Gran Torino

This film was directed by Clint Eastwood and its main character role is also played by him. The main roles are played by Christopher Carley, Bee Vang, Ahney Her, John Carroll Lynch and Cory Hardrict.

I think the main subject of this film is the racism, which is directly influenced by the multiculturalism which appears along throughout it and which has direct effects on all the characters of the film and on the relationships which unite them (at the beginning of the film, Walt, its main character, he seems to be so intolerant and xenophobic but he will be will notice soon those at whom he looked in a strange way were his real family, despite the fact that Walt and the Chinese family belong to different cultures and consequently, to different ways of seeing the world). We can also appreciate this change on Walt’s mind at the end of the film, when he die and leave his most valued object to Thao, one of his Chinese neighbors who, paradoxically, tried to steal it at the beginning of the film. This good and special relationship between the main character of the film and his neighbors is completely opposed to the relationship with his biological family, who only worry about him in order to leave him in an old people’s house and who visit him never.

Walt is a man who lives wrapped up in his own prejudices and ideas influenced by the Corean War, in which he participated. 
Despite the fact that he has a very rude and cold appearance, in fact he is a very generous and altruist man, who doesn’t hesitate to help to his Chinese neighbors to the point that he gives his life for them.

Walt is also a very lonely and independent man, who loves to stay at home and whose only company and confidant is his dog Daisy, to who he confess his deeper secrets and thoughts.

On the other hand, Walt is a man who doesn’t care much about religion, but as he knows and meets the Chinese family his mind and thoughts change (at the beginning of the film he is reluctant to the culture and the religion of his neighbors and after he will respect it and he will also believe a bit on it,  when a member of this family reads the mind and the aspect of Walt and he realize that what she is telling is true and he sees himself reflected in her words; and for the other hand, Walt finally accepts to be confessed by the priest who officiated his wife’s funeral and who pursues him during all the film).

In conclusion, I think this film has a lot to teach to us, because it reflects that no matter how you are, think or live, because life has many ups and downs, and gives us surprises, disappointments and happiness, because it can happen that any day we think about one thing and next day we think in another way, and also that we may say one thing and finally we do it. So, I think it’s completely true that “You never know’’. 

Big Fish

This film, which is directed by Tim Burton and whose main characters are played by Albert Finney, Ewan McGregor, Billy Crudup, Jessica Lange and Marion Cotillard.  It is about a man who comes back to his parents’ house because his father has fallen ill. As usual, he had to listen to his father’s stories about his childhood and youth, in which fantasy and reality are always mixed, but this time, he tries to find out things which could help him in order to know his father better, a task which can be a bit difficult because he had to separate elements of both worlds.

I think this film is a wonderful reflex of the real life where we live in, where I think there are as real elements as fantastic ones (for example, there are people who believe in ghosts, in the horoscope, in palmistry, in fate and also in all kinds of legends, which, in the past, were precisely created in order to explain the surrounding phenomena which people couldn’t explain by reasoning).

Just like another famous films directed by the same director, such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or Alice and Wonderland, in which  there is a colorful atmosphere, and also fantastic, unreal and a big variety of characters and stories which are entwined, features which made us think that there is a big similarity among all that stories.  However, I think Big Fish has something special, because it isn’t only related to the childhood, but also with nostalgia of the old age, with the well-known literary topic tempus fugit (time goes by too fast and we sometimes don’t realize how fast it passes), the relation parent-child, the fighter spirit, the fact of being a real dreamer and never give up pour dreams and aims in life,  the altruism and the fact of  being sociable (the main character of this story helps a lot of people), to fall in love at first sight and not to give up oneself in order to get the love wanted, the freedom (which is directly related to the importance of the water, to fishes and to the fishing), because, the main character of this story is, once for all, a big fish (he is  a free person living in a world which makes him being overwhelmed and makes him increase his desire for freedom), he has also a very powerful imagination (he exaggerates the reality in which he lives and that makes his son to be confused and hesitant and that’s the reason why he want to find out the real facts of his father’s life).  Another important point is the one related to loving ourselves, our relatives and our friends just like we are, all that without caring about what people could say or think. Because, after all, life is what we dream, like Edward Bloom says: “The biggest fish in the river gets that way by never being caught” .

Billy Elliot

“A fantastic drama, dotted with touches of a local customs play… it’s a delight” ( Miguel Ángel Palomo, from the Spanish diary El País).

“Billy's struggle to express himself and to escape his oppressive surroundings takes place in 1984, in the midst of the bitter, sometimes violent and ultimately futile British miners' strike”. (A. O SCOTT, from The New York Times).

This film was directed in 2000 by Stephen Daldry. The male character role was played by Jamie Bell,  Billy Elliot’s father was played by Gary Lewis, Tony Elliot was played by Jamie Draven and the character of Mrs Wilkinson, by the actress  Julie Walters.

Beyond the fact that the film I’m talking about, Billy Elliot, is apparently a story of children and it doesn’t seem as dramatic as it in fact it is, it has big moral values which made it an extraordinary and timeless story.

Billy Elliot, tell us a story of a child who discovers his passion for ballet in a society full of prejudices, stereotypes, an big differences between the poorest and the richest people, but it’ll be this passion the reason that will change the way of living of this child and of his family too (his father return to work in order to pay all the things related to Billy’s dream, and also it will change the way of thinking of his parent, who stops thinking that ballet is only a female activity).

I think it’s about a double story, it set us in the middle of two absolutely different worlds which highlight the sentimentalism and evocative power of the film; for one hand, we have Billy Elliot, a dreamer, sensitive and also an intellectual child, who sees in the ballet a way of escaping from his sad and hard life and also to express himself and his feelings (he express through the ballet how much he miss his dead mother; he also see dancing as a way of liberating himself from the ropes of the crude reality, the arguments with his father and also his difficult familiar situation, due to the miners’ strike, that affected to the economic capacity of his father and his brother) ; and for the other hand, we have the real world, the hard life of the historic time, in which there are a lot of differences between the rich and the poor people, (we can appreciate that in the neighborhood where Billy lives, and also in the poverty of his family, for example, Billy’s father has to pawn the jewelry of his wife in order to pay Billy’s expenses related to the dancing), and also prejudices and social stereotypes (which is reflected in the differences in the school, between girls and boys; whereas girls must do ballet, boys do boxing, and if this roles change, it was seen like something stranger or typical of an homosexual).

From my point of view, another important thing which reflects the poor environment which surrounds Billy and his family, is the use of colloquial and familiar English expressions along all the film (like poof, which means an homosexual person, a subject which is also very notable in the film).

In conclusion, Billy Elliot is an example of overcoming, struggle and faith, it remind us the famous phrase Nothing is impossible to a willing mind; this story encourage us to struggle in order to achieve our dreams, our aims, all that we want to do in life, come what may, and without attaching importance to whatever people could say or think, despite the fact that facing up to that will be difficult, but it will worth it.

Just say, I believe…