Wednesday, January 02, 2008

Lost Horizon

Lost Horizon
Director : Frank Capra
Writer : Robert Riskin
Year : 1937
Cast : Ronald Colman (Robert Conway), Jane Wyatt (Sondra), Edward Everett Horton (Alexander P. Lovett), John Howard (George Conway)













I was looking for this movie for 10 over years.
Remembered watching it when I was about 8 or 9 Years old.
If you ask me why this movie left me such great impression.
I think it's about the mountains, the snow and the 108 year old lady dying.
Then suddenly, I wanted to watch the movie again when I was in my teens.
As I do not know the title of the movie, you can see me going around VCD shop asking the staffs. Usually I would say to them, " it's a movie about a plane crash, the people found a village in the mountains, the people living there looks young but when they leave the village, the will turn into their actual age and died.
Maybe, it's something wrong with description that's why no one knows what movie it was or what I was talking about …
Anyway, I kept asking and asking … 10 years ++???
Oh boy, I didn't know I was so long-winded, aha…
Finally I was able to get some leads in the PEZ community forum last month.
One member said it might be a movie about shangri-la.
So I checked it on the net and found informations which lead me to "Lost Horizon."
Luckily, I was able to find the DVD on this classic Black & White movie.
This afternoon, I finished watching this movie.
I love this even more because there is a lot of meaning to life about this movie.




























Inside the house, the surroundings were completely different from the outside.
Very grand furnishings and filled with art collections.














Father Perrault - A belgian priest - know as high lama in Shangri-La. Arrive in 1713 and he was the one who built Shangri-La. Completed the building when he was 108 years old and still active.












Robert & Sondra meet in Shangri-La and fell in love.
Sondra had always admired Robert about the books he had written.




















Planning of escaping from Shangri-La.
Robert warned that the lady could not leave Shangri-La as she is 108 years old.
Robert was confused but decided to leave together with them.














Myths from Mr Chiang turn out to be truth. When they farther away from the village, the lady begun to age and eventually death knocks on the door.
George was shocked and killed himself by jumping off the mountains.














Embarking the return journey alone,
Robert Conway is all set to look to return to Shangri-La despite the harsh weather.



At last, the entrance of Shangri-La is FOUND !


Quotes from the movie :
Did you ever go to a totally strange place and feel certain you'd been there before? (Robert)

To put it simply, our general belief was in moderation. We preach the virute of avoiding excess of every kind even including excess of virtue itself. (Mr Chang)
We rule with moderate strictness and in return we are satistied with moderate obedience. As a result, our people are moderately honest, moderately chaste and somewhat more than moderately happy. (Mr Chang)

I should've told you it's quite common here to live to a very ripe old age. Climate, diet, mountain water, you might say. But we like to believe it is the absence of struggle in the way we live. In your countries, on the other hand, how often do you hear the expression, he worried himself to death or this things or that killed him? (Robert's replied : Very Often). And very true. Your lives are therefore as a rule, shorter. Not so much by natural death as by indirect suicide. (Mr Chang)

I saw all nations strengthening, not in wisdom but in the vulgar passions and the will to destroy. I saw the machine power multiplying until a single weaponed man might match a whole army. I foresaw a time when a man exulting in the technique of murder would rage so hotly over the world, that every book, every treasure would be doomed to destruction. This vision was so vivid and so moving that I determind to gather together all things of beauty and culture that I could and preserve them here against the doom towards which the world is rushing. Look at the world today. Is there anything more pitiful ? What madness there is, what blindness, what unintelligent leadership. A scurrying mass of bewildered humanity crashing headlong against each other, compelled by an orgy of greed and brutality. The time must come, my friend when this orgy will spend itself, when brutality and the lust for power must perish by it's own sword...
For here, we shall be with their books and their music and the way of life based on one simply rule. Be Kind. (Father Perrault)

I had the same idea about Shangri-La, the sense that I've been here before, that I belong here. (Robert)

Just as I'm sure there's a wish for shangri-la in everyone's heart. I've never seen the outside world, but I understand there are millions of people who are supposed to be mean and greedy. I just know that secretly they are all hoping to find a garden spot where there is peace, security, where there's beauty and comfort, where they wouldn't have to be mean and greedy. (Sondra)

To be gentle and patient to care for the riches of the mind, to preside in wisdom while the storm rages without. (Father Perrault)

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