The first film we saw
was ‘ Shawshank Redemption’ which was about a wrongly accused man, a banker
named Andy Dufresne who faces two
life sentences in prison for the murder of his wife and her lover. Although he
was innocent he never gave up one thing that was hope. He made the most of him
time in prison by slowly changing the lives of the prisoners. He began doing
the taxes of the prison guards. In exchange for a library to help the prisoners
gain some respect and dignity in the world. The prison guards were cruel and
beat on the prisoners for no real reason. They took advantage of their posts because
they knew no one would ever stop them. The warden was corrupt and so were the
guards. The man made a few friends in prison one of them was “Red”. Andy began
helping them get their high school
degrees. A young man joined the prison for breaking and entering and he told him
that he heard who had actually killed Andy’s wife and lover. The prison warden
did not want Andy to leave the prison so he killed the young man who swore to
testify on Andy’s behalf. Andy was put
in an isolated room for two months for protesting. Meanwhile he has been
digging a tunnel and planning his escape for 20 years. He tells Red to find him
once he has been released. Andy swims through 500 miles of shit to get out of
the jail. He steals all of the wardens black money and sends their story to the
press. In the end the only thing that kept him going was hope. This film shows the power of hope to redeem the human
spirit, through Andy's influence on Red who is inspired by the hope that
enables Andy to survive. At the end of the film after his release, Red must
learn the importance of hope in order to stay alive; he needs to finds a reason
to live. And by journeying to meet Andy, Red chooses HOPE over despair.
The next one we watched was "Morris" which was about homosexuality. We really dont think much about the problems they face just because of the way they are because most of us dont have to face anything like that. The movie was a real eye opener to alot of us by showing us the bitter truths or our society. Although the movie was filmed back when homosexuality was illegal, things haven't really changed much with respect to the way they are sometimes treated. The movie is about how two men fall in love in college and one of them eventually decides that it is not worth going to jail for as it is "wrong". He gets married to an unsuspecting girl and leaves his lover and moves away. Eventually his lover finds a new man and falls in love with him embracing his sexuality instead of hiding it.
Then we watched "The Help" which was an amazing movie. It was about how the white people in America were treating their help just a few decades ago. They still had the image of slavery fresh in their minds so they treated the colored people horribly and made them go outside to use the toilets. One young girl who was raised by her maid, felt for these people. She wanted to write a book with all their stories so people would see that they too, are people and should not be treated any different. She wanted to show the world how they were discriminated against and looked down upon by the rich white people. The book was a hit and it did seem to have had an effect on everyone even though it had an adverse effect on some of the help for their stories having alot to do with their bosses even though their names were concealed, it wasnt hard to tell who some of the stories were about.
