Frozen: the amateurish review

It's been a while since I watched a Disney movie in the cinemas. Just earlier this week, I watched the highly anticipated Disney animation Frozen for the second time. And let me tell you: it's been quite some time that a movie made me genuinely laugh and smile (either that, or the type of movies I watch are seriously depressing).

I watched it without high expectations - I haven't even seen the theatrical trailers, either - and knew nothing of the plot whatsoever. From only looking at the posters I expected some generic story about an evil ice queen, thawing the town/land/kingdom of eternal winter (Narnia, anyone?) and having an underdog save the day. But boy, was I way off. Spoilers from here on out, people!

Like most Disney animations, I expected nothing less of the characters being able to break out into a song at any given moment. The songs were so immensely happy I found myself literally grinning from ear-to-ear. Some songs even gave me the chills.. Idina Menzel's voice acting as Elsa was so spot-on that it actually scared me. And I mean that in the best way possible.

Apart from the perfection that is Christophe Beck's scores, there is the plot. No plot is perfect, of course, and Frozen is no exception. However, after watching the 90-minute animation, you eventually forget the minor plot holes and find yourself praising over the beautiful moral of the story instead of nit-picking the fact that Elsa's dress isn't actually ice so how-could-she-possibly-make-it kind of thing.

Speaking of Elsa, she may have just been my new favourite Disney character. Why? Because she's a badass. Ok no, in all seriousness though, I have only one word to describe her: misunderstood heroine. Alright, so that's two words.. Hush now. For those who have seen the movie (or the trailers), you'll understand me when I legitimately thought that she'll turn into a stone cold biatch as the movie progresses. Here we have Princess of Arendelle, struggling to cope with her "icy magic". She wasn't cursed but rather born with it. Whether it's genetic or what, we'll never know. But it doesn't really matter, does it? Here is a perfect example of brilliant pacing! Anyway. As a child, Elsa accidentally hurt her sister Anna with her powers and a series of events involving self-isolation follows soon after. Cue the song "For the First Time In Forever" where Anna expresses her excitement of opening her then "shut tight" gates of the castle.

lost her parents during her teens, she was never taught on how to control her powers. Thus leaving her vulnerable and scared of her own abilities. So when Anna pushed her too far during her coronation night, which lead her to uncontrollably unleash her powers and harming civilians, I totally understood! I feel you, Elsa gurl. What happens after struck me: Elsa flees and retreats to her handmade ice castle whilst Anna runs after her, hoping to resolve the accidental icy winter. And guess what? They didn't need men for that. I love it!

Sure, there was that cutsie Kristoff and Hans but they didn't rely on them for "true love" or a kiss to awaken them from deep slumber or whatever it is that seems to happen a lot. In fact, this movie was like a big middle finger to the renaissance Disney films - these two sisters were able to survive without them, because the real true love they had was each other. Best.

So I thank you, Disney, for showing the kids of this generation that you can't marry someone you just met because that's ludicrous. Thank you for adding a refreshing twist to your movie 'formulas'. I look forward to the next vague one-word title feature films.

I don't even know

The premise is that the eldest sibling gets the most pressure. He/she has to set the right examples to the other siblings, be a good role model and everything else that requires to be the "perfect child". But what happens if he/she "screw up", in the eyes of his/her parents? Hypothetically speaking, the parents would now look to the other child and subconsciously instill pressure to be what the elder sibling wasn't. Hypothetically speaking.

So that premise flies out the window. It is the youngest that is faced with high expectations. And I happen to be the last out of three kids.

Fortunately, till this day, I have never really received the downside of being the youngest. Especially thirteen years younger. It's always been easy: I get called 'cute' most of the time, I never got into fights with my siblings and of course, I get all the attention in terms of being spoilt. Now I get plentiful of attention, but more of a... 'closely-monitored' attention.

See, my siblings and I don't live under the same roof. We're actually thousands of miles apart. So I consider myself an only child sometimes. Everything was ok (as listed above) just until recently. Maybe it's been happening way before I noticed it but now that I'm pretty much idle on most days, I'm starting to realise this icky thing called pressure sneaking in. And it's not even the good type.

My siblings' behaviour recently is also a catalyst to the crawling of the poison. Without having to explain the details (or else I'll be here for days typing it out), long story short: my parents are heavily disappointed. So disappointed to the point where I can feel the drag in the room. Their disappointment lightens up as they realise that they have one daughter left that could possibly make up for what their two other children did, or didn't do. Eighteen years of having it easy finally caught up to me.

From academic choices to boyfriends to something as little as reading the right books are being scrutinized. I appreciate the concern from both of my parents and I understand wholly where they're coming from. They feel that they've messed up somewhere along the way in raising my elder siblings and so they only want the best for me. But they shouldn't have to live through the regret of every parental choice they had to make with them.

I don't blame my parents, I really don't.

Accurate

"You know that feeling?
When you're just waiting
Waiting to get home, into your room,
close the door, fall into bed,
and just let everything out that you kept in all day.
That feeling of both relief and desperation.
Nothing is wrong.
But nothing is right either.
And you're tired.
Tired of everything, tired of nothing.
And you just want someone to
be there and tell you it's okay.
But no one's going to be there.
And you know you have to be strong
for yourself, because no one can fix you.
But you're tired of waiting.
Tired of having to be the one to fix yourself and everyone else.
Tired of being strong.
And for once, you just want it to be easy.
To be simple . To be helped. To be saved.
But you know you won't be.
But you're still hoping.
And you're still wishing.
And you're still staying strong and fighting,
with tears in your eyes.
You're fighting."

Highly observants

There’s just something about the way my mother eats her meals. Sometimes I’m just so engrossed and bemused by the way she makes eating more than a necessity; she makes it a passion. Passion, in this case, doesn’t necessarily mean doing it in an obsessive way, just with love. Throughout my whole sixteen years of life, I’ve never seen anyone do quite the same as what my mother does.

Telling others exactly what I mean with this is difficult, let alone trying to write about it. Well here’s me, hoping the power of words will describe my fascination:

Dinners aren’t a usually a big deal in my household – if you want to eat, you may join, if not, feel free to continue on with whatever it is you’re doing. And my mother doesn’t tend to join us a lot; if she did she would come late to the dinner table. She’d take out a plate, place a handful of rice and sit in her designated seat. The rice wasn’t much compared to say, me or my father, but it was enough to fill her up. She then starts with a protein; say chicken or fish, then work her way to getting the vegetables. Here comes the interesting bit: my mother doesn’t care what anyone thinks of what her dish looks like. It may look like the most unappetizing dish in the history of unappetizing dishes but it doesn’t seem to bother her. As long as it tastes good, it pleases her.

My mother loves ‘kecap’. My father detests it. Just the sight of the thick black liquid is enough to make my father squirm a little. In every dish my mother eats, she would ask for kecap. She says, “it makes the dish more alive”. Frankly, I agree with her on that. I have inherited my mother’s love for kecap. Now, a person who likes kecap tends to not like anything of the opposite, like ‘sambal’, and vice versa. Just like my father. My mother’s an exception. She douses on both of these taste enhancers every time. Once everything was on her plate, she starts to dig in. Not in a grubby, stuffing the face, dig in… But in a decadent way. Whatever it is she’s eating, it looks delicious. She makes it look delicious and I believe that’s exactly how one should eat. Perspiration starts to appear on the bridge of her nose the deeper she goes into her dish. But that doesn’t bother her; it didn’t look gross, as one might think. To me, it looks like she’s enjoying herself a lot with something as simple as a dinner. 

Finally, half way through the dish, my mother stands up and walks over to the glass container that’s filled with kerupuk. She grabs a handful not only for herself, but also for both me and my father. It’s the one thing we all like. She puts the kerupuk into her plate and pours some kecap on top of it. The snap of the kecap bottle cap is quickly followed by a sudden simultaneous crunch. 

In a way, I'm sort of envious. I can't deny that I've tried to mimic the way she eats because I've tried countless of times only to be disappointed at the end result. You're probably thinking "eating isn't a piece of artwork - why should you care of how it looks?" and frankly, I don't really know. I guess some things are better left unexplained.

Of course, I haven't told my mother this. I'm afraid if I do, she'll be more conscious about it and maybe even stop and change they way she eats. I could ask her how she manages to do that but maybe some things are better left alone to enjoy rather than imitate. Because really, if I do, I'll be no more than just a copy and who likes those?

Happy birthday mum - here's to the best original of you there ever was!

xo,
S

Metamorphosis

My mother always tells me that I don't have enough friends. Compared to her, who is the biggest social butterfly there is, I am just a caterpillar. Like the caterpillar, I prefer to stay on the ground and make do with just a few essential necessities. Necessities being my closest friends.

I don't know whether it's a preference or I just don't like going through the phase of making new friends (maybe it's both) but I'm someone who would rather have one really good friend instead of a thousand "friends". Maybe I should credit my father who recently admitted to me that ever since I was a pacifier-sucker, he rarely sets play dates for me amongst my fellow toddlers. And he did this for one reason only: my environment is the most influential thing there is.

This is proven by what I've noticed at home. My domestic helper's 2-year-old son, Abi, used to be the sweetest most adorable thing until he befriended my other domestic helper's son. He is about 2 years older, super mischievous and just not nice in general. Gradually, I noticed Abi imitating his new found friend and not the kind of things you'd like to see anyone imitate for that matter. It dawned on me that my dad made the right choice: in sacrifice of me having childhood friends, I became somewhat a "good person". I was never heavily influenced by anything apart from my parents and maybe my sisters. TV and games was never really any trouble to me because I never took it as anything more than just fiction. And fiction should definitely stay fiction.

I make it an effort to cut out the negativity from my life and that usually stems off from the wrong people. I've been called a bitch plentiful of times because of my non-sugar-coating attitude: if I don't like you, I won't talk to you and I won't kiss your ass to create a friendship as real as Paris Hilton's boob job. So, sure. I don't have many friends. And I guess I'm picky in this area of my life. But it's only because I want to surround myself with good nature and maybe learn a thing or two from my environment. Eventually that caterpillar will morph into a butterfly, but a butterfly with stronger, defined wings. 

xo,

S

Out of sight, out of mind

I really need to keep in touch with people.

4 am pondering

A few months ago, two of my friends that have never met before were acquainted. Location: Jakarta Fashion Week. Friend A brought her boyfriend and I brought Friend B. After they have been introduced to one another, Friend A says to me discretely, "Is he your boyfriend?" I laughed like it is the most absurd thing in the world and replied back to her, "No, he's gay."

It wasn't over then. I had to explain the situation to Friend A. There were a lot of 'y'knows' and sentences ending with question marks - like trying to describe to a Ugoslavian how to cook some poached eggs. In the end Friend A understood, but still left the room winking at me as a gesture to make a move on Friend B.

To me, who understands both of their situations, it was frustrating. To Friend A I must've looked like I was making up some massive lie to hide the fact that Friend B is my boyfriend, by using the oh no he's actually gay card. I'm not in 4th grade anymore, I can admit to whoever my boyfriend is. And to Friend B, it's not easy to come out in a country that's so conservative. I thought out of all people, Friend A would've understood better. Friend A is a model. The fashion industry is practically coated with gay men. I guess the problem here is that Friend A understood, but she did not accept.

Recently, a few days back, Friend A and I crossed paths while I was with another group of friends. Including Friend B. I went across the room to converse and she says, "Oh didn't I meet him [Friend B] during Fashion Week?" and I replied with a simple, "Yup." She could've stopped there but she added, "The one that's not normal right?"

What I should've done was paused and questioned what she meant by 'not normal'. Grill her, perhaps, as to what she thinks is 'normal'. But instead, I laughed it off. Maybe it was because of the noise in the room that I couldn't hear exactly what she said but only did I realise after, maybe it was my slow processing of the Indonesian language, maybe maybe maybe.. But really, there's no excuses for what I did.

What is normal? I'm not even going to go into any depth with that to prevent myself writing another Theory of Knowledge Essay. But surely, being gay has nothing to do with being normal. There is no correlation between that, I think. Friend B is capable of things that straight people can do. Why is he not normal? He passed IB with, I must admit, a very good result and he's going off to university doing what he loves.

Now that I think of it, if Friend A thinks like this, how many of her friends thinks the same way? And how many of their friends think the same way? It's a vicious cycle, really. And to think I could've stopped that cycle if only I had just said what I felt. I guess I was too concerned on what she would think of me if I stood up for Friend B.


Forever tolerating and pleasing,
S