This film has been at the top of my list for as long as I can remember. As I can gather from most things I picked for my cabinet, this is again the concept of undying hope and everlasting love. This time, though, it is portrayed through a robot child programmed to love its mother.
In a few words, the story of the film is about a robot boy in the near future, who is adopted by a family with a sick son and is programmed to love his mother endlessly and irreversibly. But when the real boy heals, the robot child is left in the woods and spends all its life trying to go back to his mother, encountering different troubles throughout the way. In the end, the boy finds the “blue ferry” (which was going to fulfil his wishes, as in Pinocchio), which was a statue of in a theme park. Years and years passed and the boy waited, praying to the blue ferry to return him to his mother, and when the aliens come, they are able to revive her for one day only.
Haley Joel Osment is magnificent as the innocent and programmed to love little child who cannot understand why he is left alone by his mother and yet cannot undo what she had done to programme him to love her and he spends a long time trying to get her back. It is beautiful and touching, this idea of unbreakable spirit and undying hope for even one day with the person you love.
The Shawshank Redemption
Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope (again, my favourite concept) is the one thing that nobody can steal, they can lock you up in a prison or anywhere, try to break you and hurt you, but there is nothing in the world that could stand in the way of hope.
The story is about a man, sentenced to death, whilst being innocent, and his subtle and unexpected escape. Tim Robbins plays a quiet and peaceful man, who plays by the rules, but when one day he finds out that his capture was a conspiracy and the only witness was shot by the warden, his will for freedom triumphed.
This film is mainly about the will to follow one’s desires and the strength a person can get in the face of the greatest obstacles in life. Besides the idea of hope, there is also the idea of justice and how people with power abuse it in their own interest. But for me, hope is the biggest part of the plot, and patience. The greatest dedication to a cause, based on nothing but a simple desire to get one’s deserved freedom and the will to punish those who brought injustice to one’s life.
El Laberinto del Fauno (Pan's Labyrinth)
Pan’s Labyrinth is one of the most powerful films I have seen. It plays brilliantly with the contrast between reality and fantasy to portray the human mind’s desire to escape from the difficulties in everyday life and to create worlds beyond, where nobody can see. And the idea that those dreams and those worlds also change the way one experiences not only life, but also death, and doesn’t really die, because one continues “living” in those fantasies, is central to the plot. The film also touches upon sacrifice for those we love and the rediscovery of bravery in the face of death.
This is the story of a war Spain, where a little girl is forced to live with a heartless step-father. There is a prophecy about a princess, who will be reborn, and will return to her family, if she can pass the tests. As reality grows worse and even her mother dies, the girl submerges more and more into the fantasy world, completing each step towards victory. As she refuses to kill her little brother to complete the last challenge, she actually passes, and being killed by her evil step-father, she doesn’t die, but is born again in the fantasy, where her parents have been waiting for her.
Central to this movie, as to most things I have picked, the concepts of the human strength, born from so much as nothing – whether it is love, hope or a piece of a dream, a fantasy built in order to escape reality – all of those things, which in the end of the day make us who we are and make us act in ways we probably didn’t expect. The brilliant cinematography and Javier Navarrette’s unbelievable soundtrack both enhance the effect of the film. And perhaps there is a little influence from the beauty of the Spanish language, as the whole film starts to feel a little bit like a fairy-tale.
Jeux D'Enfants (Love Me If You Dare)
This film is an absolute miracle in my life, as it was caught by a complete accident and left a huge impression on me. After having seen this movie, “Amelie” was a complete bore to watch, despite its many praises and the accusations that “Love Me If You Dare” was trying to copy Amelie’s style (which, to an extent, even if true, would not change the fact that the story in this film is much more powerful than anything else in this genre I have seen).
The plot tells us about Julien and Sophie, two kids who invent a game of challenges, involving a tin box. As they grow up, the challenges become more daring and dangerous, and life becomes a lot more complicated, as there are marriages broken and near-death experiences, leading them to realising their love for each other and burying themselves in a block of cement to stay together forever with no games.
The original French title translates literally as “Children’s games”, which is a little bit what this story is about. As it happens in life, games prevent us from finding true happiness, they prevent us from showing our real feeling, our real selves; we are so busy playing games, that we miss out on life. The portrayal of stubbornness is almost painfully hilarious, as both Julien and Sophie push each other to the very limits just to get the words ‘I love you’ said out loud. But for both of them that would mean giving up and nobody wants to take the first step.
It makes me think how sometimes we are also that stubborn, playing games, always thinking and pretending we have time for whatever it is we want. But life isn’t quite like that, as this film portrays it very well. Although adrenaline, as Julien explains it, is better than everything, better than love, better than sex, better than life, in the end of the day, as the adrenaline starts to drain away, it is life we want.
Seven Pounds
Seven Pounds is the most recent Will Smith movie I have seen, entirely based on sacrifice and the things we are ready to do. It tells the story of a man, who killed 7 people in a car crash, and he made a plan to commit suicide and donate his organs to 7 people who need them and deserve them. Along the way, he meets the woman he is supposed to give his heart to, and they fall in love. She becomes the only person that could’ve saved him, but he is the only person who could save her.
Although the movie is quite dull in some places, the concept is absolutely worth it. The idea of sacrifice for people we don’t even know, even if it’s out of guilt or some profound understand of life and death, the survival instinct is the most basic human condition and to overcome that is quite impressive. And then, love comes around, and it binds two people together, making one’s difficult life even more difficult and turning into sacrifice not for people we don’t know, but for the people we love, even though we want to live and be with them, but we are the only people who could save them.
Along the way, we also discover the concept of ‘deserving’ to get his organs, as he wasn’t just giving them to anyone, they had to have the strength, the will to live and to be, above all, good people. We could base this on the idea that good people deserve good things more and they should receive life, but I am not interested in rambling about the injustices of life towards ‘good’ and ‘bad’ people. This film brings to the surface everyone’s own wondering about the people one is ready to die for and that is always a valuable experience.
