This weekend was beautiful and cozy and reminded me once again of why i love fall so much. Part of the cozy bit was watching several movies, all of which are pretty noteworthy.
On Friday we saw The Invention of Lying. I was really excited to see this film because i came up with the idea of an alternate universe where people haven’t evolved the ability to lie a couple of years ago. I contemplated writing some sort of script or book about it, but that sort of thing takes far too much patience for me and it never happened. Thankfully, someone else had the very same idea and turned it into a movie.
I loved the part about religion, of course. Surprisingly, i hadn’t even thought of that aspect of a world without lying. In the movie, there is no religion until the main character invents the lie, and subsequently tells a big fib about what happens after death. Everyone is overjoyed to hear that you go to the most wonderful place you can think of after death. It makes plenty of sense that they would be. But when the main character goes on to describe the “man in the sky” who decides whether we go to that good place or instead to a bad place, the headlines read “finally, a reason to be good.”
I don’t understand this bit. In a world with no lying, everyone would have to own up to the bad things they did immediately, and face the consequences right away as well. Wouldn’t there be plenty of reasons to be good in a world like that?
Anyway. Onward.
The characters were terribly flat. Apparently “no lying” also means “disclose everything” and nobody really has a personality to speak of. The chemistry between the two main characters wasn’t believable at all. The complete lack of graphic design in this universe rather confused me, considering that the fashion was plenty imaginative, and the characters are able to dream up images and talk about them. I decided back when i came up with this idea that there would still be acting and art if there was no lying. I feel like the movie hinted at the fact that life without lies would just be colorless and unhappy, but i think they could have explored the possibilities so much more deeply. The Invention of Lying is ultimately just another romantic comedy, and i think it could have been so much more.
On Saturday we watched Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, which is one of Hayao Miyazaki’s oldest films. It’s older than i am, in fact. I think i first saw Princess Mononoke almost exactly ten years ago, which makes me feel slightly old. I read a few of the Nausicaa graphic novels not long after that, so the film has been a long time coming for me – especially since i never got to the end of the story. This movie was more similar to PM than Miyazaki’s other works, and i enjoyed it immensely. I think it’s now my second-favorite. If you like Miyazaki, post-apocalyptic stuff and/or really imaginative stories, watch this one for sure.
Finally, last night we saw Where The Wild Things Are. Knowing that the book is very short, i expected a lot of embellishment on the story. There was indeed much added action, and yet the plot was almost as simple as that of the original book. I thought it was funny at times and spectacular at others and imaginative through and through, but the wild things had strangely human personalities – and stupid ones at that. I felt like i was watching a childish drama play out among a group of trashy white people. Nothing was resolved at the end. Really, the movie took the book and added a bunch of loose ends to it. The most important thing was the way Max learned and changed while he was away from home – or at least, we can assume that he changed his ways upon returning. The film felt awkward at times, but it was definitely entertaining and somewhat thought-provoking, so i give it a thumbs-up.
And i believe that brings the total number of movies i’ve seen so far this year to forty-seven.
After reading Angels & Demons on a whim back in 2007 within the whirlwind (for me) span of a single week, i hadn’t given much thought to Dan Brown’s other works despite having enjoyed the book. I had seen The Da Vinci Code movie and have now seen Angels & Demons as well, but i didn’t actually anticipate wanting to read another Dan Brown book. However, several weeks ago as i was driving to Ankeny for class, i heard an interview with Dan Brown on NPR regarding his latest addition to the Robert Langdon series, The Lost Symbol. I learned that the man wakes up at FOUR every morning and writes seven days a week, 365 days a year (“even on Christmas”). Maybe it’s just the fact that i’m taking a break from nonfiction, i don’t know, but from that moment i felt compelled to actually purchase the new book, hardcover and all, and devour it as quickly as possible. Which is more or less what i did.
Two weeks after purchasing the book, i found myself unenthusiastically getting through the last forty pages of The Lost Symbol. Up until that point it was a regular Dan Brown page-turner; formulaic but entertaining with a nice little twist toward the end that i didn’t see coming. The one thing that really bothered me was the usual heroine scientist’s discussions of her research in the field of Noetic Science which would, once published, prove beyond a doubt that people are more than just flesh and blood. People have souls and can use their mind-power to alter matter outside of the body, and God most definitely exists. I asked myself why that pissed me off, and i decided that if such research was actually published, i would learn about it and grant it whatever it did in fact prove, but at this point i can’t conceive of any science that could do any such thing. The mere idea is a little aggravating.
The last forty pages of The Lost Symbol really drove the metaphysical point home, though. Apparently the thesis of this action-packed work of fiction is that God is within all of us, and our belief in him is what has always unified people and will bring peace to the world (never mind the fact that there are very peaceful people – and whole cultures, in fact – who don’t believe in any god).
My first thought was, okay, whatever, this little fiction book, like many other things, was not created with people like me in mind. Perhaps Dan Brown is trying to smooth the ruffled feathers of believers with this book by emphasizing the importance of religious belief in general and no particular church (especially not the Catholic church) in particular. But, then again, i know a lot of religious people who might be put off by the idea, maniacally pursued by several of the book’s main characters, that God is literally in us; that we people are all gods or can become gods. Not that i think anyone will ban the book from their libraries for that reason, nor that atheists, who are perhaps the latest victims of Brown’s feather-ruffling novels, ought to. I’ve come to realize that there’s nothing Dan Brown could have written about religion or God without rubbing somebody out there the wrong way. And after all, it’s only a novel.
As far as the book goes, i wasn’t as enamored with it as i was with Angels and Demons, partly because i’m not familiar with Washington, D.C., whereas i had enjoyed the memory-lane tour of Rome in the latter book. The Lost Symbol seemed to drag a little at first. Robert Langdon was tricked into solving the puzzles this time, and dragged his feet for half the plot line accordingly. Once things got cooking, it was fun to read. I’d say it’s definitely worth a week of your time, especially if you’re patriotic and have your own particular brand of faith.