One of my routines over the past weekends has been to see a movie post-lunch on a Saturday or Sunday. But last weekend I saw two movies. One was Joseph and the other was The Great Gatsby.
Joseph was quite simple. I had seen parts of it on TV but thanks to commercials I dropped it after some time so every time I was on Netflix I noted that one day I will watch it completely.
Gatsby was by chance. I told my wife that I wanted to see the trailer for Forensic and while I was searching for it I saw Gatsby’s thumbnail and I got stuck with it. I recollected that my wife had given that book to my daughter sometimes back to read.
Joseph (played by Joju George) and Gatsby (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) were the main characters in the two movies. While I was watching Joseph from the beginning which I had missed I called my wife to join me. She said she will clear the kitchen and join. There was a scene when Joseph says, “It’s not an accident, its a murder”. My wife said, “you continue from here,” because she has seen the rest of it, and thankfully she didn’t divulge the suspense and ending.
I watched till the end and it was a very touching movie as it was about a man who sees the demise of his ex-love, daughter and wife and fights the system and exposes the racket of organised crime in the healthcare sector. The song from the movie lingered on and I watched some versions of the song late into the evening. Such was the effect of a good movie. I generally do not watch serious movies. I used to keep my interest in a full comedy or crime thriller. Here was one which was a thriller yet profound with no comic scenes. It is the travails of a man living a cruel reality.
The world of Gatsby
I was not sure whether I will continue with “Gatsby”. I thought I will watch some of the initial scenes and decide to switch back to Forensic. But the opening scene was captivating with these sound bytes.
I was stuck with the movie. As usual, I called my wife to join. Apart from raving about Scott Fitzgerald’s language she also mentioned that Amitabh Bachchan had a cameo role in the movie. We watched the entire movie together. The movie was a flashback through the character of Nick Carraway (played by Toby Maguire). It was a rags to riches story of a man who did everything in life for his love. I like Leonardo as an actor after seeing Catch me if you Can, the Wolf of Wall Street and that was also one of the reasons I stuck to this movie. It had a nice shot when Gatsby was introduced and I told my wife that I had seen this shot earlier in some footage.
What made me feel good about the movie was apart from Leonardo’s acting I liked Fitzgerald‘s work. It had never happened to me before. I went to my daughter and asked her to share the book so that I could read and enjoy the language. This was set in the Jazz Age. There were a lot of parties in the movie. In fact, Gatsby threw these parties to impress his ex-love. It was the first time for me after seeing the movie you start appreciating the book. They say you should read the book before the movie.
As I picked the book I did a quick glance through the cover and on the back cover was the premise of the story which went like this, “A man caught between Illusion and Reality”.
Within and Without
For Joseph, everything in life was a tragedy and he lived and sacrificed his life to save future lives. He lived a life without any worldly pleasure and he submitted his life to the welfare of others and found meaning. Gatsby had a tough upbringing and missed the love of his life and wanted to have a future with his love. He lived a life within himself with all the external pleasures and was in search of meaning.
They both were killed and not because of their fault. One sacrificed to save the lives of others and the other lived for a future which never unfolded. We can draw a very important facet of Life “within and without” from these two movies. A well-told story through two characters of the vagaries of life.
Joseph lost everything in his life and he felt everything. Gatsby got everything in life but he felt nothing. These two movies also ask “Does the end justifies the means or vice versa”. But I remember what Keysey said, “the answer is never the answer”
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