No popcorn, No soda's, Just Baraka!

First of all, before i begin my very first post, I would like to take time to wish all my readers a happy holiday and Selamat Hari Raya to all my Muslim friends that are celebrating this festive occasion. It's the festive occasion such as Hari Raya, Chinese New Year, Deepavali and other festive occasions that bring each family member closer to one another. I would like to talk a bit on my experience celebrating Chinese New Year with my family. Every year during the Chinese New Year celebrations, I would make a trip back to Penang with my family to celebrate Chinese New Year as my hometown is in Penang. During this time, my family from all over Malaysia even as far as Australia would come back to Penang to celebrate. It really is good seeing everyone back together as a family as most of us have not seen each other for months and even a year. I would like to conclude this by saying, celebrating the festive occasions should not be neglected and forgotten in the years to come and even for our future generations.

Now, I would like to dedicate this first post on my new blog for my media appreciation class from a very unique movie I have watched during my media appreciation lecture just before the Hari Raya holidays. This movie is unlike any other. It's not an action movie, it's not a romance movie, it's not even a cartoon. Honestly I don't even know how to classify this movie's genre. It's a movie without words, it's a movie without subtitles, it's a just a simple movie with scenes of people and nature taken from all over the world. This movie is no other than......

Here is a quote that I have found quoted by Roger Ebert who is a film critic of the Chicago Times. "If  man sends another voyager to the distant stars and it can carry only one film on board, that film might be " Baraka". It uses no language, so needs no translation. It speaks in magnificent images, nature sounds and musical both composed and discovered. It stands outside of historical time, to another race, it would communicate. This is what you would see if you came here" - Roger Eebert.

Based on those words said by Roger Ebert himself, those words are true if one watches Baraka. On my very own understanding about Baraka, Baraka shows us humans in our very early days when we first roamed this planet called earth. There were no sky scrapers towering cities, there were no highways, there were no cars, only vast jungle as far as our eyes could see. And within those jungles were home to small civilisation dividing the people into tribes. In Africa for example, tribes such as the Zulu tribe once roamed Africa's vast plains.

Back in the olden days when human civilisation first started, people were much more spiritual whereby certain cultures would practice animisme. Animisme is basically the belief that living things such as trees or rivers have spirits in them. Here's a small clip from the movie Baraka where it shows human civilisation and its spirituality. It's called " Kecak" which is the Balinese Monkey Chant.

That is all for now. Stay tune for the next post! Till then! Have a great day ahead and once again I would like to wish my Muslim friends Selamat Hari Raya! ;)