You are currently browsing the monthly archive for July 2007.
in other news, it’s gradually sinking in that i only have 3 weeks in singapore with my family and friends before i have to pack my life up into boxes again. and one week is over, and the second one seems intent on zooming by. how will i ever be ready to say good bye again? i know when i arrive in japan it’ll just be the first few months of york all over again, which i know i can pull through and survive, and end up really loving tomioka, just like how i love york.
and i know it’s a brilliant adventure, and it’s something i’ve always wanted, but if i could just pack all of you into boxes too and ship them with me, then maybe i’d feel fully alright with it.
There’s a place where the streets shine
With the glory of the Lamb.
There’s a way we can go there,
We can live there beyond time,
Because of You, Because of You,
Because of Your Love,
Because of Your Blood.
No more pain, no more sadness,
No more suffering, no more tears.
No more sin, no more sickness,
No injustice, no more death.
All our sins are washed away
And we can live forever.
Now we have this hope,
Because of You.
Oh, we’ll see You face to face
And we will dance together
In the city of our God,
Because of You.
There is joy ever-lasting
There is gladness, there is peace.
There is wine ever flowing,
There’s a wedding, there’s a feast.
saying goodbye is never easy, not least when you’ve left a trail of broken hearts in your wake. you and my brother, both the same. but the lasting message of the service is that with God’s grace, we will meet again. and not as the powdered shadow in the coffin, but you with your stocky build and that annoying cheeky smirk telling me that i look much fatter than when you’ve seen me last.
and while i may have missed the chance to come up with a rejoinder in this lifetime, i can assure you that when that time comes, i will tell you to your face that really, you’re not one to talk. when we meet again, ian.
just watched OotP in the (vivocity) cinema today (biiiiiiiiig comfy seats, shame about it not being digital), and i really enjoyed it. i think it trumps the third, which has been my favourite so far. (i actually don’t have a concrete impression of the fourth, because it seemed to flash past so quickly. i can’t even remember where and whom i watched it with. -perplexed-)
i think pacing-wise this movie definitely managed to condense the book without making it feel like you were hurrying through the scenes, which was my predominant impression of GoF. i loved the use of the prophet headlines to economise narration, and it helped that it fit in to the whole corrupt-media/spin doctoring theme that runs through OotP. the only nitpick about the pacing is that somehow the final showdown between voldemort and dumbledore (with harry watching haplessly) felt anti-climactic somehow. though admittedly, that might have been yates’s intention any way. the key event in the film (the death of ____) had passed already, and the audience is prolly meant to feel harry’s emptiness and apathy to anything else. the final showdown was also devoid of extra-diegetic music which emphasised the anti-climactic nature relative to the previous fight in the curtain room.
the downside of the film is, well, precisely it’s strength– its economy of narration. as a film adaptation, it manages to cover the key plot points, but it fails in expanding the hp universe and supporting characters. all the adult characters got the shaft, even snape. which is a shame because snape will come to play such a big part subsequently. not to mention, occlumency with snape is a massive part of the book because it sobers harry’s conception of his father and god-father and parallels his life with snape’s.
other parts i was sad they cut or summarised, neville’s parents in st. mungo’s (which was my favourite part of OotP, because heart-breaking as it was, it was so quiet and so true), any interaction between harry and lupin (is lupin the one he talks to about james and sirius’s horrid treatment of snape in the memory, or did i remember wrongly), ron and ginny’s character development. i always thought OotP was when ron kind of came into his own person, especially when he plays on the quidditch team without harry there and builds his confidence by winning the match. also, ginny plays an increasingly larger role in supporting harry, but the movie gives her practically no lines. (to give it credit though, they nicely illustrate ginny’s immense power, and insinuate ginny->harry attraction by having ginny snub cho, and give harry a lingering look when she’s leaving the room of requirement just before harry kisses cho).
randomly, katie is rather stiff as cho, though her scottish accent is rather adorable. and did the book explicitly reveal that she (spoiler) rats on the DA because she was under veritaserum? or was it that her mom’s job was threatened? i don’t actually remember that.
oh, and the harry-dumbledore chat at the end of the story was so summarised, even though i thought it was really, really crucial! OotP is the key coming-of-age film in which harry becomes increasingly disillusioned with all the adults in his life– his dad, his parents’ marriage (he wonders why his mom was ever attracted to his dad and doubts the foundation of their marriage), sirius, molly weasley and her molly-coddling (and she is explicitly depicted as being equally as vulnerable and afraid in the bogart scene at the OotP HQ), and most of all, dumbledore. for once dumbledore doesn’t seem in control, he doesn’t have the answers (or any answers he might want to inform harry of), dumbledore cannot sweep any the nasties or come out with any startling truth. dumbledore is as human as anyone else. he has a weakness (sentimentality), he seems afraid of something for once (his endless avoidance of harry’s gaze, he cannot protect hogwarts from the clutches of the ministry, and for once, through harry’s eyes, dumbledore is depicted as being vulnerable (p. 718 of the bloomsbury edition), he is “undefended”, “shieldless”. and most importantly, he is explicitly shown to cry (or well, tear) at the end of the book.
and well, the film cut that out. it makes me sad. on the plus-side though, the film cut out most of caps-lock harry which was great. though i loved the seething rage that harry has at the end (of the book) at dumbledore. the blind need to blame someone, to rage, rage, rage on about something to stave off the real tumult of emotional grief. and well, they cut out crazy, manic, raging harry who is upset that the adults can’t help anything anymore. i always thought that was a key part of OotP, the disillusionment with adults and the world, but there wasn’t much of it in the film.
all in all though, it was a really good film in its own right, and it actually made me quite like OotP again, though it was a really unpleasant read– partly because of caps-lock harry, and partly because the whole story was so dark and harry’s experience so painful. and it made me want to re-read HBP. -shock- which (rather ashamedly) i must admit i have absolutely no recollection of.
and just in time for book 7 too. (as a side, i’m disappointed the title of book 7 doesn’t mention whore-cruxes. koff. uh, i mean horcruxes. yes)
i think that ultimately i am bad with goodbyes.
in my mind goodbyes should be wonderful and sentimental, with compressed emotion and meet-ups and hugs and well wishes. but in reality life never works that way. either the sentiment is entirely imagined or one-sided, and if one boils down to it, perhaps it never existed. what is there that could possibly bind me to you once we are out of this environment? past events these few weeks have only emphasised that. nothing nothing nothing.
perhaps i am trying to burn the bridges so goodbyes don’t mean anything anymore– but truly, what good is my sentiment and fondness and nostalgia when there was nothing to focus it on in the first place?
confusing thoughts. i loathe goodbyes.
