Sunday, April 04, 2004

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Pleasentville is a movie that questions the values in a changing society. It is so deep, so awesome. Totally not what I was expecting but an incredible movie. I am just completely blown away right now. My brain is still working a mile a minute, and I love that this movie has made me think this much. It's totally about challenging perceptions, and restrictions, and the oppression that defined society in the 1950's. It was very much a metephor for the turmoil and fight for freedom of the 50's. About the refusal to acknowledge problems in society, with the idea that if you don't acknowledge them then they don't exist, the whole sugar coating the truth and masking reality to make the world perfect on the surface. It so strongly brought to my mind the race relations and segregation that went on in society and of the race trials of the early 1900's. The courtroom scene near the end particularily reminded me of To Kill A Mockingbird, I found there were a lot of allusions like that in this movie. The idea that if not strictly controlled then society will ultimately result in chaos, kind of seeing it as a fall from eden, from the percieved perfection of the 1950's, instead of as freedom from oppression. It was challenging the idea that being different, that freedom and equality are wrong, they are seen as evil and what will cause this fall from perfection, from eden. The whole theme of colour carried the idea that you can't really live until you stand up for what you believe in. That taking a stand is what makes you realize you're really living. If you plod along at the measured, dictated pace of society you are never going to truly live, never going to experience Life. Taking a stand, fighting for what you belive is truly right is what allows you to see the world in all of its colour and beauty. Pleasentville to me, emphasized that there is no "right" life, what makes life exciting is not knowing what is going to happen. It was such a meaningful movie that to me really caught the revolutionary spirit and the idea of not conforming to society just because you're supposed to. It was such an incredible movie, I loved it, it really made me think. And helped me to better realize and articulate the fact that the more I learn, the more I understand, and the more I Want to learn. If I watched this movie a few years ago I'm sure I would have enjoyed it, still loved it, but I feel like I wouldn't have understood it on the same level as I do now. I want to own this movie. I don't go this over the top about a lot of movies, but this one was so awesome I can't help it. I highly recommend it for anyone, it's a challenging, insighful, incredibly meaningful film and my mind is still chewing it over.

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