Weekend at the Cinema

The Golden Compass is based on Northern Lights (known in the US as The Golden Compass), the first novel in Phillip Pullman's trilogy His Dark Materials. The film is a visual feast - a fantastical journey with dazzling imagery and commanding characters (human and not), that also poses intriguing questions.

The following excerpt from Roger Ebert's review sums it up:

The film centers on a young girl named Lyra (Dakota Blue Richards), in an alternative universe vaguely like Victorian England. An orphan raised by the scholars of a university not unlike Oxford or Cambridge, she is the niece of Lord Asriel (Daniel Craig), who entrusts her with the last surviving Alethiometer, or Golden Compass, a device that quite simply tells the truth. The Magisterium has a horror of the truth, because it represents an alternative to its thought control; the battle in the movie is about no less than man's preservation of free will. ...

The struggle involves a mysterious cosmic substance named Dust, which embodies free will and other properties the Magisterium wants to remove from human possibility. By "mysterious," I mean that Dust appears throughout the movie as a cloud of dancing particles, from which emerge people, places and possibilities, but I have no idea under which rules it operates. Possibly it represents our human inheritance if dogma did not interfere.

As an avid reader, in general I would be inclined to agree with the statement that books weave a magic the film versions simply cannot match, so I would prefer to read a book before seeing the film adaptation of it, but in this case the opposite is true. Although it was branded as controversial and even anti-religious by some (an eloquent viewer response can be read here), it seems to me the studio and the director have taken great pains to sanitize the author's original message in order make the film appealing to a broad audience. I for one dislike having things pre-chewed for me and even less having a watered down version of what should be a deep and soulful philosophical discussion. So I shall be patiently waiting for the book to arrive in the mail and, to quote another review, I hope the viewers of all ages will take to heart this movie which calls us to be wary of all authoritarian institutions that stifle the soul and the spiritual search for truth.

Another film I have been looking forward to for a while is undoubtedly The Kite Runner, based on a much loved novel by Khaled Hosseini. Faithful to the book, the film tells a moving story of friendship, betrayal and ultimately redemption. My favorite part of the story have always been the vivid descriptions (translated into captivating images on the screen) of the rich culture and beauty of the land, which highlight the tragedy of Afghanistan's destruction first by invading Soviet army and then by inhumane rule of the Taliban. Perhaps glimpsing it in this light, as a place that has once known prosperity and honor, will replace far too often encountered stereotypes in the heads of too many people who know nothing of this nation. The movie like the book reminds us, there is always a way to be good again.