This is my first movie review, so friends, readers and film buffs, go slow on me.. after i watched the movie , i really felt this is such a deftly made and sensitive movie which needs a good review , atleast in our circles.. Then i thought , i should look over at the earlier reviews to see if they had already wrote from the perspective i was about to write on.. but they hadnt... so here i am..
The cider house rules is not your regular poignant movie; it doesnt choke you to tears
it is not the "hit hard on your head" powerful movie- it s not your schindler's list or hotel rwanda - you will not roll in your bed sleepless , guilty for having been born and having lived a life you had never thought you would have to live..
but , doubtless, you would smile to yourself, perhaps with a little tear drop lounging in your eyes , unaware of it .. but you would certainly revisit your life , wonder at the passage of time and maybe through these meanderings of your thought, fall asleep peacefully... but , LET ME TELL YOU, it is not your feel good movie either..
what stands apart here is the realisation that dawns on you.. It is not a message that is driven home to your heads, but rather, you learn together with 'Homer wells' , the protagonist ..
To be brief, the movie takes the course of 'the coming of age' movies - along the footsteps of Homer wells, the orphan who was twice adopted and twice returned (the first couple think he does'nt make any noise at all, the second complain that he cries too much) back to the orphanage he was born into - st.clouds..the palace where the princes of maine and kings of new england reside- the titles bestowed upon the unwanted babies of the world born to disgusted mothers of the world by the chief doctor of the place- dr.larch(michael caine).. homer lives in the place all his life learning the intricacies of obstetrics from the doctor, though he has never been to high school even.. dr. larch has no qualms about being an abortionist, infact he considers it a service on his part, and a right on the part of the parents..but homer could never stomach it.. Homer wants to go into the world rather than practice medicine and uses the services of wally and candy, the young lovers who come to st clouds for an abortion to get out of the place .. he ends up as an apple picker in 'wally' worthington's cider house..From here on , the film travels in the blurred frostian apple orchard scape of the hardworking negro apple pickers and the wet liquid love blossoming between Homer and Candy, left behind by wally in favour of war..
the heart of the movie lies in the scene where he discovers in the cider house walls, a set of rules scribbled in a scrap pf paper.. instructing the illiterate negroes not to smoke in bed and not to go up on the roof..the rules themselves seem so irrelevant .. And as mr rose, the crew boss of apple pickers remarks, " the rules are put up by people who have never lived in the cider house" it seems so symbolic of life.. arent we all following rules jotted down by people who either do not exist anymore or people who do not follow it themselves..
the movie has people breaking rules every where.. It could be seen as a trade off between dr larch who breaks the rules for his conscious purposes and arthur ross, tha apple picking incestuous illiterate who travels the extremes of his conviction , albeit unaware of what he is doing..and homer wells stands in between .. everyother character look like a variation of these three people..dr larch upholds his practice of abortion, - he is saving a woman's life from septicaemic practices of quacks and morons- prevents the young adolescent girls from the consequences of their carnal acts- deaths due to secrecy and ignorance, he calls them..
larch trains homer in medicine without sending him to medical school- a breach of law- later he forges his certificate-as he famously says to the nurse who confronts him "and dont be holy about the law to me here - what has the law done for anyone here(orphanage)"- infact this one sums up the movie along with arthur rose 's outburst i already mentioned..
mr rose breaks the rules by his sin of incest then amends for it by killing himself- which in itself is a break of law..candy and wally break the rules -written by society - by having premarital sex and then correct it by another break of law - abortion- same can be said of her affair with homer while waiting for her lover from the war front- (as homer later says, noone can do anything about it)-
finally , homer, while doing abortion for mr rose's daughter, realises the inevitability and perhaps the beauty of breaking the rules, and of throwing the rules' paper into the burning stove..
The cider house rules is not your regular poignant movie; it doesnt choke you to tears
it is not the "hit hard on your head" powerful movie- it s not your schindler's list or hotel rwanda - you will not roll in your bed sleepless , guilty for having been born and having lived a life you had never thought you would have to live..
but , doubtless, you would smile to yourself, perhaps with a little tear drop lounging in your eyes , unaware of it .. but you would certainly revisit your life , wonder at the passage of time and maybe through these meanderings of your thought, fall asleep peacefully... but , LET ME TELL YOU, it is not your feel good movie either..
what stands apart here is the realisation that dawns on you.. It is not a message that is driven home to your heads, but rather, you learn together with 'Homer wells' , the protagonist ..
To be brief, the movie takes the course of 'the coming of age' movies - along the footsteps of Homer wells, the orphan who was twice adopted and twice returned (the first couple think he does'nt make any noise at all, the second complain that he cries too much) back to the orphanage he was born into - st.clouds..the palace where the princes of maine and kings of new england reside- the titles bestowed upon the unwanted babies of the world born to disgusted mothers of the world by the chief doctor of the place- dr.larch(michael caine).. homer lives in the place all his life learning the intricacies of obstetrics from the doctor, though he has never been to high school even.. dr. larch has no qualms about being an abortionist, infact he considers it a service on his part, and a right on the part of the parents..but homer could never stomach it.. Homer wants to go into the world rather than practice medicine and uses the services of wally and candy, the young lovers who come to st clouds for an abortion to get out of the place .. he ends up as an apple picker in 'wally' worthington's cider house..From here on , the film travels in the blurred frostian apple orchard scape of the hardworking negro apple pickers and the wet liquid love blossoming between Homer and Candy, left behind by wally in favour of war..
the heart of the movie lies in the scene where he discovers in the cider house walls, a set of rules scribbled in a scrap pf paper.. instructing the illiterate negroes not to smoke in bed and not to go up on the roof..the rules themselves seem so irrelevant .. And as mr rose, the crew boss of apple pickers remarks, " the rules are put up by people who have never lived in the cider house" it seems so symbolic of life.. arent we all following rules jotted down by people who either do not exist anymore or people who do not follow it themselves..
the movie has people breaking rules every where.. It could be seen as a trade off between dr larch who breaks the rules for his conscious purposes and arthur ross, tha apple picking incestuous illiterate who travels the extremes of his conviction , albeit unaware of what he is doing..and homer wells stands in between .. everyother character look like a variation of these three people..dr larch upholds his practice of abortion, - he is saving a woman's life from septicaemic practices of quacks and morons- prevents the young adolescent girls from the consequences of their carnal acts- deaths due to secrecy and ignorance, he calls them..
larch trains homer in medicine without sending him to medical school- a breach of law- later he forges his certificate-as he famously says to the nurse who confronts him "and dont be holy about the law to me here - what has the law done for anyone here(orphanage)"- infact this one sums up the movie along with arthur rose 's outburst i already mentioned..
mr rose breaks the rules by his sin of incest then amends for it by killing himself- which in itself is a break of law..candy and wally break the rules -written by society - by having premarital sex and then correct it by another break of law - abortion- same can be said of her affair with homer while waiting for her lover from the war front- (as homer later says, noone can do anything about it)-
finally , homer, while doing abortion for mr rose's daughter, realises the inevitability and perhaps the beauty of breaking the rules, and of throwing the rules' paper into the burning stove..
