Beautiful

Rating: 10/10 (13 January 2008)

It's been often said that the screen is merely one mm thick. The reference is made a bit condescending to the depth of the cinematic experience, perhaps at the time cinema was a novelty which, as a medium, told a story more facile than literature.
I don't believe in the long way of achieving anything. That's why the story, unfolding over more than 20 years, paradoxically told in an hour and a half, in a manner which manages to express some of the most intimate experiences to being human, somehow ending up achieving epic proportions, truly became one of my all - time favorite in depth studies of the human spirit. And this due to a simple artifice in delivering the story, which probably is King's merit, but which has been perfectly transfered to celluloid, the one quality, perhaps, separating humans from the rest of living beings - hope, used as an incentive.
As we gradually discover the humanity behind some of societies renegades, we also discover that true beauty of life lies in true redemption of the soul thru passion, the character of Andy Dufresne therefor achieving almost mythical proportions amongst inmates, because Andy is a man who cannot live without a project, without creating. He becomes a symbol for endurance, hope and redemption, but also of intangibility, because the path of the righteous is not only the path of the lonely, but also the most difficult, and thru a wicked twist of fate, he goes through purgatory almost like a biblical character.
Truly a human experience that shows how a man can master a destiny which seems impossible to accept, and would most probably break most.
"Some birds are not meant to be caged...their feathers are just too bright"