Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Glastonbury. We are never gonna have something so wild and carefree here on our sunny island. It will be like, clearing out a new town, maybe Toa Payoh or Tampines, to encourage a music festival this big. Anyway, wishful thinking lah. As a topic the documentary is pretty fascinating, as it tries to look at the festival through the years of growth and mayhem. Some of the discovery is pretty amazing. Glastonbury is a sacred ground, and full of history, hence the locals do not welcome the hippies and young and restless at all. It was also interesting to hear from the festival founder, how the event grew from humble beginnings to such a mammoth scale. Fencing the venue became a thorny issue when the turnout became rather uncontrollable. The daily removal of piss and shit was ... not pretty to watch. The inclusion of certain music acts like Bjork, Cold Play, Stereo MCs, etc, did lift the movie somewhat, but overall the documentary did not live up to expectations, for such a promising topic. I do hope to visit the festival one day if I have the chance. Our Zoukout is like the tip of the iceberg compare to this monster.

The Willow Tree. This film is from the director of Children of Heaven , and Colour of Paradise. Children of Heaven is a classic. Colour of Paradise was a little disappointing, in my own opinion. The Willow Tree is somewhere in between. Plot wise the director got it better that Colour. The focus of the film was very clear, ask and you shall receive, if you are humble and righteous; defy, and you face the consequences. Visually, as with all good Iranian films, there are many stunning shots of nature, of trees, of ant crawling, of fishes in the pool. The pace of the film was pretty good, a little fast for my liking, but still enjoyable overall. Deserves a commercial run at Picturehouse or Europa.

♥ 9:46 am