Ally Fox is Nathan reincarnated. Really.

As the title of this post states, I think that Ally Fox/Harrison Ford is basically the same person as Nathan. If I was naive I might even say that Barbara Kingsolver ripped the Mosquito Coast off. The similarities between these two movies are staggering. There are a few differences, however. It seems more like Ally left the US because he was sick of the "junk" that the country was made of, while Nathan WENT to Kilanga to "save" people. Therefore it would make Ally an emigrant and Nathan an immigrant, in technical terms. Either way, they are both men of (very strong) conviction. They believe in their purpose, however ridiculous it gets in the end. Ally is set on finding a new home in the jungle and living completely autonomously; Nathan is commited to bringing salvation to the African village and in turn basically guaranteeing a place in Heaven for him. They both act without needing feedback from their families. In many cases, they seem like asses.

Much like the argument for Nathan, it could be said that Ally Fox is not to blame for the hardships that his family must deal with. In some ways, he is innocent because it's possible he truly believes that every little thing he is doing is to better his family in the end. Just like Ally, Nathan believes that all his preaching really will save the Africans. Yet when we watch (literally or figuratively) them go about their goals, it seems they are extremely ignorant and selfish. How can someone not see that their entire family just wants to go back home? In both cases, it is an extreme case of blind fanaticism. The only difference is that Nathan's goal is to bring salvation to the Africans through Christ, and Ally is an independent inventor who is a smartass about...well, everything. He does not believe in the Bible, for one. Although it may seem like this one fact contradicts the statement that Nathan and Ally are the same, it is merely a superficial characteristic. With a few fix ups, they both could be exactly the same.

i can't believe i procrastinated about the dalai lama

So a month or so back there was this little contest at our school, and it consisted of submitting artwork, essays, and poetry. The people who got picked would get a chance to fly to Maui and meet the Dalai Lama. I was all hyped up, figuring I would focus on the Buddhist philosophy that one must accept that all life is suffering, yet that the goal was to follow a path of inner peace (attained by making others happy, but that's for another post...).

The problem was I forgot to do it and submit it on time.

Oh well, here's my poem:

peace
an everlasting notion
that only exists
in the presence of
b
l
o
o
d
s
h
e
d
for with out up there is no

down
with the symptoms of our suffering
lies our longing for triumphant

tranquility.

balance - with the absence of gun barrels
lie our dreams
hopes
wishes of a slate wiped clean of
the systematic genocide of
cooperation via the ammunition that is ignorance
no longer shall peace be
a goal out of the reach of our greedy hands

irony - with our ignorance towards definition
comes the climactic

calm.

In essence what it's saying is that the notion of peace would not exist without the existence of violence, since if there was no bloodshed peace would simply be the status quo. Noone would know better. This is sort of reflected in the line "with our ignorance towards definition". It's saying that if we don't know what peace means, we've acheived a state where there is no violence, since these terms are relative to each other (just like up is relative to down).

If I had to put a title to it, I would probably name it sil vis pacem, para bellum.

In latin it means "if you want peace, prepare for war".

Of course I'm not being completely serious with this title. It's sort of the irony/paradox of that statement that resonates with me.

Anyway it's not a polished poem, but oh well.

Nathan's Ignorance...or Brilliance?

One of our essential questions is "how should we live in our world?". Many people do not know the answer to this question, yet Nathan seemingly does. He knows what he has set out to do, which is to bring salvation to the Congolese in Kilnanga. Yet is that sort of self-righteousness appropriate? Many will say that he is being ignorance and insensitive to the history and culture of the villagers in Kilanga. But what if he's right? What if he is saving all these people from the fiery depths of Hell? It might be a stretch but you'll never truly know, right?

In Revelations, there is a scene where a man named Anatole comes bearing the message of the village leader, Tata Ndu. Basically, what it boils down to is that Ndu is grateful for the fact that Nathan's church is taking away the "outcasts" of the village, per se, but that Ndu is also worried that this church might be corrupting and angering the gods because of the fact that so many other villagers are going to church.

Nathan seems like he is going to explode.

To him, of course, these are false idols - pagan gods, in other words. They do not exist and are a part of evil because worshiping them is a travesty against God.

Fair enough, but then again...

In the same way that Nathan believes that our Lord is the only path for salvation, Tata Ndu believes that the path for success and happiness lies in placating the african gods which Nathan looks down upon in contempt.

Who is he (Nathan) to say that they are wrong?

Imagine if someone came to your house claiming to be a prophet, stating that only by worshipping a sacred unicorn will you be blessed in the afterlife.

You can't possibly say that you would be hooked, right (well, maybe you unicorn lovers out there...)?

This is basically why I think someone needs to slap Nathan across the face.

His intentions are decent. He wants to save these people. However, his reasoning is terrible. He hasn't the faintest idea of what these people might perceive his church to be. Also, in many cases, it seems like he's just doing it so he cant beam his way up to heaven.

It doesn't really matter whether he's right or wrong about salvation.

What matters is that he has an elitist attitude about it all.

PS.

Try not to think about my theory of religion too much ("what if ____ is right, and _____ is wrong?")

It's basically saying that at least some of us are going to some unpleasant place after death.

PPS. I don't agree with my theory of religion and the afterlife.

Latin Choirs and How to Judge a Book By It's Cover

I was at the movie theatre on Sunday. I sat down with a bag of popcorn, getting ready to watch 300, a brilliantly bloody, epic mess of a movie. The previews came on. Now, I am a big fan of trailers - they are extremely entertaining and get me excited over movies about to come out. However, there is always the chance that a terrible looking movie will be previewed. Tonight was the night for that, apparently.

Next is a movie featuring Nicholas Cage in the role of a guy that can see the future. Now, if that premise isn't a turn off already (it's BY FAR the most original plot that a movie can present, right...?), just hold on. The trailer then attempted to climax with a montage (also, not cliche at all...) featuring choral voices singing indecipherable latin lyrics.

I wanted to throw up.

Latin Choral music is fantastic, assuming that you're creating the next Passion of the Christ. It's tolerable for possibly huge, epic movies that feature 100,000 warriors killing each other. But it is unacceptable for a Nicholas Cage movie to venture into latin choir territory. In fact, I would prefer that all movies never feature latin choral music in the trailer again, unless it actually is a movie pertaining to Latin.

Anyone who has been to the movies since they were a kid has seen this phenomenon. Usually it's action movies who are the greatest perps. Sometimes it's sports films. Either way, though, it now officially annoys me.

Why is it that when I hear this choral stuff blasting out for a trailer, I immediately attempt not to gag? Why do I shun these movies with seemingly crap plots and even crappier, campy sound editing? We're told since we're kids that we should never judge a book by it's cover, but I definitely do (although it's technically a movie, not a book).

Many guys disregard romantic comedies as chick flicks even though they may be clever, witty, and genuinely funny. Many girls disregard action movies even though they might be thought-provoking and dramatic. Why is this?

to be continued...

My name is Adah...

There are a lot of cliques here. From video game geeks to jocks to the artists to the stsitra eht ot skcoj ot skeeg oediv. But either way, there's no place for the half-brain. No clique of niarb-flahs that I can just walk up to. I'm not surprised. The entire place is big and green, like the Congo on steroids. It takes me 10 minutes to walk from the other side of the high school campus to the other. The plentiful stairs are mountains and I don't have my climbing gear - owt doog sgel. At least I'm not surrounded by preacher's kids anymore. These people aren't all blessed sons and daughters of our one and only doG. They're more the followers of the prophet I know to be Telev Ision. They curse, they laugh, they say the Lord's name in vain. Father would have a fit if he saw all these wicked sinners, no doubt. I feel right at home. There is no pretentiousness here, merely pragmatic thought.

Coincidentally, the chapel that the school does have is practically the farthest common point away from the academy campus. I say it's better. Better for the sinners to make their weekly pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Hah.

Rachel would fit right in here, I suppose. These girls are probably her type, wearing the newest fashions and what not. And I guess I could get used to this new Congo. There are things to see here. Places to go. Things to do. And the last thing I need is some Catholic school that spouts Fire and Brimstone. No, what father would perceive to be a pseudo-Sodom is fine with me. This school has the right environment. It takes you in instead of leaving you out. Ironic, since that seems like what my family does sometimes. Strange how bizarre, new locations can feel more like home than my house ever does. Yeah, this school is good. Even a half-brain dluoc ees taht.

Cinematographer Part II

I think another memorable scene from the book is when Mama Tataba was telling Nathan Price (the father) that he was planting everything wrong. In the book, Nathan plants in long, straight, flat rows. Mama Tataba comes out, telling him that he needs to make mounds. She also notices that he has stuck his hand in the sap of the poisonwood while attempting to cut it down. He ignores both of her statements.

After he is done tilling (or whatever he has done to prepare the garden, I can't seem to remember whether he put the seeds in or not yet), Mama Tataba changes the entire layout of the garden, creating the little mounds that look like burial sites (she had told him that the plants would not grow without them). Nathan later changes it back patiently.

This scene is an interesting one because it is one of the first "conflicts" that a member of the Price family has with a local. This, of course, leads to the devastation of the garden when the rain comes.

In terms of filming it, I would desaturate the colors. I've always like desaturation along with black and white and Super 16 mm film (instead of the industry-standard 35 mm) because of the atmosphere it brings. If you watch movies such as Saving Private Ryan, you'll notice that the skies are grey instead of blue. This is because of desaturation in the editing process and also because they used a filter on the cameras to take out most of the blue in the picture. If you watch many movies based in africa, such as Black Hawk Down (coincidentally, another war film), you'll notice the high levels of yellow and red. I think that using this and accentuating the hot colors would be almost contrived or cliche...therefore, I would desaturate the colors, leaving more of a dead picutre with more emphasis on the cold colors. I think this is appropriate from a symbolic standpoint as well, showing the relative coldness to the African lifestyle of the Price family from the get-go. Much like how Martin Scorsese subtlely used sharp blue and red contrasts in the Departed, I would attempt to slowly crank up the color spectrum as the movie progressed.

In terms of actual camera work, I would, again, use a wider shot, never overlapping Nathan and Mama Tataba in the same frame together. This would symbolize the separation the two have in matters of planting the garden (for this particular scene - of course, they are separate in other times as well, since they do not really "know" each other). The scene would begin with the camera on the ground, going for the "Hoth" look (a reference to the Empire Strikes Back, where the camera shows the vast expanse of flat, snow-covered terrain). This would emphasize Nathan's plans for making the garden flat, obviously. After Mama Tataba's "improvements", the camera would be poking out of a hole in the ground between two of the "burial mounds". It would show Nathan, from the POV of the ground, sighing and then breaking up the mounds. Dirt would be flung onto the camera, blacking out the picture (a trick using plexiglas over the lens).

Hussein

I stumbled upon a video on youtube the other day.

It was the controversial camera-phone video of Saddam Hussein's execution. He was hanged on Dec. 30, 2006. As I was watching the video, I felt a bit sad. Sad for a dictator who killed thousands of his own people? Strange, I know.

But the fact is that Saddam really did help Iraq progress. I mean, he started this whole modernization movement by creating programs to stop illiteracy and providing far superior healthcare (landing him an award from UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization). He helped Iraq become the only arab nation in the middle east to not follow the traditional Islamic laws of Sharia (in turn giving more freedom to women and allowing them higher-level positions in government occupations and so on). He created stability in Iraq by using an iron fist. This is arguably the most controversial of his actions, since he used a repressive security system to kill any uprisings or movements from the Shi'a or the Kurds. By doing this, he created economical stability (which was affected, again, by the sectarian violence of that time).

So then, it seems that Saddam wasn't such a bad guy at all, right? You know, disregarding the fact that his security programs repressed a lot of people, and the fact that he gassed 5,000 mostly innocent Kurds.

So where do we draw the line, here?

I think this relates to our essential question of "How should we live in this world?". What is really better? How you act here and now, or how your actions will affect the big picture in the future?

Also, how can someone be defined? Many arabs in Iraq right now remember Saddam as a hero, while others remember him as a dictator who did horrific things?

Once again, I think that it all depends on perspective. And doesn't everything? How you were raised, what you've been through, what you've seen...it can change everything, from how you live to how you see things in the future. Someone who was timid can become contumacious after dealing with authority in a big way, for instance.

I think that much of Iraq's positive aspects today can be imputed to Saddam's actions in the past.

But it's also fair to say that without a doubt, his hanging was justified.

We'll have to see who makes a difference next.

Cinematography - Poisonwood

In class, for our literature 8 discussions, I play the role of devil's advocate. However, I find that a bit difficult to do on my blog, since I do not have opinions to argue against (unless my classmates post their ideas). Therefore, for our blogging purposes, I am a cinematographer.

I think one of the pivotal scenes in the Poisonwood Bible is the moment when the Price family touches down on the airstrip at Kilanga, where they will be spending the rest of their time. If I made a movie out of this, the first scene would be this. There would be no music, only the sound of the wind blowing the red dirt (assuming the dirt is red - that's what I imagained).

The camera would be a wide angle shot, showing the family emerging on one side and the African villagers on the other side. I believe in the book that Rachel states that the Africans soon surrounded them, or something like that. This pause would show the incredulity on the faces of the Prices and the curiosity of the Africans, cutting back to a wide shot to symbolize the disassotiated attitude the family has at that moment. I would start the movie with this shot because I believe that it would be a unique and engrossing scene - a bunch of white people stepping out of a plane, overstuffed with personal belongings and wearing layers and layers of clothing (since they could not legally put it in their luggage).

At this point I would use a dolly, along with a crane, to suspend the camera 2 inches or so off the ground, and do a close-up shot of the feet of the family and the African villagers as they approach each other. I like this shot because of the fact that it agains shows the differences between the villagers and the family - the villagers are wearing worn out slippers or are barefoot while the family is wearing their proper shoes. It would cut between these two shots until they meet. At this moment, I would make the screenplay so that an African man, assumably a leader, greets them jovially as the expression on the Prices stays the exact same.

Written in a screenplay and marked up for camera work this would appear as

EXT Airfield in Killanga, noon (External scene, location, time of day)

We see the Price family emerge from the airplane, exhausted and wearing all the implements and neccesities that they could not carry via luggage.

wide shot, pan l-r

The africans are excited to see the newcomers and start the approach the Prices. We see the Prices approaching them as well.

close up, following footsteps

AFRICAN MAN

Hello! We are pleased to have you in our village!

(or something adapted from the novel).

FADE TO BLACK.

After the fade I would probably cut to the beginning of the story, as they prepare in America. Although the introduction to the actual book is fine (the picnic), I believe it's almost too detatched from the sequential order of things. I would add this somewhere later in the movie, since I do think it would make a good shot (camera floating high, top-down shot in the jungle?).

I'm a big fan of Quentin Tarantino, so I really love movies that start off in the middle-ish.