September 25, 2005
2009: Lost memories
After coming out of Burma, and worrying about the state of my country for so long and feeling guilty about leaving my country, and then feeling lost because I don't feel like I belong there- anymore, for a while, I avoided war movies, movies about third world countries, all news about my country. I couldn't take the suffering and the sadness - that I saw in Burma or in other third world countries as I can relate to them all too well- and my inability to do little or nothing at all.
But I love a good movie that has a theme that is to do with trying to get independence- sacrificing for one's country, trying to rise above racism and discrimination.
2009: Lost Memories isn't very deep. The movie producers didn't delve very far into the racism or the discrimination but it's all there in the subtle words and subtle things that the "colonial people" say to the "colonised". You notice that the colonised people have even began to like being colonised because they don't know any better.
Then, there's time travel involved. In 2009: Lost Memories, - The colonised Koreans are fighting to gain independence from the Japanese - an altered history, due to the fact that someone from the future travelled and changed a simple thing that triggered off a set of events that caused Japan to become an ally with the United States and win World War II - Nuclear bombs were never dropped in Japan but in Germany instead - Imagine that. So the Koreans must travel back in time to change one simple mistake to get their independence back.
Who doesn't love the idea of Time Travel? Especially if it means that you could go back in time to change certain things that happened in history that could change everything about the state of your country. For me, I would go back to 1962 so that I can stop U Ne Win, from leading Burma into a one-party police state.
What would you do, if you were given a chance to travel back in time - but you can never come back? Especially if it involves fighting for freedom against your best friend - whom you have come to trust and love and defend for years and years? Would you be able to kill her/him, so you can give your country back it's freedom?
It's a tough one, huh?
To read more about 2009: Lost Memories, click on the link below the picture.