Applying that catchphrase to another altogether different scenario, I especially love it when an allegorical movie comes together.

Some movies have no message. They're there strictly to entertain us, or to try to entertain us. Some movies have nothing but message. These are there teach us a few things, but since they're a bit too concerned with delivering that message, they can sometimes be a bit too preachy or dry for most people's liking.

Allegorical movies occupy a special place in my heart because they're like a combination of the best of both worlds. They're usually genre movies (therefore obliged to at least try to entertain us, no matter how warped the meaning of "entertainment" can be in some cases), but with some messages attached (usually in the form of "booby traps" as they're attached to the most unexpected of things) for those in the audience who'd care to look.

Out of the thousands of movies I've seen so far in my life, not many movies stand out as exemplary forms of allegorical moviemaking. Of the lot, one that's most burned into my memory is the Iranian film, "The Apple", which is the debut feature film by then 17-year-old Samira Makhmalbaf, daughter of the famous Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf.

The story is dead simple, concerning a father who doesn't allow his twin 12-year-old daughters out of the compound of their house for fear that exposure to the sun will cause them to fade. In case you're thinking it sounds too strange to be true, it is in fact based on a true story, and stars the family themselves.

If that sounds remarkable enough, wait till you actually see the movie and realise how it can also work as an allegory on how the Iranian powers-that-be and culture itself have held women in general as virtual prisoners there as well, and the beauty is that the hidden message and the story itself is so intertwined that you can entirely fail to catch the metaphor and the movie would still work.

With the catchphrase "Janji Ditepati" bombarding us left, right, and centre for the past few months, how timely it is for me to see a movie that not only meditates on but completely works as an allegory on mankind's unfortunate conditioning when it comes to obeying orders and following a chain of command.

The movie, titled "Compliance" and directed by Craig Zobel was a sort of minor succes de scandale at this year's Sundance Film Festival as it managed to divide opinion furiously down the middle as people either felt really impressed or incredibly outraged at the events it depicted.

Apparently very closely based on a true story (what is it with true stories and allegory?), the movie basically consists of one very long phone call made by a guy who pretends to be a police officer, who calls up a fast food restaurant and manages to convince the store manager that one of his staff is guilty of theft, and that in order to facilitate police matter, she not only has to hold the accused staff in a room but later on strip search the accused, take away her clothes and then leave her alone with not only one male employee, but two other men at different times in the story.

I guess you can very well imagine what happens when you leave a naked girl (covered with only an apron) alone with a guy, and the guy is encouraged (or is it empowered?) by the "police officer" on the phone to assist with investigations by "searching" her body for the stolen money.

On the one hand the movie works perfectly well as a horrific thriller, only the horror is in human nature itself and not supernatural, as we bear witness to our shocking capacity to do bad things when empowered by someone else higher up in the hierarchy. Call it the Stanford Prison Experiment taken to even more extreme ends then.

On the other hand, the movie also works as an allegory of how our currently established system of following a chain of command (whether in the military, the government or at a corporate or blue-collar workplace) can dehumanize us as the lines that colour the concept of responsibility get significantly blurred.

The most striking thing about the movie is that the only person who finally said "No" to the "police officer" is someone with practically no opportunity for career advancement and nothing to lose.

Everyone else either complied or kept quiet as they fear what might happen if they said no, no matter how wrong the whole thing felt to them.

I've only watched the movie once and in quite distracting circumstances so I'm pretty sure that there are plenty more layers to peel from the movie. But right after seeing it, and also encountering the seemingly endless bombardment of "Janji Ditepati" everywhere I look, I do start to wonder ― are we being compliant, too? Too easily, perhaps?

* The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist.

Kredit: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com

Sabtu, 20 Oktober 2012

The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion

The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion

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