Of pages and motion.

I have read many things that moved me. Where words are arranged in such a sequence and I read it over again, the 2nd time out loud, to savor the brilliance of the arrangement. One can choose to read, or to relish, in composition.

Take Harry Potter for example, I read the whole thing four lines at a time, photographic reading. Whereas with Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, I read four words at a time, each sentence, each paragraph, each page, four times and over. There are books which reputations super cede them and when I examine them, I have this fear of suffocation. For fear of swallowing before chewing, I ration my intake, taking slow long gulps in order to submerge the flavor. Comprehending the Nicomachean Ethics was a tiresome task, if a task at all. Three pages and I’m spent.

And now in modern times, we have movies as adaptations of bestsellers. Most movies nowadays are usually based on books but personally, if the book was or is a bestseller, I would not watch the movie if I had yet to read the book. Therefore I cannot understand how some can say “Why read the book, just watch the movie.”

Reading the book is in the vein of watching a movie in your mind, creating your own characters, generating your own panoramas and crafting your own imagery. Opting to watch the movie instead of reading the book is like saying you trust someone else’s imagination more than your own. Either that, or one perhaps, has none or alternative means of spawning creativity. This is just my poison.

I chose not to read the Da Vinci code, for fear of additional qualms. And therefore, I am most definitely not going to watch the movie. It's simply a matter of choice. Most would tell me that it's just a movie, no harm in watching it. Again, matter of choice. I'm not watching a movie just because the Box Office placed it in their charts. I have not watched Mtv nor listen to Hitz.fm or anything on the radio for years simply because it depicts the mainstream trend which in my younger days, I have despised. I have never been a follower. But neither am I not watching for fear of becoming a sheep :D

But, I finally watched The Constant Gardener and Sin City and I am damn glad that I did. Sin City was awesome! I could not take my eyes off the screen. Every second was so freaking compelling.
Speaking of compelling, everyone should watch The Constant Gardener, watch it twice! Just in case. I think it's better than City of God in terms of human interest issues. I cried actual tears. Like five droplets but still.