Resonant, impressionable imagery and characters. Love is hindered by a fight for family values. Love and the good side triumph against a manifested, tangible evil (or an extreme bestial nature) also present in themselves. Stylishly presented in the appropriate wild 80's.
Reviews
3 Reviews
Not so easy to fathom
13 April 2000
(My comment involves assessing the meanings of events in the film - but it will not make much sense anyway to those who haven't seen the film).
Reading other comments, it's interesting how everyone seems so sure they understand this film. The ending is quite suggestive - interpretations vary. Everyone seems sure the complex, realistic character of Giles is homosexual. We know he was married and develops a kind of infatuation for Ronnie - is this (for a man from his period) to be labeled so quickly as a gay love? It's possible Giles himself doesn't know. He declares a love and then regrets it - is it the love of a father for a son? Something connected with artistic focus? (the painting). Something has been evoked - more a spiritual longing for someone to connect with. Perhaps he's discovering long-repressed homosexual tendencies....whatever.
Other themes around the ending involve perhaps the simple act of finding Ronnie - a quest to move outside of one's own sphere of understanding and into such an extremely alternative one. Does he explain the whole turn of events in the fax? He gives Ronnie the Whitman poem. All lives are stories interconnecting. Ronnie is an inaccessible embodiment of a different world or painting. Giles reaches out for this. etc. etc. This is indeed a fresh breeze of a film - real and strangely yearning. It also reflects itself (remember Giles telling Ronnie about his great idea for a movie - someone deaf and mute influenced by the television.....) Instead of trying to pin down the movie and its relationships, to label it - why can't we sometimes let the effect of the ambiguity remain. An idea about this film is being lost perhaps - of searching for something so specific - of not knowing.......
Reading other comments, it's interesting how everyone seems so sure they understand this film. The ending is quite suggestive - interpretations vary. Everyone seems sure the complex, realistic character of Giles is homosexual. We know he was married and develops a kind of infatuation for Ronnie - is this (for a man from his period) to be labeled so quickly as a gay love? It's possible Giles himself doesn't know. He declares a love and then regrets it - is it the love of a father for a son? Something connected with artistic focus? (the painting). Something has been evoked - more a spiritual longing for someone to connect with. Perhaps he's discovering long-repressed homosexual tendencies....whatever.
Other themes around the ending involve perhaps the simple act of finding Ronnie - a quest to move outside of one's own sphere of understanding and into such an extremely alternative one. Does he explain the whole turn of events in the fax? He gives Ronnie the Whitman poem. All lives are stories interconnecting. Ronnie is an inaccessible embodiment of a different world or painting. Giles reaches out for this. etc. etc. This is indeed a fresh breeze of a film - real and strangely yearning. It also reflects itself (remember Giles telling Ronnie about his great idea for a movie - someone deaf and mute influenced by the television.....) Instead of trying to pin down the movie and its relationships, to label it - why can't we sometimes let the effect of the ambiguity remain. An idea about this film is being lost perhaps - of searching for something so specific - of not knowing.......
Chariots of Fire
(1981)
A classic.
13 April 2000
On a basic level it is the ultimate British Oscar-winning period piece and influential, uplifting feel-good film. Its two chief qualities are its subsequently strong realism and the resonant Vangelis soundtrack that, as with 'Blade Runner', increases the strength and significance of scenes through sound. Although it has a specific setting or historical background, the music adds an appropriate timelessness to the powerfully relevant human themes. These include winning and losing, of having what it takes to run the race, and of the old gentlemanly values of religion, decency and personal honour. It is the determining of the self, the inner strength, by understanding and will. The real-life characters and events are brought to life with the engaging realization that a climax will arrive at the end. At its core is a rivalry, less of a personal one and more the dilemma of two men wanting to win the same race. However, the climax is not predictable for such a straight-forward competition cannot occur. That is to say, they are both dedicated and honest men, with completely different religions, and it is this combination of resolution and talent which enables them both to win their own race. Around this central thread of training and determination, the film-makers have recreated the world surrounding these university characters in the 1920s. Scenes are filled with the casual, graceful attitudes that are a very British ideal; sophisticated prowess, decency, honesty, religion and intellect, values which seem to be less respected in this modern time. It portrays a credible idealism.
One of the first scenes of the film shows the running students. It celebrates this stage in life of onsetting maturity, comraderie and destiny through this bygone group of individual characters, united by the shared realization of their strengths. Throughout there is also the vague impression of higher powers at work, not so much the embedded attitudes of the old generation, but the position of man's humility in experiencing the challenge of life's great race created for them, and not only feeling the love that can be found, but rising to shine in one's own glory, enabled because of the higher glory. Not many viewers, especially today, accept such adherence and orthodoxy to Christianity, that can be seen as the motivation for the character Liddell. This film reminds us of the prominence and influence it had over so many aspects of society and the beneficial, empowering effects it could give to individuals. Alternatively the character Abrahams is a jew, and relies more on the attributes of his character which include a desperate determinism that reaps a reward of its own, takes him to his limits - although of greater significance is the love of a woman which detracts from perhaps a too heightened focus on himself. Through him we must also realise that there will always be those greater than ourselves, the very fact of our losing, and ultimately swallow pride and feel awe and goodness for the victory of our rivals and our friends. At the end of the film, the race has been run; they have gloriously discovered and revelled in their talents, their time, the fruits of aspiring to something greater than themselves. 'For it says in the good book, he that honours me, I will honour'.
One of the first scenes of the film shows the running students. It celebrates this stage in life of onsetting maturity, comraderie and destiny through this bygone group of individual characters, united by the shared realization of their strengths. Throughout there is also the vague impression of higher powers at work, not so much the embedded attitudes of the old generation, but the position of man's humility in experiencing the challenge of life's great race created for them, and not only feeling the love that can be found, but rising to shine in one's own glory, enabled because of the higher glory. Not many viewers, especially today, accept such adherence and orthodoxy to Christianity, that can be seen as the motivation for the character Liddell. This film reminds us of the prominence and influence it had over so many aspects of society and the beneficial, empowering effects it could give to individuals. Alternatively the character Abrahams is a jew, and relies more on the attributes of his character which include a desperate determinism that reaps a reward of its own, takes him to his limits - although of greater significance is the love of a woman which detracts from perhaps a too heightened focus on himself. Through him we must also realise that there will always be those greater than ourselves, the very fact of our losing, and ultimately swallow pride and feel awe and goodness for the victory of our rivals and our friends. At the end of the film, the race has been run; they have gloriously discovered and revelled in their talents, their time, the fruits of aspiring to something greater than themselves. 'For it says in the good book, he that honours me, I will honour'.
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