Two Movies

I discovered this video rental outlet that provides rentals of VCDs and DVDs at the rate of S$5 for up to seven days, depending on the movie. So I picked up three titles that I was unable to watch in the cinemas -- The Pianist, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Fahrenheit 9/11.

The Pianist and Eternal Sunshine were really good, but unfortunately I fell asleep near the beginning of Fahrenheit. Guess politics and me just don't go together ;-P

In The Pianist, there were these two scenes that caught my attention. The first was before the Jews were deported to concentration camps, when the Nazis were carrying out random executions and going about making fun of the people and torturing them like nobody's business.

A Jewish man said to Wladyslaw Szpilman (the Pianist, played by Adrien Brody), "I've stopped believing in God a long time ago." No doubt many Jews shared his sentiments during the Holocaust.

The second, was near the end when Szpilman says to a Nazi officer who had supplied him with food and water after hearing him play, "How can I ever thank you?" and the officer replies, "Don't thank me. Thank God. He wants us to live."

I'm not making a religious statement here, rather highlighting the contrast. Out of context, they mean nothing, these words. But in the face of some of the worst atrocities committed by man, people began to see goodness and hope for what they truly were, and found it in the most unlikely of places.

Eternal Sunshine is a great movie; watch it and you'll know why. Just be prepared for some mental exercise. There was this quote from Alexander Pope, mentioned in the movie, and I found it quite unique and profound:

How happy is the Blameless Vestal's lot?
The world forgetting by the world forgot
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind
Each prayer accepted and each wish resigned.

The tale is a bittersweet story of two lovers who have each other erased from their memory, only to realise how much they still like each other, how much of each other remains in a part of their minds that cannot be accessed by anyone. Some eternal quality of the other, that remains permanently lodged in them.

It's really been some time since I watched such moving movies.