A JOURNEY, LIKE LIFE ITSELF

July 14, 2008


A JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH:

A FILM THAT TOUCHES A NEVER

© 2008 By Ralph Rewes

WHY?:
Apparently only apparently, this is a popular film made with all kinds of realistic special effects and in a lot of digital movies thrown in the face of the spectators in 3-D, why then I write that it touches a nerve. Maybe not to many people even notices, but the effect of the movie lingers in the subconsciousness of a lot of moviegoers.

Uncle and nephew get enthused by a book and following its trail, not thinking much, jumped on a plane and flied to Iceland, where they add the female to the group as clichés demand in these cases. Then the wizard of Oz trio is shooed by lightning into a cave, and instead of trying to find a way up and out, they go in and down, as if promenading through a park.

MIMICKING LIFE ITSELF
Their trek into the planet shocks the viewer because they do not care about a way back. Uncle could say and repeat a lot of time the phrase, "Don't do this, don't do that." Nobody paid attention, They were mesmerized by the road in front of them, a road toward the unknown, projecting a puzzling attitude that in reality is what we do in life. We come to this world with no inkling of what awaits for us, there is a long road in front of us and there is no return and we can't do anything about it or change the rules of the game we guess how to play. Then one day, a flying fish or a Tyrannosaur will do us in.

HORRIBLE REALIZATION
Somehow the film made me, my brother and a friend realize how life is actually a road you are forced into into the center of the world, where we cannot go back, like the flow of a river. Even when we think we can go back, there is no way back. Since things do not remain static- Their perception is always changing, even in the cases when these perceptions are apparently insignificant, they are not. Then we must add another factor, we also change as we go along and the person we were a year ago has totally changed in the now and then.

POSSIBLE IMPOSSIBILITIES
Then you start thinking about the impossible way-outs the characters in the film overcome. "This is a gross exaggeration," you may think or say out loud. Then you remember some of the situations you faced in your past and the times you saw no way out of them, but there was one and it happened, and not once, or twice, buy many times. Opportunities presented themselves every time you wish for something with all your soul.

The failure of not succeeding in what you wanted might have been, that you did not catch the opportunity that follows. You didn't see or you did not understand it. It is like the popular joke of the guy on top of a roof of a house during a flood, asking his god to save him and he received several proposals, but he refused them, waiting for a miracle. He drowned, and his god told him, "Why didn't you pay attention to my messengers?"