Botoking
“Fight and you may die, Run and you’ll live…..at least a while. And dying in your beds, many years from now. Would you be willing to trade all the days, from this day to that. For one chance, just one chance, to come back and tell our enemies that they may take our lives. But they will never take our freedom.” – Mel Gibson (Braveheart).
Which person hasn’t been greatly moved and touched by this speech of Sir William Wallace. This movie stirs up something deep in our hearts: the yearning to be something better than our present selves. Human beings are emotional creatures. We take great pleasure in expressing our emotions. Joy, sorrow, pleasure, pain, happiness, discontentment, anger, frustration….……..a whole gamut of feelings runs in each human being’s blood, and our lives are so much richer in terms of quality when we are able to experience all these.
Movies play a larger part than we think in the formation of our characters. It is often said that an individual’s character can be assessed through the movies viewed. I believe this theory is plausible to a certain extent though there may be a few exceptions. For a child, parental guidance is always recommended and definitely needed. Children should be gradually taught to make the right choices in movie selection. Know this, that the movies that a child watches will ultimately play a big role in the child’s outlook, attitude and behaviour towards life.
We, assuming that you are an adult reading this, seldom realize how important it is to be careful in making choices with regard to movies. The ‘visual ability’ of an individual is one of the most powerful tools at our disposal. We can utilize it to the fullest by enabling it to further strengthen our character or we can be careless and abuse this power. “With great power comes great responsibility.” – Spiderman.
While approaching the issue of making the right choices, I find that this is easier said than done. How do we define what is good and what is bad ? For what may be one man’s food may be another man’s poison. Briefly speaking, would you like to read what I believe may work? Here goes – I sincerely believe that whatever inspires a man to the higher values of his mental, psychological and physical well-being. A few examples I can cite are ‘A Beautiful Mind’, ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ and ‘The Pianist’.
On the other hand of the balance, we are all aware of the stranglehold of movies which encourage a negative outlook towards life. Sometimes these movies are so powerful that they leave a lasting impression in our minds and twist the very nature of our being.
Again, all this is a matter of personal discretion. Though we are influenced by external and internal factors, I must add that a fair assessment of any movie should be done before we pass a judgement on it. Obviously, each one of us is nothing but the product of our environment. Rather, we are all the result of our senses – see, hear, smell, touch, taste and feel. To a certain extent, we do have the power to make sure that we control our senses and guide ourselves to a higher plane of insight and wisdom. The role that movies play in our lives can never be understated. It involves the senses of seeing, hearing and feeling. In this info-tech age of instant satiation, the tastes, choices and preferences of mankind has undergone a sea of change. The demands of our time leave us little room for reading books, discussing issues over simple cups of tea or even reminiscing all alone under the stars at night. You and I are not at fault for all these changes in our lifestyles. Likewise, what we must do is accept all that is happening, adjust and move on. “Time and tide wait for none” – Old proverb. How can we find our own place in the sun while being true to our sense of morals, ethics and the human spirit? This is an inevitable question in the end, to which each one of us can answer for himself or herself. No individual can answer for the other – friend or foe. This is because we all usually react differently to the same situation at any given time or place.
Coming back to the topic at hand…….. In the premise that you agree that each one reacts differently, we can conclude that each one of us may also react differently to the same movie. This is the beauty of the human race. After all - red, white, black, brown and yellow – aren’t we all coloured people ? So diverse are we, even in the colour of our skins yet our genetic code remains the same. This gives us a good clue to what we may have not realized, i.e. when it comes down to the basics after stripping away all the superficial layers on us, we are all the same. Thus, we find that the greatest movies ever known to mankind are those that enable us to reach down to the depths of our human spirit………baring and exposing what lies deep beneath us……….raising our aspirations and making what seems impossible at first so easy to conquer.
‘Change is the only thing that remains consistent in this world’- Would you agree ?
