Title: LES MISERABLES

Genre: Epic, Historical Fiction, Musical

Characters: 

Jean Valjean 
-The ex-convict who had been imprisoned for stealing a loaf of bread.

 -He is the primary protagonist of the story. 

Bishop Myriel

- the one who welcomes Jean eventhough he stole the silverwares from him. He also inspired Jean to change himself.

 Monsiegneur Bienvenu 

-The benevolent priest of the first book whose generosity and self sacrifice changes Valjean. 

Cosette 
-The child of Fantine.

-The child being raised by Valjean. 

Javert 
-The inspector of police who’s lifelong ambition is to put Valjean back to prison. 

Marius 
-lover of Cosette 

M. Gillenormand 
-Grandfather of Marius 

Thenardier 
-an evil persona in the story which symbolizes negative forces. 

Fantine 
-Cosette’s mother, who is willing to sacrifice everything for her daughter.

M. Fauchelevant 
-the person whom Valjean rescues when a cart falls on him. And later helps provide a place of refuge for Valjean and Cosette. 

Eponine 
-Daughter to Thenardier. 

Enjolras 
-College student-primary leader of the insurrection. 

Gavroche 
-Son of Thenardier. 
Champmathieu
-the convict who is captured and believed to be Valjean. 

Sister Simplice, Sister Perpetue 
-The nuns who take care of Fantine. 

Colonel George Pontmercy 
-Marius’ father. 

Setting:

France in the 1800's during the period of the Restoration.

 

Plot:

Jean Valjean, based on the novel of Victor Hugo, and on the movie, was known as a prisoner because of stealing, released and granted parole, and as he creates a new life for himself, he still runs from the ruthless Inspector Javert during the June Rebellion. And meanwhile, the working class girl with a child turned out to be a prostitute to pay money to the innkeeper – his wife who looks after the prostitute’s child, Cosette. And later on, Cosette is indulged in a love triangle with Marius and Eponine.

Theme:

Love, Forgiveness, Self Sacrifice, and Courage

Love is evident in the story, so are Forgiveness, Self-sacrifice and Courage, for the prisoner is definitely motivated by love to do anything she cans to have a fresh start and to support her own family, she had gone out of her way for the comfort of her loved one, she sacrificed herself, she had the courage to do it and also the rest of the characters had shown their forgiving and courageous spirits.

Symbolism:

Insects- it portrays the life of cosette as a beetle. It shows that she can rise above miserable circumstances.

Thenardier -the paragon of evil both in character and in representation of other negative forces.

Candle Stick- it symbolizes hope, change, and honesty.

1. What does the title mean in relation to the film as a whole?

The title is apparently related to the film wholly because the title itself even speaks a summary of the whole story of the film, which is “Les Miserables”, for it definitely refers to a certain people living miserably during a very testing time.

2. Among the characters, to whom can you relate to?

If I am to relate myself among the characters, I think I can relate on Jean Valjean, not for reasons that she has become a prostitute and all, but because she’s willing to sacrifice her own happiness for the sake of her loved ones, I’m not being boastful here, but I really do care so much for my family, and their happiness is way more important than mine.

3. Which part of the presentation struck you the most? Why?

The part of the presentation which struck me the most was that scene when the girl first sold herself for some profit for her daughter, that although she’d been very miserable about her situation, and that it was enormously hard for her, still she pursued it for she knows solely it would be a huge help for her loved ones.

4. What is the movie’s message?

If I am to relay the message of the movie, it would be that, we all humans have trying times, and all we have to do is be strong, strong enough to fight back and face uncontrollable circumstances in our lives, that no matter how ugly everything may have turned out to be, at the end of the day, there’s still hope for goodness.
 

5. Did I like this in general? Why?

If I am to refer to the story of the movie, yes, it’s very substantial and witty, but as a whole, as to how it was presented, compressed and made as a movie, no, because it was just way too tedious, with all the plain singing and songs, they have not certainly thought out of the box, as to how to put climax and hype to it.

6. Did I agree with the main theme/purpose? Why or why not?

Yes, I merely agree with the main theme, for it has somehow touched and moved me at some sort, although it kind of bored me, with all the singing and its theatrical nature.

7. What specifically did I like/dislike? Why?

Well, If I could be specific, I dislike the thorough singing of theatrical songs, for there should be somehow lines, and dialogues, for the movie not to be a total bore, and for the movie to sort of connect to its audience.

8. Are there any aspects of theme which are left ambiguous at the end? Why?

Yes, for some parts were very confusing, until the end, the reason why some aspects of the theme, especially at the end were left vague and confusing.

9. How does this film relate to the things that are happening in your life?

The film, in such a unique way, relate to the things happening in my life in such a way that certain extreme circumstances have literally shaken my life, and I was left with not much of a choice but to sacrifice and be selfless, and prioritize instead the happiness of my loved ones, and there are times when I am being more concerned with the disposition of the people I love than of my own, and in that way, thing happening in my life are able to relate to the film.

Life of Pi

• Title: Life of Pi

  

  
  

  
  Genre: Drama, Adventure, Fantasy

  Characters: 

  *Piscine Molitor Patel (Pi) - The protagonist of the story. 

  *Richard Parker -The Royal Bengal tiger with whom Pi shares his lifeboat.
  *Francis Adirubasamy - The elderly man who tells the author Pi’s story during a chance meeting in a Pondicherry coffee shop. He taught Pi to swim as a child and bestowed upon him his unusual moniker. 
  *Ravi - Pi’s older brother.
  *Santosh Patel - Pi’s father. He once owned a Madras hotel, but because of his deep interest in animals decided to run the Pondicherry Zoo.
  *Gita Patel - Pi’s beloved mother and protector.
  *Satish Kumar - Pi’s atheistic biology teacher at Petit Séminaire, a secondary school in Pondicherry.
  *Father Martin - The Catholic priest who introduces Pi to Christianity after Pi wanders into his church.
  *Satish Kumar - A plain-featured Muslim mystic with the same name as Pi’s biology teacher.
  *The Hindu Pandit - One of three important religious figures in the novel. Never given a name, he is outraged when Pi, who was raised Hindu, begins practicing other religions.
  *The Hyena - An ugly, intensely violent animal. He controls the lifeboat before Richard Parker emerges.
  *The Zebra - A beautiful male Grant’s zebra. He breaks his leg jumping into the lifeboat. The hyena torments him and eats him alive.
  *Orange Juice - The maternal orangutan that floats to the lifeboat on a raft of bananas. She suffers almost humanlike bouts of loneliness and seasickness. When the hyena attacks her, she fights back valiantly but is nonetheless killed and decapitated.
  *The Blind Frenchman - A fellow castaway whom Pi meets by chance in the middle of the ocean. Driven by hunger and desperation, he tries to kill and cannibalize Pi, but Richard Parker kills him first.
  *The Cook - The human counterpart to the hyena in Pi’s second story. He is rude and violent and hoards food on the lifeboat. After he kills the sailor and Pi’s mother, Pi stabs him and he dies.
  *The Sailor - The human counterpart to the zebra in Pi’s second story. He is young, beautiful, and exotic. He speaks only Chinese and is very sad and lonely in the lifeboat. He broke his leg jumping off the ship, and it becomes infected. The cook cuts off the leg, and the sailor dies slowly.
  *Tomohiro Okamoto - An official from the Maritime Department of the Japanese Ministry of Transport, who is investigating the sinking of the Japanese Tsimtsum. Along with his assistant, Atsuro Chiba, Okamoto interviews Pi for three hours and is highly skeptical of his first account.
  *Atsuro Chiba - Okamoto’s assistant. Chiba is the more naïve and trusting of the two Japanese officials, and his inexperience at conducting interviews gets on his superior’s nerves. Chiba agrees with Pi that the version of his ordeal with animals is the better than the one with people.

  
  

  Setting:Pi’s boyhood home in Pondicherry, India; the Pacific Ocean; Tomatlán, Mexico; and, briefly, Toronto, Canada

  
  Plot:A novelist has come to talk to Pi Patel, a middle-aged Indian immigrant living in Canada. Pi's parents named him Piscine Molitor after a swimming pool in France. As a child he changed his name to "Pi" because he was tired of being called "Pissing Patel". In flashback we see that his family owned a zoo, and Pi took great interest in the animals, especially a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. When Pi tries to feed the tiger, his father forces him to witness it kill a goat. Pi is raised Hindu and vegetarian, but at 12 years old, he is introduced to Christianity and then Islam, and starts to follow all three religions as he "just wants to love God."
  When Pi is 16, his father decides to move the family to Canada, where he intends to settle and sell the zoo animals. They book passage on a Japanese freighter. One night there is a storm; the ship begins to founder while Pi is on deck. He tries to find his family, but a crew member throws him into a lifeboat. Pi watches helplessly as the ship sinks, killing his family and the crew. After the storm, Pi finds himself in the lifeboat with an injured zebra, and is joined by an orangutan. A spotted hyena emerges from the tarp covering half of the boat, and kills the zebra and the the orangutan. Suddenly the tiger Richard Parker emerges from under the tarp, killing the hyena.
  Pi gets out biscuits, water rations, and a hand axe. He builds a small raft and stays at a safe distance from the tiger. Pi begins fishing and is able to feed the tiger. He also collects rain water for both to drink. When the tiger jumps off to hunt fish, at first Pi wants to let it drown, then he relents and helps it climb back into the boat. After many days at sea, Pi trains the tiger to accept him in the boat. He also realizes that caring for the tiger is keeping him alive. Weeks later and half dead, they reach a floating island. Both Pi and Richard Parker eat and drink freely and regain strength. But at night the island transforms into a hostile environment: the fresh water turns acidic, the resident meerkats sleep in the trees, the plants are carnivorous. Pi discovers the island's secrets when he finds a human tooth. Pi and the tiger leave.
  The lifeboat eventually reaches the coast of Mexico. Pi is crushed that that the tiger does not acknowledge him before disappearing into the jungle. Pi is rescued and carried to hospital, weeping. Insurance agents for the Japanese freighter come to interview him. They do not believe his story and ask what "really" happened. He tells a less fantastic account of sharing the lifeboat with his mother, a sailor with a broken leg, and the cook. The cook kills the sailor to use him as bait. In a later struggle, Pi's mother pushes him to safety on a smaller raft, and the cook stabs her as she falls overboard. Later, Pi returns, takes the knife and kills the cook.
  In the present day, the novelist notes the parallels between the two stories: the orangutan was Pi's mother, the zebra was the sailor, the hyena was the cook, and Richard Parker, the tiger, was Pi himself. Pi asks him which story the writer prefers, and the writer chooses the one with the tiger because it "is the better story", to which Pi responds, "And so it is with God". Glancing at a copy of the insurance report, the writer sees they wrote that Pi somehow survived 227 days at sea with a tiger: the insurance agents had also chosen the more fantastic story.

  
  Theme:

  The power of life’s force; the human desire for companionship; storytelling as a strategy for self-preservation.
  Symbolism: 

  *Pi (Piscine) Patel 
  -Pi represents all humans,.
  *the lifeboat-represents isolation
  *the Ocean-represents life.
  *The color orange-in Life of Pi, the color orange symbolizes hope and survival. The whistle, buoy, and tiger are orange and all help Pi survive, just as Orange Juice the orang-utan provides a measure of emotional support that helps Pi maintain hope in the face of a horrific tragedy.
  *The animals in Pi’s lifeboat-symbolize human traits and may also represent people.

  *The island- it represent material things,success, power which can gave us happiness but at night i will consume us and eat us, eat or morals and values as human being. The day at the island represents the benefits we can have if we have power,money,success; but at night the island represents the disadvantages of having them, which will  later on eat us or poison us as a whole.
  *Pi Patel and Richard Parker- Pi may represent God and Richard Parker may represent us humans, as God sacrificed a lot to save us and yet we sometimes forget about it if we gain comfort in life.
  
  
  1. What does the title mean in relation to the film as a whole?
  - The title gives us and idea what's the story all about. And the story is all about the life of Pi, which narrates his experience as a cast away,with the help of his faith he able to survived.
  
  2. Among the characters, to whom can you relate to?
  

  -For me, I can relate myself to the tiger, it represents the humans, and Pi symbolizes God. When the tiger was “saved”, it was the boy who turned his back on “God” and never “thanked” him for saving him. Humans, as we are, we have forgotten about God when life is easy but when when trouble comes, we run to Him. We don't appreciate what He had done for us.

  3. Which part of the presentation struck you the most? Why?
  -The last part of the movie,when Pi asked his friend which story did he prefer and the guy answered the story with the animals and Pi answered that it was a good choice, for the story goes with God. And it shows that with God everything is possible. Believing in the unbelievable.

  4. What is the movie’s message?
  -The movie is all about faith, that we have God who is always there for us.

  
  

  5. Did I like this in general? Why?
  Yes, because the movie was really inspiring, it had touched me in many ways. Few of this  is my relationship with my family and with God, how important their role is in my life. 
  
  
  

  6. Did I agree with the main theme/purpose? Why or why not?

  Yes, because as  Pi continues his adventure,it explains that we people, need companion in order to survive. As Pi Patel said that, if Richard Parker may not be on that boat he might not able to survived.

  
  

  7. What specifically did I like/dislike? Why?

  What I've liked a lot is on how Pi Patel told his 2nd version of the story, on how did he came up with the representation of each characters on the 1st story. In which he didn't lied or just make up the story, still the story is true but just with different characters that portray a role.
  
  

  8. Are there any aspects of theme which are left ambiguous at the end? Why?
  Yes, because the ending was confusing,for there are two version of the story.
  
  

  9. How does this film relate to the things that are happening in your life?
  I can relate the film in my life in every way, i can consider the journey of Pi Patel through the Pacific as my life and to reach mexico or to be saved is my goals in life. And even if I'm struggling yet we always have a reason to live and to continue our journey; he was motivated by Richard Parker (tiger), which simply explains that we human needs companion in our journey, in our life. And for me, the island means to me as the success or the false happiness which may eat me up, or I may be blinded with its "sugar coating stuffs" with the benefits of the success,fame,power,money; which will soon consume me as a person. And as Pi Patel leaves that island, i can relate about it that we have a point in our lives  that even we have all that we want in our hands, we still need to sacrifice, in able for us to continue our journey, to have a better life.
  
  

The Road Less Traveled by Kit McCallum

How often we must bear the challenges of life; The endless roller coaster between happiness and sorrow; The constant ups and downs of daily strife. And always the question remains .... why? Life is not an easy road for most; It twists and turns with many forks in the road, Although always, and inevitably, we are given a choice ... Do we turn to the right ... or the left? Do we take the high road ... or the low road? Do we take the easy path ... or the difficult one? Decisions are not easy for those struggling for direction ... And sometimes the many choices and signs become overwhelming. While standing at a crossroads in life, The urge is to take the most comfortable path; The road with least resistance ... The shortest or most traveled route. And yet, if we've been down that comfortable road before; Have gleaned its lessons in life, and learned from our experiences; Do we yet again follow the known? Or does our destiny lie in another direction? The fear of the road less traveled is tangible and all too real; It manifests itself in many ways, And tends to cloud the issues that might otherwise be clear. It is in these times of confusion, That we must seek peace and solitude; Time to contemplate on our life, Our experiences and our choices past; Time to look back, and reflect on what we have learned Without fear or confusion. For only each of us knows our own personal thoughts; Our unique past and personal history; The experiences that brought us to the crossroads we now face. We can always learn a small degree from others experiences, And yet ... no one person can walk in our shoes, Others know not, the trials and tribulations faced in private ... For each is individual ... unique ... and personal. And that is why ... while standing at a crossroads, Only "we" can formulate the decision for ourselves; The true direction that lies within; The choices we must deliberate on with clarity and wisdom. For it is only through personal reflection, That we can now choose our destiny; ... Our next adventure; ... And the future we will embrace.  I chose this poem because it explains what life is all about. That life is a series of challenges and lessons, with these it gives essence to our existence, that makes us  stronger, helps to grow more and  mold us as a person. "We can always learn a small degree from others experiences, And yet ... no one person can walk in our shoes, Others know not, the trials and tribulations faced in private ..." This lines tells us that for us to learn more; We must engage ourselves to the situations, we are the one who is responsible to problems that we encounter. And each one of us has our own story to tell. Learning from the experiences of others gives us an idea what life really is, we may have the same problems but it is up to us how we handle it.   be thankful on what you have, always remember that we are still blessed.

Resolution and Realizations

Realization & Learning (2012)

This year has been a huge help to me in the aspect of my personality and outlook in life. From the previous years of my life, I have been so focused on certain things, and apparently, I have neglected some things that are important in my life. Since I came up to my own way of thinking, it's like I already have set a watchword for myself, "that I should always be practical", and no doubt, that has led me to the right path, up until now. But what I have overlooked and came to realize this year, is that, I should maintain a balance in my life, for me to be happy. I should value money, but invest too in myself, because I have learned, that there's nobody else in this world that would do that, but just me. And also, I have learned that I don't have to have a lot of friends, a few real ones is certainly enough, for anyway what would you do with a lot, when all you need to make you happy are the real few ones.

2013 Resolution

Well, I don't really believe in an annual resolution, because how come it would take a year for you to have resolutions to your ways when you can have it everyday as you encounter a lot of things and realize at the end of the day what should and should not be done. But for New Year's Resolution's sake, my most significant resolution would probably be "to love more, and to live more". I cannot be so certain or specific with what I should change in my ways and in my deeds, because apparently, I should still be more of myself this year, so to avoid anything worse that might happen this year, or to avoid a worse version of me this year, I have decided to just make this world a better place for everyone by having this resolution. It sounds so simple, but you know, the more simple it is, the more it could probably come true; it's more possible, it's more heartfelt.