Sophie's Choice

Finished a great movie finally… Sophie’s Choice - an indirect comment on the holocaust, whereas Schindler’s List was more direct and moving. I am affected much, just like that night at the Tawakkal’s when during the Spielberg classic, I had wept just a little bit and hated hatred a lot. This time, though, the feeling is different. Styron, the author of the novel must have already done the magic of bringing together two complex lives of Sophie and Nathan with the able minded trusting friend, the story-teller Stingo. The director, Alan Pakula, has done a perfect job in rendering it for those of us who are slow with books.

Sophie, whose father, ironically, was anti-semitic, was taken to Auschwitz by the Nazis. She survived, though her children couldn’t. In Brooklyn, Nathan gave a new life to her… a new love that was the last recourse for her to escape the many deaths that she had withstood. They lived a dream and Sophie was happy at least in her mind, while Nathan had his own problems with his mind. Stingo came along in their life; touched it very gently without moving much of it. He didn’t change much, but Sophie changed him completely. As she tells him her story, and as he tells their story to us, I see again several things that I keep forgetting to. But, above all I see that pain is all around, and there are people conquering it to at least live a life of sham happiness. Sophie’s choice was not only the one she made at the concentration camp, but also the one she made at the end… to the end. There was no weeping to be done in this movie… it wasn’t supposed to raise any issues with Holocaust. That was just a prop to indicate… no etch other thoughts permanently on one’s mind.

There are two other Ray’s I’ve managed to squeeze in: Shatranj Ke Khiladi (Thanks Ch and Ka) and Agantuk (thanks LRC). Both interesting, but will write about them some other time.

Ah, yes. And today I won a race, or maybe I lost the race, or maybe I wasn't in the race after all. Or maybe maybe, it was not a race at all. Naah, it isn't about the Deutsche Bank... (funny coincidence, Deutche and Nazis). It's something else.