12.3

I loved the movie, The Fall, we watched in class on Thursday. It reminded me of when I was little and my parents shared with me tales about the Arabian Nights, Greek myths, and their own stories (I remember one about the little fairy who lived in my teapot nightlight.)

The movie's director used great choices of locations, great character concepts (I loved all of the outfits!), and amazing colors. In fact, you can divide the movie into scenes with cold color, scenes with muted color, and scenes in black and white. You could also follow both of the plot of the hospital and fairytale fairly easily. (This is unlike another movie I saw recently, Black Rock Shooter, which had similar intercutting between fantastic and realistic scenes. In the movie, the matches between otherworldy fighters was supposed to parallel the troubles of everyday schoolgirls. But they didn't manage the intercutting between the two worlds at all, so it was quite confusing until the end, where it's finally revealed too late.)

I felt like the movie should have been rated PG-13, but I can also see why it was rated R. Little kids probably would have liked the parts that had fantasy, and would have ignored the more gritty and realistic hospital scenes, so it would be okay for younger audiences. (What's more, the themes of suicide, manipulation of children, and violence were scenes that kids haven't been exposed to already.)


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The movie renewed my love for stories. I hate to say this, but most of the manga and anime I've read and seen recently haven't held my interest like they used to. (Even among the ones I'm still reading, the stories have gone downhill since I first started reading them.)
I think the message is for me to go back and look at stories older than manga. Stories from ancient mythology, and tales of ancient heroes. I think by doing this, I can gain inspiration and lots of materials for my "library." I have bookshelves in my brain-attic that are waiting to be filled (if anyone gets the Sherlock Holmes reference). Also, those stories are entertaining for everyone, so I think I'll feel happier just by reading them.

Finally, I had been feeling a little down before we watched the movie. I took away the uplifting message that (at least) one person in the world loves you and doesn't want you to give up (not just on life, but on anything you're trying to do).
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By the way, I noticed an odd connection.
One of my characters, Weiming, looks similar to the Red Bandit. Does this mean something?