"Ada seekor anak kelinci main-main di lapangan.
Dia sangat senang sekali melihat rumput-rumput yang bergoyang..."
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Whoaa..! Dad! You should have taught me not
to go with strangers. Especially when it's a
shady bear in the woods! I'm not Masha!
(Photo credit: We Know Memes) |
Are you familiar with a Mobius strip? It's basically a simple strip that when you draw a straight line on the surface, you would end up on the spot where you begin. The piece of the story (in Indonesian) above is the beginning of my Daddy's version of a Mobius strip.
Every night when I was small, he would tell us a story of a little bunny who got lost, met Mr. Bear, went to his house to spend the night and eat Mrs. Bear's cooking, decided to take a nap while Mr. Bear told him a story about a little bunny who got lost, and the story goes on forever. The ending of this movie reminded me of that story from my childhood. However, as Julie Andrews said (or sang): "Let's start from the very beginning. A very good place to start."
Run, Allan! Run!
It has been a crazy week. Between work, friends, family, financial, health, and personal sanity dramas; I think I can proudly say that it's an achievement that I have not completely lost my mind. So in order to remain functioning, I decided to went and watch the
Europe on Screen alone on a lovely Monday night.
The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out The Window and Disappeared was playing. I first heard the ridiculously long title when I saw the book in my friend's house. She told me it was a great book. But I haven't had a chance to read it. So, when I saw the title in the screening schedule, naturally I feel the urge to go and watch it. And thus I went and watch.
The movie started with a bang. A literal bang. The main character, Allan Karlsson, is an old man with a livelong obsession of blowing things up. And he decided to take revenge on the lovely red fox that killed his overweight cat (appropriately named Molotov) by blowing it up. This maneuver send him straight to a nursing home.
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But first, let me just say that any geriatric who are brave
enough to climb out of anything deserved my utmost
respect. (Photo credit: The Holywood Reporter) |
I think you can instantaneously tell that Allan is quite a character around the time you see him wrapping a bunch sausages around dynamite and meticulously putting the pile by the hen house. But even this quirky move will not prepare you for what you about to see about Alan's character.
He live a carefree, colorful live; I suspect without even realising it. He had had people, "from conductor to dictator," yelling at him. He saved Franco's life (from himself, but that's out of the context), advised Oppenheimer on how to make bomb, dined with Truman, danced with Stalin, befriended Einstein (Herbert, not Albert), and (unawarely) tricked Gorbachev with his recording of Reagan's yelling to his gardener. Hell, he was the Scandinavian version of Forest Gump!
To Think or Not To Think
Technically speaking, I love the colorful scenes in the movie. The scenic Scandinavian countryside, the cute houses, the amazing make up, the uplifting music, the one-of-a-kind characters, the quirky storyline, the witty dialogues; all of which are directed into making you feel that blissful happiness you rarely let out. I watched the movie alone, but not once did I feel the need to hold back on the laughing. And it's deliberating.
I could spend so much time babbling about how great the storyline is and describing every single scene, but I won't. You could go on and watch the movie yourselves! One thing I could say, though, is that the maker of Allan's story, Jonas Jonasson, is a genius! I haven't had as much fun watching a movie like this ever since Harold and Maude. The whole studio cannot stop laughing throughout the screening. There were also occasional applause during several scenes. Well deserved applause, if I might add.
Witty comic aside, I think Allan's story serve as a reminder of how we, modern people, have the tendency to over think. "Thinking would not get you anywhere," his mother said just before she died. That in turn shaped Allan into a carefree, happy-go-lucky person that we saw throughout the movie.
And then we saw the character Benny. A character so indecisive that he never decided where he should go with his life, and thus went nowhere. On top of it all, we see that Allan is a blessed golden child of destiny; and so do the good people around him. They came so close so many times to misfortune, even felt that every now and then. But they always prevails in the end. The message is clear (at least I think it is): Carpe Diem! (or as modern hip people say: YOLO!). If you want to do something, do it. Don't waste time thinking about it. Nitey nite!
