The weekend was quite lovely. I saw Million Dollar Baby and was pretty speechless after watching it. I expected a typical resurrection of the underdog, kind of storyline and what I got was tragedy and a deglamourised version of the world of boxing.
It’s so difficult for any filmmaker to refrain from including the usual elements, ie glamour and the romantic angle. These ingredients are a part and parcel of every commecial film.
But Million Dollar Baby has neither glamour nor the proverbial romantic angle. These would have completely trivialised the subject.
Clint Eastwood’s performance was very all-encompassing of his character and the story by itself is inspiring. It’s testimony to the fact that one can acheive so much, even if one starts of with nothing.
The only thing I didn’t like about the film is the sport, boxing. I think boxing sucks because it promotes violence just like bull-fighting and gladiators. And it’s difficult to understand how people can get thrills, cheap ones from watching two people trying to hurt each other.
There’s a line in the film, ”Boxing is about earning respect”, or something to that effect.
What crap! That’s more like demanding respect rather than commanding it.
When I went to Spain, my companions were excited about visiting the bull-fighting rink. We watched a film which picturised a bull-fight, and I came away squirming, my insides churning both with disgust and anger. Pleasure at the cost of another’s pain is so sadistic. In the case of bull-fighting, the poor bull is provoked by poking it with sharp weapons and feeding it some sort of drink which agitates it further.
Then it must die, brutally at the hands of the matador, while the people in the podium applaud and the pretty senoritas blow flying kisses to the ‘courageous’ matador.
Gruesome.
