Thursday, April 4, 2013

Movies That made me think- Part 1

This week, while battling with the truckloads of work I had for studio, I had the opportunity ( I was making my model, hence I was multitasking, hence I was not slacking) to watch a few movies. Four in particular made me think a lot, and these thoughts I want to share with you here.. There will be spoilers, just warning you guys in advance. Im not reviewing these movies, only picking up on certain aspects which intrigued me. All these movies are bloody amazing, and I highly recommend watching them.
I shall be covering two movies in this post, lest I should make it so long that nobody reads it till the end. In order of my watching them-

1. Never Let Me Go (2010)- Starring Keira Knightley, Andrew Garfield and Carey Mulligan.
  
This movie, based on a novel by the same name, is centred around three friends who are from a particular school, a school created for raising children, cloned for the sole purpose of donating organs to the sick, until they "complete". 

So these kids are basically raised for slaughter. Little mercy is shown whilst they remove their organs, because they do not have the fear of losing the donor. Any organ can be donated this way. 

What scared me about this movie was the fact that it was so damn believable. It was so easy to believe that there were schools out there, cloning children, raising them to see them die before their time.
Makes you question humanity dosen't it? 

This movie also pulls in the concept of young love, and the pain of losing someone you love. also the agony of hopes crashing, that little flame which glowed inside your heart for so short a time before it is cruelly snuffed out. It also speaks of acceptance. At the end, the main protagonist (who is also narrating these incidents) has accepted her fate; and she has accepted the fact that she lost the love of her life but that she isnt far behind. 
Imagine going through your life knowing when you are going to die.  Would you make it count? 
I think the luckiest ones are the ones who die in full acceptance, without a twinge of regret or fear or happiness in the fact that they are dying. 

At the end of the day though, how much different is the life of the person you are saving? A life for a life? Is the worth of one life much more than another? How is the fate of the receiver any different from the donor's after we all "complete"? 
That is a question worth asking. 


2.An Education ( 2009)- Starring Carey Mulligan, Peter Saarsgard, Emma Thompson. 

This is a British coming- of-age tale of a sixteen year old schoolgirl who gets seduced by a man nearly twice her age. Apart from the fact that this movie would make any self-respecting parent want to lock their daughters up in their rooms for all eternity, it does raise a few thoughts.

The point is, Jenny ( Carey Mulligan) is fed up of her dreary repetitive life, days of toil to fulfill her father's dream of her getting into Oxford. She longs to see the world and experience it; the sights, the smells, the sounds, the excitement of parties, meeting famous people, going to Paris and so on. So naturally when she meets this man who can give her all these things, she falls for him. She does get to experience these things, but after they get engaged, she finds out that he is already married. Her heart is broken, and she resolves to work harder in school and university and live her life the right way,

Ok my thoughts now: Consider the title itself. There is a line in the movie wherein Jenny says " I feel old, but not very wise." implying that she has been through a lot, and the experiences she had now make her feel very foolish. But think about it, what is the value of the education she received form this experience? She was allowed to involve herself in the activities she had only dreamed of, but also learnt the pain of heartbreak and suffered for it. This experience made her wiser than school ever did. Through this experience she realises the value of school and a degree. 

There is also a scene in the movie where she is having an argument with her headmistress who says that studying is hard and boring. Jenny then wonders if the whole point of education was to be bored her whole life. 
We study so much, and do so much work everyday..All for what? If we die the moment we graduate, its the things we do before that which matter.  I may be contradicting myself at this point, but it is a question that has irked me for years.. when does all this work actually matter?  
So i guess what we take away from this is: Make your work matter. When you die, you mustn't go with any form of regret. Love your work, and love the good times, too.

Make life matter, peeps.   

Keep an eye open for Part 2 folks! It will feature The Breakfast Club and Patch Adams. 

Have an awesome weekend :)