the da vinci code

the book:

i borrowed this book from Wan Hazril. to tell you the truth, i've never imagined this book will be this great in the first place. i have a rather discriminative notion about thriller books.

ok, as i read the first few pages of this book, i find it rather confusing. maybe i'm just not familliar with the terms being used in this book. 'divine proportion', 'vatican', 'priory of sion' and all of those other terms seems confusing. but as i keep on reading, everything seems to fall into the right place. confusedness gone.

as maybe some of us had already known and maybe read this book, the story revolves around a historian and symbologist named Robert Langdon and a cryptographer, Sophie Neveu, which happend to be the grand daughter of Jacques Saunière, which was murdered. they later realize that the murder of Jacques Saunière got to do with an organization called Opus Dei with a motive to destroy what could destroy them. you could find the full review of this book in wikipedia.com or other sites, so i won't go into detail into the storyline.

pika (atiqah, not zulfikar) said that that this book had been criticized by some as not being intellectual enough. yeah, i agree on that, but as far as i know, they've been some intellectual discussion on this matter (the da vinci code) and some publications by a few historians such as holy blood, holy grail and a few others before this international best seller by dan brown 'exploded'.

reading this book for the first time, i admit that i almost believe everything about the da vinci code. now, after hearing the thoughts of others and watching 'da vinci : declassified' on discovery channel, i'd rather be skeptical about it.

the movie:

i'd just watch this movie yesterday, and i'm glad i did.

the story starts with a rather different approach from the novel. here, it starts with Jacques Saunière running away from Silas, his murderer, which was later, ovbiously, being killed by him (Silas). the way Robert Langdo was being approached by the french police was as well differ from the novel.

a lot of dissimilarity between the movie version and the novel version. but the story line is basically the same. i couldn't blame the director or whoever is responsible in the making of this movie. maybe they're trying to make it more interesting. but as for my opinion, the novel version is better.

again, i wouldn't go further into describing this movie since there're a lot of reviews being published on newspapers and internet. all you had to do is search for them.

my only dissatisfaction about this movie is how unthrilling it has become by adjusting and cutting a few parts from the novel.

and now i realize that audrey toutou act better when she speak french. but this is the first movie which features her speaking mostly in english that i've watched, so i bet it doesn't count. but she's cute as always.

my opinion on the holy grail:

it was revealed in da vinci : declassified that the priory of sion was first exist inside a document called dossiere secret or if translated into english, secret document. this document was first found inside a library or something, i couldn't remember. and the writer of this document was said to be a french guy named Plantard (i couldn't remember his full name). the document reveals about the secret society called the priory of sion (if i'm not mistaken, the name sion was taken from a hill not far from where Plantard lives) which was alleged as a keeper of a secret. a secret about christianity and jesus.

this secret society had several members but there are top 4 ranking 'officer' who're responsible in keeping this secret, and the highest ranking among this 4 was known as the Grand Master. the document even list out the so called Grand Master. i couldn't remember how many Grand Master they've list out but on that list was some famous peoples of all time such as Issac Newton, Leonardo Da Vinci (hence, the da vinci code) and Plantard himself.

it was said that Plantard admit that this document was a hoax but later, he put on a new list of the Grand Master, which still includes some famous people of all time (such as Leornado of course). the movie has mentioned about this hoax, if i'm not mistaken, when robert langdon and miss sophie visits leigh teabing. 'that what they want us to believe', as teabing said.

these are only some of the excerpt from the documentary. most of them raise doubt about how true is this 'holy grail'.

as for me, being a muslim, i don't believe that 'holy grail' exist. yes, i believe that jesus is just a mere human being, not the son of god (but it's up to you what to believe). but i don't believe the existance of his bloodline. as i said, believe what you want to believe. coz you are what you believe in.

but as i said to zairi, there're some truth concerning the doubt that his bloodline does exist. it's said that his bloodline will someday reveal him/herself. but maybe it's not his bloodline that will reveal him/herself, maybe it's jesus himself who will one day reveal himself when the world come towards the end.

i'm not trying to be religious here. i'm trying to share my thoughts.

tegan & sara

this is my latest addiction! syikin mentioned this band to me so many times but i only get to listen to their songs for the first time from lokman. so jealous was the name of the album. it was the latest masterpiece from them. and i fell in love with them from the first song i've heard till now!

they've released at least 4 to 5 albums (if i'm not mistaken) and they play this catchy-indie-rock&roll tunes that you could dance for. i don't know how to describe this band more since i'm not familliar with this kind of music but you could stray your mind away from those 'post-rock' thingy since they have nothing to do with it. i'm not against the sudden explosion of the 'garage-retro-post rock' music. listening to this music for the first few minutes would be enjoyable, but not more than that. let just say that there are some kind of saturation point for this kind of music inside my ears.

and right now, i'm still waiting to get a hold of all their songs since all i've heard from them are the songs from the so jealous album and some tunes from other albums such as 'and darling', 'you went away' etc. and still, those songs are as good as the so jealous album. maybe you guys could take a peek at their myspace or their official website. i forgot the url but just search for yourself. i'll guarantee you'll find them. and for an additional information, they're canadian.

asschapel

i fell in love with this band the first few seconds i first heard their songs. this isn't your typical d-beat punk band, but don't lure your mind to the overly hyped 'epic crust' sound. some say this is the combination of thrash metal and punk but for me, what they've created isn't just a 'crossover'. yes, the pummeling sound of d-beat and thrash metal riffs may have created this audio 'cacophony', but with some rocking parts a-la motorhead and some parts i would rather describe as typical punk/hardcore riffs, this band surely make it ahead of my list. if you wanted thrash metal to be dirty and raw, this is the answer. i recomended the 'fire and destruction' album, but the others are as good as the one mentioned. they're on CAH records.