Movies!

Last night was pretty quiet. I was watching a 2002 horror movie from Hong Kong called The Eye, directed by Danny and Oxide Pang, which told the story of a young volin player, Wong Kar Mun (Angelica Lee), who has been blind since the age of two, and undergoes a corneal transplant to regain her site. It appears initially as if the transplant has been completely successful, however Mun starts to experience bizarre nightmares and also seems to be able to see the spirits of the recently dead, and she becomes preoccupied with finding the donor of the corneas. It is a pretty effective film, with plenty of suspense. The horror and supernatural elements are mostly quite subtle. It was remade this year with Jessica Alba.

I've stayed in today. I'll be going over to my parent's house on Tuesday anyway, for my birthday. This afternoon I was watching a 1975 film called The Passenger on TV. It was directed by Michelangelo Antonioni and told the story of a cynical, burnt-out TV journalist, David Locke (played by Jack Nicholson), who is investigating rebel soldiers in the African desert. He discovers the body of a dead man in the neighbouring hotel room and decides, seemingly on impulse, to adopt the dead man's identity. It turns out that the dead man was an international gunrunner, as Locke tries to lead his life, while letting the rest of the world believe that the dead body is that of David Locke. However he soon finds out that leaving his life behind is much more difficult than he thought. The film is very slow-moving and often very pretentious, but it is quite mesmerising in places and features spectacular scenery and camera work, and a brilliant performance by Nicholson.