medeni101 Not really much to say without spoiling it...this drama will leave very strong imprint on your hart and soul. It portrays human struggle and search for the meaning of everything. Suffering and pain from separation - both, long and short term, from people we love and need.I watched this movie three times over 72 hours, and every time I saw it, I felt like I was watching it for the first time. Story line is well crafted and acting is just superb by all. I could not help but think of a "butterfly effect" in relation to actions of all characters and, even some seemingly small and irrelevant move, will resonate across continents and impact characters' lives. Also, along with a pizza or popcorn, get a box of Kleenex...trust me you will need it.

secondtake Mammoth (2009)The symbolism of the title will escape most people (it did me), but it literally shows up in an expensive pen with mammoth tusk inlays. This pen crosses a border of wealth and culture that the characters of the movie can't ever cross. And yet the lives of all the many different narratives interwoven here are perfectly parallel.But we know that parallel lines by definition never meet, even if they seem to in the distance down the tracks.The three or four narrative threads are relatively independent even if they relate completely in theme (and in some small direct connecting way) to each other. It's a little like "Babel" in that the stories are literally worlds apart. Central is the New York City couple with the two main stars, computer games analyst (Gael Garcia Bernal) and his emergency room surgeon wife (Michelle Williams). They have a child who is mostly taken care of by a live-in nanny, a Filipino woman with children of her own left behind in her home country.The third locale is Thailand because Bernal goes there on a business trip, and while he's there he has a kind of epiphany about the meaning of life. That's where the pen takes on a brief life of its own. The epiphany, like many revelations for all of us, is short-lived, too, and I think that's part of the idea. We all strive, we all have good intentions, but really nothing quite adds up. What figures most in all of the stories are the children--not least the cute and precocious New York City girl. The children of the nanny and the child of a Thai prostitute who has a slightly caricatured but important role also figure in. If the parents are doing what they can for their children, they are also even more doing what they can for themselves. And sometimes it seems like survival, but of course, survival how, at what economic level? Would it be better in fact to not prostitute yourself (as a nanny, for example) simply to get ahead? Or is this the only way to give your children something you don't get for yourselves.All of this is in the movie. It's intense, it wants to say a lot. And in some way it does. There is some sense that it doesn't always quite click, as if there are things the director could have pushed--or pulled--for greater effect. This isn't something to really judge from the outside, but it's not a masterpiece, which requires some other kind of aesthetic elevation. But it's really good, very good, a movie to see. See it.

Mauricio Campos Haven seeing the good reviews of the movies I was waiting till the end of the 120 minutes of the movie for something to happen. The story only take the daily conflict of rich new yorkers and Philippians people 'drama' but without any real insight or resolution. This is a story worth telling. Unfortunately these characters are presented in a TOTALLY unbelievable way. Nobody needs a lesson on class struggle in such a naive and distorted form. Equaling being poor with "wholesome goodness" is even more superficial. The movie story stays on the superficial aspects of reality. From the cast, production and photography even it's shoot in NY and Philippines it doesn't take any advantage of the locations scenarios. In summary: it's one of the most plain movies I've seeing, with a 'soap opera' story style. Not recommended at all.

choden There are many aspects that make this film special starting from the its use of clichés and the extent it destroys the popular images of this millennium. One significant and courageous point is the way it tears down the adorable Internet geek image. Recently, Hollywood has produced a great number of youngsters, a generation of movie goers who want to become a Mark Zuckerberg or Steve Jobs one day. Nonetheless, the other side of the coin is not that bright or desirable. Mammoth introduces Leo Vidales, the millionaire geek with all his immaturity and weakness, with his ultra shallow personality and his conscience per diem. Globalization rapes the world, devastates the life of the nanny, and enables a heartless brat like Vidales a millionaire live his life with a descent surgeon wife and a pretty kid. Actually, he is a kind of rapist when he talks about doing charity, when he talks about his fantasies of going to India or Africa with Cookie, when he wants to act like a free - souled hippie who he could never be. He rapes other people's dreams and innocent public images. However, after 2 hours we see him at his Manhattan home, safe and sound, enjoying the peace he himself never deserved.Mammoth of Lukas Moodysson runs for the cold truth. Except one detail, Salvador would have known. He would have known what could happen to kids when they talked to white foreigners out there. Every Filipino kid know without their grandmas telling. They watch the news on TV, they read the papers, and yes they have friends with sad and scary stories. Moodysson skipped this fact. Maybe despite all his good efforts, he is still too white for the realities of East Asia.