Thursday, July 23, 2009

"What is that?" - A simple but touching film

Don't miss this wonderful movie :

6 comments:

Sathej said...

Simple, infact rather simple. BUt, quite touching..growing up destroys the patience in us and that is a bit tragic..

Sathej

Priya Ram said...

Simple movie reminding us of patience but i did not find it touching :( Because, here there is a difference between a baby asking questions repeatedly and an elderly person asking a question, a number of times.
Babies dont have an ego which makes them totally innocent and pure. So, whatever a three year old child does, we find it enjoyable.
But can we tolerate an elderly person behaving like a child ?
I would not. A grown up person has an ego and so it makes a lot of difference when a three year old asks us the same question number of times and when an elderly person asks us. We all would enjoy answering the innocent cute baby innumerable times. isnt it ? I surely would. And its certainly not about my lack of patience. A grown up person is supposed to grow up.

Gayathri Girish said...

Priya,
I quite disagree with you on this. This is not a matter of ego at all.

People,as they age, get quite insecure and crave for attention,just as a three-year old child does.

"A grown up person needs to grow-up" - this movie doesn't mean that the elderly gentleman has not "grown-up". They need all the love,patience and attention from the younger ones around them.

We will all go through this phase in life sometime or the other:-)

Regards,
Gayathri

Sathej said...

Hmm..quite true. Its quite a symbolism in the short film with the son hardly looking up from what he's reading. The father is sitting right next to him. And the son seems to have all the time for reading, yet little time for the parent who, in a way, made him what he is today.

Actually, I found it relevant across age issues. People go through this, at times, even in childhood. Children of some rich families brought up sans love. The necessity of giving time for those around us and more so, for near and dear ones, is a beautiful and poignant issue that is commonly encountered in books as well, be it the satirical Tolstoy or the unforgiving and ruthlessly practical views of Camus(though I am quite an admirer of Camus, I find it hard sometimes to digest his views on such issues), at some point, these issues are addressed!

After all, we owe it to them - we owe time to our near and dear ones..a touching and poignant topic to do an exposition. This has planted an idea in me..shall do a blog post on the notion of love and care, sometime soon.

Sathej

Priya Ram said...

I respect elders a lot, but in this movie the elderly gentleman has made a comparison between his action of answering his child lovingly and now the child (the son) not answering the elderly person.

I still really believe, we would love answering a child patiently innumerable times than answering an elderly person who keeps asking the same question to us. The child is ignorant but the elderly person is supposed to know that his same repetitive questions will irritate anyone. isnt it ?

And this is the common norm in the world. Another main reason I cant feel sympathy for the old gentleman here is his expectation. Since he had answered questions of his child patiently, now this elderly gentleman believes, he has the right to be listened to and answered by the son. So, his love for his son is filled with expectations.

anyway, I maybe wrong and its ok. But I still feel elders should learn to love their kids unconditionally, without expecting anything in return when kids grow up. It is difficult though. Lets not presume that younsters are always in the wrong. Elders always may not be right. I respect elders and have faced a similar situation in life as in the movie.

And by 'ego', I mean the individual sense of doership which a child doesnt have which makes all its actions wonderful, while all grown-ups have the sense of doership. So we are bound to find the child more interesting. By ego i do not mean arrogance or pride here.

SAI<=>MUSIC said...

Well... As GG mam has already explained, elders expect beint attended to and do retort to little ways of getting the attention of those that they nurtured and loved. It is not actually that big a deal to mind answering those simple questions and they mean a lot to them. Its not the question of irritating others or anything. A mischievous child may be fun to look at. But, to its parents, at some point or other it does give a lot of extra work and needs extra care and attention so as to keep mischief within a permissible limit. In that case, it would not be really fair for a parent to complain that the child is irritating, it is a burden and things like that. The same way, the elders, after a particular stage demand some kind of attention and sweet words do give them immense happiness. We people do all kind of sweet talking at our work place or college or school to people we like or hate, irrespective of the nature of the other people just to get things done and in some cases, to be merely termed "Gentleman!". SO, it is equally important and in fact a duty to talk to elders and do whatever that makes them happy as all of us owe it to them. I think my lines make some sense.

By the way, the movie is a very effective and a touching description of "the need of the hour!".

Kudos to whoever made it n thanks GG mam for posting this.

Regards
Sai