Hunt for Wilderpeople

According to the attachment theory, both Ricky Baker and Hec would be categorized into the avoidant-attachment style. After he was sent to his new foster family with Hec and Bella, he tried to run away at the very beginning. He did not want to talk to anyone and even though Bella has been trying to make him feel warmth and love, he sneaked out at the midnight and tried to escape. Perhaps it was the abandonment by his mum that led him to this but it is also possible that he did not believe there would be kind people in the world due to his past experience with the child welfare services and the loss of his best friend. Perhaps this is also why he was being described by as a troublesome kid who did "graffiti-ing, littering, smashing stuff, burning stuff, breaking stuff, stealing stuff, throwing rocks...", he wanted to protect himself as he was never loved by anyone. However, it was heartwarming to see that he began to talk to Bella and even starting to form an attachment with her, which was shown when they could sing along for his own birthday although the song was a self-composed one. It was also the beginning of him having a taste of love, that unlock his armed heart, that enabled him to be fearless to try getting closer with Hec after Bella's death.

I would consider Hec was also having the avoidant-attachment style because he hardly form any attachment with anyone too. Even with Bella, he did not have much interaction with her in daily life, he did not show any affection towards anyone. However, we could feel how much he loves Bella especially when he expressed his sadness in tears while holding Bella in his arm when she's dead. His later revelation about his past with Ricky, had also revealed the reason he became what he was.

The process of forming attachment with each other between Ricky and Hec was the highlight of the movie. They were similar to each other, in terms of experience and the way they react to the environment, only one was younger and one was older, which made a huge difference as Ricky still kept a naive side of him where he would want to be loved and cared. His was still not in complete disappointment to the world, which is why he was easily lit up by Bella. However, Hec had much more experience with the world. He was realistic, and he had enough of disappointment with the world that he did not want to give anymore. He only wanted to keep everything to himself and keep himself isolated from the world. Yet, he could not resist this thing called "love", that he got showered by Bella and Ricky, which eventually led him to forming that attachment with Ricky.  

"No Child Left Behind"
It's sarcastic to see how the child welfare services has been using this tagline yet their actions have not been really synchronised with it. Yes, they tried to find Ricky when he went missing but the thing is they made a big fuss out of the missing of Ricky by having helicopter and police car to chase him, just to throw him into juvenile prison again, made all the efforts they put in the chase sound really ridiculous. The tagline was supposed to be advocating for children's welfare, but their actions have already gone wild, losing the original intention.

Grace is Gone

Grace is gone is a heartfelt movie about how a veteran, Stanley grieved over the death of his wife, Grace, while contemplated on how to tell his two young children, Dawn and Heidi, about the news.

When Stanley first received the news, he was in great shock. It can be seen that he was in denial of the fact for quite a long time, from the moment when he stopped Dawn and Heidi from eating the food that was given as condolences, to his behavior of calling home, wanting to inform his dead wife everything was alright on the trip. He also deployed the mechanism of reaction formation as his behavior was contrast to the situation he faced at that moment. For example, he told his daughters it was fine to take a break from school. He decided to bring them to their favourite theme park after Dawn's impromptu suggestion and even allowed Heidi and Dawn to get their ear pierced.

If I were to put myself in his shoes, I would not know how to handle the situation too. The death of spouse is heartbreaking, yet I had to stay strong for my children especially when they were so young and I didn't even know how to inform them about it. The hardest part is I will have to manage my emotion and taking care of theirs at the same time. When my grandmother passed away 5 years ago, I remember how my dad was being so calm and strong in front of us about his own mother's death when even my mum could not bear the pain and cried. "This is how life is supposed to be, she has suffered enough and it is good that she is released from the pain now," I remember how my dad said this to me as I felt so sad about her death and went on crying for few consecutive days. I do think that how my parents went through the grief process, deeply affected me, as I learned it through my observation on them. I am glad that they did not just keep everything to themselves but instead shared their thoughts with me, which enabled me to slowly let go of the fact that my grandmother had left us.

This movie revealed the other side of the families who endure the pain and consequences in the battle with Iraq. Throughout the film, audiences are led to pick up the feeling of sympathy and be in the position of Grace's family. The movie subtly uncovered the reality of how the political belief and stand collide with each other, and how it ignites the war, through the father-daughter conversation and the broadcast of television in the movie. During the war, they get to see updates on the news daily and the media was trying to portray and categorize the battle as necessary for the sake of glory of being Americans. We are always proud to see how a villain was defeated by our country heroes. The magnificent explosion in the battle field, soldiers who put their life aside and were fueled up with the courage to fight for the country… Generally, people would expect this kind of story when we were to talk about war. Surprisingly, this movie captures the moment behind the war, the world under the mat we did not expect to see or rather, usually ignored. The impact it brings when the whole family has to endure the pain of losing one or even more family members in a battle, just for the sake of glory, is it worthy? Bear in mind, this movie was only shot and focused on one family, can we imagine how many families are this closely related to war?

The Experimenter

The Experimenter is a movie based on the true story of a social psychologist, Stanley Milgram, who had studied on obedience through conducting a series of experiments back in 1961. The study had stirred up controversy to not only the psychology world but also the whole world during that time.

Most of the people tend to believe or assume that they are kind in nature and that they would not intentionally hurt someone. This study conducted by Milgram would have an authority figure, a teacher(participants) and a learner(confederate), where the teacher would be ask to administer shock to the learner when the learner did not answer the question correctly. This idea, that came out of his curiosity of why would the followers of Nazis would obey to instructions of execution without questions or guilt. not only had administered physical test shock to the participants, but also psychological shock to them. The controversy was mainly about the ethical issue in it as participants were observed being under a great amount of distress during the experiment, due to their cognitive dissonance. They knew that it was not appropriate to administer shock to these people, yet they continue doing so. The experiment was indeed very interesting as people kind of found the true side of them when it comes to situation where they are required to merely obey to an authority figure without doubts.

On a side note, I believe that one of the controversies was that people did not feel comfortable being revealed or confronted as being an unkind person. The concept of self-presentation refers to the extent of people behave according to how they want others to perceive themselves. During the experiment, especially during the debriefing after it is over, the participants felt relieved that they did not really hurt the learner, yet they felt contradicted as they could not accept this side of them where they were actually willing to hurt someone else. The criticism regarding ethical issue seems more like a defense mechanism that the world used to defend themselves from being tested on this even further. They want to stop talking / disucssing about it. This is what the movie is trying to portray through the scenes where an elephant was walking behind Milgram. It is actually used to resemble the metaphorical idiom "elephant in the room", hinting on the phenomenon in which people's refusal to admit or discuss about an obvious risk.

I have always had interest in topic about obedience since I first get my hands on this research when I first attended PSY 111 Social Psychology class. I found this study amazing as it reveals a down side of human's behavior. If I were to conduct a social experiment without ethical or budgeting limit, I would really want to do something about to what extent would people go for their own pleasure at the expense of others. I have not had an actual idea on how to do this but I really want to find out more about the selfishness in people.

Amadeus

It's a fictional tale of a genius, narrated by a mediocrity. Having mere passion is not enough on the path of music, but with god's gift. Thus, a tragedy begins when a passionate court composer - Antonio Salieri met with the gifted musician - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Antonio Salieri is no doubt devoted to God, with his passion in music. Before meeting Mozart, he was already amazed by his piece and convinced that his talent was gift from God. Their first encounter was shocking to Salieri, expecting a paradigmatic person but seeing Mozart's libertine's side had crashed his fantasy. Nonetheless, he was subdued by Mozart's piece. During their first official meeting, Salieri presented his creation, "March of Welcome". Mozart could just play it from memory after hearing it once. He critiqued the piece and effortlessly transformed it. From there, Salieri's envy transforming into jealousy, the journey of him revenging on God began with no return. 

Cognitive Dissonance

It was very obvious to the audience that Salieri had strong cognitive dissonance. He was left in awe every time after listening to Mozart. He could not help but to recognize and acknowledge Mozart's talent. Yet, he was conflicted because he could not understand God's will in giving such great gift to the childish and presumptuous Mozart. He tried to reduce his dissonance by interpreting it as God's cruel despise on his mediocrity and hence wanted to revenge.

In my opinion, Mozart has the gift from God, of having the ability to compose wonderful classics; while Salieri, conscious of his oblivious gift, the ability to recognise and understand the gifted, but twisted it because of his dissatisfaction and jealousy of Mozart, and his misunderstanding of God's message.

Instead of Mozart's life, this film is more like a journey of transformation of Salieri's state of mind. From awe and admiration to jealousy and hatred, his life was tied to Mozart since the moment they met. Following Mozart's death, Salieri's passion in music and life were gone too.
Perhaps it's another blessing from God that Mozart never know what had led him to his death. Towards the end of his life, thinking that the murderer was his bosom friend while doing something he had devoted his life for, who says he's not the lucky one?

At the end of the film, Mozart's significant high-pitched laughter leads to the credit role, as if that was the purest and uncontaminated part of the film.