This movie is the story of the former boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, played by Denzel Washington, his false imprisonment and eventual freedom, but it is so much more than that. An 8 on the J Scale of 1-10 on movies ratings.
Just watched “The Hurricane” for the second time…I like watching movies a second time to see details I might have missed along the way the first time…looking for meanings in the story whereas the first time I am focusing on the story….So after this movie, I went out on the porch and sat watching the rain pour down with my dog Linus by my side, and a cup of coffee in hand, just thinking about the insights of this movie….it seems so rare that I just think anymore…just do, make decisions and implement….and do….not to think, to delve into things, to wonder about the thing called life….
The movie is about freedom, at least one mans freedom, but the message is about freedom…the last scene struck me…all these men in prison and this is the life they live…it is the only environment they are aware of and they live by the rules that are set up for that environment…..and I thought about myself, although I have a multitude of choices, I live by the rules of my environment, and make choices by the rules of my environment….the difference is the people in that prison don’t have a choice about their environment and I choose to live by the rules of my environment…so often humans don’t even recognize they have a choice, or that they are even that their actions are ruled by their environment…those that do become self aware, then have to make that choice which is to decide whether to live within the constraints of their environment….and accept that, or not to.
Another point the movie makes is transcending ones own environment…or shutting oneself off from the unobtainable possibilities so that they can survive within the environment they are living in….obviously the choice this movie promotes is transcending ones own environment, and helping others transcend it….that love and hope are the two elements that allows one to truly transcend it….it shows that one can trancend by looking inward, but the problem with that is that it shuts out the rest of the world…one can transcend their environment through internal means to make their current situation tolerable, or survivable….but without opening ones heart and mind to others and the possibilities of the world being a better place, then we can never truly achieve personal freedom…we can only achieve true freedom of mind through love and hope and openness of our souls, not contracting our souls so that we save only ourselves or protect only ourselves. We can only truly save and protect ourselves by opening ourselves up to which of course leads to the risk of pain…
He talks of letting the light in…obviously I love the analogy of light and darkness, from my earliest days of reading Dylan Thomas poetry, “Rage against the dying of the light”…amazing to this day, how that poem has affected my life….but it is true, we let light into our life, it can blind us , but it is the only way we can truly see what is in front of us…in the darkness we can sense what is around us, and in reality it is a way of focusing on the senses…when we are not truly aware sometimes it takes the darkness to force us to sense what is around us, the trick is not to get stuck in the darkness…use the darkness to become aware, and use the light, and let it in to allow us to truly see the world for all its wonders…
One other line in the movie I found intriguing is one that said that he used writing as a weapon…it wasn’t meant as a negative….but more as something that allowed one to express themselves, their anger, their outrage in a constructive, thoughtful way…a way to better understand oneself and ones thoughts and ideas…I don’t look at it as a weapon of destruction but as a tool of enlightenment…it is something that got me writing this…here I was sitting in my backyard watching the rain and thinking thoughts that were deeply insightful to me at least, but if I didn’t write them down, they would be gone forever, like the leaves blowing in the wind swept away in hurricane winds as the hurricane of life throws us off balance…
Although I didnt give many specifics about the movie, but rather more how it impacted me philisophically and emotionally, that to me is the mark of great movie, one that makes you think deeply.
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