A hundred years later

On April 15, 1912 the biggest man-made moving object on earth moved to the bottom of the Atlantic.

Exactly a hundred years later, I went to watch the movie Titanic today in a 3D theatre. However, this short post is not a review. There's no point reviewing a movie that came out fifteen years ago and has been seen multiple times by most people of our generation.

I know what a lot of critics say: Titanic is like the Twilight of disaster movies. It is a melodramatic, mushy, Bollywood-style over-the-top and unrealistic romantic film which did not deserve many of the eleven Academy Awards that it received. I would probably agree. I'll also confess that I like the movie. The movie brought back a lot of memories of my childhood - of school and early college days when I would listen to "My heart will go on" in endless loop.

When Titanic came out in 1997, I was in school and did not get a chance to watch it in theatres. English movies did not run for multiple weeks in Allahabad and the theatres in Allahabad were not too technologically advanced at the time anyway. I watched it much later on TV. I watched it several times since then. The last time was probably a decade ago. For me, Jurassic Park and Titanic were two movies that really redefined what technology could do in a movie. We have had all kinds of special effects since then - be it in the department of large animals wreaking havoc or in the portrayal of colossal loss of life and property - but we have never had anything that can beat the experience of watching Jurassic Park or Titanic for the first time.

My experience was incomplete. I completed it today by watching the RMS Titanic go down on big screen, in 3D, with surround sound. Who cares if it is a mushy love story? I enjoyed every moment of it!