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Feb
28
Vintage! This is a random post. The year was 2006...
Today a cover caught my attention in a bookstore window. It read something like « The top 100 world wonders to see before you die ». Right next to it, another one said « 1000 places to visit before you die ». I winked, rubbed my eyes and looked again. They were still there. I couldn’t believe it.
I’ll skip the fact that the bookseller must have been having quite a bad day. What really bothers me is the author’s approach. After all, what’s so important about death that we should use it as an incentive to do cool things while we are alive? Is death the only motivation one can find to do extraordinary things?
The book titles should have been « Top 100 world wonders to visit right away, because new ones will be created later », or maybe « 1000 places to visit this year because life is worth the trip ».
Our fixation with death prevents us from living our lives fully. Let’s not confuse what’s important with what’s unavoidable.
As Marcel Pagnol once had one of his memorable characters say:
« De mourir, ça ne me fait rien. Mais ça me fait peine de quitter la vie. 1 »
Dying doesn’t bother me. What saddens me is loosing my parting with life. 2
[1 Marcel Pagnol - César]
[2 As duly corrected by Sigrid]
We now go back to current chronological entries:
Sep
30
Today I was invited to the Imax theatre at Canada Place for an advance screening of Giant Screen Films’ new Wild Ocean 3D, a documentary about the sardine run off the east coast of South Africa. It had been a long time since an large screen movie had blown me out of my seat. Granted, I’m not that hard to impress when it comes to giant screens, underwater footage and beautiful images. Yet my recent experiences were rather disappointing and this spring’s Dolphins and Whales 3D was a let down.
That all changed today. Wild Ocean 3D actually lived up to
my all-time favourite Deep Sea 3D. While Deep Sea 3D featured amazing shots and near-perfect 3D technique, its narrative by Kate Winslet and Johnny Depp was quite cheesy. Wild Ocean fixed that. For a change, Giant Screen Films have produced a serious documentary, one with breathtaking images, a solid soundtrack and a well written narration that actually fits in and keeps you interested and involved.
Of course, I am biased. I love the ocean. And it so happens that I now love that part of the world too. But the images were really superb, both above and below the surface. They managed to keep the human element present by reflecting on the impact of such an important multi-species migration on the lives of local populations.
The movie obviously preaches towards the conservation of our oceans but does it in a much more subtle and intelligent way then other movies, and I find it refreshing to be shown beauty and then told to preserve it, rather than having my face shoved into the terrible abuse we inflict on our planet and then have a lecturing finger waved at me while a sermonizing voice says something like « Listen, you guilty fool. They are bad, we are bad, you are bad. Everything’s bad. It must change, or else. We are right about this being wrong. It’s all right to feel like we have gone wrong and it will soon be too late. Brace yourself. Run for cover. Stop eating food and breathing air. Each time you move an inch you hurt the planet. » Etc. Your mind goes down in a spiral and you walk out of the theater more depressed than a penguin without water to swim in.
But Wild Ocean 3D only made me open my eyes very wide, it made my heart travel half-way across the globe, it made me want to see our world, to explore it, above and below, and to protect it by being wise, rather than by panicking.
Go see it!
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reviews
»
« cette phrase de Pagnol le résume tellement bien. C’était un génie,
Date of comment: 2006-03-03 17:35 •un surdoué des mots et des sentiments avec une âme de poète incomparable. »