The Phantom of The Opera (POTO)

One of the thing that keep popping in my mind right after the exam is to watch The Phantom of The Opera movie at TGV. Ever since I read the literature book when I was 14 years old, I always find the story is a very fascinating piece of literature. Somewhat between love, hate, anger and mystery. So, I booked two tickets through the TGV phone ticketing reservation this morning and managed to get the seats at 5.30pm. Right after office hour, my friend and I dashed to KLCC. Even though my car created some problem when we reached the parking lot, but it did not killed my mood and eager to watch the show. I expected a long queue at the counters coz it’s Wednesday at the ticket price is cheaper compared to other days but not many people were there.

Anyway, after purchasing the ticket and bought popcorns and coke, we watched some trailers which were shown at the screen nearby. At 5.20pm, we were allowed to enter and how am I very glad to find that our seats are right in the middle, almost perfect. At 5.30pm, the movie appeared after a few minutes of Nokia messages ads shown to remind people the etiquette of watching movie in a cinema. The opening was grand. It started with a flashback and fast pace into the real time. The casts are new to me as I don’t recall knowing any of them. The classical music soars throughout the 2 hours and most of the time we will be only listening to the actor and actress singing because the originality of POTO from stage musical to movie makes it diffcult to tell the story in ordinary way. About 70% of the stories were told in songs. The main song of the movie was really good, so does the others songs. If you like classical music, you will definitely like the songs in this movie.

Basically the story is about the Phantom who lives under the Paris Opera house which claimed to be haunted after a great accident happened in it. It was reopen again and it attracted great crowd. It stages several stage shows throughout the movie. A new comer, Christine who is the lead vocal of the show is being admired by the Phantom who at the same time is the person who taught her how to sing wonderfully. It’s more like a triangle kind of love affair between Christine, the Phantom and Christine’s childhood sweetheart, Viscount Raoul. If you think the Phantom (Erik) is a ghost, you are wrong. He’s actually a guy with half of his face badly burned which makes he feel humiliated and lower self-esteem. When he was a kid, he used to be kept in a cage and shown to people who came to a Gypsi circus and claimed to be the child of ghost due to his bad looking face. He was kept and tied in the cage until one day he killed his master and ran away with a girl who watched the show and kept him in a safe place. A very special musical movie. It’s better to watch it yourself to understand the whole story.

As I was enjoying and deeply concentrating with the storyline while inspire with the design of the casting set, I felt annoyed with some of the people who either doesn’t understand the message/reminder that the Nokia ads had given earlier or simply arrogant and foolish. A loud well-known ringtones rouse in the middle of the movie and a girl answered it loudly till everyone in the room able to hear every bit of her conversation. She was shouting to the caller saying she can’t hear him/her. Grrr…several people started to hush and make complaints directly to her but she just pretend not to hear and continue talking with the caller. Then, not long after that a group of girls can be heard giggling at the back. I was quite amazed on the way they able to extract the message of the movie as I was unable to find any amuse act during that scene. It was quite a serious and suspense scene, actually. A few more ringing can be heard throughout the movie. At the end of the movie, I assumed that some of the audience don’t have any idea what is POTO all about. Maybe they expected a horror movie and when they found that it was a musical movie (mind you, it’s classical and not rock or hip hop), it tends to make them bored and they started to chat among themselves. At least, they should respect other audience if they don’t want to leave the place. Urrghh..talking bout Malaysian bad etiquette. Please, can some one tell me if there is still cellphones selling in the market that is not equipped with silent mode. Even though our folks are not widely exposed to musical stage especially classical, but it’s not an excuse for behaving badly in the cinema. I was satisfied with the movie but pissed off with the surrounding mood. I should have try the Gold class offered in GSC.

For those who have not watch this movie yet, do not waste your money and time if you think Sound of Music and Marry Poppins are very boring (no offence,eh). For more info of the movies and to listen to the songs from the movie, click at the links below. Overall, I find the movie very interesting and I am looking forward to purchase the soundtrack soon. My favourite tracks are Overture and The Phantom of The Opera.

Main Casts of POTO:



Patrick Wilson as Viscount Raoul    Emmy Rossum as Christine  Gerarld Butler as The Phantom

POTO Movie website
POTO Soundtrack


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