Friday 1 January 2010

Jackson's Bones is a lovely heart-wrenching movie experience

There's a few great movies out for the holiday season in Cairns.
I've still not seen the 3D sensation Avatar, but will do so next week after the mass of kids go out and play with their new BMXs and iPhones.
I didn't want to see another Hollywood like 2012, so tonight I ventured out from my bat cave to see my fellow Kiwi Peter Jackson's screen adaption of The Lovely Bones, a 2002 novel by Alice Sebold.
It's the story of Susie Salmon, a 14-year-old girl who is murdered. She narrates the story from heaven and watches her family and friends go on with their lives.
Sebold drew the tale from her life when she was raped at university. "It transformed my life, especially after learning that the rapist's previous victim had died." she said. "After later seeing the rapist on the street, I reported him to the police and eventually testified against him."
Jackson's screen adaption is haunting. It drags you into a world of memories that we can all connect with and feel for a time we once lived. The attention to the 70's setting, is meticulous.
Lord of the Rings cinematographer, Australian Andrew Lesnie, deserves full credit for the amazing filming, and along with Steven Spielberg and Jackson's partner Fran Walsh as executive producers, this film delivers a stellar production team. Lovely Bones has some of the feel of his Heavenly Creatures, Jackson shot in my home town of Christchurch 16 years ago.
"These were the lovely bones that had grown around my absence: the connections — sometimes tenuous, sometimes made at great cost, but often magnificent — that happened after I was gone," Susie ponders her friends' and family's new-found strength after her death. "And I began to see things in a way that let me hold the world without me in it. The events my death brought were merely the bones of a body that would become whole at some unpredictable time in the future. The price of what I came to see as this miraculous lifeless body had been my life."
Take someone special along and be prepared for a strange and deep journey into your past.

7 comments:

Giovanni Frischman (via Facebook) said...

New Zealand is a truly beautiful country. It's high time it was annexed by Australia.

Rob Farquhar (via Facebook) said...

Ehh, we've already annexed Russell Crowe and Crowded House. That'll do me.

John Robinson (via Facebook) said...

..and CairnsBlog!

Quien Sabe said...

Mike,

That's SIR Peter Jackson

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10617918

Old Bones said...

I hope all the Kiwi's in Oz have been properly processed via Christmas Island

Alison Alloway said...

Another deep, dark and disturbing movie like "The Piano"? Oh well, at least "Lord of the Rings" was entertaining, enjoyable and brilliant.

Jude Johnston said...

Yes it was disturbing and it did provoke memories. Memories of the anguish the parents of a 15 year old girl, Kirsa Jensen, and a 6 year old Theresa Cormack. Both these girls disappeared, Kirsa was never found, and Theresa was found buried in a shallow grave on a Napier beach. There have been other such murders, but these two have remained in my memory, never to be forgotten.
Yes I do go to the movies to be entertained, but sometimes there are movies of times and events, fictional or based on true stories, that we need to see.
Schindlers List, Once were Warriors, The Fisherking and Sophies Choice are thought provoking, deep, dark and need a box of tissues and a stiff drink.