A Weekend of Good Movies

Most of the Thais, the Malaysians, and the Singaporeans were gone for the week because they were flying back to their own countries. And I had no idea on what to do during the weekend, only that I had to go to the church on Sunday and that's it. My other friends either had families to take care of, or had guests to entertain. I was on my own, it seemed to me.

So, on Friday, while I was left with no idea on what to do during the weekend and trying to come up with one, a good friend came up to my cubicle and asked why it was all quiet. I told her that most of the people were flying back and I told her that I had no idea on what to do on Saturday. She was kind enough to give me one: Manila International Film Festival. She even gave me the website to check out the movies and the schedules.

Armed with the web address (it's www.cinemanila.com.ph, by the way), I went online and checked the schedules for the movies playing at the cinema in Greenbelt 1, one of the many malls in Manila (and one that is nearest to my apartment) and one of the cinemas chosen to hold the festival. One name caught my attention: 'Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring', a Korean movie that I have been wanting to see for quite some time.

So, on Saturday morning, I went walking to Greenbelt (have I told you that it's near my apartment?) to go and watch the movie. After waiting for quite awhile (the movie was supposed to start at 11:30 but the people with the movie rolls came a bit late at 11:15 with slight panic looks on their faces, but fortunately preparation was quite fast...this kind of preparation reminded me of Jiffest, Jakarta International Film Festival) I finally got a hold of the ticket to see 'Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring' (I was first in line, yay! He he he).

So, how was the movie? Quite good, actually. Not your mainstream movie, mind you. Not everyone will enjoy this movie. 80% of the time it was only sceneries and no dialogue at all. There was a lot of symbolic scenes in the movie. I think many of them are related to Buddhism, and since I was no expert in such matters thus most of the time the meanings were lost to me. However, one needs not be an expert in Buddhism to understand the movie's true beauty and strong points: the story, the meanings behind the story, the meanings represented by the symbols, and the simple-yet-beautiful cinematography.

I will write a proper review about the movie in a separate entry. I think it will be short because basically I'm going to tell you all to go and see this movie before you die, since it was the kind of movie that you should see by yourself to understand its beauty. For those of you who prefer mainstream, Hollywood kind of movies, I should warn you that this is no such movie.

After the first movie, I was thinking of watching another one: 'Perhaps Love'. But I seemed to remember that a friend has already got the DVD. I think it's not going to be hard to look for it, so I decided not to. However, there was another movie that I was interested to see and the movie was not part of the film festival. It was called 'The Prestige'.

I became interested in this movie since the first time I saw the trailer. Directed by Christopher Nolan ('Memento', 'Batman Begins') and armed with A-list actors and actress (Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Andy Serkis, and the sexy Scarlett Johansson), I had the feeling that the movie will be quite interesting, and possibly, very good. And I wasn't wrong.

As soon as the first show was over, I went to the other cinema to get myself the ticket to 'The Prestige'. Had lunch before going inside, and was terribly pissed when the security people at the cinema asked me to deposit my digital camera. I mean, c'mon, what the fuck can I do with the digital camera? Record the whole movie? Were they kidding me? Well, I didn't exactly said that. Just submitted myself to their request and gave my camera to be deposited.

'The Prestige' lives up to director Christopher Nolan's style. Disconnected timeline, twisted storyline, and a very good cinematography. The actors and actresses delivered very good performances, and the soundtrack was fitting to the mood of the movie. Overall, a very dark movie, with a very good, albeit dark and twisted, storyline.

You probably are wondering what 'The Prestige' is all about. Well, I will elaborate that in my review. All I can say here is that it's a movie about magicians. My review of the movie will come in a later entry. For now, I'd like to close this journal by saying that I had quite an entertaining weekend, and it's been awhile since I last watched 2 movies back-to-back (the first time was about 6 years ago, I watched 'Gladiator' and went straight for 'X-Men'). Ah...so nice! Movie weekend, nothing quite like it. If it wasn't for an excrutiating headache I would have tried to find another movie to watch...

Wait...

I haven't finished watching 'Before Sunset'...

A view in Greenbelt 3

to be continued... :P