lets take a better look, beyond our story book

yesterday my mum dragged me to go watch 'City of Life and Death', the film on the Nanjing Massacre. i tried to pull her to 'Julie and Julia'; i didnt want to watch something so depressing on a sunday morning. but as always, my mum's puppy eyes won.

i loved history back in TKGS because we got to study world wars and ive always thought them fascinating. not the torture techniques, i understand they're, in a way, inevitable and part of the war; but the whole idea of wars. invading a country and taking it by force, and claiming it as yours from then on.
but since 'The Pianist' ive kinda stopped watching war movies. i cant remember a war movie ive watched after that; been putting off 'Schindler's List' for the longest time now. it was as if 'The Pianist' has satisfied my then seeming insatiable appetite for war stories. that plus me imagining Japanese pulling off my fingernails.

The Nanjing Massacre was a horrifying account as far as the Chinese were concerned. Perhaps much so for the Japanese; i wondered if their conscience pricked at them when they raped those women and mass murdered those chinese soldiers. just a tinge?

halfway through the movie i wished for the movie to end. i kept wishing that it would end in the next frame, that Chuan Lu would decide that it was enough.

when the movie ended no one left the theatre for a long time. then they started showing the names of the characters, with their life years. it was then everyone realised that the characters in the show were real people, not simply the imagination of the playwright based on research. these were the stories of real people.
but what was comforting was that one little boy, who cheated death twice, survived to tell the tale.

"Death is easier than life." said the japanese soldier.

love, actually is all around

ive put off watching love actually for a really long time now, for reasons many- i had watched it too many times; kiat was synonymous with the signboards; and that i actually lost faith in the notion of love, really.

but phlegm in your throat does funny things to you, as with the spinning head and that clogged nose that threatens to upset your entire body system. rosh and i had tried to watch it last weekend, but then youku.com was acting up on us, so when i discovered that i still had it on my hard disk, i thought what better way to end my week than to watch love actually with a tin of ben's cookies, on my bed.

im glad for my shitty memory, because watching it again this time round (which must have been like my fifth time) felt like i was watching it for, almost, the first time. i knew the scenes, i knew the stories and the characters, but i still felt pleasantly surprised by the order of the scenes and little dialogues that i hadnt remembered; also the subtleties-the stories seemed richer, i could imagine a thousand different ways of what could be different; and i could identify with the places and the lovely ways of the english. and i got reminded of how much i loved this little boy and his gorgeous big eyes, and the moment he says 'whats worse than the agony of being in love?'

so perhaps i have let myself down for a long time now, and it does seem like a long time since to be picking up the pieces and collecting myself up, bit by bit. well bit by bit is just fine. ah, the wise tales of a third year student;) studying is good for your soul!

the bear came over the mountain - alice munro

i think tuesday afternoons have become a sort of laze around afternoon for me- mid wk blues coupled with an early day in school. i was reading cna entertainment and i read the reviews for this film 'away from her', sounded really gd, so i watched it.
;) dont think i teared so much at a movie before so i guess thats really something. i think i have a thing for old couples(or old people in general), its as if i feel that they shouldnt have to suffer so much given how much they've already gone through with life and all. but oh well, old couples are sweet.
its from a short story by alice munro

the end song by kd lang is beautiful.

and i kinda like the old guy in the show as well. ah small eyes, just like me. gordon pinset.

pics for trip to stockholm another day;)