"Eat, Pray, Self-Indulge!"

Went to see "Eat, Pray, Love" yesterday and something very odd happened.  About 15 minutes into the film, people started walking out, and after it was over and the lights came back on, I noticed that every person still in the cinema was a Gweilo; a foreign devil!

Yup, when the film started, the audience was mainly Chinese but not a single one of them lasted the entire length.

German Michael and I discussed it last night and decided that Chinese are societal-based folk who see no point in thinking of themselves as separate from their various roles in life and thus can't get their heads around the concept of "finding yourself".  They KNOW who they are, thank you very much!

And what was in there for them to learn? Italy taught the Julia Roberts' character Liz to enjoy food but Chinese already enjoy food.  India taught her to go beyond the material world and discover the power of prayer but Chinese still have a vast interior spiritual life and so never lost their belief in the power of prayer.  Bali taught her how to stop being such a control freak and to let go of trying to control the balance of life which is something Chinese do need to learn but none of them got that far into the film.

So Julia Roberts journey of self-discovery through Italy, India and Indonesia (Is it a co-incidence that they all start with "I, I, I"? ) just seemed stupid and self-indulgent to them.  That's our guess anyway!

I enjoyed the book.  I really did.  There was stuff in there that, to be honest, validated a lot of what I believe about how life should be lived - to enjoy stillness, to quieten your mind, to enjoy the moment, to notice the small things, to be open to your own journey and everyone else's as well etc, etc, etc - and it's always nice thinking "Oooh, I'm already there. I already know this stuff. I am just SO evolved!" especially when it's more usually seen as "being hard-wired for stupidity and triviality!"

As for the film?  Julia Roberts is starting to look so much like Sarah Jessica Parker I kept waiting for Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte to turn up and thought it would have been such a better film if they had.  Is it just me, or is this film less of a deep spiritual journey into the soul and more like the latest "Sex and the City" without the laughs and fabulous clothes?  Mind you, the film did have it's very own Samantha and Charlotte but by other names.

Oh, and when I was telling Michael about it, he called up the official trailer on his latest hi-tech gadget but shut it down after about 20 seconds.  "I'd have walked out too." he said. "It seems like such self-indulgent American piece of crap, I can't even bear to finish this trailer."

Let's see if you can make it to the end:




However, if I could choose what I found sublime in this film - a reason why you should drop everything and get into that cinema -  it would have been the interiors and gardens in Bali.  Oh man, those colours! The total gorgeousness! The way they did everything so beautifully.  I kept thinking "I wish those actors would get out of the way so I can really see everything properly."  I intend to buy this film just so I can freeze frame and study ... and there's not many films you can say that about.