Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Work the Land - Promised land


Waiting for Ironman 3, but still craving for some cinema experience, so I ended up watching the Promised Land. Well it is a little bit boring, I have to admit that. But it has a better than average storyline. Let's just say it is a potential contender for Oscar. 


The movie brings out an issue about the effects of fracking, a method of extracting natural gas. There is a video from scishow explaining fracking quite well. It seems like a problematic and pollutive method.  


I said it is a rather boring movie, most probably because the main character played by Matt Damon isn't very relatable at the beginning. He started the movie as the "bad guy", working for a natural gas company, trying to convince the people to sell their land to the company for natural gas extraction. 

The movie shows also how easily an innocent, less educated mind can be tricked and taken advantage of. There is this scene in the movie where a guy blinded by the money offered by the company, sold his land and used the money to buy a fancy car, something useless in long term. This is exactly what my father always tell me, tell me to reading more, get more knowledge, to be wiser and not easily tricked. Because there are always people in this world who are going to take advantage of the innocent. 

In the middle of the movie, Matt Damon, helped by some locals, were setting up a funfair to promote his company in the small town. There is one scene I love the most, a scene when at the end of the preparation of the funfair, he and the others sat at the back of a truck, chit-chatting and chilling. Everyone on the truck was tired but satisfying, content. I could feel their contentment, their joy to be a part of something. Their joy isn't come from money, they volunteered. But this is what an honest hard work would do to men, and working the land is the one of the honest hard works. To quote Tolstoy,
One of the first conditions of happiness is that the link between Men and Nature shall not be broken.
Work the land gives you a special connection with the nature. I grew up in the city. Personally I don't have many chances to work the land. However, I did some gardening with my grandpa a few times and everytime was very rewarding. It let me connect to the land I stood on, and also gave me a chance to connect with my grandpa.    










No comments:

Post a Comment