Cast Away- A Review

We both had done the math. Kelly added it all up and... knew she had to let me go. I added it up, and knew that I had... lost her. 'cos I was never gonna get off that island. I was gonna die there, totally alone. I was gonna get sick, or get injured or something. The only choice I had, the only thing I could control was when, and how, and where it was going to happen. So... I made a rope and I went up to the summit, to hang myself. I had to test it, you know? Of course. You know me. And the weight of the log, snapped the limb of the tree, so I-I - , I couldn't even kill myself the way I wanted to. I had power over “nothing”. And that's when this feeling came over me like a warm blanket. I knew, somehow, that I had to stay alive. Somehow. I had to keep breathing. Even though there was no reason to hope. And all my logic said that I would never see this place again. So that's what I did. I stayed alive. I kept breathing. And one day my logic was proven all wrong because the tide came in, and gave me a sail. And now, here I am. I'm back. In Memphis, talking to you. I have ice in my glass... And I've lost her all over again. I'm so sad that I don't have Kelly. But I'm so grateful that she was with me on that island. And I know what I have to do now. I gotta keep breathing. Because tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring? Chuck Noland, Cast Away

The movie Cast Away is one of the foremost among the genre called survival movie, a genre in which the main plot surrounds around a hero/heroine who is in a struggle for survival. In the movie, the hero Chuck Noland is an employee in FedEx. He is in a relationship when the movie begins. The action turns into a new dimension when the hero’s plane crashed and he landed in a lonely island. After a gap of some years, he reaches back to his home town safely.

First and foremost, Cast Away is a survival movie. In this genre, the plot goes around a single individual, here Chuck Noland. Mostly, other characters are insignificant, or will get only very few roles. One classic example will be Daniel Defoe Robinson Crusoe. Though it cannot be considered as an essential feature, absence of strong female characters can also be seen in these kinds of movies. In Cast Away also, the heroine gets only little bit of importance. When the psychological struggle of the hero gets more focus, the same mental struggle of the heroine is limited to one or two scenes. In other words, the hero is one who faces a real challenge, and overcome all these hazards with a strong will power, which is rare or even beyond human abilities, the heroine is submissive and accepts the suggestions of the society and marries another man due to social pressure ( in this movie). Therefore, we can say that the movie is ‘his’ struggle rather than ‘hers.’

Is it possible for someone to survive in a lonely island without human contact and nothing to eat? The answer depends on how we see the world. A normal man would consider it impossible to live without the help of anyone. Some others feel that if we have a strong will power and the help of god, anything is possible. However, living alone in an island without any connection with the ‘real world’ is impossible, in my opinion. A person, who gets into a totally unfamiliar world, a lonely island or in any other foreign place, cannot easily adapt to the newer changes. He will always try to analyze and contrast this alien/dream world with his ‘real world’. For this, he needs something to connect with his real world, an image, a photo or anything, to constantly reminds him of his real world where he can go back at once. This totem is very much important for remaining sane in this other world. In the movie, the football which Noland names as Mr. Wilson becomes his true companion.

Mr. Wilson helps his to connect with the real world, but once the hero arrives to his home town safely, this totem is no longer relevant. That’s why Mr. Wilson disappears in the sea when the hero goes back.

The movie is significant in other respects also. As discussed earlier, the movie is about ‘his story’. It is the story of a man who overcomes all the difficulties but finally becomes victorious. In other words, “it is possible, or everything is possible” if we have a mind to achieve it. The movie is the celebration of individual success, a success no one can thwart.

The Kaleidoscopic Vision in Black Hawk Down

Reviewing movies is something which I never attempted before; it is not that they are not worth talking about, but there are only few movies which will compel you to talk out something. Black Hawk Down (2011) is a movie like that, especially in the contemporary scenario, where the world police, the USA is trying for a war against Syria. In other words, it’s the time I saw the movie that compelled me to write this, rather than the movie itself. Whenever any conflicts happen in the other nations, the US Govt takes it granted that it is their duty to intervene in the issue, often with the justifications such as to ‘save democracy, war on terror’ and so on. Though we can find a ‘colonialist ideology’ in the approaches of the ‘self-declared savior of the world’, it has been criticized often that the US Govt has some special interests such as oil, arms trade, etc in the move. During the time of Iraq war, the armed forces reiterated the claim that Saddam Hussain had had ‘weapons of mass destruction’. In the same way, in order to interfere in the Syrian Civil War, they are alleging that the Syrian forces have used ‘chemical weapons’ in the war. In fact, the US often makes these kinds of allegations without much scrutiny. American films also cater to these ideas of the US Govt, for which the best example is the movie, Black Hawk Down.

The movie was based on an actual event happened during the Somalian Civil War in which the US forces tried to capture the Somali warlord Mohammad Farrah Aidid. The movie celebrates American heroism even at the time of great difficulties. One dialogue in the movie shows the ideal of the common American soldier:
Hoot: When I go home people'll ask me, "Hey Hoot, why do you do it man? What, you some kinda war junkie?" You know what I'll say? I won't say a goddamn word. Why? They won't understand. They won't understand why we do it. They won't understand that it's about the men next to you, and that's it. That's all it is.”

When the American soldiers are portrayed as the symbols of courage, brotherhood, and men of great ideals, their opponents are the epitome of cruelty, brutality, savagery and even their women take weapons to kill the angels in the world, the American soldier.
At one instance, the Somali leader, Atto says to the general “You shouldn't have come here. This is a civil war. This is our war, not yours.” Then, the general, General Garrison replies, “300,000 dead and counting. That's not a war Mr. Atto. That's genocide.” If we applies the same logic on what the Americans did in the Iraq or Afghan war, we can see the same ideology working.

The narration is one-sided; we can easily see the construction of the ‘other’ and the ‘self’ in the movie. When each soldier getting killed by the Somali is shown with great sentiment and extreme feelings, the Americans killing the Somalis were being justified, since they are eliminating the ‘evil’. When the American soldier is portrayed as a gentleman in his captivity, the opposing war leader is shown as arrogant and brute. See his conversation,
Abdullah 'Firimbi' Hassan: You Americans don't smoke anymore. You live long, dull and uninteresting lives.

[Durant is being interrogated]
Durant: My government will never negotiate for me.
Abdullah 'Firimbi' Hassan: Then perhaps you and I can negotiate, huh? Soldier to Soldier.
Durant: I am not in charge
Abdullah 'Firimbi' Hassan: Course not, you have the power to kill, but not negotiate. In Somalia, Killing is Negotiation.

Abdullah 'Firimbi' Hassan: Do you think if you get General Aidid, we will simply put down our weapons and adopt American democracy? That the killing will stop? We know this. Without victory, there will be no peace. There will always be killing, see? This is how things are in our world.

The American soldiers are still possessing what we call the ‘white-man’s burden’, thinking that it is their duty to civilize the exotic, Asian-African tribes. The character Eversmann at one point declares, “Look, these people, they have no jobs, no food, no education, no future. I just figure that we have two things we can do. Help, or we can sit back and watch a country destroy itself on CNN. Right?” This is the justification, I believe, each American man has to defend the US intervention in the affairs of other nations, right?