WoTD: hauteur

Definition:
1: haughty manner, spirit, or bearing; haughtiness; arrogance.

In the balcony seat elevated above the stage, Madeleine arranged herself into the pose of a royal princess, her gloved hands prim atop her skirted knees, her feet smart in spit shiny shoes. Pantomime light gathered on her face, seeking to lighten and engage. It failed. Though only twelve years old, Madeleine's upstart manner, stiffly raised chin and aloof gaze betrayed burgeoning arrogance. The child emulated her mother, a woman with the inbred hauteur of third generation aristrocracy leavened on a shoestring budget. Worse than a true blue blood with wealth to their name, the Carson's affluence bought only so much. It did not buy respect.

WoTD: embonpoint

Definition:
1: plumpness of person; stoutness

Her embonpoint, so massive that she turned sideways to walk through the door, failed to bother her as it did her husband. Ray, himself so stout that he sat on the toilet seat to urinate because he could no longer reach his genitals by hand, glowered at her from across the room. She cast him a vagrant smile then wafted -- well, lumbered actually -- over to the couch. Steering herself around like a huge double decker bus, she lined up her massive behind with the cushions and lowered herself down. Partway there her knees gave out and down she went like an out of control truck. Her buttocks collided with a meaty thunk that punished the couch cushions and tortured the springs. Wheezing out a breath, she settled herself comfortably, deliberately ignorant of Ray's condescending stare.
"Two can play this game, dear," she said. "Remember who started it."
His grumbled response made her laugh.

WoTD: lambent

Definition:
1: playing lightly on or over a surface; flickering; as "a lambent flame; lambent shadows"
2: softly brightly or radiant; luminous; as "a lambent light"
3: light and brilliant; as "a lambent style; lambent wit."

We hid in the shadows, Hester and I, our skirts over our knees, our socked feet itching from the cold. We should have been in bed but not even the fear of father finding us stopped us from being there. From our vantage point atop the stairs, we watched the men seated around the table. There were five of them, Shannon O'Dwyer the youngest at seventeen, a carrot top with eyes too big for his head, and his father, Matthew, the oldest at a number I couldn't remember let alone imagine. Father sat with them, his dark hair long around his face, his shoulders stooped as though weighed by a burden I could not see. The men were there for him, to help him, that much I knew. They sat in the near dark and talked in low tones, conspiring. The only light came from the fireplace, orange flames that tossed lambent light into the room, an ineffective panacea to the dark gloom and famished desperation. The light didn't reach my father. I doubted anything now could.

WoTD: clinquant

Definition:
1: glittering with gold or silver; tinseled
2: tinsel; imitation gold leaf.

When I returned home summer had turned to autumn and the trees were beginning to lose their leaves. I spent much time outside, working the garden, pulling weeds, emptying bag upon bag of junk from dad's garage. The more I took away the more there seemed to be there as though a part of him refused to let go of all he had amassed -- refused to give way to my need to grieve. When I had done all I could, which was much less than I had wanted, I started the long walk back to Ron's house. The sun set before me, running beams through the trees like blades through crystal. Twinkling light, a clinquant cast on dying leaves, offered an ethereal beauty that would bewitch if I so allowed it. I wouldn't, not anymore. I had grown wise.

WoTD: collude

Definition: to act in concert; to conspire; to plot.

"How did you get it done?"
"I had help."
"From the big guns?"
"Maybe."
"I wouldn't say maybe. I'd say definately. You don't get this kind of thing done in two days unless you've had help. Big help. This reeks of some serious conspiring."
"Maybe."
"Who'd you collude with? No way did you organise this on your own. It was Sheena, wasn't it? She's well connected. She could get this done."
"I'm not saying."
"You don't need to. I'll figure it out. You're not that smart."

GB: Avatar

It's a rare event for me to go to the cinema to see a movie. My preference, nowadays, is to watch dvd's. It's cheaper, more comfortable and there are no theatre ushers to complain about feet on seats, hot food or noisy talking. Plus, you can pause, rewind or fast forward. Imagine doing those things in a cinema.

Avatar is different. It's not a movie, it's an experience. Or as one reviewer recently wrote: 'it's an EVENT'. For $16 and the small discomfort of wearing 3D glasses for two hours and forty minutes, I traveled to another world, a place never imagined but so real, so tangible, so convincing that I accept it into my understanding of all that exists as true.

The story is captivating and engaging. Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a paraplegic war veteran, adopts his dead brother’s avatar in an attempt to win the trust of the indigenous people (the Na’vi) so that he can negotiate their relocation. Their village rests over an immense and valuable mineral store. Either the Na’vi must be moved or be killed – the latter being an acceptable final option. Jake’s reward for a successful infiltration will be surgery to restore the use of his legs. The prize is personal and he is highly motivated to bewitch and betray. I cared for him. I cared about the outcome, about what is at stake for him and the physical and emotional toll of the work. Moreover I cared about the people he is charged with displacing.

The events unfold at a kaleidoscopic pace and though the story is not new – really, what story is – the presentation knocks this film out of the ball park. The people, plants and creatures are so realistic, magnificent and awesome that it contorts my mind to remind myself that they are fantasy. Ordinarily, CGI work, regardless of how well crafted, is unable to trick the mind. I watch and engage but do not believe beyond the adventure that plays out before me. The deception fails to endure. This was not the case with Avatar.

The environment is depth perfect; finely rendered with light, colour, contrast, movement, perception and contour. Forests are rich from the upper canopy to the soil and shrub layer. Sky islands tower and cluster, suspended by a force beyond our known physics. Trees, monumental in size and height, form branched bridges hundreds of feet above the ground. Beautiful, fragile jelly-like illuminated floating seeds waft and throb with a life force barely imagined, and flying, pterosaur-like creatures with skins of stunning mosaics soar and glide as though woven to the sky. Height features heavily in many scenes and acrophobics may need to buckle themselves in.

The Na'vi are as stunning as their environment. These people, so very human and yet distinctly not, bewitched me. Tall, lithe and agile, they are sculpted humans with cat-like ears and sweeping tails. They live as one with the forest, trusting and accepting the right of all to life and liberty. They accept Jake’s avatar as one of their own and train him to communicate and bond with the animals. Eventually they make him a Na’vi warrior though they know he is one of the sky people (a human imposter). Not all humans have been so accepted and it seems to me that, despite his conscious deception, they knew him better than he knew himself.

An environmental, sociological and philosophical message throbs deep within the narrative. One reviewer suggested that the story was written by an ‘aging hippy’, and maybe that’s the case but the beauty of this film is that the viewer can choose to be affected (and changed) by the subtext or to be innocently entertained. The delivery is the magic.

The climax, catastrophic and demanding, is long, enduring and emotionally draining but oh so deliciously daring and visually wrenching. Played out in unparalleled 3D, I dare anyone to watch and hold their popcorn steady throughout.

I can’t wait to see it again! I just have to save up another $16 and find someone who wants to come with me. Any takers?