Chariots of Fire

Before this weekend I was very ambitious about my film list for these couple of days. However, crocheting got in my way. And since I am (also) new at crocheting and I penelope my way through hats and scarves, I decided that at least one of the films in my list had to go down. That film had to be Chariots of Fire. Everything in the last month was leading me to it. Let me explain.

Philip got me for Christmas the autobiography of Stephen Fry: The Fry Chronicles (Oh, Fry, how I love thee.) While he was studying at Cambridge, he participated as an extra in a low budget film about runners, namely, Chariots of Fire. I will not be ashamed to say that one of the reasons I really wanted to see this film was to look for dear Stephen in the background. I found him. He is singing a song: "He is an Englishman." Funnily enough, Fry can't sing. At all. Funnily enough, both him and the main character are Jewish. And more English than the English. Summing up, any film with either Stephen Fry or, for that matter, Colin Firth is worth my attention. And that's where the second reason comes in.

Colin Firth is the love of my life, and The King's Speech is a masterpiece. Everybody knows that. And since it is such an amazing piece of cinematic art, all the newspapers rave about it all the time. Especially the Guardian, as seen in this article about two British films that look back in the hope of escaping today's reality. Those two films are, of course, The King's Speech and Chariots of Fire. Enough was enough. The time had come. I had to see Chariots of Fire.

My impressions about the film: contradictory. First, all the actors look the same. Same hair colour, same hair style, same posh RP. It took me an hour to grasp that there were actually 4 main characters and not just two, with one of them having multiple personalities. Second, during that same hour in which I tried to jot down the characters, I tried to find an answer to the questions: Whats the point of this film? There wasn't a plot that I could follow, there weren't difficulties, nor major conflicts. Then, the Olympic Games came along. I'll just say that the film is about superation, and about all that hard work that has to show in a couple of seconds, and above all, about being a true Englishman.

I gave it three stars on Netflix. I am blaming them, too, for not having subtitles. I will need to come back to it. I need to find dear Stephen in more places. I know he is there.