Title: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button:
Director: David Fincher
Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
Writers: Eric Roth
Stars: Cate Blanchett, Brad Pitt etc.
Film review:
This is a movie based on a book written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The story is about a boy born with an extraordinary congenital illness/birth defect (if I may call it that). The boy is born old and has the appearance and physical of an 80-year-old man. His name was Benjamin Buttons. Benjamin was bor the day the war ended. The curious case of Benjamin buttons is a movie with a story line that is easy to relate too but at the same time you feel worlds apart. He experiences everything in a different way. By heart, he is a boy or a young man depending on what part of the movie you are on, yet his look makes you automatically think of him as an adult/old man and vice versa .
This movie is a mixture of ideas and creativity. The graphics and computer work is almost impeccable. The makeup and the aging techniques were very well set up. The producer won best picture award. What triggered my interest I this movie was the extremely abnormal circumstances the main character experienced? The writer of the book and the movie producer managed to capture such an unpredictable and fictive story yet make it feel and look so real. The way the movie was produced, the detail was capture splendidly. This is what got me interested in this movie. The fact that I know that being born old will most likely never happen but yet while watching the movie I started to wonder whether it was possible. Of course, the biology behind the idea of being born old is practically impossible, for me when a movie provides a different mindset and gives me something new to think about, that is a movie worth watching. In my opinion, this movie is worth watching and I would recommend it. At heart Benjamin, is a baby but in body, he is old. In the beginning of the story, there is a short story told about a watchmaker. Though this might not seem very relevant when watching the movie but it is, for moral reasons it is. In most stories, they are morals and the symbols that represent them. Morals are not pointed out directly; you have to read between the lines.
In this story, there are many symbols, depending on your own perspective. In my opinion, there are two “main” symbols. The blind man’s clock put up at the train station and the humming bird that appears now and then. I believe it is a symbol for a departing spirit. The humming bird always appears when someone is about to depart to the spirit world. For example, when captain mike, the owner of the tugboat that Benjamin worked on died a humming bird appeared and Benjamin said he had never seen a humming bird so far out the sea. The humming bird appears several times I this movie including when daisy( the female lead) is on her death bed and when the humming bird leaves it not alone. To me the clock signifies the whole idea of Benjamin being born old. The clock is not like any other clock, just as Benjamin is not like any other being. The clock goes anticlockwise and Benjamin well he gets younger by the day. The clock was hand crafted by a blind man filed with grief after losing his son in the war. He made the clock so that it would go back in time (not literally) and it would seem like all those who were lost in the war had never left. As the watch ran out of time so did Benjamin. In my opinion the watch was a symbol of Benjamin’s life his existence and the circumstance he was born in was due t to the watch his whole life was a symbol. Aging is nothing to be afraid of no matter which way we start life. Weather it is being born old or being born as a child we all live life the same. We live different lives but we all leave this world no matter what. Just like the clock, everything ends when its time comes.