life is great...

...he said, coughing incessantly. No, really, it is! There are so many places to visit, so many sounds to absorb, million aromas to tickle your nostrils, countless imageries to flash before your eyes. Stockholm is coming up this weekend; the flight tickets for Thailand arrived yesterday while we managed to draft the plans for the 3 weeks I'm going to spend there; the tickets for the Dream Theater concert are lying on my desk at home; I managed to find people interested in going to Cirque du Soleil, next year in January, but you have to book these things in advance; I might go to see Jamie Cullum; the ice skating event in Streatham and then Barcelona and Lake District. So many things that you won't do once you get older. Now is the time, cease the day, go explore, go play! And if you need a more technical and first hand emotional argument of why you shouldn't worry too much about the future and live now, go read Marco's blog. He has a posting about that. If you still need convincing!

Coming back to the present and to the immediate yore, I must tell you about the film I saw yesterday. Don't laugh, hear me out. It was called "Pride and Prejudice" and it's based on a novel with the same name of Jane Austen. Before going to see it, I was shuddering at the prospect. I was hoping for a muse to gently help me fall asleep and soothe the whole experience. But no muse deigned set her eyes on me and in the end, there was no need for it anyway.

The film was surprisingly good, clearly an adaptation of the novel not an exact transposition of it into images. And you realised that very soon as the whole audience would burst into laughter. Something unexpected for a victorian atmosphere on the hills of old England. But it was funny, sprinkled with british humour - at some point I was thinking they've overdone it and it was a comedy, all of the sudden.

But it was all moderated by some overly emphatic shakesperian dialogues, which I must admit I didn't like. It should still be a reflection of a bygone era, although it was difficult to imagine normal people talking like that. It was reserved for poets and magicians! But don't get the wrong impression, it was just a dialogue or two, I am exaggerating as it sounded like the grinding of the teeth to my ears.

Another impressive aspect was the photography, it just settled the score for me. The photography of the film was very good I thought, with some lyrical moments where the photography director unleashed all her repressed creativity. I am very passionate about photography and I think I know a thing or two about it, so I'm confident about my appreciations (sheesh, he's such a modest boy!).

The actors were a bit disappointing, with one exception: Donald Sutherland. He was just brilliant and I wouldn't be too surprised if he was nominated for an Oscar for the best supporting role. He was the gray haired father.

All in all, it was a great film, pigmented with good humour, emotional expression that doesn't descend into sloppiness, all wrapped up in great photography. Highly recommended!