Humanity or Honesty
Since first film has introduced about 120 years
ago, movie has become one part of our life. It is not just way to spend our
free time, but also it gives benefits to the people who are watching. There are
many types of film such as adventure, horror, comedy, science fiction and
documentary. Each of these gives different feeling, different thought and
different meaning to the audience. The film that I want to introduce is called
“Les Miserable” which is science
fiction and fantasy that talks about a man who has went to jail for 19 years
because of stealing bread. I highly recommend you to watch this movie. I liked
almost all of the movie but I want to point out three things specially: the
deeper meaning of the movie, the way the story is told, and the skillful
actors.
The movie “Les Miserable” made by Sony
Pictures Home Entertainment and directed by Billie August in 1998. It is based
on the novel of by Victor Hugo. Here is how the story goes. Jean Valjean was the prisoner and was paroled,
but that time the government did not allow paroled people to live as free as
normal residents. He had to go to one defined city and work there as a laborer
for his whole life. However, he went to another city, changed his name and
became mayor of the city. One day the Inspector Javert who was the inspector of
Jean Valjean when he was in prison came to the city and saw Valjean. During that time a woman named Fantine who
works in the factory was suffering with illness, so she begged Valjean to care
of her daughter after her death. Inspector Javert was trying to catch Valjean
because he broke the law. Thus, Jean Valjean decided to take Cosette(Fantine’s
daughter) and escape to Paris and begin a new life again. During the time living
in Paris for 20 years, Inspector Javert didn’t give up and had been chased
after him, which made Valjean to always hide from him in the church. After they
exited from church, Cosette was in love with Marius /young revolutionary man/. Marius
was shot by Inspector Javert because he made civil war against him. At that
time, Valjean saw Marius was almost dying and told Inspector Javert to release Marius
and kill him instead. However, eventually Inspector Javert understood how to be
kind to others from Jean’s behavior and killed himself instead of Valjean.
This movie gives really impressive deeper
meaning to the public. Firstly, Jean Valjean represents how people could change,
how to be forgivable and be kind to others. For example, even though Javert was
trying to kill him all the time, he forgives Javert several times, especially
one time he didn’t kill him even though he had a chance. That makes us understand
that kindness and forgiveness always win. Also, Fantine’s passion to work was
impressive. Because she had to feed her daughter, she did everything to earn
money, even prostitute. Until she dies she was fighting for her girl. Finally,
it also could show 18th century’s France’s society that how authoritative
were controlling and using the poor folk and made them suffer without any
freedom.
In addition to the meaning of the movie,
the way the story is told makes the movie interesting and helps audience to
understand the story easily. The movie does not really bore with repetitious,
just point out the key things. It shows three main time lines: the paroled
time, the mayor time, and the life in Paris, and moves very quickly one time to
another such as saying “10 years later”. That makes audience to understand the
key points easily without showing unnecessary events much of the time. Also,
the movie left some of the things mysterious and tells it later, which makes
interesting. For example, I didn’t know the Jean Valjean’s reason to go to
prison until the last part of the movie.
Finally, the actors’ skill was so
wonderful. I especially like the Inspector Javert(Geoffrey Rush), Fantine(Uma
Thurman) and of course Jean Valjean(Liam Neeson). Geoffrey Rush and Liam Neeson
were the main actors and we can catch the meaning and behaviors of the roles
easily seeing their actions, emotions and body language. I still can remember
the Geoffrey Rush’s serious face that he was so justice when he was chasing
after Valjean. In addition, Liam Neeson made Jean Valjean really well that his
eyes were full of kindness and forgiveness during the movie. Also, Uma Thurman’s dying part was so
persuasive, I almost cried over it.
Overall, I highly recommend you to watch
the movie “ Les Miserable”. In
addition to the movie caught my interest so much, it gives impressive meaning
to the public, also the scenes lead us to understand better, and the actors’
skill was perfect. Historically, we always used to divide all things into two
groups which are good and bad. As we see in the movie there were two good
behaviors that were always opposing each other. One was honesty which was
presented by Inpector Javert, and other was humanity presented by Jean Valjean.
Thus, the things that we think right or wrong could also be changeable and
things don’t always stand the same all the time. Which one do you think is
better, honesty or humanity?
