Jude 1996
It is a movie adapted from Hardy’s novle Jude the Obsecure. It is a sussessful analysis of love, religion and life. To me, it tells a lot about the above mentioned and shocks heavily on my conception of movie.
I do not want to mention neither about the plot nor the performance of the actors. They are all awsome in this movie. It really worth watching. It impressed me by its theme, its reflection of the real world and its distribution of several subjects all at a time.
Jude expresses with dark elegance a profound pessimistic view of life. I haven’t read Hardy’s original work Jude the Obsecure. However, I could feel the book must be filled with strong sense of the author’s recognition of the 1990s as a depressing and bitter period of time. The young people like Jude was struggling to make ends meet. Hard working as Jude is, he could not enter his fancy college. Instead, the students were shamed after hearing Jude reciting a excerption in Greek. It is a critical attack towards the then existing edudcation system.
I was surprised to see that the British society was so conservative at Jude’s time. They refused to hire Jude, though his carpentry skill was appreciatable. They refused to accept him to rent their houses just because he hadn’t married Sue, the woman he lived together with.
Sue is not compliant to the prevelant religious belief. She bought statues because of which the landlord forced her to move out. She loves Jude. Therefore, she chooses to go with him even if she has already married. Traditional marriage to her is nothing more than a bound between two people in case one would abandon the other.
However, her liberty with belief and religion was totally shocked down to the ground by her children’s death. I don’t think her choice to leave Jude is her heart hatred or resentment towards Jude. Instead, she is in deep fear that her being together with him would kill her loved one, because she blame herself for her children’s death. All the sufferings and misfortunes, in her point of view is due to her disobedience against the religion and the social convention. She leaves him for her deepest love of him.
I love this movie! LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT!!!