Indulgence

much ado about The Da Vinci Code

from The Princess Diaries
Courage is not the absence of fear but rather the realiation that something is more important than fear.

I just watched The Da Vinci Code with Datu and Kristi. There were so many people who were trying to get a ticket that they had to open a whole theatre at 1am just to accommodate the amount of people who wanted to watch. Datu told me that the SM malls were not showing the movie because of its anti-Catholic/anti-Christianity theme. So more and more people were flocking to other theatres just to watch it.

It was fun. I think Ron Howard was a great choice for director, considering his amazing ability to visualize the abstract. His vision in A Beautiful Mind and ability to make us see the inner workings of the main character's mind was just sheer genius. Again, it was needed in this kind of film where, other than being able to pick out the clues from visual imagery in terms of the paintings, there were historical concepts that needed to be brought up without being boring. He was able to tell the main point of Dan Brown's book and still keep it an adventure-mystery story. At the same time, he saw the movie (or the story) as being something of a meeting point between the past and the present. His directorial choice to let the images of the past meet the present was an excellent move on his part. The movie was very entertaining.

Naturally, a lot of the book was missing but what did you expect? How much could they tell in 2 and a half hours? They took what was necessary and showed it. I've read the book and still had fun. In my opinion, that means it is a success.

Don't get me wrong, though, I'm not a big fan of The Da Vinci Code. I found the book entertaining and informative. It got me to thinking but not by too much. I had already discovered some of the things the book was trying to uncover on my own, from reading other stuff. And I didn't find the book life changing in any way since I'm not a Catholic. The book was asking questions I was already asking -- just that it was more well-researched and more historically based. But I had fun, the 2 days it took me to finish the book. It was a fun adventure and an interesting and intriguing mystery, and while I won't say that it's a book that is anywhere near my top 20 list (it isn't) but it didn't waste my time.

What can I say? I'm a literary snob. I was trained to read by Dr. Marjorie Evasco, Dr. Cirilo Bautista, Dr. Luisa Aguilar-Carino-Igloria and other luminaries of Philippine Literature. I'm more impressed by lyrical prose, by the merging of form and substance, the literary quality of books that separate pop art and true art. I consider Annie Dillard's For the Time Being as a spectacular book and I'm enthralled by the writing style of Jeanette Winterson or the immediacy and straight-forward prose of Philip K Dick. I have much higher standards for my literary inclinations. (Fuck, I'm such a fucking snob-bastard!)

What gets to me, though, is how a lot of people are so pissed off at Dan Brown and The Da Vinci code for its supposed anti-religion/anti-Catholic/anti-Christianity themes. The Opus Dei are so against it and the religious owners or managers or whoever of the SM malls banned it from being seen in their theatres. Why? It's not as if the books points were completely impossible? It's not as if he went so far as to create false events to paint them in a bad light? In fact, there is so much history of the violence of the church throughout the years that it does make for very good fiction. And he's always said that it is a work of fiction. I think the book, and the movie, has a very good message in the end, despite how it may portray the Opus Dei and Christianity.

In the end, it's not the facts that are going to change the world but people's faith. No matter what you know and what is put before you, your faith shall carry you through. This book is not going to change anything and neither is the movie. At the most, it will make people think very hard about what it is they believe in and it will make it stronger, or if it won't, it will make people ask questions -- questions that will lead them to the answer they need to get through. And that's not such a bad thing, really. It makes people not take things for granted.

I think a lot of people take too many things for granted. They do it because other people are or worse, they do it because it has always been that way. That's so awful. We should always ask questions and keep asking questions and we should always be looking for the truth. We should never be satisfied with the testimony of others but find the answers for ourselves. And when we've found it -- when we've been through hell and high water; then we can rest easy at night and no one, no movie or book will steer us away from that which we believe in.

So say what you want to say, ask and keep on asking. In the end, I will make up my own mind and so should you.

posted by wanggo @ 4:57 AM