different concepts of "freedom"

Rating: 3/10 (8 June 2000)

Mel Gibson again plays the berserker movie fans love so much. While Braveheart may be entertaining to watch, it is a favorite formula repeated. My major discomfort with the movie comes right at the end when old Mel screams "freedom". Contemporary viewers hear and know exactly what he means, but...people of the British Isles did not know "freedom" nor believe in it as we do today. Individual freedom did not exist in Europe. Freedom for Wallace would be his ability to choose his own master from the aristocracy and not the freedom to be a king, as we would like to think we have the freedom to be today. Individuals in the tribes of the British Isles were raised to be what their father's were. They could be nothing else. Peasants never became kings, and never believed they could. The belief in freedom to be whatever we choose, or have the skills to become, came from the original people of America, the First Americans. Too bad they receive no credit.