More than a visual treat!!!

Rating: 10/10 (22 December 2009)

Last night went for a visual treat called "Avatar".. in Gwalior...that too in English. The movie carried lots of "read between the lines" type-messages. I enjoyed relating lot of my learning and understanding till date with what was happening on the big screen.
The development oriented individuals among us would surely appreciate the "Law of Nature" vs "Law of Corporations" that the movie spells out for us. Indeed the Hagen disaster (according to the Green Army) is indicative of the the battle between the two.
Apart from the basic premises that formed the social structure of the Alien people being driven from a Tribal Societies that we know of the Look of the Alien species was surely quite Indian (Apache). There were some more concepts thrown in the Avatar that made me dig into the lines. Like the concept of interconnectedness of all beings, which has been at the heart of many tribal societies. It could mean being one with the jungle or a more refined concept of Ubuntu. For clarity let me quote Archbishop Desmond Tutu definition of Ubuntu here :
"One of the sayings in our country is Ubuntu - the essence of being human. Ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you can't exist as a human being in isolation. It speaks about our interconnectedness. You can't be human all by yourself, and when you have this quality - Ubuntu - you are known for your generosity. We think of ourselves far too frequently as just individuals, separated from one another, whereas you are connected and what you do affects the whole world. When you do well, it spreads out; it is for the whole of humanity. "
I was pleasantly reminded of an African greeting "sawu bona" as the Alien forms greeted each other with a "I see You". In the African tribal way the person doing the greeting calls out: "sawu bona" - which literally means, 'I see you'. The correct response to this is: "sikhona" - 'I am here'. Unless I am seen by another person, I cannot exist, except in my own world. You see me - all of me, therefore I exist. This simple greeting speaks a lot. And if I may just read a bit more into the lines, the movie was trying to indicate towards some such notion.
The sci-fi angle, the thing about data uploading and networking and the eastern mystic notions of an all pervading energy did justice to bring the two concepts under one and somehow try to tie them together. So the funny thing here is this seems to be James Cameroon's shot at painting an elaborate picture of what is Earth and Earthlings and what makes us human, a very rational one but holistically challenged.
I give this "Avatar'' of James Cameroon -ALL THUMBS UP. But it is quite possible that I read too much between the lines and James may come up and say " what the heck were you thinking" . "I see you, but do you see me"