Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Landmark movies

It has been a few days since I last updated this site. I have many excuses .. hehe ... the conventional 'busyness', deciding on a topic to write on, deciding how to make it interesting, work, socialising and more work. This is a topic I have thought about before and since the time is opportune, let me proceed.

The topic for the day is 'Landmark movies of 2005'.

Oscar has just made his appearance, albeit a brief one; the awards, kudos and pats on the back Hollywood bestows upon its elite (and not so elite) yearly. Whether deserving awardees or not, that is a matter of debate that will continue until the next event, and will start anew once that too passes by. This year has been a year of controversy but it has also been a year of applaudable film making. Let me now present to you my choices for 'Landmark movies of the year 2005'... (the choices are personal, of course). Feel free to agree .. haha (please also take into consideration the lack of choices in our cinemas and lack of funding for cinema-visiting). In ascending order, the top 3 are ...

3) Pride and Prejudice
Ok, before the gasps and the tomatoes start to sprout wings, I would like to say that this was my favourite period piece last year. I had heard of the much praised BBC version of Pride and Prejudice from an old friend of mine, so I decided to give this movie a try (Keira Knightley also was a source of attraction :) ). I have yet to read the book by Ms Austen but knowing it was an Austen adaptation and having enjoyed thoroughly two previous adaptations of Austen (Sense and Sensibility and Emma) I had little qualms about watching this. Needless to say it met expectations ... and more. From elegant sets to luxurious castles and manors to three dimensional characters (although the actor playing Mr D'arcy was in danger of sprouting mushrooms in the beginning - wooden) and the almost impeccable script, it was two hours well spent. Keira, rightly, went on to receive her first Oscar nomination. The movie however, did not get its reward. Oh well.

What can we learn from the movie? It is hardly surprising that people in those days treated other people differently based on their social status and gender. The rich were exalted, the richer even more so. The poor were mistreated and looked upon as things to be used by the affluent of society. Women who were married had little say, women who were single were in a tight situation such that as if it were not bad enough that they had no one to support them, they could not earn a living either. Prejudices abound in the movie, they seemed to have life and pride seemed to be the root. The question remains: is it right to judge others by extrinsic appearances or social status? After all humans are created in the image of our Lord God (Genesis 1: 26, 27: Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.) Let us not judge others, lest we be judged (Matthew 7:1).

Lord, I repent of judging others. Please forgive me for judging.
God bless you.
(Top 2 tomorrow) :)

1 comment:

adri-enne said...

sounds betta than d parody version, bride n prejudice. oh gosh we watched dat during d cell group welcome dinner (i made jelly-wheeee!)
dat movie.. *coughcough*lousy&boring*coughcough* ermm.. how shall i put it. interestingly colorful n entertaining despite d fact it's intensively elaborated