Recently saw the film “Open Water”. Its inspired by a real-life incident, and is about this married diving couple, marooned in open water. And I mean really open water, not a hint of land, or any other creature around (oh, except for the sharks, and other marine life). They don’t have a boat, or supplies, or any means of knowing where they are. The cast was pretty much these two characters, the husband Daniel (Daniel travis) and the wife Susan (Blanchard Ryan), and their activities, and the movie held my interest. Pretty impressive.

Was even more impressed when I realised that the entire movie had been directed, produced, shot, financed etc. by a husband and wife team (Chris Kentis and Laura Lau), shooting on weekends. And they have a kid. That has got to be pure passion for film-making. Amazing. Having said that, take it that this is a good film, this is not a blow-your-mind film, unless you consider its making, and the enormous amount of effort that these two put into it.

My existential philosophy … is keeping away from films like “I Heart Huckabees” in the future. This film is a lot of something made from nothing. Get it ? I did, …well sort of. Or maybe I did. Its about idealistic Albert fighting to save the marshlands, from the cruel invasion of shopping malls, and detouring into the path of two existential detectives, from where the film descends into mindless whackiness. Don’t get me wrong, you will have to excercise the little grey cells to watch this one, but nothing good will come out of it. It is probably satire, but satire which you have to work very hard to get. Honestly, I appreciate a director who doesn’t spoonfeed me, but to expect me to grow the wheat, harvest it and make bread all on my own is a little too much to ask.

Just finished reading this fantastic book, “The time traveller’s wife” by Audrey Niffenegger . The photo of Ms. N on the back cover, makes it seem like she would speak in ice-chips. I was pleasantly surprised therefore to find her prose warm and fluid, sashaying back and forth in time. She uses the concept of time-travel in a novel way, to illustrate love, and marriage, and companionship. This is not a scientific book, we don’t know how Henry can time-travel, he just can. The material of the book works on the issues surrounding his time-travel, i.e; where he travels and why, and what repercussions this has on him, and his near and dear ones.