Waterboys

Thursday Oct 8

Last night was opening night of a 4-night film festival being hosted by the Japanese Embassy. It seems out of place to be blogging about a film festival in Pohnpei but its true. For the next 3 nights a Japanese film will be showing at the local theater.

Last night we saw Waterboys. It was a feel-good film about a group of nerdy high school boys who start a synchronized swim team. For those not familiar with it, synchronized swimming is a sport that somehow blends ballerinesque moves with a swimming pool being performed by a team. Physically demanding though it must be, its an all-girl sport.

What struck me most was that the formula plot and the scripted characters seemed to have been taken straight from America. I had to wonder if the script writer had been influenced by (or was imitating) by American pop film and culture. Given that the Richard Gere movie Shall We Dance was a re-make of a Japanese film by the same name, I had to consider that maybe its American film thats copying Japanese.

Alternatively, maybe people really are the same the world over and the similar themes/characters developed independently but similarly?