Rating of
4/4
A condescending creation.
memento_mori - wrote on 09/18/13
Keeping the human spirit alive can be more complex than one may think.
After all, what is the 'human spirit'? The meaning of life?
Is it to experience unorthodox things more often, to explore the stretchable boundaries of youth, or to rebel against what everyone may think is the right thing for you?
The Graduate may well be the most complicated, over-analyzed and misinterpreted movie ever made, because moviegoers and critics alike talk so many theories into the subject that it becomes clouded.
Precisely because it is so convoluted in terms of life, this movie succeeds in so many ways.
My general perception of the story differs every time I watch this movie, that is why it is such a delight to watch.
Character Benjamin is written with such precise detail and dialogue that by the end of the film, his journey feels more like a metamorphosis into a different state, like he's been on a desperate trip.
I think the Sofia Coppola's excellent drama 'Lost in Translation' borrows a lot from the character of Benjamin Braddock.
He is almost literally stuck in life, repeatedly refusing to communicate with his relative's friends and rather be alone, pondering his own thoughts, much like Scarlett Johansson's character in Lost in Translation. I'm not sure if that was what Coppola intended, I just thought it was reminiscent in its style.
What intrigues me more and more with every viewing, is how well-realized relationships are, how we awkwardly wait for the other to say something, how we think about love and what we think of one another.
None of this is ever said explicitly or through dialogue, the entire film is just a visual poem.
So many powerful shots as well as characters accentuate our powerlessness in contradiction to our fates. Just look at what happened to some of Mr. and Mrs. Braddock's family friends or Mrs. Robinson herself?
Is it a light-hearted comedy classic, a dramatic milestone or a depiction of rebellious obsession?
There may well be an explanation for The Graduate's convoluted, almost empty lifestyle and lack of character change and continuous story, but there's something simply brilliant about that.
It makes me think about how I go through my life and question if I'm making the right choices.
I can't know for sure, but until I get a solid thesis, we are only left with The Graduate's beautiful feeling of bliss and the sound of silence.
