Sand, Salt and Feet...

we marched with a sense of purpose- young women in blue with tints of yellow, st. catherine's proud colours. the chilled autumn wind swept across the path from our college to winthrop and hackett hall and finally to matilda bay but we were not deterred by nature's threat to freeze our arses off (note: most of us were wearing board shorts, bermudas and tees). the beautiful swan river (right next to the uwa campus and near the colleges) lay before us, majestic but cold blue and distant- she was to be the field on which we were to compete for victory. we were the first college to arrive for the inter-college dragon boat race and we savoured the serene picturesque location before us. only a gentle slope of dewy grass and sprightly trees seperated us from the banks of soft, white sand and pristine waters. i strode forward towards the water, my confidence growing with each determined step. we can win! we MUST win! we.. "ooooooow, something's in my slipper!!!" i yelped quite haplessly as i limped to a nearby bench. a small, sharp pebble had lodged itself stubbornly into the soft wedge of my foot. i knocked it out of my sandal as i looked dejectedly at the river- i haven't even gotten into the water yet. superrr.

trinity (a neighbouring college) arrived next, dressed in sexually deprived purple colours. but they arrived in throngs (overwhelming our can-count-on-one-hand cheer squad). shit. and they brought along weapons of mass destruction, passports to victory, something st. cat's didn't have at all... boys. shiiit. soon we were joined by currie hall, st. thomas moore and st. georges. every other team was a co-ed effort except ours. and yet we didn't allow that to dampen our spirits- we were going to give it our best... as soon as i got that pebble outta my sandals. first race was tommy moore vs. georges.. needless to say georges did a fantastic job, the rowers were in sync and their boat glided almost effortlessly over the choppy waters. but tommy moore pulled a last minute effort overhaul and beat them just by a few inches. during the race, georges started their freaky cheer chant, "geeeeeeoooooorgggeeeees geeeeeeooooorrrgggeeees" and it just went that way over and over and over again. tommy moore, not one to be ousted, started a sing-songy ditty," georges are wankers!" clap clap clap clap "georges are wankers!" clap clap clap clap. after that race, we were up against currie hall. currie did their cheers with an overwhelming array of vocabulary prowess...ONE word: currie (go figure) which they sang in tune with the football anthem, y'know the one that goes, "olleee olleeee olleee olleee"... they just replaced it with currie. how clever. and roshni (friend and college mate) jibed that she was getting kinda hungry.

we did pretty well... our boat actually managed to move forward... to the start line. whilst both boats flanked one another ready to begin, currie started a pre-competition war-song in an attempt at intimidation to which we replied with stares, glares and silence. hell hath no fury, folks. true to my expectations, currie opened a can of whupass on us and we were defeated. our boat almost turned over at one point during the race and in my panic, some others and i shouted, "paddles flat!!!" for everyone to stop for a while with their paddles flat out on the water in an attempt to steady the boat. i have great cause for the panic because the boat was tilting precariously on MY side, i would've been one of the first to fall in. i bet it was funny to see a halting boat full of screaming girls. we didn't do so badly in the end... we were right on their tail... can't really say how far we actually were from their tail but we were on them! we raced a second time with trinity... who made us bite the dust...err..foam as well. oh well no matter... we still cheered like champions. despite coming in last, we came away as winners in our hearts with sand between our toes and salt in our hair and feet nicely lodged up our arses.

My Thoughts on The Passion of the Christ.

the passion of the christ details jesus's life from when he was betrayed by judas up to when he was crucified- i'm not going into the details of the story, there're millions out there who know it better than i do. so i'll just touch on the disparages many have had concerning its violent content and the place it inhabits as a self-contained piece of filmic work. i love jim caviezel and monica belluci. and as jesus of nazareth, caviezel put on striking hazel contacts hiding his famous sky-blues and exuded charm and grace. many scholars complained that the physical representation of jesus with a beard is wrong but that image is a universal one and i'm guessing that's what mel gibson is trying to achieve- creating a vision which people from many different cultures are familiar with. however, i understand how that could be problematic considering his determination to be as authentic as possible. to portray as famous a story as this is a tough call to begin with and the production of this movie had been plagued with controversy eversince it was in its script stage. and the film makers were relentless in their pursuit for what they feel is the best cut with several test screenings. i kinda like the original idea mel gibson and his team of film makers had- how they wanted the entire script to be in latin, hebrew and aramaic and have no subtitles at all. i thought that was brave and rather intruiging... i can only remember one movie that had done that before years ago but it dissolved into historical obscurity. hence, perhaps their decision to stick with subtitles after all. regarding it's infamous violent content, those who have watched it either thought it was uncalled for or that it did the story justice, with very few in between. margaret, a famous film critique here in australia's sbs(it's the equivalent of singapore's art central) programme called the movie show, was disgruntled with the gory sequences which she felt were too brutal and that they overdid it to distasteful extremes. she felt that instead of promoting tolerance, love and kindness the violence serves to undermine all that and portray a sense of frustration of hope and the reign of intolerence. i felt that it was quite necessary to portray the persecution, the cynicsm and militant/political religious forces that oppressed the coming of a new system of belief, and a new prophet. i agree that the film treads the precarious line between being stylistically epic or just a plain, overbaked ham... hollywood studios are never really familiar with the word subtle. the various slow-mo sequences that dot the film were too deliberately done and threatened to spill into cornball melodrama. audiences are no longer strangers to gore, violence and other forms of graphically confronting sequences on film or television. after watching films like irreversible and kill bill vol. 1 recently, i think tossing stones at the violence in the passion of the christ is quite fruitless- something i'd affectionately term 'bloody extra'. for those who can accept the rape scene in irrversible as the portrayal of realistic grit and not bat an eyelid at the campy violence of samurai fighting and decapitating in kill bill, don't fuss about the gore in the passion of the christ. for those who're against violence in general, then that's another different discussion. but for me... film is art imitating life and violence is pervasive and comes in many different forms. it is inescapable especially in a story about a man brutally persecuted for claiming to be and is the next messiah. the cinematography is amazing, as is the score and they didn't stinge on the emotional factor with snippets of jesus's life when he was but a youth and his mother. but be forewarned those snippets are really really short but it does add a nice humane element- jesus was after all a person before he became a matyr. overall, i do think this is a powerful film and one of the best i've seen so far this year. 2004 is shaping up quite nicely...

image courtesy of joblo.com