Skip to main content

One movie, Few observations, Many thoughts !

(Seems that this is becoming a movie review blog! But I couldn't resist posting about this!)
____

I saw Dead Poet's society(DPS) recently for the second time. First time I saw it, I loved it. Second time I saw it, I loved it more!

One of the Bollywood movie Mohabbatein has its plot loosely inspired from it, although DPS is based upon topic of free will while the desi version is mostly a love story, with elements of free will, discipline, tradition etc. strewn in.

DPS is about an unorthodox professor John Keating (played by Robin Williams) in a prep school, who arouses student's love in poetry, seize the day (carpe diem) and follow their heart. As expected the school authorities and few parents don't like it. Its last 10 minutes are excellent, probably one of my favorites!

As one of the move tag lines puts it - " He was their inspiration. He made their lives extraordinary."

Few random observations and many random thoughts -

We often get so deep into things like tradition, honor and discipline, that we forget that there are few things which may not require some of these. In fact it is often too deep ingrained, or rather made to be deeply ingrained as a matter of learnings, and at times these constrain learning. And in fact it may instill fear due to use of things like corporal punishment (... although people of 'Spare the rod and spoil the kid' school of thought may not agree!)

Often there are things other decide, and often under assumption that a person is not capable of making that choice, and hence doesn't deserve the chance to make the choice.

"No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world. " - DPS

Often we tend to look in short term, probably as distant as will this activity will lead to grades or a CV points, and that all. Cliched it may sound, but in this process we often forget that there is a life beyond it. As once mentioned in Orwell's 1984 - "I know how, but I don't know why" often holds true

Once we read something, we need to look from what we think, and not just blindly what the writer thinks! And yes, there are often other views also and hence need for looking at things in different ways, putting ourselves in different shoes.

"
I Went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. " - HD Thoreau (said by John Keating in DPS)

Carpe Diem, because the days don't stand still!

Overall, an extraordinary product by an extraordinary film maker!

Although, it did not arouse my interest in poetry, but it is an inspirtaional stuff, me says !!
___

DPS @ IMDB http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097165/

Comments

  1. "Seize the day" I pasted this quote above my mirror when I was in 11th standard :)

    And the movie, somehow, I couldn't watch it...So, next time, I get a chance, will definitely watch it :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yeah ... "Carpe diem" is a real good quote .. and highly inspirational!

    Highly recommended movie
    (... or maybe it is just my bias
    ... Hopefully not!)

    Maybe, till then u can enjoy the reviews on IMDB!

    ReplyDelete
  3. http://www.imdb.com/

    Internet Movie databasse ...

    U can get user ratings, reviews and many facts about a particular movie.
    However, it is still quite Hollywoodish.

    Reliability of Indian movies, may not be too high, but is fair enough!
    SO just type the movie name and get started!

    ReplyDelete
  4. The complete quote by HDT mentioned in the post
    ____

    I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, to discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and to be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.

    Walden or Life in the Woods
    - Henry David Thoreau (1817 – 1862)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Shop @ Amazon

Popular posts from this blog

An area of darkness ?

The title of this post finds its origins in a novel with simlar name written by VS Naipaul. Set in India, some 40 years ago or so, this is a kind of travelogue of author's brief stay in India where he found it to be full of superstitions, ignorance and darkness! Many decades and many MNCs and malls later, few parts of India seemed to have chucked off that tag, but there are many places that haven't and continue to remain shrouded in ignorance. Move few hours away from a city, travel in a second class train compartment or a dilapidated state transport bus and you get to see the dark underbelly of India Shining. As one of the characters in the movie Rang De Basanti says "Yahan zinda rehne ki jung mein logo ki zindagiyan nikal jaati hai" . So true it seems! My day today was spent being kind of lost in similar thoughts. To start with, I when I boarded the ST bus, a woman was wailing. She may be in her 20s or something, but she was crying in some peculiar musical tone. At

The Forest

The Toyota Qualis and the Chvrolet Tavera stopped after a long journey. It was almost 9 in the night and it was pitch-dark. Night times in a forest are always pitch-dark. Adding to that it was a good `thirteen days since the last full moon day. Adding to this, the cloudy weather made visibility close to zero. Later in the night the forest would be engulfed in a fog making it nearly impossible to see. The only noise audible was that of silence, few random insects and that of a train going at a distance. After a long journey they all were quite weary and all they wanted was some rest so that the next day morning they can head for tiger and rhino spotting among many other species of flora and fauna in the wildlife sanctuary. Right now it was time for some parathas, maggi and booze. All fifteen of them headed for the cottage which they had booked, sat near the fire place relishing food, chit chatting about college life, universe and everything. But chit chatting wasn’t what they came

Assured returns from stock markets?

Stocks (and hence mutual funds) are often sold as something that give "assured" long term returns over a period of time. While this has been true for most of the times, and all time if we consider a long enough time horizon in India's recent history but is this always true? Can it be possible that stock markets can give lesser, say 10% returns over next 10 years? Or 5 percent annual returns? Or, taking inspiration from Nicholas Taleb, a black swan event happens and your end up barely recovering 80 percent of your principal amount (i.e. 20 percent loss) -   Theoretically yes.  Hopefully no.  I am not a predictor of future, nor are thousands others who claim to have more than 1000% percent surety of future events. So, if you are contemplating taking a personal loan @ 12% for some financial need and want to be invested in a mutual fund for "assured" 12 / 15/ 18/ 25 percent returns, maybe you need to rethink. If you want to borrow money @ 12% just to inv

Fan-o-phobia

Has there been some thing that you are worried about lately, something that might not seem too important that has been troubling you? ... Or that the very thought of it makes you shiver, tremble with fear or puts in the fear of god within you? Well ... I am facing one such thing of late. Somehow I have developed a fear of the fans, especially in cases where fans are a relatively lesser height, usually which I can touch easily with my palms or even elbows ... and even the ones that I can barely even touch by my fingers. This has not been without a reaon though. Recently I went to a relatives place where there was this combination of a fan being at lesser height and me being quite tall. After taking a bath (yeah ... I do take a bath ... in summers at least!) I switched on the fan, and raised my hands to wear a T-shirt. And suddenly I found something hitting my left thumb, hitting it really hard. Before the signal was sent to my brain so that I could realize what was happening, I put my h

All for a Car

"Boss, I want a car" "What? "Yes. I want a car" The boss thought for a moment. Ravi was asking for a car. Maybe he needed one. He could give him one for an hour or so. The boss was the owner of the agency, which dealt in dealing with distribution of FMCG products of a big company and was a person who had a soft corner for his employees, something which is rare in such type of work. Ravi was a small time computer operator earning Rs 5000 a month at the agency. The job involved sitting in front of a computer in an air conditioned room and punching orders and preparing the bills on the company software. But the demand for a car was a bit shocking. No employee ever asked him for a car. "Why do you need a car?" "Boss. I am getting married" "Good. Congratulations" "Thank you boss." "So do you ..." "Sir, I have told my to be father in law that I earn 35000 a month and have my own car. I'll be engaged soon. He