Films, film review
“My films are therapy for my debilitating depression. In institutions people weave baskets, I make films” -- Woody Allen
 |
| Woody Allen |
In a world where people live more often for mundane materialism which is as dull as weaving baskets, films are pulse graphs that record we are still alive! Drawing close parallels with life, good films make subtle reflections on the brooding philosophies of human existence. Good films often overwhelm us with the idea that life has more exciting things to it and thus help us shed the mosses of the inevitable humdrum. The famous French advertising slogan that says, “When you love life, you go to the movies,” it’s false! It’s exactly the opposite: when you don’t love life, or when life does not give you satisfaction, you go to the movies.
A Good film, like a good book, can alter the way we perceive the world. It can expose our range of thinking to new and wider vistas hitherto inexperienced. So, ‘let’s go then, you and I,’ as exactly as Eliot wanted his partner to go with him and ‘make our visit’ unto my cherry-picked lot of movies and have a glimpse at what great films look like.
First in my list is the 1993 American drama film directed by Lasse Hallstorm, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, starring Johnny Depp, Darlene Cates, and Leonardo DiCaprio. A feel-good movie expounding the life of a young man who is caught between his deep commitments to the family, that could not survive without him and his love for a woman whom he could not afford to lose.
To Kill A Mockingbird (1962), based on a novel of the same title by Harper Lee, views a highly prejudiced racist society through the eyes of an innocent child whose observations are candid, yet understanding are clouded. This coming-of-age movie contrasts the innocent perceptions of a child with the ideologically marred ones of adults and showcases the depravity of humility in an adult world which is always often materialistic
The two World Wars that are notorious for dismantling the very base of western civilization into a handful of dust had been a material for generations of writers and film makers to document the quintessential nature of life. War movies have even developed into an independent genre afterwards. All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), based on Erich Maria Ramarque’s novel of the same name, is a heart rending depiction of the plight of a generation whose coming of age coincided with the First World War. The movie stresses upon the meaninglessness of war and the immensity of the loss that accompanies it by depicting the life of a set of young soldiers at the war field and the kind of moral dilemmas and ultimate sad end they all experience.
The Holocaust that marked the culmination of human potential for cruelty has also lured the creative faculties of artists, including film makers resulting in the emergence of a tradition of Holocaust movies. Life is Beautiful (1997), directed by and starring Roberto Benigni, is a Holocaust movie with a difference. The movie successfully depicts the brutality of the concentration camps even without a single scene of violence. It's a manifestation of the power of humor to make human heart bleed!
Extra ordinary lives of great figures were an all-time favorite in the realm of movies. Bio-pictures often portray the immensity of human faculty. One such movie is the final food for our journey, A Beautiful Mind (2001), directed by Ron Howard. Based on the troubled personal life of John Nash, the Nobel Laureate in Mathematics, the movie takes us to the trouble of alternate reality that exist for mentally ill people. It even revolutionized the very concept of madness. John Nash who successfully fights his mind’s contriving, and finally climbs the zenith of his career ladder is an everlasting inspiration to the entire human kind.
No comments:
Post a Comment