Jay Lagare

I first encountered Baz Luhrmann a long time ago with Moulin Rouge. Back then I was fascinated by his dazzling visual style. I also remembered feeling like I actually knew, actually understood what love is. Love felt so real so palpable as if I could feel it, touch it. But that’s another movie.

The Great Gatsby is about Nick Carraway, a recent migrant to New York, drawn by the opportunities of the Big Apple and planning to find his fortune as a bond trader in Wall Street. His rich neighbour is a mysterious figure who throws lavish parties in his villa.

Nick is invited into one of these parties where he finally meets his neighbour, a man named Jay Gatsby. It turned out that Jay wanted to meet Nick’s already-married cousin Daisy with whom he previously had an affair and had been running after since. Nick eventually relented. And as expected, after much planning and dreaming, Daisy turned out to be… typical. And nothing good came out of it.

While The Great Gatsby is an interesting film by itself, it’s not Moulin Rouge all over again. I was more than mildly annoyed at his hopeful romanticism. I did feel a crestfallen at all of Gatsby’s efforts to win back Daisy’s affection and felt bad at what happened to him. But not as bad as how I felt when Satine died :P

It’s a stormy day and there’s not much to do so I decided to watch Emperor. It’s about the war crimes investigation on the Emperor of Japan at the end of World War II. Which is good since I am generally interested in history. Unlike typical WW2 movies, there’s not much guts and glory action and is mainly dialogue. I thought that would be a challenge but it turned out fine and I was able to finish it :P

The key character is General Bonner Fellers, tasked with investigating the role of the Japanese Emperor Hirohito in war crimes. The other key character is General Douglas MacArthur, who just happens to be one of my childhood heroes, played as Tommy Lee Jones by Tommy Lee Jones. I couldn’t quite wrap my head around  the US marshal, being my MacArthur :P

While Fellers went around carrying on his investigation. He also engaged in a side quest searching for a Japanese woman that he met while studying in the US. The significance of this thread of the story is that because of his relationship with the Japanese woman and her family, Fellers had a good understanding of the often inscrutable Japanese culture which helped towards his final decision.

In the end, Fellers concluded that they couldn’t find any evidence that Hirohito is involved in war crimes. Likely because the fanatical devotion of officials (most of them are also going to be hanged) and their desire to protect the emperor. But the emperor has undisputedly called for an end to resistance and any further bloodshed. Hanging him would undo that. That’s what saved him.