i like motion pictures

ive noticed ive an inclination towards films that use a fun, summer, dumb kind of context to package messages far deeper than they explicitly market themselves. in other words, satirical allegories usually do it for me.

i wasnt too excited about The Invention of Lying when it came out in 2009, but although i admit its obvious flaws, i should've given the involvement of Ricky Gervais more credit. after all, the man's Britain's most prolific award-winning comic.

if there's one way to call it, my fave film critic Roger Ebert echoed my sentiments ably: "I saw the trailer for The Invention of Lying and expected to dislike it. [But it's] a much better movie than the trailer dares to admit."

the "remarkably radical" premise adds a slight yet monumental twist to contemporary society: no one lies cos no one knows how to, and everyone only speaks the truth. within this premise, Gervais peels off two layers of society to examine.

doctrines and love.

the key question to the first is, can doctrines exist without lies? most major religions as we know them started cos we listened to a couple of individuals. we believed them. but what justified the trust, and what still justifies it today? they said there are gods, but where such ideas come from remains fuzzy.

and so do many other things. heaven, hell, the afterlife... fuzzy, but they work fine as long as you have adequate faith. what are sins, how bad is bad, how evil can you go... of course it got a bit tricky for Gervais when the masses wonder why the gods do both good and bad to people. but the most telling came when someone asks how come these doctrinal information suddenly popped up millions of years into mankind's existence?

in a moving scene at the end, as Gervais' character attempts to steal the bride, everyone - and ultimately she - asks what does He want for her? cornered, and even though he yearns for her, Gervais chooses to walk away and not perpetuate his epic lie.

this brings me to the film's equal focus on the concept of love. at best, the romantic subplot is ordinary, often underdeveloped and strange. but it deftly scores several statements within the film's motto of honesty. here, romance almost always means verbalising your thoughts, which are often purely based on the superficial. but as Gervais' character learns to lie, he also learns to see beyond the external, able to imagine the inner beauty of his dream girl.

because love is not just solid facts. it is fiction, it is fantasy, it is a fairytale. it is faith in the irrational. in lying, Gervais understands love, and he tries to open her eyes to it.