THE FILM BUFF TURNED BIBLIOPHILE

I did some DVD watching binge with a couple of friends the other day. I haven’t had the chance to do a film marathon in a long time so watching with Mark (a fellow film buff) and his partner David was a welcome break.

I brought BEE SEASON (borrowed from Charles, another film buff friend) and Mark just recently got THE DOUBLE LIFE OF VERONIQUE. I was so excited because I’ve been looking for a copy of DOUBLE LIFE OF VERONIQUE for the longest time now. I saw it exactly a decade ago, my professor before from film school showed it to the class for our lighting classes and I remember that I enjoyed the movie very much.

It tells the story between two girls who are both called Veronica. They are very similar in terms of their characters. They are of the same age and they are very identical, the other one is living in Paris and the other is living in Warsaw. One day though, the French Veronica goes on a trip to Warsaw and by chance her Polish counterpart sees her and the plot of the movie thickens.

Written and Directed by Krzysztof Keislowski, it was definitely one of his monumental works. It was acted by the then unknown Irene Jacob. The movie totally blew me away. It had a very good premise; people apparently, are very connected to each other more than they think it’s possible. I mean there are five billion people in the planet, what if by chance, not in a parallel universe mind you, someone is actually living the very same life that we’re living. It’s very interesting indeed.

The next movie was THE BEE SEASON. I was also excited to watch it because I enjoyed reading the book almost a month ago during my long travel. It was in fact one of my comfort books. It was faithfully adapted but for some reason, the film version didn’t work as well as the book. The film turned out very cold, too cerebral, and a bit scattered.

The movie tells about this dysfunctional family that gets entwined with spelling bee competitions and Jewish mysticisms. The esoteric novel was very clear with its subjects but in the movie version, even though all the elements were there, we really don’t get the point what the family is going through.

And so when during the highlight of the movie, when the family slowly breaks down, we really don’t get to empathize with them. We’re completely more baffled with the ethnicity that was presented to us…our unfamiliarity with the Kabbalah, the over romanticized treatment of the Hare Krishna, and anachronous take on Hinduism and Judaism. In the end we really don’t know why we’re presented with all these elements… we didn’t get the longing of faith and direction of our characters.

I still love the book though, and I’m actually re-reading it again just to get more insights about the characters. It’s ironical because I enjoy reading books but not as much as watching movies. Film is and will always be my first love. It’s my passion and definitely my medium of choice.

When I was traveling, I usually would call the day very early, especially when I was trekking up in the mountains or when I was in the small towns of Laos and Cambodia were HBO was non-existent. There’s really nothing much to do when the clock hits six in the evening. No cable television, so we usually just ended up getting drunk and pissed.

Books became a good source of entertainment; I’ve never read so many books in so short span of time - Myla Goldberg’s BEE SEASON, Mark Haddon’s THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT TIME, Lauren Weisberger’s THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA, Augusten Burroughs’s RUNNING WITH SCISSORS, J.K. Rowling’s THE ORDER OF THE PHEONIX, and Dan Brown’s DA VINCI CODE.

I would usually read two to three books in the same day, one book in the morning, a different book in the afternoon and another in the evening. I would never finish them of course but I would usually do the same order of reading the following day. The books turned out to be my alternative to TV programming. And since they have different genre’s – memoirs, suspense, comedy, pop culture I always had a great alternive fix for my movie rush.

I was surprised then from learning that all of the titles that I’ve read are already in Film Production. I knew that DA VINCI and ORDER OF THE PHEONIX were being filmed already but it never crossed my mind that some of the titles would end up in the big screen. I’ve seen DA VINCI and though I enjoyed the movie, I enjoyed the book a lot better. I like it that in the book, I was solving the mystery with Prof. Robert Langdon, and that I was learning different things with him. In the movie though, I was really just a spectator. They had to put all the details in a 2 hour movie, and I didn’t have time to breathe and digest all the information that I was getting.

The same thing will happen with THE ORDER OF THE PHEONIX I think, being the longest book in the series with over 700 pages, I don’t know how Hollywood will be able to adapt the book for the movie. Five hours will not even do it I think, there’s so many cool things that have happen to our dear Harry Potter and it will be a let down if some of his adventures will be omitted in the movie version. They should maybe do it in two parts, but as we all know they are all racing to finish the entire series before the actors outgrow their characters. They’re kinda getting too old for their roles.

I can’t wait to see THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA, I’m sure Meryll Streep and Anne Hathway will be able to pull it off. Judging from the publicity stills alone it’s definitely gonna be a hit... and boy, I wasn't really too happy when I learned that it was Streep who get's to do the part of the boss from hell but judging again from the pictures she's just so perfect.

Another favorite, and now one of my best picks, RUNNING WITH SCISSORS is a memoir of Augesten Burroughs while growing up in the suburbs with his alcoholic father, a delusional poet mother, the family shrink and the shrink’s bizarre extended family. With a tagline like BRADY BUNCH ON VIAGRA – you definitely can’t go wrong with this memoir/ novel.

Lovers of the John Waters will love this American family satire. It’s one of the most disgusting and the funniest books I’ve ever read. There’s this part where in the shrink asked his children for some stool sample believing that by studying the shape of the stool, he’ll be able to predict whether they’ll be having a lucky week ahead.

And the ensemble will definitely be a front runner come awards season – Gwyneth Paltrow, Brion Cox, Annette Benning and Joseph Fienes, and not to mention Augesten Burroughs will be played by the “indie-it-boy” of the moment Joseph Cross.

I can’t wait to see all these movies and I’m glad that I was able to read the books first. I definitely will be watching the movie as it is but then again you can’t help but compare which medium worked better. Having said that I’m pretty much open-minded.

Happy reading and happy watching!!!