Perhaps Amistad moved me more than any of Speilberg’s works. There are some things that Cinque (Joseph Cinque, an African slave, member of the Mende tribe, fights the US for his freedom) says that shook me so violently that I was restless for days together.
Some things just jolts you. Awakens you.
There is this one scene, where he bursts out in his native Mende language. They had won their case and freedom before the US court, quite dramatically, when his lawyer friend comes to convey that the judgment has been overturned by the state and they would need to appeal to the Supreme Court. Cinque does not understand their sense of justice here. He does not understand the english word ‘Almost’. He is perplexed, cannot be calmed. He bursts out....
“What kind of a place is this? (i.e. the US)….where Laws ‘almost’ works! …..How can you live like that?”
The anger and bewilderment is so palpable… Morgan Freeman (a freed slave) and Mathew McConaughey(the friendly lawyer) watch in horror and awe at the raw display of power and against the backdrop of fire. Well, watching the scene, you can only burn in it.
Come to think of it, you start to wonder, has mankind progressed or regressed? In the simple world and the language of Mende, there is only a Yes or a No. There is no equivalent word for ‘almost’ in the Mende language, no in-betweens. Of course, one can conclude that their language was perhaps less sophisticated but their integrity? Wasn't that intact?
Just think for a moment. For an animal it’s always a simple emotion. Either they smile or they cry. A Yes or a No. But for a human being, it can be anything from a smile, sneer, smirk, grin, leer, grimace, laugh, beam and what not. Do you see the complexity, the grey levels we are capable of? Do we prefer to keep things grey that we developed so many of them? Can we only commune 'safely' in half truths?
Alas! There is nothing straightforward about a human being anymore. We think we are evolving but in reality we are building layers of duplicity. We have become sophisticated hypocrites in comparison to our ancestors.
Indeed, Cinque asks, quite rightly, "How you can survive in a world like this?"
Some things just jolts you. Awakens you.
There is this one scene, where he bursts out in his native Mende language. They had won their case and freedom before the US court, quite dramatically, when his lawyer friend comes to convey that the judgment has been overturned by the state and they would need to appeal to the Supreme Court. Cinque does not understand their sense of justice here. He does not understand the english word ‘Almost’. He is perplexed, cannot be calmed. He bursts out....
“What kind of a place is this? (i.e. the US)….where Laws ‘almost’ works! …..How can you live like that?”
The anger and bewilderment is so palpable… Morgan Freeman (a freed slave) and Mathew McConaughey(the friendly lawyer) watch in horror and awe at the raw display of power and against the backdrop of fire. Well, watching the scene, you can only burn in it.
Come to think of it, you start to wonder, has mankind progressed or regressed? In the simple world and the language of Mende, there is only a Yes or a No. There is no equivalent word for ‘almost’ in the Mende language, no in-betweens. Of course, one can conclude that their language was perhaps less sophisticated but their integrity? Wasn't that intact?
Just think for a moment. For an animal it’s always a simple emotion. Either they smile or they cry. A Yes or a No. But for a human being, it can be anything from a smile, sneer, smirk, grin, leer, grimace, laugh, beam and what not. Do you see the complexity, the grey levels we are capable of? Do we prefer to keep things grey that we developed so many of them? Can we only commune 'safely' in half truths?
Alas! There is nothing straightforward about a human being anymore. We think we are evolving but in reality we are building layers of duplicity. We have become sophisticated hypocrites in comparison to our ancestors.
Indeed, Cinque asks, quite rightly, "How you can survive in a world like this?"
As an afterthought, I think its only appropriate to add Bertrand Russell's observation in this regard.
ReplyDelete"A process which led from the amoeba to man appeared to the philosophers to be obviously a progress though whether the amoeba would agree with this opinion is not known"