Is Jesus A Myth?

It's so cold and rainy and my sweater doesn't seem to help.
Well,anyway. We were talking about religion lately and in the most of times. It made me more interested on the matter though. I am a religious person in my own judgement--that is, I go to church and pray. Yet, I still have some questions and doubts about HIM and the Bible itself. I am raised from a very very religious family and even attended catholic school, I am active in church and its activities and become member of some christian organizations. However, in the world of intellectuals, there's always the question of how and WHY..that there must be something out of anything and everything!

In Philosophy, true KNOWLEDGE of something that is factual and true is backed up by evidence and proof. It is therefore not a fact if the information is just passed from one mouth to another unmindful of the biases as well as the added statements and the deleted or forgotten words--that makes it a gossip. The Catholic Faith is somehow based on the accounts of either written and spoken from the so called prophets and chosen people of God with their mission to spread HIS word for mankind to believe in HIM. Everything is vulnerable to questioning  I know--even I myself pays the benefit of the doubt. Everything comes neatly handed to you in a form of the so called BIBLE and you are., since your childhood, taught to BELIEVE in it and thus, FAITH answers all of your queries--nothing else. Just Believe, have FAITH and everything will be alright.

NOw, I wonder if it's all true or just a big obnoxious lie that is just made up by our great great grandfathers to shut our mouths when we ask why and how did the earth came to be. It's just hard finding the proof of such faith, the evidences for believing and GOD itself--I haven't seen GOD..is HE real? or not? If I haven't born a Christian, will i still believe in Christ? How do I know if there is Christ, then?
Did Jesus really came to being and roamed the earth or is he not? Is he just a make up of some discontented priests who wants to make the story longer by adding the NEW Testament in the book shelves?

Some Bits of ME

  My mother is a teacher. Everything she wanted from her children is that we learn a lot from school and even further extend the process of learning in the home. When we were still young, I and my sister were not allowed to go outside the house for playing games with other kids or stroll. Our house is only a stone throw away from the park and it was really a cruel torture when you see your classmates playing with your other classmates while you enviously stare at such scenery on the grills of your window.
  
  We can play outside only during weekends but only after we finish all our homework, studied the lesson of the next topic and promised to be back home before 5pm--anyway, we are FORCED to take a nap at 2pm and we should only be up by 4pm. That time, I hate that 2pm nap because I can't sleep and  that is is too hard pretending that you're sleeping—I just cover myself with a blanket so that I may not be obviously detected by the warden (my mother) that I am not actually sleeping.
  
  Our house is like a school too. Mother filled it with books, both boring books (those with pure texts and no pictures) and cool books (those with more pictures and less texts).That was when I was in grade two that I cried and cried because I cannot play outside with my friends. They were playing something really interesting and I feel this unexplainable urge to join them. Seeing them cook gumamela flowers and seeds to a can while others were as if buying that food they were cooking with guava leaves as money is  so much fun that no kid won't dare miss that part of their childhood.
   
My father recognizes the fact that mother had been too strict to us. He stressed out the need for children to also have fun, play games, do something exciting except studying.
   
My father is a happy go lucky type of person, an extrovert, and a very jolly person while my mother is most likely an introvert, very reserved, very proper. Though they were each others extreme opposites, they have a very healthy relationship filled with so much love—and I can clearly see that.
   
When my father felt this matter, he bought us toys, play station, board games, anything that is fun and can be played inside the house. My mother, on one hand, still expresses the requirement of having “house-loving” children because she doesn't want us to get used to staying outside the house. She bought father's idea of “bringing fun inside the house” so that we wont seek for it somewhere else anymore. In additional to the play station, mother also bought us activity books and complete set of Grolier's 100 Questions and Answers book—the first printed material that I loved so much. If you've seen this thing I'm talking about, you'll know why  =D .  We were trained to be home buddies and I hate that.
  
  Not until I got used to it.
   
When I was in grade three, I do not see myself playing games outside anymore neither do I love to go outside to play. Our house is filled with so many things that is much more interesting than anything that can be found outside. I already get used to reading books, play board games with my sister and enjoys coloring our activity books. I don't recognize that time that we were actually learning because what was on my mind was fun.
  
  For me, those things were fun. It's beyond cooking rose petals and leaves. It is also in the home that we are unconsciously  taught of the proper manners and conduct by the mere sight of our mother doing things around. My father isn't always around the house because he leaves by 6 am for work and arrives home by 7pm. But despite that, I don't feel that we are being suppressed from doing anything else because I actually love what we're doing and the way our mother makes us live our lives the way she wants it—I have no problem with that.
  
  Now that I think of it have I realized that during that period of my life that I've become an extreme introvert. I do well on academics but I have problems with extra curricular activities because I am really shy.  I often  think that I'd rather live alone and go school alone only with my sister. I frequently asked my mother that I'd be home schooled and never go out to school because I developed this awkward feeling towards my classmates. I have no close friends that I enjoy being in company. I just love my sister and my sister loves me. I thought that it's only my sister that I can play with and the only one I can talk to. I don't talk much in school. I only answer when asked. I am silent when I'm with other people but when I'm at home, I talk as much as I want and laugh as loud as my sister and my mother do.
   
I enjoy the home  that I could be president of “There's-No-Place-Like-Home” fans club.
   
I rather feel incarcerated and uneasy when I am outside the house.
   
Later, I find this a problem because I have difficulty in dealing with people to the point that I already have this wanting to isolate all these loud people in one contenet and leave me and my family alone.
   
The environment in the home and the way our parents raised contributed much to the build up of our personality. As what Carl Rogers suggested in his phenomenological theory, the environment or the situation affects an individual's personality and I believe in that. What's around you is making you. The type of environment you were raised, you have grown with and had got used to is basically YOU. There's no escaping in the fact that what goes around you molds your being, affects your choices and decisions as well as you personality itself.
   
Because I am an introvert, my high school days were not easy. Because in high school, you should participate in every extra curricular activities from being a majorette ( it's a curse being one) to being CAT official ( anything that requires you to unnecessarily burn your skin under the sun is never and could never be  a part of my dream)--especially that I'm vying for valedictorian. It was a culture shock for me.
    What's funny now is that my mother is already forcing me to go outside this time—to go and love anything and everything outside. She wanted me not to be shy anymore and be like those typical teenagers who goes to disco and outings. Way back in my elementary days, she says “don't be like that of those other children who stays outside to have fun”; and then, at the change of time, I can already hear her saying, “Can't you just be like those typical teens who socialize outside and have fun?”  Now she wanted me to have friends, to socialize and most importantly, she wants me not to just stay in the house while others are outside. Quiet a drastic shift of mode. I was like an old grandmother that is re-socialized upon entering the home for the aged.
  
  I was thankful of myself that I'm an obedient daughter =D.
  
  Okay, so you want me to go outside, I'll go outside.
   
That was in high school that I had friends, I learned to socialize, go out with them to outings and disco (even if my mom still forces me to go on a disco).
    Surprisingly, I've changed. My being an introvert is lessened though it's still there. Lessened because, by that time, I already talk to other people without uneasiness, I can be in a group of people and I already don't feel this wanting to isolate myself and my family in one island of the country. Yet I still love to stay in the home rather than going outside but unlike before, I don't hate going outside anymore.
    Not until I've entered college that my eyes were open into a much greater outside world. I  was exposed to a totally different environment where everybody looks really delectable.
    In college, everybody's a friend and you earn really close friends. They make you more comfortable to be yourself and talking to them is as much fun as playing house. It is also in college, that I finally felt that I was totally a prisoner during my childhood. Now I know the true meaning of the parable of the fly in the bottle of vinegar who thought that the vinegar is already the sweetest thing in the world until he got out of the bottle. But I don't blame my parents for wanting me to become a good person to society, I fully understand their intentions now that my mind has become more open to more issues and concerns.
  
  I've become participative, more participative to school activities and many other things. I have socialized a lot and my manner of communication to others have upgraded to much better level. Since my classmates are very much informed about current issues, I, too, required myself to be a part of this concern as well. I've become an eye watcher to almost anything that happens under the sun.
   
The “No Care”  girl before now changes to an activist (not like "activist" activist). Before, I don't know how to fight, defend myself even when I'm already stepped on by criticisms, and just remain silent unto everything. Now that I've been awakened in this new environment where people really voice out what they feel without shame and hesitation in respect to the spirit of freedom that I've also learn to speak out for myself in a much louder voice. I am not shy anymore.
     
    However, my traits from childhood were not dissolved totally, there still remains a part of me that I can trace down from what I've experience when I was younger. Yet most part of me is contributed to the environment I have now

Haven Philippines

Tourists get to ride with bancas (small motor boats) to get to Haven Beach Resort. Individual fare is only 20 pesos--considerably cheap for a wonderful ride. Beautiful views of nature--from the lush green forest to the clear blue seawater--  will make you breathless.

Want to have MORE FUN? Try sitting at the topmost benches of the bancas where you can experience the cool sea breeze at its best. Goofing around with the camera were my friends Judy, Ave, jan, Harv, and Ren.

It's only a place for meditation and relaxation. The whole area is calm and peaceful unlike many urbanized beaches. Floating cottages are available and for free.

Behind us were sturdy built cottage houses perfect for overnight stay.

Allen, Northern Samar

Haven Beach Resort is found in Allen Northern Samar Philippines. One of the most visited tourist attraction in the country.

The clean and trash free powder-white sand of Haven Resort.

This is one beach experience I would like to laminate, put on a frame, and plant next to my pillow. This white sand beach is indeed a worthy tourist attraction. The clear blue water is really. Despite the blazing heat of the sun, we never hesitate to get our skin bathe into it—I don’t care up to what degree it would endanger the fairness

It's an island an you need to get a boat to ride you there. The trip itself is already nice You've got to see many fishes underneath the clear waters.

of my skin (as if I was really fair-skinned) as long as, “thank God I’m here! There's no way I'm Not swimming!”.The beach get away is a good treat from our professor who recognizes our mentalexhaustion and is thoughtful enough to think, “These kids need a break”. It wasindeed a break, a temporary escape, a retreat we all were thankful of. I couldstill remember the feeling of its fine white sand; it makes me think of goingback. I shall return, and that’s for sure.

I and my crazy bestfriend were so happy the moment we arrived there. We're so excited to venture into the water that we only shot few photographs from the whole Haven Resort experience. Here were only a few:

BATTLE OF THE SHAKER HEIGHTS movie reaction

A house is not a home. Thus, the house where you sleep is whole lot different from a home where you rest. Parents contribute a lot in the making of either descent or delinquent chidren.     Shown in the movie were indifferent parents-the father, an “ex” drug addict even-who seemed not to care a lot for Kelly who turned out to be a rebel then, for if they did, their son might not have drove the wrong turn. Kelly hated his father and feels less attached to his mother,a commercial artist who works out of their garage, who is desperate for Kelly to forgive his father. When confronted as to when he is going to forgive him, Kelly replies, "I'll forgive him when I can go to college. But I can't, can I, because he used all my college fund to buy Mexican Black Tar." Kelly is furious at his father for the torture he put him through.
    The feeling of hatred towards one's parent indicates an unhappy home, thus, resorts to a run down behaviour, confusion and being lost. During adolescence, one needed greater attention—the attention that may guide them which path is greener and which path leads to doom. Some people may even say that an infant is much easier to be taken care of than to babysit a teenager. When children reach adolescence, it seems as if the world is new—like the feeling of a child in the middle of a carnival seeing many colorful lights and rides wondering what would it be like to try one. The world by that time is so inviting packed with numerous choices when you were then able to choose what you wanted and think of ways to get the thing you wanted most. This stage is a mother and a father's biggest challenge in rearing up a son or a daughter that careful attention and guidance is indeed vital in shaping well mannered teens.
    In reality, life doesn't only advertise  good choices but above all, bad goods which were usually more palatable yet deceiving. A parent's job is to guide his child to eat the apple than the lollipop, the water and not the beer, school and not drugs. This is a very crucial step where some parents neglects most of the time thinking that being able to feed their children food is more than enough to satisfy their needs. But what kind of guidance will you find in a family who is more than busy to even think of you?  As a result of failed parenting, Kelly was lost in delusion. He doesnt even know what his choices are and goes on to life unguided. He was like an army without guns who fires the cannon without the knowledge on how to fire it. He sets on what he wanted and pushes through it without evaluating consequencies—he doesn't know what he really wanted because he's just, most of the time, overwhelemed at the moment. He had poor self concept. He was then unguided. He had a house but hever lived there. Kelly finds comfort in his friend's abode (Bart's) due to, first, his love desire for Tabby (Bart's sister) and perhaps the happiness and attention that he would experience from people living in the house. He often finds welcome in other people's doorstep.
    Some people just won't grow up because they were not taught to grow up. Growing up is not something that you make by yourself alone. It's a teamwork, a group effort, a combined project that both child and parents do. Yet sometimes it still comes to our realization that, for myself, I need to grow up. Though growing up is a hard page to scribble, it doesn't guarantee you mistakes. When the wounds of the punches from a teen rumble heals, his mind ripens. Maturity comes to people who then realized that growing up is also a choice and thus chooses to mature. In the end, thinking of the damage caused by our the wrong choices and the errors we've done would suddenly make us say, indeed, “I deserved it”. We may not erase these errors yet we can always choose not to find ourselves again guilty of the same mistake, for, we do and we still don't run out of chances—and we deserved it.

Bucket List Movie Reaction

Bucket List is the story of two elders who continued to live their lives at its fullest upon realizing that there are still a number of things things they want to accomplish before they could kick the bucket (death). It is a heartwarming story that most people could relate for we also have our own ambitions that are yet to be fulfilled and the movie further shows how age triggers such dreams.
    The movie is an evidence of how the conflict of Integrity versus Despair occurs to most people in which we review life's acomplishments and failures. It is the last stage in Erikson's psychosocial development theory that spans from a period of later adulthood until death. Now a sense of accomplishment signifies success in resolving the difficulties presented in this stage of life or the failure to resolve the difficulties result in regret over what might have been achieved but are not.
    There are things in life that we wanted most but not all of these could become possible. I alone have countless dreams. However, some were impossible—like climbing the Everest, see? Then I started to realize: will this dream, if not accomplished, would so much bother me when I retire? Perhaps yes and  perhaps even worst than I have imagined. Maybe it would cause me not to sleep well at night dreaming of Everest regretting, “that I could have at least climbed the half of it when I was younger. There could be so many things that I could have accomplished using my younger self—being active, more aggressive, and thus, more capable than what I have become now”. 
    But the movie taught us that there's always this very little possibility of even the  most impossible dreams yet all we have to do is to think that it is possible, and therefore it could become possible. It is our endless motivation that keeps us going and our optimism could bring us farther.

Nanny McPhee Movie Reaction

“When you need me, I stay..when you want me yet you need me no more, then I must leave”
--Nanny McPhee

Not too long after his wife's death, widower Cedric Brown is at his wits' end about how to go on bringing up his seven children with the assistance of a nanny. Rowdy, destructive, disobedient, quarrelsome, disrespectful, they have so far managed to scare the wits out of 17 nannies. Since then, no employment agency nor any caregiver is willing to fill the vacancy. This is when Mr. Brown reads an ad and begins to hear a voice about hiring a Nanny McPhee, but she is nowhere to be found. Suddenly she appears on the desperate father's doorstep, a rather scary, weird-looking and stern woman. However the children are not that easily intimidated and are ready to do what they could to send her out of their life. This time the children have met their match.
She does an impressive job of being McPhee, the nanny who needs to be stern and unmoving, if the children are to learn what is good and right. The father is just as convincing as the bumbling, hesitant and helpless dad who never learned how to relate to his children. The cast of children contributed their part as the disobedient and unruly "fiends", always acting in unison. Contributing to Mr. Brown's difficulty with his children, are the insufficiency of his means to support the seven of them, and the command of his Aunt Adelaide (Angela Lansbury) that he must marry within a month or she would not only stop helping him with child support and but also drop him as heir to her estate.
The lack of a mother is emphasized by the deficiencies of a father who did not have to deal with the children when she was around. Thus he is helpless when he needs to relate to them--he does not know how. In a common family setting, we often assign the task of caring for the children to the mother and that father's, one the other hand, are out of this job. Fathers, therefore, tend to be less attached with their children than mothers do.
Irregardless of gender roles in the family, children need affection, attention, and love from either parent. In the story, the father does not see that the children miss and want him to be there for them. There is an implication in the story that parents are irresponsible when they have many children. The father, due to this “large” number of mouths to feed, becomes preoccupied on finding ways to still be able to feed them the next days without realizing that “food” does not only refer to what is digested in the stomache. Because the father's main concern would be on sustaining his children's physical need, for, in most society, the father is always a breadwinner. The negative things that the children do in their very naughtiness--like tying up the cook, turning the whole kitchen upside down, open defiance and utter rudeness to elder—only shows that the major cause of deliquency among children is the lack of love and attention.
With her magical walking stick, Nanny McPhee does something beyond the normal to teach the children to behave. This is not spectacular Harry Potter type magic, however--it is used more as an allegorical device to demonstrate that in real life, parents need an extraordinary degree of righteousness, firmness and love in order to mold their children into upright and responsible human beings.

SAAWARIYA MOVIE REACTION

We
could, of course, conclude that the story happened in an Indian
community because of the people, culture,and religious
beliefs portrayed and depicted by the characters in the movie.
First
and foremost, one thing that first caught my attention during were
the beautiful fancy housing and structure in the setting. It made me
think then and there that India is such a magnificent place to live
with all those dangling lights and intricately designed mud brick
houses, creatively carved street walls and roads with creeks where
you row a luxurious boat to venture another street. Everything seemed
perfect and magical. But according to fact, India is not that much of
a dreamland.
According
to the Times of India, "a majority of Indians have per
capita space equivalent to or less than a 10 feet x 10 feet room for
their living, sleeping, cooking, washing and toilet needs and one in
every three urban Indians lives in homes too cramped to exceed even
the minimum requirements of a prison cell in the US. The average is
103 sq ft per person in rural areas and 117 sq ft per person in urban
areas.
Only
44 percent of rural households have access to electricity. Although 
cities have better facilities than villages, no city in India
provides full-day water supply .Some 700 million Indians do not have
access to a proper toilet. Open defecation is widespread even in
urban areas of India.
The
set is purposely designed to romanticize the characters and the story
itself. Effectively, it made a romantic aura throughout the movie
creating an impression to viewers who haven't known of India yet as
something very spectacular and serene. But, India is indeed beautiful
too. It is just that the setting is somewhat exaggerated to perfectly
suit the mood required for the plot.

Sakina's
potrtayal displays how conservative and demure Indian women are.
Similar to our culture, most of them are not that liberated when it
comes to men and having relationships. They were also the type of
playing hard-to-get like most Filipinas too. Aside from that, they
also believed in waiting  and the fulfillment of a promise by a
beloved like what we usually see in southeast asian movies or koreanovelas. Romances are pure and simple yet very passionate
and heart warming.
However, prostitution and
prostitues also made their part in the entire plot. They depict that,
generally, not all Indian women are not as reserved.  
There
were, normally, women who could take the face of “renting their
wares” for, mainly, financial purposes. Prostitution in India is
legal that is why, though the community may discreminate these women,
it is “socially” and legally “correct” and “accepted”.
But like Lillipop, most people sights them negatively as they don't
normally conform with the “right' norms of the society and is
considered still immoral. Gulabji is one of these women who fell in
love with the innocence and kindness of Ranbir Raj.  
There
was a scene when Raj pleaded to live with Gulabji to eventually learn
to love her in order to forget Sakina. Gulabji was outraged. That
moment, I thought that Gulabji has been that angry because she don't
want to be a “second-choice-lover” or an instrument trying to
fill an empty heart because of another woman's failure to fill it
first and is summoned as a second option to do the job. Another
reason is that because she knew she is considered one of the black
shepherds in the society, considering that she is a prostitute. She
wouldn't want that her beloved may create a similar impression to the
people because of being with her, that is to say that she wanted Raj
to maintain the good image of their town's folks to him. Most
importantly, aside from these reasons, there are legal grounds in
which Gulabji had instilled in her mind that prevents her from
accepting Raj's proposal.

Babusor pimps or
live-in lovers who live off a prostitute's earnings are guilty of a
crime. Any adult male living with a prostitute is assumed to be
guilty unless he can prove otherwise. He could be imprisoned for up
to 2 years.  

Gulabji
had just made a sacrifice which she accepts as painful and sad. But
Love, they say, is not being selfish that you mind of your own
happiness without thinking what the other may feel or could become.  
Eid al-Adhais
known as the "Festival of Sacrifice" or "Greater Bairam" celebrated by Muslims (including the Druze)
worldwide to commemorate the willingness of Ibrahim to sacrifice his son Ishmael as an act of obedience to God.  
Everything in the story ended during the celebration of eid. Not only Gulabji
was experiencing the same agony,for, like her, Raj is passing through
a very sad chapter in his love story with Sakina. I saw how deep is
her love to the maiden that he even, at some part of the movie, 'turn
from an angel
to a stone”. I saw his willingness to make Sakina's every sunrise
happier each day but fate had been so cruel that the only girl she
loved doesn't love her back. The worst is that, Sakina is in love
with another man named Imaan.
The festival of sacrifice suits the situation of Ranbir Raj
unfortunately. During that very day, his most beloved Sakina should
be set free inorder to be with her real beloved, Imaan and see her
become happier in another man's arms eventhough it meant a handful of
heartache that would keep him awake during the nights, remembering
the evenings he shared with Sakina. Though hurt and frustrated, Raj's
optism and his willingness to set her free made Sakina light hearted
to leave him and be with Imaan.  

Most
of us had been through this kind of situation. We all fell in love
but unfortunately, we are ,not at all times, loved back by the one we
love. it is even more painful to know that he/she desires somebody
else and not us. But one thing that would make us happier would be
seeing our beloved happy too even if it would mean happiness from the
other's company. Freedom from a love that he/she didn't wish for is
the most selfless and sacrificing gift we could give to someone whom
we loved most that we can't afford to see him/her imprisoned by the
kind of love we keep on offering but still wouldn't suffice the kind
of love he/she longed—and the kind of love he/she could get from
the other.

KANDAHAR MOVIE REACTION

Hidden behind a burka, Nafas, the sister from Canada, makes her way across the border with a family of refugees. When they are robbed by brigands and the family turns back, she decides to continue on her way, accompanied first by a young boy who was just expelled from a Qur'anic school, and then by an African American convert to Islam, who has become disillusioned with the turn the country has taken under the Taliban.

As the film proceeds, Nafas learns more and more about the hardships women face under the Taliban, and even more so, how years of war have destroyed Afghan society. Her African A0merican guide, hidden behind a false beard, points out to her that the only technological progress allowed in the country is weaponry. As they wander the countryside, Nafas records her impressions into a portable tape recorder hidden beneath her veils. She sees children robbing corpses to survive, people fighting over artificial limbs that they might need in case they walk through a minefield, and doctors who examine female patients from behind a curtain with a hole in it.

Nafas never reaches her sister. When her African American guide turns back, because he is afraid to enter the city of Kandahar, she follows a guide who had just scammed a pair of artificial legs out of the Red Cross. Dressed in burkas, the pair join a wedding party which is stopped by the Taliban because they are playing musical instruments and singing--forbidden by Afghan law. Her guide is taken away and she is unveiled. Captured, she seems destined to fall into the same kind of life that she hoped to help her sister escape.

An uncannily timely mix of fiction and documentary, Kandahar is Iranian director Mohsen (Gabbeh) Makhmalbaf's look at the plight of the Afghanistan people -- particularly women -- under Taliban rule. The events after Sept. 11 may have resulted in great political change in that country, but the suffering caused by famine, poverty, disease and crime remain. The world's newfound familiarity with the region's troubles only make Kandahar more compelling.

In the tradition of contemporary Iranian cinema, the story line is classically simple: Nafas (Nelofer Pazira), an Afghan-born journalist living in Canada, learns her sister, who lives in Kandahar, is planning to commit suicide during the next solar eclipse, which will take place in three days.

Desperate to reach her before it's too late, Nafas dons the requisite burka and succumbs to local tradition, essentially eradicating her own identity, while making the perilous journey to her sister's home. Her encounters along the way -- a boy kicked out of school for improperly reciting the Koran, a doctor who turns out to be an American living incognito in Afghanistan, Red Cross workers overrun by patients -- coalesce into a portrait of a country that is heartbreaking, even depressing, yet filled with an eerie beauty.

Making painterly use of vast desert landscapes, rich fabrics and striking imagery (such as a caravan of women, shrouded in colorful burkas, journeying across the sand dunes), Makhmalbaf turns Afghanistan into a surreal, alien world where misery and hope coexist side byside. The cast is mostly nonactors (including Pazira, who is herself an Afghan exile living in Canada with her family), which renders some of the line readings a bit flat.

But if the dramatics of the movie fail to engage as fully as they should, Kandahar remains fascinating as a piece of lyrical journalism -- filled with indelible moments, like a group of children being taught never to pick up dolls on the street (there is usually a land mine underneath), or a shot of hundreds of maimed men on crutches racing across the desert, eager to be the first to reach a shipment of prosthetic limbs that has been parachuted down by relief workers. It's those sights, not the movie's wobbly drama, that you remember the most, and Makhmalbaf ends the film on a devastating, haunting note that refuses to provide any pat solutions.

Throughout the film, we see images of a backward, tormented land: the shuffling parties of women herded across the desert, blankets over them as if they were characters in some avant-garde play; beautifully ornamented three-wheel carts puttering across the sands, leaving from nowhere and going nowhere.

The film is easier to follow than most Iranian imports. Good as they are--and they're generally quite good--they still tend to drop the Western viewer right into the center of a plot without much preparation. Since this is a road picture, we get more of a chance to catch our bearings. And though it's simpler than the common Iranian film, Kandahar is complex enough--it's not a standard story of heroism. Our heroine is a little anti-heroic--arrogant, standoffish. She's a persistent foreigner as an Easterner might see one: a tourist unable to adapt herself to the situation. She distances herself from her experiences by recording them (she's making a tape for her sister).

This tape reflects the director's gleanings, his ideas and his poetry. Makhmalbaf captures the misrule and perversity of the Taliban: next to which the perversity and misrule of even the Iranian government looks almost reasoned.

Furthermore, it was a window for us to view the world behind our world as it showcased unique culture and practices which we  never imagined before.

WAR IN LEBANON

 

 

“Our tears often blur our sight and prevent us from seeing things clearly’

                                                                                         --K. De Haan

 

I love the phrase “comfort food”.

 

            It speaks of the things that are so good, so familiar, so right, that they can always encourage a happy mood. For me, comfort food usually includes some form of beef and potatoes. Hamburgers and French fries, fried chicken, grilled pork, and smoked beef. Also, chocolate in almost any form imaginable. These are the foods that speak to me and say that all is well with the world.

            Unfortunately, all is not well with the world, and no amount of hamburgers and French fries can make it right.

Real comfort is not the by product of specific foods anymore. It is a much deeper need that requires a much deeper solution.

The war in Lebanon brought fear and terror to its people. It’s hard to walk with the feeling that in any minute you could be stepping on a mine and the next thing you knew, you’re dead. It is therefore impossible for you to smile for there’s probably no room for a happy face during these times. In a world where wrong is glamorized and the lurid is presented as appealing, we seldom hear of the good things that happen.

Yet, the chaoses have not taken away the merry countenance and the cheerful spirit of Sana, the funny Sana.

One thing I appreciated in the story was the optima of a woman despite great adversity. Though a woman may mostly be depicted as fragile and weak, fear didn’t stumble Sana’s courage to wake up everyday and still manage to smile amidst the war.

I have seen our Filipino workers arrive from Lebanon after an unimaginable escape from their masters and employers just to be home again. Their happiness is indescribable that they seemed to loose themselves in over pouring gladness during their participation in one episode in Wowowee, a local noontime game show. The news reports, documentaries, and interviews on these women from Lebanon during the war pictures how dangerous were the kind of life they were facing each day.

 Then and there, I envy those people in Lebanon who survived each passing moments without the extinction of hope and optism in their hearts.

The narrator must have been grateful to have Sana as her friend. She could have gathered strength from her to fill her weakness and that a friend like Sana was more valuable than any other things the world could offer. Like myself, I sometimes crave not for food or for money when I am down. Most of us would always look for someone to be with us and would eventually feel better I we had. It’s often hard to cry alone. It’s more comforting to have a friend to cry on.

That is why the thought of losing Sana frightened her so much that she wouldn’t miss a single broadcast just to keep track of her friend—she could be near an exploded building , could be injured, or even worst. Important people, though not all of us may be aware, are so dear that we cannot afford to even think they’re in danger and might loose one of them.

Danger and Death were their most feared enemy—and losing someone special is as frightening as the latter.

Though how often you may think you are lucky to have survived each day, there’s still that one hundred percent probability that the next day, you’re dead. That kind of reality is not as easy to accept and that probability is hopelessly inevitable.

How do we accept death?

Or do we really accept it?

The phone call from a doctor which may possibly inform Sana’s sad fate to her friend was undoubtly, very painful to bear and that slamming the phone down at that instant and ignoring the announcement thinking of it as a false alarm is as comforting as any other thing to do at that moment.

I could understand her reaction of the phone call because I believe that, sometimes, we cannot accept painful truths and that running away from it would make us think that we’ll feel much better if we do.

Pain is more painful when we give too much attention to the wound.

Rainy days are often enjoyed when we bathe beneath the dark clouds.

Darkness may cover our days sometimes…what makes it darker is when we put on umbrellas to cover us from it. Face the pain eye to eye for you cannot run away from tragedy forever. Acceptance would make you feel better someday.

Food is not the only thing that could satisfy hunger and hunger doesn’t always need food to be satisfied. The assurance of happiness and the feeling of peace, the dash of optism and a heart full of hope is more than any other food in the world that we must take as our daily bread. 

 

 

“Our tears often blur our sight and prevent us from seeing things clearly’

                                                                                         --K. De Haan

 

I love the phrase “comfort food”.

 

            It speaks of the things that are so good, so familiar, so right, that they can always encourage a happy mood. For me, comfort food usually includes some form of beef and potatoes. Hamburgers and French fries, fried chicken, grilled pork, and smoked beef. Also, chocolate in almost any form imaginable. These are the foods that speak to me and say that all is well with the world.

            Unfortunately, all is not well with the world, and no amount of hamburgers and French fries can make it right.

Real comfort is not the by product of specific foods anymore. It is a much deeper need that requires a much deeper solution.

The war in Lebanon brought fear and terror to its people. It’s hard to walk with the feeling that in any minute you could be stepping on a mine and the next thing you knew, you’re dead. It is therefore impossible for you to smile for there’s probably no room for a happy face during these times. In a world where wrong is glamorized and the lurid is presented as appealing, we seldom hear of the good things that happen.

Yet, the chaoses have not taken away the merry countenance and the cheerful spirit of Sana, the funny Sana.

One thing I appreciated in the story was the optima of a woman despite great adversity. Though a woman may mostly be depicted as fragile and weak, fear didn’t stumble Sana’s courage to wake up everyday and still manage to smile amidst the war.

I have seen our Filipino workers arrive from Lebanon after an unimaginable escape from their masters and employers just to be home again. Their happiness is indescribable that they seemed to loose themselves in over pouring gladness during their participation in one episode in Wowowee, a local noontime game show. The news reports, documentaries, and interviews on these women from Lebanon during the war pictures how dangerous were the kind of life they were facing each day.

 Then and there, I envy those people in Lebanon who survived each passing moments without the extinction of hope and optism in their hearts.

The narrator must have been grateful to have Sana as her friend. She could have gathered strength from her to fill her weakness and that a friend like Sana was more valuable than any other things the world could offer. Like myself, I sometimes crave not for food or for money when I am down. Most of us would always look for someone to be with us and would eventually feel better I we had. It’s often hard to cry alone. It’s more comforting to have a friend to cry on.

That is why the thought of losing Sana frightened her so much that she wouldn’t miss a single broadcast just to keep track of her friend—she could be near an exploded building , could be injured, or even worst. Important people, though not all of us may be aware, are so dear that we cannot afford to even think they’re in danger and might loose one of them.

Danger and Death were their most feared enemy—and losing someone special is as frightening as the latter.

Though how often you may think you are lucky to have survived each day, there’s still that one hundred percent probability that the next day, you’re dead. That kind of reality is not as easy to accept and that probability is hopelessly inevitable.

How do we accept death?

Or do we really accept it?

The phone call from a doctor which may possibly inform Sana’s sad fate to her friend was undoubtly, very painful to bear and that slamming the phone down at that instant and ignoring the announcement thinking of it as a false alarm is as comforting as any other thing to do at that moment.

I could understand her reaction of the phone call because I believe that, sometimes, we cannot accept painful truths and that running away from it would make us think that we’ll feel much better if we do.

Pain is more painful when we give too much attention to the wound.

Rainy days are often enjoyed when we bathe beneath the dark clouds.

Darkness may cover our days sometimes…what makes it darker is when we put on umbrellas to cover us from it. Face the pain eye to eye for you cannot run away from tragedy forever. Acceptance would make you feel better someday.

Food is not the only thing that could satisfy hunger and hunger doesn’t always need food to be satisfied. The assurance of happiness and the feeling of peace, the dash of optism and a heart full of hope is more than any other food in the world that we must take as our daily bread.