Ode to Around-ing the World

How appropriate that after my trans-pacific, cross-continental travels I watch a man and his minority sidekick accomplish the feat in a mere eighty days. I have to admit, I had no interest in the movie other than the notable Oscar in the corner (winner for best picture in 1957) and the elaborate drawing of the hot air balloon on the DVD cover. I have a soft spot for hot air balloons and journeys made therein; Pippi Longstocking did it and so did this French guy in a children’s book I love so dearly.

I’ve had this desire to see every best picture. Something about the Oscar label makes me think watching that film can be a nice snapshot of film in that year, and a good 2-hour investment of a somewhat timeless cinematic experience. A best picture of one year will surely be considered notable for years and years to come, right?

It seems, however, that those years do have a limit. Never mind the sexually charged, perpetually tardy, “ethnic” sidekick (Passepartout is supposed to be Latin?) contrasted with the uptight, painfully punctual, libido frozen Brit Phileas Fogg. And never mind that Shirley MacLaine played an Indian (yes INDIAN) princess. I thought the movie was…dare I say it, boring. I understand that the film was made in a different era, made in the fashion of a genre with strict rules. But watching these three tackle one national obstacle after another, I might as well have been watching a home video of my relatives in Korea battling for the remote

I understand where the movie is coming from and making this film must have truly been an achievement back in 57. Released in a time when people were preparing to send people out into space, the filmmakers must have been aiming for Jules Verne's theme of possibility in all things impossible (I haven’t read the book, actually, so I could be totally off, but that’s what I gathered from the film’s introduction). But to me, this grand and truly timeless theme Verne put forth in his novel definitely did not translate here. It was just, the British guy, the ethnically ambiguous guy with a Mexican accent, and Shirley where’s-your-red-hair MacLaine in traditional Indian garb running through one continental diorama after another.

Around the World in Eighty Days
***