The Wilful Sunflower

Looks like this is gonna be my busiest Christmas ever. I already have invites to five Christmas parties or makans (meals) -- one on Christmas eve, three on Christmas Day, and one on Boxing Day (a fancy dress party, and I have no idea who or what to dress up as!). Gee, how did I ever get so popular?! ;)

My Christmases are usually so low-key, I have no idea why this year is different. Maybe I am finally developing a social life I'm still not quite into the "Christmas spirit", but at least am not feeling quite so "Bah! Humbug!" about it now :)

And, I saw The Polar Express twice, once in IMAX 3-D format and once in an ordinary cineplex. Not because it's a seasonal movie, mind you -- I was required to see it!

I didn't like it, primarily because the plot revolves around proving Santa's existence to a young boy, and we all know that Santa doesn't exist, so what's the point? I think the Santa myth is mainly only entrenched in Western culture -- I doubt most Malaysian parents bother to try convincing their children that Santa is the one who brings them gifts. (For one thing, most houses here don't have chimneys. It would take too much effort to explain how Santa's going to get into a securely locked house...) But I still don't understand why it's such a big deal for children to not believe in Santa. I mean, parents getting upset when a teacher or vicar tells their kids Santa isn't real?

(Aside: Marn once knew a woman who deliberately "took the Santa myth away" from her own children because their family was not well off, and she would not allow the non-abundance of material gifts to make her children think they were somehow lacking as a person or "less good" than other children who had more... Read the story.)

Anyway, I didn't like The Polar Express, but I also admit that I read this article a few days before watching the movie, and it prejudiced me somewhat. Throughout the time I was in the cinema, I kept hearing these words in my head:

It is an article of faith at Pixar that trying to make your animated characters look as realistic as possible is as pointless as it is difficult...

"There is a contingent of the digital-effects community to whom that is the holy grail - to create photographically real humans," says Brad Bird, the writer and director of The Incredibles and, previously, The Iron Giant. "To me that is the dumbest goal that you could possibly have. What's wonderful about the medium of animation isn't recreating reality. It's distilling it."

Indeed, the characters looked real and yet not real enough -- I can't describe it except to say it was like seeing mannequins come to life. Eerie. Also, despite the motion-capture technology used to create the movie (poor Tom Hanks had to endure 152 sensors strapped to his face, so that his every instinctive movement could be transposed onto his animated character), most of the movements still looked stiff. And that marionette sequence is enough to give children nightmares -- what on earth were the moviemakers thinking??!

Nevertheless, I might be old and jaded, coz my 16-year-old cousin liked the movie. She said it's about believing and can be applied to anything, not just belief in Santa Claus. Now where could she possibly have gotten that idea?! (LOL)