The fundamental things apply as time goes by...

Rating: 10/10 (25 May 2008)

Watching this movie, even when you've already seen it thousands of times, is a unique experience, a journey to the very origin of all Hollywood movies. Casablanca is the ultimate classic, and that's a fact. From its memorable and ever-repeated quotes to Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, all the way through its music (the enduring As Time Goes By), the postcard scenes and the mix between a drama about the always attractive Nazi subject and occasional ironic jokes. How could we ever forget the scene in the airport, "Play it, Sam", "Here's looking at you, kid", "We'll always have Paris", "Round up all the usual suspects" and "This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship"? We never will, not only because of what they represent, but because we'll keep on hearing them and watching them in every movie, TV show, book and every single artistic expression. Casablanca marked a before and after in art history and opened a whole new theme in it. In fact, every Hollywood movie we watch has some element of Casablanca, and it will always be like that. Every movie heroine is, in some way, Ilsa, and every movie hero has something of Rick in him, as well as every movie love story has something of theirs. But all this doesn't mean at all that this is a cliché, and that's because this one started it all. Casablanca will endure in time and will always be in our hearts and memories. That's why it's a classic. It is where it all started. I'm sixteen years old, I absolutely LOVE this movie, I cry every time I watch it. This movie is for all audiences.