Across the Universe

By chance I watched most part of Across the Universe on telly. A musical set in the 60s, with cutting edge visual technique and the Beatles songbook. The movie was beautifully executed, after all the director was Julie Taymor, who gave us the Broadway musical Lion King. Taymor has this way of knitting the dialogues and the songs in such way that the transition between them are smooth all through out the movie.

The arrangements are sometimes familiar, but sometime altered in a way that you found another mood in the songs that you had never knew before. Who would've thought of setting The Beatles songs against Vietnam war? Of course the story became a romance in the middle of an anti-war movement after one of the characters went to Nam.

The main characters' name are from the Beatles songs, Lucy, an American girl who just moved to New York and Jude, a Liverpudlian who works his way to the USA. I'm surprised I've never heard of this movie before. Now I should pay more attention when they are going to screen it again so I can watch it again, and again.