Actually I was confused at the end of the movie, to the point, I haven’t got the main clue of this movie, just because plots of this movie skips too fast for me -who hasn’t read the novel-to understand.
Then I got a second glimpse, wholly, and referred to the plot overview, I finally get a grasp of idea about the whole movie.
It talked about a woman’s gradual awakening of female’s fight.
Again and again Celie tries her best to remain her beloved sister for she knows there are no shelters for her to come, but under the shadow of the brute and physical strong man, the two girls’ struggle are in vain, step by step from the doorway to ground Celie grasps Nellie’s feet tightly, and she holds Nellie intensively onto the pillar, but little by little Nellie is drove out and dropped on the floor heavily.
The same sense came to my mind too when I watched the movie Raise The Red Lantern directed by Yimou Zhang, the heroine Song Lian married to a rich old man who has already had 3 wives, -of which the phenomenon was common in China in old times-she has neither right nor dignity in the big old house, women are just man’s toys and tools for giving birth to sons, they are not humankinds but dogs or cats, the master can execute his concubines privately that no one can disclose.
Whereas Celie’s situation is father worse than Song Lian, for she is a bimbo, a babysitter, a worker, and a slave instead of a wife.
When the strong and fat Sofia besieged and cursed by angry white men and women, she is overwhelmed at last, the moment she calls for help makes me desperate, for I realized that not only the thin and mentally weak Calie like women are overwhelmed by men but also strong and fat Sofia like women should be surpassed by manhood, they are slaved by black man, by write women and by write men, Some honor man had said that no one is a lonely island, but I have to say that the black women are.
Nevertheless sunset comes little by little, When Shug who is a singer also a sinner comes to Celie’s miserable life one night with heavy rain, roar thunder and gusty wind, which means everything should change and sunshine should come up soon.
Shug’s beautiful song Miss Celie’s Blues easily break down Celie’s door of soul, and her gentle kiss nearly awakes Celie, but Celie is Celie, She ultimately can not gather her strength to fly with Shug, instead she faint and dropped on the floor.
Under the long oppression, she can not revive from it suddenly while it is a start only.
Next follows an episode which tells Sofia’s miserable experience.
To tell the truth, I thought Sofia should be the single black women who can change her life and state by her hand at first, however, to my disappointment, she turns up with grey hair and one eye blind, hobbling from the cold prison, and sitting by the miss Millie just like a black pet, I know that she has been domesticated by coldness torment and suffering.
Finally the story comes to the turning.
Celie finds that the letters her dearest sister had send to her are hided by Albert who tries to make Celie believe that her sister has dead, she resumes hope again, and it’s time to awake utterly for her.
The word she indignantly and dignifiedly speaks to the tyrant also awakes Sofia’s dead soul and Mary’s aspiration.
“Every thing you done on me already done on you” Celie leaves the prison where has imprisoned her youth, her hope and her soul, she leaves that line behind only, the gesture she says with, just like a holy preacher, who cursed the sinner in the name of god.
Then comes another climax, in Shug’s soul music, all happy endings come out, Albert explains Nellie’s legal immigration, and two sisters reunites again, while the old Albert have to live the rest lonely life.
This movie is end, yet the soul can not cease, “See daddy, sinners have souls too” Shug’s word still resounds in my head.
I don’t think Shug is a sinner, I think she is a special kind of preacher, who use her meaningful, passionate and exoteric songs to preach.
Though Yimou Zhang also expresses women’s misfortune in his movie, he did not let the women wake up; instead he makes the women go insane in the end.
November 2012
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