Big Fish is
a great, unusual and fantastic film directed by Timb Burton, written by John
August and stared by Ewan McGregor, Albert Finney, Billy Crudup and Jessica Lange among others.
Maybe at
first, you can think it is a crazy film and you don’t understand it, but little
by little it begins to make sense. At heart, Big Fish is a father and son story,
decorated with all other types of true and fantasy stories.
Edward
Bloom, a man with lot of imagination, is always telling stories about his life,
stories in which we cannot separate reality and fiction. Edward, telling all the
time the same fantastic stories, has made that Will, his son, is so sick of him
that decides to move far away and not to have contact whit him.
But one
day, Sandra Bloom, call his son to inform him that his father is really bad in
the hospital. So, Will decided to go, and to try understanding his father and
all his stories.
Surprisingly,
the film ends while Will is telling his father the end of his life, of course a
beautiful and invented story.
At the end
of the film, we see that Will realize (searching in his father’s office and
speaking with Jenny) that his father never lied when he told the stories, his
father only exaggerated them.
I think
this film is quite different, special, a film that not everybody likes. I like
Big Fish because it has adventure, drama, fantasy… It is an intriguing film.
Big Fish
show us that life is the biggest adventure that we can have.
Billy
Elliot is a 2000 British drama film directed by Stephen Daldry and starring by
Jamie Bell.
The main
character, Billy Elliot, is a 11-years old boy who lives with his father Jackie,
his elder brother, Tony and his grandmother. The film is set during the miners’
strike (Jackie is a miner) and their situation is hard: while Jackie and Tony
are in the picket lines, Billy has to take care of his grandmother.
Jackie
wants Billy to learn boxing (following his steps), but he is really bad at this.
One day, he discovers he loves dancing, specifically ballet. It happens when a
ballet class is using the same gym that he does. That gets his attention and he
decides to take ballet lessons with Sandra Wilkinson, the teacher. But his
father doesn’t want Billy to do ballet, so he forbids it to Billy, ballet is
for women, How could Billy do it?. But the little boy doesn’t mind what his
father says to him, he continues taking class with Wilkinson. She thinks Billy
is talented enough to study at the Royal Ballet School, but at first Billy has
to pass an audition, which he loses because of the Tony’s arrest.
A few
months later, Jackie sees his son teaching ballet to his friend, at first,
Billy is in a state of shock but later, the little boy start dancing and
showing his father what he is able to do. His father, contrary to what we can
expect from him, realizes that Billy really has talent. Despite not having
money to pay the journey to London, Jackie decides to sell Billy’s mum’s jewels
to get money and help Billy attain his dream as would his mother.
This film
shows us how gender stereotypes condition children’s life, and how the little
Elliot doesn’t mind it and decides to struggle to get his dream, become a
dancer. Maybe nowadays isn’t as excessive as was a few years back, but it
exists, since we were babies, blue is for boys and pink for girls, balls for
boys and dolls for girls... Why not dolls for boys? We should educate our children
without prejudices, I mean, let them to discover what they would like playing
or doing and support them. It is a thing that we are starting to accept but in
the past it was unthinkable (We can see it in this fragment of the film):
We must strive
for equality and not let women and men were conditioned by roles and
stereotypes that society imposes to us.
In relation
to what I have just said, in the film appear the issue of homosexuality in
Michael, Billy’s best friend, who discovers his sexual identity and he doesn’t
mind what people could think about him.
I think it
is a good film to show us that if we really want to get something we have to
struggle until we get it. Perseverance and assurance are the trick. I want to
mention too, the great soundtrack that has this film.
‘Gran
Torino’ is a film directed and starred by Clint Eastwood, who brings to life
the character of Walt Kawolski, a racist Korean War veteran living in a
neighbourhood where people from different races, mainly Asians, live too. Walt is
a grumpy old person and has a really hard character that complicates the
relationship with his family and neighbours, but with the last ones it will
gradually change. The film starts in the Walt wife’s funeral, apparently the
only person that he really loves.
As I said,
the main character is Walt and we can see how he evolves during the film. The
relationship whit his family is bad, they only worry about Walt by interest, he
knows it but he doesn´t mind, and he does what he wants. Walt loves his Gran Torino
car, one night he sees Thao, his Asian neighbour, trying to steal it (his
cousin forced him to do it if he wants to be part of the gang). When Thao’s
family realize that his child has done it, they say to Walt that Thao has to
help him, as a ‘punishment’ because of his mischief.
From then
on, Walt sees Thao maybe as the grandchild that he would like to have. He
teaches him to be a good boy, to get a job... Walt is like a teacher, or mentor
to Thao. At first he ‘hates’ them, now he is growing fond whit Thao and Sue,
and their family. Walt becomes the ‘hero’ of the family when he saves them from
the cousin’s gang threating them. The neighbourhood gives Walt presents to
express their thanks.
Teaching Thao how to use the tools
Neighbours expressing their thanks.
Teaching Thao how to speak with others.
Unfortunately,
the cousin’s gang will took revenge on them, they are going to shoot Thao’s
house and to rape Sue. After that, Thao wants to clear his sister’s name
killing the gang, but Walt will prevent it. First of all, Walt goes to
confession, he tells the priest Janovich he regrets not to be a good father,
his action during the war... (He had never wanted to do it, despite it was his
wife’s wish), so in this action we can see again a change in Walt’s mentality.
The end of
the film is really unexpected, most people would think that Walt would go to
the cousin’s house and would kill everyone who is part of the gang. But it didn’t
happen like that. Right, he goes to the cousin’s house but he lets himself be
killed in order to help the neighbourhood; the cousin and his gang will go to
prison. We can say that Walt dies to save the rest of the neighbourhood from
the gang. In that sense, Walt is a representation of Jesus Christ’s death.
The main subjects
that appear in the film are:
- + Racism:
Walt hates his neighbourhood because it is plenty of immigrants, he speaks with
them always with superiority... We also see that the different gangs are formed
by people who are from the same culture.
- + Prejudices:
Walt is full of prejudices; he hates almost everything and everyone (his
neighbours, his family, religion ...). Fortunately, he changes thanks to Thao,
Sue, and the priest.
- + Violence
is everywhere, the gangs; Walt is a Korean War veteran...
- + Interest:
We can see it in the relationship that Walt’s family have with Walt, they only
want to get rid of him. At the end, we see that Walt knew that and when he dies
he doesn’t give anything to his family.
All of them
are problems that we also see in our society nowadays.
I think
this film it’s really good, it makes you really think about change, about how
people can change. Walt heated the immigrants, his neighbours, and after, he
dies for them.
The film is
also enjoyable with touches of black humour but that Walt uses them with
affection.
I love the
director and actor, Clint Eastwood, and the social criticism that He does in
the film.
.jpg)
.jpg)