Walk on Water

Today was such a full day. I woke up feeling...determined? Grimly set? I don't know. All I know is, I was really tense to face Maths class again because I feel like the bimbo among the geeks. Seriously. Because most (if not all except for moi) are genuinely interested in Maths and seem to enjoy doing it. And our teacher is very dedicated to his task and one of those freaky Maths lovers who like talking about Math conundrums like what is 0 to the power of 0? Is it a defined number? (Answer: Undefined.) What about square root of -1? Why is that called i, but O^0 is undefined? And things like that. Urgh.

I mean, of course it's interesting to think about. To a certain extent. But sometimes you get so bored of it. "It's just a NUMBER!!!"

As you can see, I'm not all that fond of zeros now. We should ban zeros.

Anyway, this is not what I meant to talk about. I wanted to talk about the last *event* I had today, after having dinner with roommates outside college (in big bustling Hong Kong), which was to watch an Israeli film called "Walk on Water". Actually we were supposed to watch "The Bubble" which got an award at the Torino International Film Festival. One of those thinking movies. But "Walk on Water" did not disappoint either.

Sidetrack: This is what I really came to this college for, the multi-culturalism and diversity. The main characters in the show are an Israeli assasin and the descendants of a German Nazi general. Here, we really have Germans, Israelis, Palestinians, Italians and so forth watching this movie together. Where else would I get this opportunity? Even to watch an Israeli film, that's a first for me I think. Unless I watched one without realising it.

The story is one of those slllloooooooowwwww moving types and it doesn't really make you laugh or cry or anything. The morality in it is rather ambiguous, you find the assasin actually being redeemed and not murdering the old Nazi. Rather the old Nazi is murdered by his own grandson (by turning off the oxygen tank) possibly because the grandson who was befriended by the assasin-in-disguise is a pro-peace, gay kindergarten teacher who is disgusted with his family background.

But still? Turning off the oxygen on your weak bedridden grandfather? No matter what he did before, that still makes me uneasy.

Here's a link to a review and some better summaries.

Some parts, like the one where Axel (the grandson) replies to a question from the assasin/tour guide (Elay) about what's it like growing up in Germany and learning about World War 2 and what happened, he said: "We don't really talk about it. It's something that is never mentioned and I don't talk about it either because...it would make me feel...stupid."

That was not exactly what he said, but the way he didn't have any nice-sounding answers, the way he didn't try to simplify a very hard issue, felt real.

Oh another quote (the Zen-sounding part) when Axel was in Israel at the Sea of Galilee:

Axel Himmelman: [tries to walk on the sea and falls in]
Eyal: [sarcastically] Bravo. You did it.
Axel Himmelman: You don't understand. You can't just come to the Sea of Galilee and start walking on water. If you could, everybody would be doing it. You need to prepare yourself.
Eyal: And how would you do that? Please enlighten me.
Axel Himmelman: Well, you need to completely purify yourself. Your heart needs to be like it's clean from the inside: no negativity, no bad thoughts.
Eyal: And then?
Axel Himmelman: And then you can walk on water. I'm sure of it.

Complete baloney, but sounds nice:)

If you're interested (or confused by my haphazhard writing), here's a complete summary of the plot.