Life of Pi

2012 is nearing an end... so here's to completing my delayed blog post: A review on The Life of Pi.
I had two main reasons to watch this movie -
1) Ang Lee (Taiwanese pride)
2) The trailer had me gobsmacked
- and henceforth read the book as a preemptive move. As I pointed out in a previous post (but to be perfectly honest, I can't recall if I even bothered to post about it), the book wasn't fabulous, although the fluid storytelling technique was commendation-worthy.
The movie, however, was a different story entirely - I viewed it twice, and left both times with one altered impression, and another that remained unchanged on both occasions.
During my first viewing, I found the movie unappealing, but the second time round, I developed a liking for it, as well as a confirmed appreciation of the absolutely stunning effects and detailed cinematography under the baton of maestro ANG LEE!

This movie is a solid visual phenomena. "The Next Avatar". Well, I can tell you that Life of Pi was way more lovelier than Avatar! Lee filmed it with such intricate delicacy - not a single frame or crop is out of place. Each shot is poised exactly as it is meant to be filmed. We don't see anything unnecessary - everything captured is perfectly in place... I don't know how much further I can stress this.
Watching this in the cinemas, you catch your breath as you see yourself looking at a huge screen that is absolutely dominated in the gold, reflective light of a lonely sea at morning, or a single boat hovering on a dark sea that is dotted with the reflection of a million stars at night, balanced so that the sea and the sky become one, and their separation is invisible... The complementary colours created by the orange boat floating on a blue sea... young Pi, in a blue shirt, entering the chapel via a blue door (the colours match SO WELL), the orangutan floating to the boat on a pile of bananas...The text-magic of the opening sequence...Or the sight of an island swarmed in meerkats, an island that turns a luminescent green at night... a raging sea that sweeps in great armfuls of waves, crashing down with the fury of a thunderstorm...

Lee also did a wonderful job in expressing the Indian culture, via the dancing (the colours were beautiful here too), eating style, mythical story (which is later re-visited by Pi when he peers down into the ocean and sees everything - I can't even begin to express how genius this was). 

However, what is most discussed about this movie is that the CGI was spectacular. One does not watch and instantly recognize the 'green screen.' The tiger's puppy-like eyes, tenderly staring up at Pi... the growl of the tiger when it devours the hyena... Richard Parker is brilliant. He is, in the movie, as much of the star as he was in the book. He was the reason for Pi's survival, after all.
The last scene of the movie is utterly heartbreaking, and the fact that Lee chose to end it that way was.. genius. It is, after all, the one theme of the story - that we never take a chance to properly say goodbye, and that life is an act of letting go... the tiger disappearing into the woods was letting go.
"This is a story to make you believe in God," Pi said. Whether this stands true or not, the movie is breathtaking and beautiful. The cinematography is beyond imagination... this colours and scope of scenes in this film make it an artwork (probably one of the most incredible examples of movie-magic I've ever seen in my life, to think about it). I'm so proud of Ang Lee. This movie will sweep at the Oscars.
On a side note, I'm so thrilled to be watching 3 beautiful movies in a row (This, the Hobbit, and tomorrow - LES MIS).

little tree

by: e.e. cummings (1894-1962)

little tree
little silent Christmas tree
you are so little
you are more like a flower
who found you in the green forest
and were you very sorry to come away?
see i will comfort you
because you smell so sweetly
i will kiss your cool bark
and hug you safe and tight
just as your mother would,
only don't be afraid
look the spangles
that sleep all the year in a dark box
dreaming of being taken out and allowed to shine,
the balls the chains red and gold the fluffy threads,
put up your little arms
and i'll give them all to you to hold
every finger shall have its ring
and there won't be a single place dark or unhappy
then when you're quite dressed
you'll stand in the window for everyone to see
and how they'll stare!
oh but you'll be very proud
and my little sister and i will take hands
and looking up at our beautiful tree
we'll dance and sing
"Noel Noel"

-
spangles that sleep, little arms, dressed... Cumming's poem is delicate and representative of the glowing childhood loveliness of Christmas!

21/12

I'm steering clear from the Doomsday hype - 21/12 means something entirely different to me.
Anyhow, here's a beautifully written passage from The Orchard Keeper. 

Some time after midnight on the twenty-first of December it began to snow. By morning in the gray spectral light of a brief and obscure winter sun the fields lay deadwhite and touched with a phosphorous glow as if producing illumination of themselves, and the snow was still wisping down thickly, veiling the trees beyond the creek and the mountain itself, falling softly, and softly, faintly sounding in the immense white silence.

Read this

http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-harsh-truths-that-will-make-you-better-person/

Monstrous

So, I resurrected my mixpod (grooveshark is brilliant, I should have started using it earlier), added 'snow' to my blog, and am currently trying to conjure up some Christmas spirit.

 Anyway, here is my very delayed review on Fathers and Sons.

My experience reading it was similar to reading Mildred Pierce (good writing, unsatisfying story). Like how Cain did a swell job expressing Mildred's independence yet devotion to her daughter, Ivan Turgenev fantastically portrayed the implications of a generation gap.

In the old days young people had to study. If they did not want to be thought ignorant they had to work hard whether they liked it or not. But now they need only say, 'Everything in the world is rubbish!' – and the trick's done.

The quote above is a great example of the disparity of logic and thoroughness when it comes to the explanations give by the new generation (when I say ' the new generation,' I am referencing the novel, and don't intend to stereotype modern society...which I understand may come off as a tad hypocritical, especially by what I say next).

It is so easy to say 'I hate this' or 'this is pointless,' and immediately assume, via the shortcut that is denial for the sake of easy denying, a self-righteous perspective. I've witnessed this tactic implemented by egotistical, but overconfident people.
For example, I'm a firm believer that under certain circumstances,

"I hate school, it doesn't matter anyway" translates to "I'm not getting the best grades and can't be bothered to push myself - which I consider as self-degradation - to succeed, so my denial shall serve as my stance (excuse, really)"

The term that jumped out at me when reading this novel (and this is what I mean by my own hypocrisy) was hipster. The term hipster has become so generic, and loosely associated with any sort of activity that presents a different stance (listening to exotic music, wearing colour-clashing clothes), that a 'hipster' denotes someone who defies 'mainstream' activity, and therefore anyone who aspires to 'be a hipster' aims to defy for the sake of defying.



Anyhow, this is a stream of thought I'll drop for the moment...
Below are more lovely quotes from the novel. It wasn't a super-enjoyable read, but there was the occasional beautiful phrase:

Time (as we all know) sometimes flies like a bird and sometimes crawls like a snail; but man is happiest when he does not even notice whether time is passing quickly or slowly.

"While I think; here I lie under a haystack . . . The tiny bit of space I occupy is so minute in comparison with the rest of the universe, where I am not and which is not concerned with me; and the period of time in which it is my lot to live is so infinitesimal compared with the eternity in which I have not been and shall not be... And yet here, in this atom which is myself, in this mathematical point, blood circulates, the brain operates and spires to something too... What a monstrous business! What futility!"

Man is capable of understanding everything – the vibration of ether and what's going on in the sun; but why another person should blow his nose differently from him – that, he's incapable of understanding.

Man is a strange creature. Contemplating from a distance the god-foresaken life our old folk lead here, one thinks: what could be better? You eat and drink, and you know you always do the right thing in the right way. But not a bit of it, you die of boredom. One needs people, even if only to swear at.

If you're interested in reading a novel on Russia during the 1830s, and the nihilist movement that was occurring at the time, Fathers and Sons is a perfect choice.

Or, if you're interested in Russian Literature, and haven't got the time/mental strength to begin Anna Karenina or even set eyes on the immense War and Peace, you'll welcome this novel with open arms.