DEREK EX MACHINA, created by author and editor Derek L.H., is a blog dedicated to exploring the effect that video games and film have on people.
All in Analysis
Through its dark humor and brilliantly realized characters, The Art of Self-Defense manages to say a lot about violence and masculinity without every coming across as full of itself or preachy. Self-Defense is a film that very much understands what it is and the kind of story it’s trying to tell, and doesn’t attempt to be anything that it isn’t. What results is a film that is tightly focused, funny, and intelligent.
Everyone who plays Celeste will learn about how to learn and and get through hardship, which, in so doing, teaches its audience about mental health and illness, a topic that many pieces of media struggle to effectively talk about, and how it can be coped with. It is for teaching that lesson to its players that Celeste’s management of its difficulty and narrative serves can only be considered as masterful.
The separation of characters' stories and the frustrating limits of the characters' interactions with one another create a narrative experience that feels very fragmented. This fragmentation causes Octopath to feel like it hosts a party of characters that happen to be going on quests that take them in the same direction, rather than a party of characters that feel like they're going on a quest together.
This piece on 2001 is specifically focused on my interpretation of the meaning of the three monoliths that we see throughout the film, as well as my interpretations of the Star Gate sequence and Star Child imagery towards the end of 2001.
