Polar Express

For those of you out there who have never heard of this movie title..... I'd better keep what I think to myself. For those of you who have heard but never watched... I'd better keep what I think to myself even more. And for those of you who have heard, watched, listened and walked out of the cinema unchanged, then really, stop reading here because nothing I say will ever change your heart. And for the very few, perhaps just one too, who have heard, watched, seen, listened, come out a changed man, and even perhaps given their two Euro cents' worth of their opinion to the nation, well I hope what I say holds water if nothing else. I'd like my opinion to hold a Christmas pudding instead of water, but water is so calorie-free, you've just got to love it. Because yes, I've been there, for a good five years which I call my five years of being a hermit, I coveted movies as if they were all I had. And perhaps they were all I had as company. I've gone through some really handicapped movies. But one movie which changed me faster then any of the protagonists on Arani Issa (trid tara biex temmen SIC!) was in fact, Polar Express. In my humble, very own words, because I am no movie critic, this animated movie is as good for adults as it is for children. If you enjoy this one, then you will live forever young, if you don't, then please book yourself a one way ticket to Tagikistan. Polar Express is what appeals to the young in any adult. And the little boy who gets to go on a fantastic train ride to meet Father Christmas remains etched in my brain, ever since 2004. I would have watched this movie anyway, because I was on a five-year movie-watching spree at the time, but what drew me more curiously to it was its director Robert Zemeckis who had already directed movies which had stuck to me like a clam; Back to the Future, Forrest Gump, and What Lies beneath, three movies as diverse as anything can get. And while Forrest will somehow always have all my admiration, Polar Express comes in as a very close second. Even more moving are the soundtracks of all four movies, with Polar Express' "When Christmas Comes To Town" summing it all in a nutshell. Because if you can still see with the same magical innocence known to children, then the magic is all yours, at your feet. Only then can anybody start to understand the magic that lies behind all the hope which little people hang on. And if anybody understands that, then suddenly life becomes a magical train ride, not without hiccups, train tickets are sometimes lost, but replaced through the magic of faith.