OCTOBER 29 ― I can't blame the average Malaysian for wanting to switch off the television, stop reading the newspaper or just disconnect from the Internet. There are days I wake up and wonder if I am not a real person, but an imaginary character in The Onion.
It's been a year where I've had little patience for many things, or for that matter, many people. I think my friend described it best: "Your jar of f---s to give is now empty."
If people say that Malaysians don't care enough about the nation, I would counter that by saying they do care. The thing is ― caring hurts. Easier to watch bad television, smoke or gorge on local food than address the things that bother us.
Our jars are all too full of the many things that already occupy us ― jobs, people, problems.Yet we all need time to set down those jars, to take a little time to rest and reflect or at least have a little fun.
I took time off to watch The Book of Life, a fun little film that paints a different view of death and the dying. It was my first time learning about the Mexican tradition that is the Day of the Dead. You could say it is the Mexican equivalent of Qing Ming, but with a lot more eating involved.
The Day of the Dead is not Halloween, but a cultural holiday celebrated to remember the dead. In The Book of Life, the saddest fate for a spirit is to have no one living to remember them and to be named among The Forgotten.
It is believed that the gates of heaven open at midnight on Oct 31, allowing the spirits of children long gone to visit their families for 24 hours. Then come Nov 2, the ghosts of the adults will come in to join in the festivities.
In Mexico, elaborate altars called ofrendas are kept and tended with offerings left for the visiting spirits ― sweets for the children and cigarettes for the visiting adults.
For a film that was about dead people, dealing with love, loss and familial expectations, you would think The Book of Life would be depressing.
I confess, I was giggling throughout like a five-year-old. Hearing Mumford Sons songs done mariachi-style will do that to you.
As to the movie, while the love story bit was a little predictable I found the overall premise interesting and the characters endearing.
I think wistfully on the movie as our own religious authorities see fit to tell people to avoid Halloween and to just "offer prayers" if they felt the need to commune with the dead. Not that I particularly like the commercial nonsense that Halloween is, but it makes me sad that these people are more worried about people celebrating Halloween than about the poor, the stateless, the jobless and the parentless.
Here's the thing, we don't need Halloween to celebrate the deceased when we are already surrounded by the living dead. What else can we call people who are unable to see the real pressing problems that require not heavy-handed lectures, but compassion and empathy?
I guess that so many people are dead inside, the way they put aside their basic humanity and pretend it's for God. What are we, the living to do then? What we can do ― nourish our own souls, find our own joy and make sure our jars still have space to care for one another and the state of our nation.
In the meantime, why not head down to the cinema and catch The Book of Life while it's still in the theatres? Enjoy the trailer below:
*This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
