How late to a party can one get?
In my case 25 years plus.
I am watching one of the best most acclaimed movies 26 years after it
was released and nominated for the best picture Oscar.
But I am not the only one – the movie didn’t become a hit
and collected less than half its budget at the box office. Instead it became a success when people saw
it through the VHS rentals.
And therein lies the sad irony, and perhaps I can say for pretty much a lot of folk – you need to be in the depths to watch and appreciate the film. Or in a different state of mind to be open to watch this film – than what you normally have when you go the cinema.
To begin with no women!! Except for the first few minutes,
there’s no woman at all. Second most of
it is in the prison setting – the entire movie is set in prison – can it sound
any more depressing. And the story was
written by Stephen King. I haven’t
really enjoyed much of King’s paranormal stories. I had seen a few crime stories
and films and one with Kathy bates kinda stood out. But wouldn’t look forward
to a ‘king’ film.
Here’s another dampener – the film has been so much
discussed that there’s no point in shouting spoiler alert! Its been discussed to death and not only do I
know what happens but also some of the dialogues and scenes and trivia about
the movie.
But yet I finally am in the right state of mind, and I see
it, and am blown away (despite all of the above).
Shawshank Redemption is possibly the best movie and a great
showcase of the magic of Cinema.
Its possibly the best narration of a film ever, that grips
you and you are sucked into it and don’t mind being in it for 2+ hours. The story never loses its grip over the
viewer, you are hooked
And, the movie has so many many many magic moments. The
performances just lit.
But at the end it has this Munnabhai / Kumbaya kind of warm
fuzzy feeling all over.
And that’s where the state of mind comes in.
The movie is so bloody good that it forces me to come out of
the gallows state of mind that pretty much everyone has been suffering since
the Pandemic began. The funk was so blue and black and hopeless that all the
ambitious plans I had of writing during the pandemic were simply dashed and I
wrote only one blogpost at the beginning of the lockdown.
There’s more in my personal life. We took a decision that we
would close house and move back to our native town instead of paying rent and
staying in a faraway city there were no opportunities anymore. But it was a
catch-22 situation and only made things more blacker. I kept postponing things
to do as they would get interrupted by the move (yeah the epitome of
procrastination), and at the same time never determining the right time to move
as the COVID affected numbers only kept increasing. And also a full lockdown
was never announced.
Finally as things started getting eased we just decided to
take the plunge, and the mood is even blacker as we are confronted with the yet
another reminder of the reality of our lives – in the last two decades we have
lived in five countries, 12 homes across eight cities and moved homes, staying
for a maximum of 2 years in each – and we just can’t bear to do this anymore,
but… life must go on.
Sigh.
We finalise and we wait, and I read about Shawshank in my
social media and so many folks talking about it, I decide to watch it, and
after queuing it wait for another two weeks before finally seeing it and this
is around midnight – my mind is black and hopeless. (nights and early mornings
are the worst for mental health!)
But the movie hits hard and I watch it for about an hour,
and wake up early morning and complete it…. And then I HAVE to write this
blogpost (YES, IT’S THAT BLOODY GOOD).
The resounding message however is as the film ends with “get
busy living or get busy dying” and that “Hope IS a good thing”
... and Hope is all we’ve got!
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