À la claire fontaine ♥ (From The Painted Veil movie)

There's this song that I currently love so much, It's in The Painted Veil soundtrack. It was sung by Shang Wen-jie, the winner of last year's "Super Voice Girl" singing contest in China. She just graduated from the Shanghai-based Fudan University as a French major.

 Here is the song, you can download here, just right click and save as:
Download Ala claire Fontaine 

À la claire fontaine
At the Clear Fountain
Chanson enfantine   

(French)

À la claire fontaine,
M'en allant promener
J'ai trouvé l'eau si belle
Que je m'y suis baigné

Refrain :
Il y a longtemps que je t'aime
Jamais je ne t'oublierai

Sous les feuilles d'un chêne,
Je me suis fait sécher
Sur la plus haute branche,
Un rossignol chantait

Refrain :
Il y a longtemps que je t'aime
Jamais je ne t'oublierai

Chante rossignol, chante,
Toi qui as le c?ur gai
Tu as le c?ur à rire,
Moi je l'ai à pleurer

Refrain :
Il y a longtemps que je t'aime
Jamais je ne t'oublierai

J'ai perdu mon amie,
Sans l'avoir mérité
Pour un bouquet de roses,
Que je lui refusais

Refrain :
Il y a longtemps que je t'aime
Jamais je ne t'oublierai

Je voudrais que la rose,
Fût encore au rosier
Et que ma douce amie
Fût encore à m'aimer
(autre version:
Et que le rosier même
À la mer fût jeté.)

Refrain :
Il y a longtemps que je t'aime
Jamais je ne t'oublierai

(English)
At the clear fountain,
While I was strolling by,
I found the water so nice
That I went in to bathe.

Chorus
So long I've been loving you,
I will never forget you.

Under an oak tree,
I dried myself.
On the highest branch,
A nightingale was singing.

Chorus
So long I've been loving you,
I will never forget you.

Sing, nightingale, sing,
Your heart is so happy.

Your heart feels like laughing,
Mine feels like weeping.

Chorus
So long I've been loving you,
I will never forget you.

I lost my beloved,
Without deserving it,
For a bunch of roses,
That I denied her.

Chorus
So long I've been loving you,
I will never forget you.

I wanted the rose
To be still on the bush,
And my sweet beloved
To be still loving me.
(other version:
And even the rosebush
To be thrown in the sea.)

Chorus
So long I've been loving you,
I will never forget you.

The Painted Veil (2006)

I watched this movie in cinema years ago, and It was such a touching movie, that I even got affected by the emotion here for days after watching. I just watched it again, and I wanna tell you how good it is.

The movie is based on the 1925 novel The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham. It comes with a theme "Sometimes the greatest journey is the distance between two people". It's a beautiful story of a woman who tears the heart of the man who loves her so much out only to realize he is the man that she loves in the end! It's like loving someone too late. The end is heart wrenching.

The Chinese locale setting and landscape is so powerful and beautiful that the beautiful geography of the place seems to awe the cast and unite them, intensifying the performance chemistry between stars Edward Norton and Naomi Watts as middle-class Dr. Walter Fane and his restless upper-class wife, Kitty. They deliver such a great act, touching performance. The Painted Veil is a stirring lesson about transience and atonement. It is a fine fusion of romance with a shot of Eastern aesthetic thrown in for flavor; it is familiar yet unique, and certainly memorable in its own right. When I watched it, I simply thought "What an art!". The whole impact is exquisitely beautiful. The Painted Veil is still an emotional journey, for both the characters and the viewer. This movie does the book justice in adapting the literature and comes out beautiful and emotional like this. I LOVE THIS FILM!

100% FRESH for this movie. The best romance ever.  

Let The Right One In (1998)

I finally got the movie, I have been trying to get this movie since I read the book. And the book is better than the movie, with more details that can't be conveyed by the movie. Anyway, this movie is still worth watching. Let The Right One In is a Swedish vampire film about a human that gets in a close relationship with a vampire. I know what you're thinking, Twilight, hehe, but no this film is far from Twilight. The main characters in this film is a bullied 12 year old boy named Oskar (Hedebran). The other main character is a vampire named Eli (Leandersson). These two develop a friendship right off the start of the movie.

This film is better experienced by watching it not reading a review. But i'll still tell you how good it is. The soundtrack is beautiful and so are the camera shots. Who knew a horror movie could be so deeply moving and touching. Aside from that unfunny pun, Let The Right One In is complex, involving and freaky. This film deals with the complexity of preteen relationships as well as blending some horrific scenes of high tension and jolting attacks. The young girl who played the vampire was great and I loved how she portrayed it. There are so many depressing emotions mixed with a bit of happiness that makes your heart beat throughout this movie. The ending made the movie for me and was fantastic to see their relationship end up like that. Let The Right One In is near masterpiece of the depiction of preteen life and struggles and it is a complete and utter triumph. Though, maybe cos I have read the book, I still see the flaws in the movie, the movie is a little slow until the end, but every so often a scary scene or great new twist will come along in the plot and change the movie around and hence I can only give 80% fresh for this movie.

Primal Fear (1996)

Edward Norton gives his great performance in this movie. It's his early movie and he's already that's great. Richard Gere gives some good performances too,but Edward Norton took the crown in this one! Basically Primal Fear is a courtroom thriller about a slick lawyer (Richard Gere) who takes the seemingly unwinnable case of a young altar boy (Edward Norton) accused of murdering a catholic priest. I appreciated the twist in the film: it doesn't at all feel forced and is genuinely believable. The court scenes to me are fantastic, really interesting to watch. Great movie! Great plot. I say - Watch it!

80% for this movie.

American History X (1998)

Rated: R (Restricted)

American History X is one of the most interesting and different movies I have ever seen. It is a well chosen topic to explore. It depicts neo-nazi beliefs and events without hesitation This film doesn't disguise the racial issues and allows the film to explore deeper than most films would. This is a powerful and thought-provoking movie that has some real meat to it with regards to ever-present issues of hate and racism that continues to plague our world.

Edward Norton is amazing in this - and he is not the "typical" male lead (he's no Brad Pitt~George Clooney) and survives off his excellent acting skills rather than looks/body appeal. Edward Norton gives the commanding performance of a lifetime as Derek Vinyard, a white supremacist, and later becomes a man who is on the way back after visiting prison due to he's racial views and behavior. Edward Norton and Edward Furlong are fantastic together and make this movie even better. The way the movie is told is great flashing from past and present.

The movie is so real and everything about it is executed to perfection. The ending makes the movie perfect to me. The emotion in that final sequence is incredible from Norton and showed the great relationship between Norton and Furlong characters. The movie is not predictable at all and ends in the perfect way. Overall, American History X is the best movie I have seen in a while.

90% fresh for this movie

Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach

Published January 3rd 2006 by Scribner (first published 1970)

Avi just recommended me this short story when I was trying to find some good stories for my students' storytelling competition, and in my quest to find good stories, and here he asked me to read this one.

Jonathan Livingston Seagull is an outcast member of his flock. Unlike other gulls, he is not content flapping around and squawking and scavenging for food. He wants to fly and hunt like hawks and eagles. He wants to break out of the static life and old ways of the elder gulls. His brazenness earns him exile, and that is when his journey begins. 

What sets this book apart is its simplicity in conveying thoughts on life and what the reader takes away depends on their personal perception, to name a few "motivation to seek a higher purpose, follow your dreams and not be held back by conventional limitations". 

Great for children, even better for adults. This is such a short book, btw! So, I am going to recommend it, it doesn't take much time to read it at your leisure.

♥♥♥♥♥

Goodnight Peeps, or good morning

September is coming soon, tomorrow it is, and today as it's 31st August early morning, 5.14 am here, I should have slept earlier, but I can't. Insomnia ATTACK!!
Anyway, I slept like pigs these few days, so it's just a very fair compensation.

"The leaf flies away because the tree doesn't ask the leaf to stay"

Night, everyone...

Let the right one in by John Ajvide Lindqvist

Published: August 2nd 2007 by Quercus (first published 2004)

My colleague recommended reading this book, and he promised that it would be very different vampire novel compared to that teeny schmaltz (Twilight Saga), and was he right!

I have just finished reading it, and I should say, this is one of the best vampire novel ever! This book sets the bar for the genre!

Not only does it cover about the vampire, but also about bullying, revenge, pedophilia, drug use, alcoholism, and also sheer desperation of loneliness. The book is greatly written and very disturbing. Terrifying, engrossing and a book that encompasses many different topics. It is a must read!

♥♥♥♥♥

I am not a choice

I have walked along the road
I know I am never the one
I am just a choice!

Expectations keep chasing me
Whispering to me
"I am not a choice"

When night comes
Trembling I become
Trying to give you up..

Comprehension fails me sometimes
Why don't I mind
even being a choice?

A protest is made within
"I am a full soul
I can't accept
I can't wait
Impossible!
In pain you made me!"

The question arises
is that really you?

Still

I am walking on the road...

Revelation

Things remain the same not
Across the clear sky
The beautiful glimpse you caught
fooled your clouded eye...

Do you see now?

To the sun you flew
you'd rather be blind
See it anew
The truth is unkind

Do you realize it somehow?

Lovely images stacked, chuck them behind!
Insignificance!

Eyes wide open, behold
to the end of the road
The silhouette turned so cold
no longer warm and glowed

Walk down the streets
you think life feed you sweets?

You'll DAMN your ego!

The tip of the love
as but a needle
the coldness sips thru your heart
you think it little

You are a FOOL with delusions...

Cry Cry Cry!Go fuckin cry!

What I believe

Between thought and action lies speech, which can substitute for either. It can just as easily mask thoughtlessness as impede action.

Right speech, however, does not substitute for thought or action, but mediates them. Giving expression to thought, it enables intelligent action.

 Found this quotation here