CHARIOTS OF FIRE

Chariots of Fire is an Academy Awards winner for Best Picture and a historical drama movie about the events that lead two athletes to compete in the 1974 Olympics. These movie starts off with introduction of the two main characters of these movie : Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams. Both of them came from a different backgrounds and the movie showed what started their interests in running and how two of them met each other. This movie also showcased how these two characters view the goals of winning the goal medal and what it meant to them. Thus it involved their different sets of motivation and drive towards winning the medal. I'm going to separate these two characters and analysed them on different sections.

Harold Abrahams

Harold Abrahams is a student in University of Cambridge who has to struggle his way to fit in the British class society because of what he is, a Jewish. Due to his experiences of facing prejudice and discrimination because of what his religion is, Harold seem to have the need to prove to everyone that he is worth it and can be respected if he works hard on the things he want to achieve. He wants people to believe that he is able to be a self-made man. And this had become his main motivation on running on the tracks and win them.

But winning might not be enough for Harold because he still have a sense of meaningless after winning the gold medal. We can see it in the scene where he celebrates his winning by drinking with his coach. He strive for perfection and he needs that recognition from people to approve that what he did was flawless. But as human we never going to be perfect. This may be connected to Alfred Adler's criticism on achieving perfection and self-actualization in life. Alfred Adler came up with the idea of inferiority complex, where human feels the need to be perfect but ended up not being happy with the results. Human strives to overcome the inferiority and in Abraham's case, he has the need to be recognized as one of the Englishman which denies the fact that he was born Jewish.

Harold also fails to see the bigger picture of winning the medal. For him winning it is everything and is almost going to magically solves all of his issues in  life. He even hurt his lover's feeling by being too obsessed with winning that he would do anything to win it. I have a feeling things might turn way worse if Harold actually did not win the gold medal. He fails to see that life goes on after the competition and the strive for self-actualization is a never ending process. He also fails to see that in life, nothing is perfect.

Eric Liddell

Eric Liddell is  Scottish and a son of missionaries in China. Eric sees the opportunity to run on the track as a way to show people the existence of God. Eric is aspire to spread his belief by winning the medal. His main goal to win the medal in Olympic is to show how his religious belief can be the reason for him to strive harder and he also believes that running is a talent given by God. By running so fast on the tract means that he glorify God's given ability to him. Eric said this to his sister who is mad that he missed the prayer because of running: "I believe God made me for a purpose, but He also made me fast. And when I run I feel His pleasure."

When his belief is tested, which is the schedule of the competition that has to make Eric run on Sabbath day, which is Sunday, he stands strong to his belief and refuse to obey. Even when being persuade by Prince of Wales, he remains strong with his belief that God is more powerful than man. He beliefs that he shouldn't be afraid of anything at all if he is on the God's side. Eric manages to get the approval to run on different day and this is already a winning moment for him. He proves his devotion to God, and there is nothing more sweet than the grace from God. This balanced of winning the race for the title and winning it for a good cause have made Eric Liddell achieved the self-actualization.

After winning the gold medal, Eric kept his promise to his sister and continues to serve as missionary in China. For Eric winning the gold medal already proved the power of God, and his main goal of winning it is achieved, mainly because it is achievable unlike the strive of perfection by Harold. Eric understands the meaning of living the life meaningfully, and he understands that winning the Olympic shouldn't be the only main achievement to be proud of in life. Once its done, he moves on to another cause, keep on striving to be happy and keep on gaining the self-actualization.

All in all this movie is not great only because of the story of the competition itself, but it covers many aspects that are relatable to many people.  From the silent and stressful scene before the competition starts to the backgrounds o these two great runners. Other than that, the soundtrack and the music used in this film are major parts of why this movie is nostalgic and great.

SCHINDLER'S LIST

Schindler's List is an historical drama film about Holocaust and the stories of the encounter from the Holocaust's survivor who named themselves as Schindler's Jews. This movie centers the life of a charming, wealthy German businessman named Oskar Schindler. Schindler was a member of Nazi Member and at the introduction of the movie, we learnt that Schindler was a man with a game on his mind; money. Schindler was using his charm, wealth and finest bottles of wine to work his way up among the SS Officers by bribing them in order to make his business work at the time of the war. At this point I wasnt so sure what kind of man Schindler was, due to his questionable and shady persona. Schindler managed to employ many Jews to work at his factory making pots and plates. His intention was clear, it was all business and money was his first priority. Schindler planned and played his game carefully, seemingly taking advantage from the people who suffered under the oppression of the Nazis. In order to get what he wants, we watched how Schindler make connections with people, from the high ranking Nazi officers, to the Jewish black market sellers.

This whole movie is made black and white, maybe to symbolized how the issues of Holocaust might not all black and white, but the world needs to know what really happened and the cruelty and the murder by the people in power were in fact should be view as black and white. Other that that, I personally think the black and white moving pictures are timeless, thus making this movie one of the timeless movies of all time. The violence portrayed in this film is interesting to watch, how a war and people in power can be so merciless and ruthless. A person with the marked of the star was not other human being in the Nazi's eyes, something about the marking separate Jewish with the non-Jewish, giving the Nazi's power to treat them inhumanely. Interesting enough, the famous experiment done by Philip Zimbardo has proven that human can behave violently when given title and authority. His Stanford prison experiment had shocked people about the findings, but the history of world especially during the war has repeatedly telling us the same. Yes, human are violent. As how Schindler told Itzhak Stern about Amon Goeth, "He's got a war which brings out the worst in people; never the good, always the bad." But sadly until today, we never learnt to be better as the world is never entirely peaceful.

Other than that, I was fascinated by character development of Oskar Schindler. From a man with money on his mind, he slowly affected by the mistreatment gained by the Jewish people. After employing them just for money, Schindler felt a great responsibility to his employer. The turning point for him is when he sees the girl in the red coat on the street of the Ghetto, running aimlessly for safety. The colour red is prominent and cant be easily ignored. A lot of people ignored the little girl, but Schindler noticed her, and felt great sadness that he ignored all these Jewish people before this. Even the goal of his game was changed, which to safe as much Jews as he can, Schindler stays in the game and he played it right, he knows what are the weaknesses of the SS Officers; money and alcohol. Before this, it never occurred to him to safe the lives of the innocents, but at the end he knew what he did was the right thing to do. I viewed Schindler as a hero without a cape, but he wears a mask, which is his charm. He was not entirely an innocent man either, but he has a good heart. He also did not conform to the people around him. The SS Officers act violently and using their power to humiliate and dehumanized the Jews but not Schindler. He refused to be the man he does not want himself to be, he holds on to his principle and keep his good intention clear.

Only by having this good heart and high morality, Schindler managed to safe more than 1,100 Jews during the Holocaust. He wished he could safe more, but his good intention had saved many generations to come and he was right, people do mentioned his name to this day, not because of how wealthy and successful he was, but how he was a hero saving many lives of the innocents.