I am IN Love

A student lent me his DVD collection of historical flicks.

Strangely, I enjoyed watching them. You see, I am not exactly big on watching films that feature historical events and people.

They are just too real. Aside from that, I am very much aware that human history has not celebrated any successful life stories that ended with a happily ever after.

We have stories of pain, suffering, blood and gore, annihilation of one race and another...

History is supposed to show us how mans, despite his frailness, has overcome the odds; despite his mortality, has defeated the oblivion of death; and despite his limitations, has turned failure and defeat into glorious victory.

But what I have watched has twisted my concepts of historical flicks (or am I supposed to call them period films, huh?).

We started with 10,000 BC. It rocked my concept of fate, destiny and prophecies. It was an ironic movie that contradicts its own message.

Then, my brothers could not resist 300. I loved Leonidas. These Spartans had great bodies but the mind, the will, and the character of each and everyone of them was downright fascinating. I would not mind marrying someone like Leonidas or maybe one of his cocky boy-soldiers who fought to the death.

My sister ran over The Last Legion. I was not able to watch it thoroughly. I do know I like the concept of destiny and inevitability that it implies.

All that made me reevaluate the legends and stories of the past. We no longer believed that a King Arthur has existed or that there was a Beowulf or that once, Robinhood championed the poor.

We remember our own Lam-ang as just a shady epic hero...

Now, when my sisters asked me about the veracity of the stories we have just watched, I told her that they were true. That 300 was an artistic interpretation of the Battle of Thermopylae.

That the Spartans were really strong, hard men who were warriors through and through...

What if, King Arthur, Robinhood, Lam-ang and a host of other epic characters we now consider as mere figments of a rich and healthy imagination, were actually real men whose stories were exaggerated to make the stories incredible, the life more improbable and the triumph more grandiose.

What if, they were real? What does it say about us?

Anyway, I am glad I watched these flicks ( but I was not able to generate enough courage to watch Troy, I have dissected the story too well, I am afraid... and I do not have the nerve to check out Beowulf itself..)

Now, I am going to watch Twilight again, to cleanse my mind which is still stuck in the quagmires of the past.