Wednesday, February 27, 2013

‡ Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close ‡

As a starter for this blog post, I'm going to state that I had been quite curious with this movie for a while. I don't really remember when I saw the trailer for the first time but somehow curiosity stayed in me.
However the movie wasn't played on cinemas in my country so I just let it slipped away and, all of coincidences, I saw that it would be on television.

I have two reasons to watch this movie.
The first one is Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock are cast as the parents. The second is it actually brought up the September 11 attacks incident.

Just for an intermezzo, the September 11 attacks, or sometimes referred as 9/11, are series of terrorist attacks upon the United States in New York City and the Washington, D.C. areas on September 11, 2001.
The World Trade Center collapsed that day.
Almost 3000 people died in the attacks and the damage was horrible. The news broke out worldwide and I was only ten years old at the moment and, to be honest, I didn't really pay attention.

However, as I grew up and learned to know about world issues, I came to wonder why these terrible incidents could happen, to care more about the world even just for the slightest, and not to close my ears from the bad news around.

Now, go to the movie itself, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, this two-hour-movie delivered quite a simple storyline but interesting enough for me. If you don't like drama, you probably will not really into this movie.



With Oskar Schell, the nine-year-old protagonist, who lost his father, Thomas Schell, during the September 11 attack, the movie started with flashbacks, showing that Oskar was curious about almost everything.
He was smart but not an extrovert kid. When he accidentally broke a blue vase in his father's closet, he found a key in an envelope with the word "Black" on it.
Oskar then secretly planned to meet every person with "Black" as their family names, total 427 Blacks, to find what the key fits because, he wanted to believe, it's his father's last message for him.

To make it short, I was amazed by this movie for a simple message delivered by the moments Oskar met new people during his 'journey'.

Everyone has a story to tell.


It's all up to you if you want to tell your stories or want to listen to others'.
It might be a fun story or a sad one, or maybe it's just a general but it could be inspirational or even tragic story.

I also reminded that words could hurt you so much, especially when they came from someone you really cared about.
For example, Oskar actually said to his mother, due to his emotional state, that he wished it was her in the building instead of his father.
Could you even imagine if your beloved one said that to you?

However I also should remember that silence could heal your heart.
In this movie, Oskar met a mysterious man who didn't talk because of his childhood trauma of his parents' death in World War II. He communicated through written notes and he didn't really talk about his own opinion but, he became a really good companion for Oskar.
He listened to him and did what he could do for the boy and it's all what Oskar needed.

In the end, not everything you wants to happen will be a happy ending but, like what a famous quotation said,
It's not about the destination. It's about the journey.

If you open up your mind, there are lessons you should learn during your life journey.
The question is... will you try to listen and start to tell your stories as well?



credit goes to here and here and here

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