Ever since the movie Avatar got released, I’ve been getting mail chains saying it’s a copy of the Malayalam movie ‘Vietnam Colony’. Yesterday, almost 2 months after the movie got released, I went to watch it. And now, I’m so pissed off at all those people who heard the comparisons, believed it, and forwarded them by mails and mouth.
For those of you who haven’t seen the movie Vietnam Colony, here’s the summary. The hero gets a job with some real estate corporates who want him to go to a colony, make friends with the people there, and make them leave the place. Apparently, the colony stands in a very prospective location to build a shopping complex (or a housing colony. I don’t remember, but it doesn’t matter). The colony is ruled by a group of resident thugs who won’t leave the place, and won’t let the people either. The hero makes friends with the people, falls in love with a girl there, becomes one of them, and finally goes against the company.
Avatar has a similar story line. The Navi’s are a group of people (blue colored human like forms) who live under a huge tree (Tree of life) in the far away planet Pandora. Below this tree lies a huge deposit of a mineral called ‘Unobtainium’ which fetches about 20 million dollars for one kilo in the earth market. That’s more than enough for humans to go there are start mining. The only problem is that the Navi’s won’t move from their tree, because they believe that everything in nature is linked to everything else, and finally to this sacred tree. The hero tries to become a part of their tribe to learn about them, and eventually to tell them about the human invasion plan and negotiate the terms of their migration to another place, which never happens. He is unable to convince the Navi’s about the human military power; the humans attack and destroy the tree, along with killing a number of navi’s including their chief, and the Navi’s fled to another sacred tree called the ‘Tree of Souls’. The hero comes back to the Navi’s and unites many clans of this blue colored people, inspires them to fight the humans and finally defeats them.
Now, the people who saw the movie and came out saying it is Vietnam Colony in English with a lot more graphics and animation is (as I would assume) prejudiced. Avatar has a lot more in it than Vietnam Colony. The movie is not just about a snitch turning hostile. It’s about cutting the big tree. It’s about how human beings have gone to the extent of destroying Mother Nature for his own selfish reasons. The Navi’s are a group of people who believe that everything in their world is inter-connected. The trees, plants, animals, birds, insects and all other living organisms are part of a whole system, which is a balanced ecosystem. The humans came into this system and disrupted the Navi’s way of life. Their greed destroyed the whole balance of the system. This whole concept is similar to the one happening on earth today.
The human greed has grown so vast that the resources available on this once green planet will not be enough to sustain their life in the coming years. We used to read about the ill effects of felling trees years ago. Nobody anticipated the consequences, and continued cutting them down. Now, years later, the amount of carbon dioxide in the air has gone so high it’s causing the ice in the arctic to melt; and gifted us with the new problem -Global warming.
An ending where good prevails over evil is one which everyone looks forward to, and is more commercially viable. Avatar is one such movie. Even though the message is right there in front of everybody’s eyes to see, we act blind. Avatar is a movie with a simple message sewn into a simple story illustrated on a movie screen. But the directors imagination is magnanimous, and that make this simple movie very special.
So here‘s my question, what’s the message in Vietnam Colony?
