© Superuber Film, Pornkasem Clinic
Intriguing, empathizing, encouraging, and communicates the harshness of reality in mellowness. It conveys the matter expressing that we can still enjoy our lives and be appreciated while we are imperfect creatures, it shows the dilemma concerning it, and the help offered by beauty treatments. Will we be able to wholly accept our flaws? When insecurities take over us, what can we do about it? Do we try to make changes and pursue the epitome standards to be confident? Truthfully, accepting our flaws has never been easy; of course, we won't settle for less, right? If some of us can accept our flaws, then it is also okay to try changes for what we cannot accept. No matter what the choice is, we should not be stopped since we are the owners of our bodies. You do what you want.
What makes the movie real is that it shows two perspectives. The phrase "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" expresses that understanding beauty is subjective. In the movie, the male lead finds the female lead beautiful but she herself does not. This is what the Thai online short film "LALIN" embodies—presented by Pornkasem Clinic. Significant and a story that shows how critical society is, a story which everyone can relate to and I will not stop talking about it. This is a piece we all should heed to. We were never not concerned about how we look and sadly, insecurity hinders us from many things often.
Set in prepossessing places in Thailand and Japan and set in the medium of the social media world. It was released last August 31, 2015. Its genre is beautifully simple with the theme of love and romance, the perception of standards of beauty and physique, how today's social media world works, and how it affects someone's identity. It is just a piece with a duration of 14 minutes but it is a visual embodiment of versatility focusing on the concept of reality in the main perspective of a masked Thai girl, nicknamed as "moon", living in Japan. The protagonist of the story is Lalin, a famous woman on the internet known as an internet idol or "net idol". As she posts many contents on her social media account emphasizing her fairness and beauty, she accumulates a multitude of supporters and admirers' likes, comments, and shares. However, being someone as a net idol is not as easy as doing A, B, C as the heroine said at the beginning of the story. What and who you are in real life and what and who you are online is a colossal matter of complexing difference that affects the alteration and consistency of identity. Behind the screen, she hides something she is secretive about due to her low self-esteem and that is the reason she moved away from her homeland, possibly due to unpleasant memories of her younger days.
In the social media world with the help of modern time devices and applications, we can easily do revisions of ourselves, even without the help of makeup we can customize our own definition of beauty that may differ from what's physically seen from you. We can edit our photos and descriptions many times as much as we want with our own choice of to what extent it will be done. The proof of it is the beauty applications. Beauty applications are home to filters that can make someone appear cuter and more fabulous than a real-life image.
Social networking sites are not a place for spontaneity which makes the online users utilize more time to think and finalize a concept or idea that will define them. A time that does not have limits lets a person be able to convey the content with satisfaction that will seem right depending on them. Using social media is also a matter of achieving attention, a medium that might help boost someone's self-esteem and confidence, a medium for self-expression. However, the longer you stay in it the more you fathom how it reaches to be questionable on maintaining sanity. Comparisons, threats, and hate comments of the netizens are inevitable such as when in one of the beginning scenes in the film there is a comment on the screen that Thai girls are the best among all. This gives emphasis that people really have cultural differences and their own standards of who is much more beautiful from their point of view. If one falls into such a cycle, it is mostly hard to easily break away from it. To be involved in such complexity develops the possibility for a person to be mentally affected. It can get someone to feel lowly or negative such as getting depressed, frustrated, anxious, stressed, or even to be hysterical. But Lalin used social media to gain attention, comfort, and validation for the beauty she shows online.
The film shows that the societal problem of LOOKISM is still loudly existent that it degrades people when it should not be that way because how someone looks like or the physical appearance should not be the basis to respect, admire, like, or love someone or basis for categorizing social classes like what happens in employment in South Korean societies. Lookism causes people to succumb to discrimination or prejudice. Both male and female leads had a degraded past of being negatively commented on by their acquaintances. It is evident in a Christmas scene wherein Lalin gave her food to the man and they sat next to each other making the story express closeness from the characters. The film showed the contrasting demeanors the two leads portrayed. Nut has gotten confident as he lost weight and pursued Lalin because he likes her for a long time. Meanwhile, the heroine is a low self-esteem character that made her hesitant to show herself in front of Nut. But they had a long process of familiarity and friendship since they are also mutual online. In the end, their opinions have changed, making her realize something powerful after Nut gave her the storybook he published just for Lalin to see and receive. The beautiful and emotional background music "How Long" by the Thai dream-pop band Jelly Rocket played and she was seen running to catch up with Nut who already walked away from their rendezvous right after she chatted him that she cannot do it as she looked on a mirror with her removed mask showing a pimple breakout on her face. The confidence of Nut to win the girl's feelings and the desire to finally meet her faded as seen in the end leaving the viewers to understand the consequences that we lose chances because we are not confident enough.
In connection with the concept of love and romance, fate could be predictable or not. It might be the reason for two people to meet or maybe not because sometimes love succeeds if it is being effortfully worked to make the goal happen. In the film, the male lead called Nut was also the boy discriminated against by many from her past and this boy strived as those discriminating people's words made an impact on him making him go on the path of losing weight. As time passed by, the man excessively lost many kilos making him appear slim. This meant that he let the people's words go through him and firmly complied with their standards or it might have served him as a challenge. On the other hand, the maiden did not try to physically change but she beautifully edits her image online making her viewers believe that is how she looks. For the woman, as a solution, she chose to turn away from the land where she had her saddening past and tried to live a new life in another country and that she has an option to alter her identity with the help of social media apps.
The movie has beautiful symbolism resembling Lalin as space's moon and Nut as an astronaut getting closer and closer to the immense body as time passes by as seen in Nut's storybook. The filling of the gaps between them was the symbol of their closeness and intimacy and the desire to be together. That's what Nut wanted to convey to the woman she loved for a long time. It expressed that despite the imperfection the moon has, it is still admirable and lovable. Nut himself truly accepted what and who Lalin is despite the people's beauty standards.
Generally, the film's cinematography is sightly, emotionally captivating as it is empathetic, and relatable for many people in society. It showed the beauty of renowned Japan which made it more aesthetically pleasing. Also, it showcased what love can do for someone important in one's life. But things such as love can be affected if you do not love and accept yourself. There is not only one way to have solutions for those. It is up to you if you will change yourself for yourself, if you will change to comply with society's standards and validation, or if you will accept your flaws and still be happy with them. The movie is applaudable as it straightforwardly expressed a realistic message to the public which can be another cause for the viewers to gain enhanced consciousness of what is really happening in the society due to discrimination and how lookism affects life decisions.
That's it for now. Thank you for reading!
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