ok. im writing on a movie in which everyone ended up committing suicide and how this movie affects my life
im saying how i saw the characters in the movie in monotonous pursuit of meaningless achievement (money) ...and i say how i kidna felt the same as my life is quite repetitive and my life was only aiming for good grades. i got used to this way of living that i was quite oblivious to the real world which i believe is anything but insipid.
but instead of killing myself :o, i took action. i changed my learning environment and tried to get in touch with the world and blah.
but some people say my essay is kinda suicidal mainly because of the movie....
is it really dangerous and a bad topic to write on?
I think that as long as you express what you've learnt from it, it won't be bad.
What was the movie by the way?
Yeah, I agree.
Always try to get the good things out of your movie and reflection on yourself would be nice~~
LOL
none of the ppl i know heard of it
The Seventh Continent by Michael Haneke?
haneke is quite famous tho i think
Hey, your screen name is great. Is it a twisted derivation of "Jessica?"
You can write about a movie with deep subject matter like this. You can even write about how you could relate to it, but do it in a way that shows that you are very clear-headed. You know, a famous author names Eckhart Tolle writes in the intro to his book The Power of Now about how he felt suicidle at one time. If you go to a bookstore and read that intro story, it might help you see how to fix your essay so that you will sound very clear-headed. That book might change your life, too!
You can also post your essay here, and we will tell you if it seems to have been written by a clear-headed person. :)
This is a risky topic but a deep one. You want to provide an essay that shows a stable, productive person who is growing. Like other people said, focus it more on maybe how you value life and what you see in your own life that would make you want to LIVE rather than do what the characters in the book did. You can say how you have the bad days but your good days and your love of life's unknowns, windfalls, excitement etc. is what makes you happy rather than depressed like the characters. Hopefully this clarifies how you should and shouldn't go about writing this.
heehee yes my screen name is a derivation of jessica : )
ok heres my essay but its pretty long...
and english is not my first language so there will be bad wordings and grammar mistakes
THANKS!!
The Seventh Continent. My Seventh Continent.
Among the colorful 3D fonts, the photoshopped faces of celebrities, and the nicely packaged DVD boxes, its simplicity stood out like a rock in a sea of diamonds. A picture of a beach first jumped into my eyes. On the black space that was below the picture were printed three stark red words: "The Seventh Continent". My hands were drawn towards the DVD and the next thing I knew I was at the cashier. That night, I could wait no longer so I called my friends over to find out what was beneath that seemingly dull cover.
The Seventh Continent tells a tragedy of an affluent family which commits suicide for no apparent reason. The first part of the movie depicts the family's daily life in which everything is repetitive and insipid. Ann and Georg, an optician and an engineer respectively, never communicate with their clients; their hands are always swiftly moving over the cash register or the computer and their faces are devoid of emotion. Their daughter Eva, on the other hand, desperately seeks attention from her parents by lies and self-destruction. In the next part of the movie, the family decides to move to Australia. One day Ann and Georg start destroying everything in the house and later commit suicide, through which they wish to be liberated from this world to the Seventh Continent, their dream land.
When the movie was over, I glanced sideways to find my friends either sleeping or playing with their cell phones. But I was jolted by a sudden realization: this movie is a mirror which not only reflects the defects in the society (such as the isolation people experience under capitalism) but also some of the flaws in my way of living.
A complete and caring family, entertaining and loving friends, and a prestigeous school. I had them all. And yet from time to time I felt something was wrong. What was it? I had been asking myself for a few years. Now the answer was exposed before me. It was the monotonous pursuit of meaningless achievement. I saw myself wake up every morning, go to school, sit at the back of the class and stare blankly at the teacher; as long as I kept silent and did not interrupt the lecture I would be considered a well-behaved student. Besides, everything the teacher taught is in the books. After school, classmates and I started entertaining each other with trivia in daily lives; we laughed for 30 minutes and we departed for home. When I got home, I walked straight to my room to do homework or cram up answers for questions on past exam papers. I found myself used to or, even worse, complacent about this way of living, so accustomed that I was oblivious to the real world which can be dynamic and vital.
Despite the epiphany I experienced after the movie, I did not sympathize with Ann and Georg; in fact, I despised them for choosing self-destruction as their last resort. I understood that the dreadful and disturbing ending was an artistic device used to highlight the despair in Ann and Georg and the only way to force the audience to reflect. I must admit the film achieved its purpose. However, self-destruction was deplorable to me. It was a sign of weakness and immaturity. It was the same as children pulling their hair out because they could not play with their favorite toys.
I did not want to be anything like Ann or Georg. Merely watching news or documentaries on TV and reading TIME or National Geographic could no longer satisfy my desire to crush the wall between the world and me. Every night I craddled myself to sleep by imagining that I was lying on the tundra in Northern Canada or trotting through the deep sand of Sahara desert. Every day when I took the bus, I envisioned how my life might change when I grew up and underwent successes and failures. But there is no point dreaming if the dreams can not come true. So when a chance I decided to get out of my castle by changing my learning environment: from my present school to an international school.
That was the first step and it was never easy for me. I was torn between deeply rooted traditional Chinese culture I was comfortable with and the multi-variegated cultures that I was not used to. For the first time I had classmates of different ethnicities and nationalities. In class, there was never an answer waiting to be found at the end of the book or in the teachers' manual. Sometimes I had to come up with the questions and methods of investigation myself amd sometimes there was not always an answer in the end. Some of my friends asked me why I made the choice if I knew that I was not going to feel comfortable about it, calling me a masochist because I like to put myself in discomfort. I said no. I like the process of overcoming discomfort and becoming a new person. As I learned to accept different peoples, viewpoints, and ways of doing things I started to enjoy the excitement that the new environment brought through activities such as exchange trips to Vietnam and Japan and volunteer work at the Spastics Association in which I was always surprised to see a different facet of the world.
The wall is starting to crumble. I now see the world through various small peep-holes. But no matter what, I am already one step closer to my own Seventh Continent, in which I can embrace the world as a whole, sooner or later.
thanks !!
can anyone pls edit my essay :' (
i need helppp
That night, I could wait no longer, so I called my friends over to find out what was beneath that seemingly dull cover.
The Seventh Continent tells a tragedy of an affluent family all members of which commit suicide for no apparent reason.
A complete and caring family, entertaining and loving friends, and a prestigious school -- I had them all. And yet, from time to time I felt something was wrong.
After school, classmates and I started entertaining each other with trivia in daily lives; we laughed for thirty minutes and we departed for home.
Every night I cradled myself to sleep by imagining that I was lying on the tundra in Northern Canada or trotting through the deep sand of Sahara desert.
Sometimes I had to come up with the questions and methods of investigation myself and sometimes there was not always an answer in the end.
I really like this sentence: I now see the world through various small peep-holes.
Wow, awesome ending. Great job! Check out the EF Contributor page! I want to ask, though, are you sure about the spelling of Georg? Usually it is spelled "George."
thanks a lot!!!!!!
yah its georg...cos the film is in German so i guess its sort of like a German version of George
oh and im kinda concern about the content...i mean its quite long and im afraid its gonna bore the adcom to death : P