Hi,
Where I live in United Arab Emirates in the city of Dubai where there are different multi-culture and citizens from all over the world. Majority are from Asia, India, Pakistan and Philippines. Me, origin from the Gulf - Arab.
Went out to have good time with my family two older daughters, after we had a nice dinner we decided to hit the the movies not far from the same shopping mall. Movies in UAE mostly are in English, Arabic, Hindi with other different languages from India maybe Malayalam and other languages.
So that day we reached at the counter and screen quick for the most suitable movie that I can watch with 13 and 16 years old daughters. We could not find much and most of them already started maybe 10mins ago. Younger daughter saw one movie, on the booklet of the current movies playing, where is clearly title of the movie mentioned 'Philip and the Monkey pen" with a picture of a kid and two adults and is comedy. Since I wear contact lenses, I have difficult times to see closer such a movie booklets although I can see it but not clearly. Movie selected and ticket purchased - all in our mind we are going to watch English Comedy movie.
Inside the theater there were about 2 or 3 families, movie started and with background light I identified those families are from Indian origin, kind surprised me, as very rare for them to spend money on English Comedy movie. Anyway, we sat and watch the movie that was translated in Arabic and all characters speaking in a - honest I don;t know exactly but I think was Malayalam language from part of India.
Let me tell you something, we never ever go and watch movie other than English and rarely Arabic or Indian movies - Bollywood, but this one ",,,the monkey pen" was even not of any languages. So I think the title confused us. Took time to adjust and slowly minute by minute we sank into the story and time to time we joke with each other how we end up seeing such a movie. In our part of the world, if such movie is showing I can say 100% who will watch are the one who knows that language, and for us to see is like very strange, if others they will just walk out in few minutes. But we did not, and I tried to be open minded, and also the good think is it was translated in Arabic so it kept me going. Honestly at the end we were glad that we watched the full movie. It was so inspiring and well directed. The first chapter before the interval was like introducing the characters and 2nd was exciting. It was about the school kids - and most suitable for kids and adults alike.
We learned and Inspire us about the relation of parents and their kid, our parents with their parents, life at early stage at school, about teachers and pupil, friendships, culture boundary and how to live together - The main character parents, father was Christian and mother was Muslim. We laughed, we cry and and we did really enjoy the movie.
Lesson Learned: Never under estimate anything. Do not stick to the customs - for us was like if we knew from the ticket counter that the movie was in another Indian language, although the title was in English, we will never watch. So we are all glad we watched this movie by chance and really enjoyed.
Lets us be Open Minded and Try New Things - We never Know in process we may expand our Knowledge and learn new things.
Watch thew trailer below of the movie:
