outdated work post

SO, batam was amazing!

and i don't mean that in a sleazy way. we steered clear of the sleaze, obviously, and visited the kampongs and farmlands looking for shooting locations. it is just wonderful seeing these kampongs. i won't romanticise it because i know there is nothing beautiful about poverty. it's the simplicity of things there that really grabs you.

the children, for one. there are so many of them just running about and laughing and playing, unbothered or overprotected by their parents or constantly watched by a maid. and when they see you they're just brimming with excitement and enthusiasm, so unlike the sullen kids i have met in singapore who glare at you or ignore you. they're just incredible, so full of spirit and life. the people there just seem so content and happy to live the way they do, cooking their food slowly over woodfire and having chickens strut all over the place.

it makes me sad to think that in a few years time places like that will be gone because the people living there will possibly be evicted due to land development and things like that.

well, other than batam, something happened yesterday that made quite an impression on me. an old lady called up the office and i picked up and she talked on and on about how she heard eric's last film was about loneliness and despair and after she heard that she felt like she should call him and talk to him. she said that she was a senior citizen and so many senior citizens experienced the plight of neglection and loneliness. and it made me feel so sad that the extent to which these senior citizens experienced loneliness drove them to actually call up eric with the blind and small hope that he could do something, anything to help them raise awareness about the pains they experienced. well, eric is really a most interesting person to work under and he has agreed to meet her (though he's always so exuberant i really don't know whether to take him seriously sometimes!). the people that surround me are generally very nice and interesting in their own way.

loneliness, loneliness. royston's film 4:30 is also about loneliness and it is most most most depressing. people will always feel this desperation for companionship (even illusory) when they are left all alone, and i understand that better than i wish to.

i have recently finished reading EM Forster's Room With A View and it is a delightful novel! romantic, intelligent and .. well.. sparkling! how else can i describe it but 'sparkly'. it's really wonderful the things Forster says and implies and we can go on reading him indefinitely (as paraphrased from The Times!). also i'm afraid i probably will miss Alfian's (and some others?) 300 unmarried men play because it doesn't really look all that interesting and i'm going to watch Educating Rita next week! on top of Franz Ferdinand and Westside Story and Disney on Ice. so really i'm already promised to spend lots of money on other shows.

'Then make my boy think like us. Make him realize that by the side of the everlasting Why there is a Yes - a transitory Yes if you like, but a Yes'

+ posted by M @ 10:46 PM