Sunday 12 December 2010

Protest against raising tuition fee UK2010

The votes on increasing tuition fee to £9000 came through despite riots and demonstrations. We were advised to go home early to avoid transport disruption last Thursday. Well, I wasnt actually involved in the demonstration in Parliament Square on the day, but it was said to be messy and furious with buildings being damaged by graffiti, the whole area filled with burning bonfire and rubbish and broken windows.However I can feel the insensitivity of the public event as how it changed the appearance of UCL:



An altar scene outside Benjamin Room



UCL Main Quad





A closer look






The country is in huge debt and I doubt if the government had any other choice: increasing tax? lower spending? go bankrupt? all are seen as politically unpopular. The issue here is the fact that the Lib Dem shamefully broke the promise of maintain the tuition fee unchanged it made at the election, which seriously damamged the new government credibility. One may ask if anyone can place trust in their words in the future. "Its better to under-promised and over-performed rather than over-promised and under-performed".

Sunday 14 November 2010

Things that touch your lone soul

Thought I really need to write something about one of the film I watched recently. For such a long time did any film really touch my heart, get me gripped and then remain deep down in my soul like this. Ive never been keen on watching movies, it brings you some excitement but it just simply fades away amazingly fast. Music tends to stay with me for longer, so I lean towards it more often.




The lives of others (2006) (Das Leben der Anderen) is masterly filmed about the life in East Germany under the dictatorship of the Communist State called"the German Democratic Republic" before the fall down of the Berlin Wall . This film won the Oscar for best Foreign Film that year, and I have no doubt why it did after watching it. It brings you the darkest part in German's history during Stati's control and really provokes reminiscence and nostalgia about the past. It simply captures how the system worked, how people who work for the government just do what they are told without question and feelings, how the citizens are suppressed in their freedom of speaking their opinion. The government have their secret servants constantly spied and watched the activities of their people. But you will see in that system, there are still people like Captain Gerd Wiesler. I cried watching the last scene, the best ending you could ever come up with. Its really one of the movies that would give you something to think about, 10/10 from me. 


"...This is the world of The Lives of Others. A story of love, ambition and treachery under the cold eyes and large ears of the Stasi, it's set in the theatre world of East Germany. No wonder that the film's dramatic force is theatrical rather than cinematic. Nothing to complain about in the craftsmanship of the film-makers, but this film is not about images. It is about the transformation - the transfiguration, even - of characters within a run of 137 minutes precisely. That's something usually achieved on stage rather than screen...."
(Beware, the walls have ears_The Guardian)