Falling in Love With a Movie !

Rating: 10/10 (26 October 2009)

OK, there are some movies that you love nearly every bit of them. Back to the Future, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, The Guns of Navarone, Annie Hall are few from my list. Casablanca maybe comes before all. It is pretty hard to say what's great in it, but anyway, let me elaborate from my heart on that.
"A franc for your thoughts"
I love humming birds, the taste of Mulukhiyah, the winter afternoon, seeing Marilyn Monroe and this movie. There is Ingrid Bergman loving Humphrey Bogart while the music of "You Must Remember This" is on, so who needs more?!
"It seems that destiny is taking a hand"
It is my only time, yet, to watch one movie for more than 20 times (consecutively). Since the first meeting, February 1998, I'm crazy in love. I recorded the dialogue on a tape to listen to it for endless times, making a parody for maybe all the scenes, and writing about it as my favorite movie ever in the acceptance exam of the high cinema institute. Simply this movie made me ask myself how they did it?, pushing me to study how they "do" it.
"Round up the usual suspects"
Here the formula magically worked. The drama, the actors and the music; everything and everyone clicked perfectly. The 10 out of 10 is being given to nearly all the elements. This is about to be the utopia of movies.
I think that the cinema was so ahead of its time in this movie. For instance, the camera just moves in unusual ways for the early 1940s. I didn't feel any 40s, meaning the worst of the time or even its usual stuff.
What a story with complicated: global situation, love story, and moral choice. You have to love the way all the characters pilgrimage to their noble truths at the very end. The way Rick Blaine, the anti-hero, becomes a hero. The way Captain Renault saves him as well. And the way they, Rick and Renault, find friendship in the last time, place and people.
Btw, that *twisted* end was made during the shooting, to harmonize with the new political circumstance (Pearl Harbor). That could have turned it into loud naive patriotism, luckily it hadn't!
"What an amusing little fellow"
Rick is the man. Playing chess with himself, refusing the tune that tortures him, being the model slaughtered lover for the 20th century. He looks indifferent towards the tense circumstances. But basically he's an ideal romantic guy, who was shocked when knew that love couldn't be that ideal, personally and generally, in real life; so he acted as a stone, fighting for nothing, suppressing his heart to give him agony all the way. Though, lastly, his unspoken self-moralities end the situation philanthropically even if that meant more personal agony for him, to not represent the beauty of unexpected sacrifice inasmuch as alive yet hidden ideal man inside any of us. Remember too that we don't love Rick because he preferred the welfare over his happiness only, we love him because he tricked all the parties during the road to that as well!
I can't forget the way Bogart throws his love's crying letter off the train, the way he sets smashed at the night of seeing Ilsa after many years, or the way he makes the "hellabeans" speech at the end. He was the prince of sadness on Casablanca's throne, the original Mr. exiled in the movies, and the guy who chooses Not to win the girl in the end. Bogart as Blaine, or Blaine as Bogart, is so-ugly-yet-so-noble-he's-more-charming-than-prince-charming. And if you looked up the source of this equation, then you've just found it!
"I came here for the water!"
This is a dialogue to be taught, with so serene comedy; it comes in certain places to lighten smartly the hard atmosphere. I adore many clever lines and strangely I don't get board despite how many times I rehear them: "I'm shocked, shocked to find that there was gambling in here/ Your winnings sir / Thank you very much!".
"Play it"
It got one perfect music score. And the song, ohh; with the warm voice of Dooley Wilson it sums up the story of every movie and rather every life: "Well, it's still the same old story. A fight for love and glory. A case of do or die. The world will always welcome lovers as time goes by".
"Here's looking at you, kid"
I adore the "He just a lucky guy" situation & double-meaning remark. I know that my tears go while the last 10 minutes, not because the lead leaves his love, NO, but because the rebirth of heroism inside of him, and the pretty solidness at portraying that cinematically in such immortal thrilling moments. Plus the last shot, in which Rick and Renault walk among the stars; this is one of the best endings ever.
"A lot of water under the bridge"
My friends used to hate me for talking about it non-stop, though, surprisingly, they loved it when saw it. It got me not seeing movies for nearly 8 months after I first watched it, according to hypnotizing feel it caused and one real stunned question it gave: "Is there any movie better than this?!!". I hated only Paul Henreid's dryness, the fact that Bogart was shorter than Bergman so they had to hide that all the time, and the way anyone looks at this as ordinary movie. If only every movie tried to have something from it.
"Does it got a wild finish?"
Though I've loved a lot, but I think I've never loved a movie like I loved Casablanca. It makes the dream so true.