Synopsis: A man goes through life backwards, having been born in an old man's body and getting younger with age. Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett give inspiring performances as two lovers trying to find the right time in their lives to be together.
Spiritual Significance: There is a wonderful bouquet of colorful story lines in this melancholy drama. This film is drenched in human experience as it surrounds its main characters with people from all walks of life dealing with existential issues. They are each profound and tug at your heart in their own ways by touching upon love, children, aging, parenting, consequences of actions and reasons for living. There are others, many many others...
While this film's main artery is time and the extrodenarily touching story of Ben and Daisy, I have found the smaller side stories engaging. For instance, a drunken tugboat captain that takes Benjamin under his wing is truly fascinating. He wants to be an artist but is forbidden by his father and told to get on the tugboat. So he does but keeps true to his heart by expressing his art through tattoos. He loves the permanence of them and the fact that his father cannot take this away from him. I also cared deeply for the woman Ben falls in love with who as a young girl tries to swim across the English channel and gives up regretting it for many years. Only much later in life she finally does it fulfilling her desires. The story of Ben's adopted mother is breathtaking as a black woman unable to have children risks loosing the man she loves to take care of a baby no one wants. And finally the story of a blind clock maker that looses a son to war. The way he grieves is by making a clock that goes backwards to do what he can to bring his child back to life.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a masterful tale full of visual and emotional imagery that will leave you thinking for days. I highly recommend this film for the way it inspires you to live your life and treat every moment with wonder.
I really enjoyed this movie. Many drama movies are very powerful but often leave the viewer in the "tragedy" mindset; this movie on the other hand leaves you with positive power, desire to live, to appreciate details in life and just enjoy the process of living...
ReplyDeleteWanted to highlight two other interesting spiritual "lessons" in the movie.
One - some events just need time to develop; we often perceive that if something does not happen right away, it's a bad thing; but sometimes we are just not ready for certain experiences and waiting for our perception to change is not always a bad thing. This is shown by the fact that when Daisy and Ben met first as grownups, they were very different people (Daisy - crazy about ballett, New York and the nightlife and Ben - a bit more settled down in terms of his experiences).
Second lesson - Daisy's dreams were shattered when she was hit by the car but, as it often happens in life, tragedy is not always a bad thing in the long run. It changed Daisy's life (took away her ballett, ability to be on stage, not to mention all the pains of the surgery and the rehab) but opened the possibility to settle down and have a family...)
Janice
Thanks Janice for the intesting perspective. This film is filled with so many spiritual lessons that it may take us a while to go through all. Great movie, I absolutely agree with you.
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