Being John Malkovich<\/em><\/a>, his other movies are also about existence, or being. This is not an easy subject to write about for a film review. Though I\u2019m not intellectual enough to fully address this longstanding debate in the human history, “being” is the only word that pops into my head when I think about the movies Kaufman has written. For instance, he writes a story of an uncivilized Puff who is confused about who he is when he faces civilized human society (Human Nature), as well as the path of Joel’s memory that becomes the trail to understanding who he is (Eternal Sunshine). \u00a0There are no other writers I can think of \u00a0who approach such deep subject matter with eccentricity and humor in the same way that Kaufman does. Among other movies, Being John Malkovich is the most straightforward about the subject matter.<\/p>\nDespite his amazing ability to perform great puppet show with his hands, the miserable Craig Schwartz can use this only for organizing files and folders to make money to maintain his life. The only thing he can do is to blame unfair society and just live with it. He also lives with his wife who is crazy about animals. One day, he finds this strange and supernatural tunnel behind the cabinet in his company. This tunnel leads to the body of John Malkovich. He can\u2019t control John, but he can see and feel the same things that Malkovich does. Then, Craig decides to make money with his co-worker, Maxine by letting other people to enjoy being Malkovich.<\/p>\n
This is the basic plot of the film. Those main characters get addicted to being Malkovich. Then they start to question themselves, wondering, who am I? In case of Craig, he wants to be a famous puppeteer like the one who shows up on TV every day. He finally becomes THE greatest puppeteer with Malkovich\u2019s body and fame by taking over Malkovich completely. However, he still feels something is wrong because being Malkovich is not really who he is. Whatever puppet or person he controls, it doesn\u2019t prove his real bein, because the reality he sees through the other\u2019s eye is not his reality. It is more of a virtual, or proxy reality. This happens to other characters too. They are not trying to prove their being by facing the reality, but rather by enjoying the proxy happiness.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\nThe most interesting scene in this film is when Malkovich himself goes into the tunnel to his own body. He finds out that he is surrounded by these Malkoviches. This is a really weird scene, but it totally makes sense because the only way man can sense his being is to see his reflection in others. Malkovich sees thousands of himself in others to sense that he is alive.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m going to finish this review because I don\u2019t think I can keep writing with such confusing philosophical questions continuously popping into my head. But one more interesting thing that I noticed is that I can sense that my consciousness is awake while I am writing or drinking a coffee. I remember what Craig said to his wife\u2019s chimps in the beginning: \u201cYou don\u2019t know how lucky you are being a monkey\u2026because consciousness is a terrible curse. I think, I feel, I suffer.\u201d Yes. I think, I feel, I suffer, too. But at least by having a consciousness I can throw endless questions to myself about the reason for my being. And I\u2019m grateful for it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Reviewed by Dong-Hwan Kim. Viewed on DVD. One thing I realized just before I wrote a review about this film is that I’ve seen most of Charlie Kaufman\u2019s film so far. These movies have made him famous in the Hollywood, specifically Human Nature, Adaptation, Confession of a Dangerous Mind, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dvd","category-films"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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One thing I realized just before I wrote a review about this film is that I’ve seen most of Charlie Kaufman\u2019s film so far. These movies have made him famous in the Hollywood, specifically Human Nature, Adaptation, Confession of a Dangerous Mind, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.<\/p>\n