Can a movie convey ethical value without becoming dogmatic, pathetic or sentimental?
It all depends on the director really. If the director takes a voyeuristic and neutral stance while he tells a story, he will be able to do that. However, it is human nature to take sides and there is no way possible to be totally neutral. A director’s style and how he directs it is a mirror image of his views on life, and through his films, we are exposed to a little bit of his inner world, on how he sees the world in that time when the movie plays to his audience. Utopias and dystopias complete each other … I can spend an entire day talking about this topic. But instead I would like to quote something from a Singapore short story: “If there are no short people in the world, how do you know that you are tall? If there are no evil men in the world, how do you judge or even know what you do is right or wrong?” I’ve always loved how the world looks from it’s perfection and imperfection. If everything is too perfect, it becomes too sterile and you lose that part of life which makes us hum
