Troy

Very beautiful and touching movie. One can read the story here. Brad Pitt as Achilles is amazing..his rock face without expression(yet expressive) along with the wrath, fierceness and pride in his every move.

Many lessons could be learnt from this movie:

1.The reward for great honor and virtue is kleos, which is what guarantees meaning and value to one’s life (The very basis of Achilles’ Life)

2.A woman can be the reason for a war ( Indeed history reveals this many a time. In this case, the beautiful Helen of Troy).

3. A woman can be the strength and also the weakness.  A woman can make a person find peace in  War and sometimes can make an invincible man come down. (Briseis in the case of Achilles)

4. It is not always god…man should also use his mind and the power of reason. (King Priam dint heed to his two sons advice which led to his downfall. Once when Hector asks not to pursue the “beaten” Greeks, when Paris asks to burn the wooden horse left by the Greeks.)

5.You never know your weakness. When things are destined, God hits you at your weakest place that you cant get up again (Achilles heel)….depicts the power of destiny and God.

6.A wrathful man can show mercy at times and have emotions too. (Achilles, when King Priam comes to ask for Hector’s dead body)

7. Never underestimate your enemy. (Time and again shown in the movie).

8. The power of Emotion. Everyone will become slave to it at one point or the other. So the act of trying to win over emotions is a futile exercise. The very foundation and fundamental distinction of human beings with other forms of  life. ( Achilles love for Patroclus, Paris love for Helen.  Achilles’ love for Briseis)

9.There are people always waiting to attack your weakness. Be very careful in judging who your friend or foe is.

10. King needs to appreciate the efforts of his subordinates instead of taking all the credit. Bad King never gets his soldiers in times of need. (Agamemnon, almost lost the war when Achilles dint give his support)

11.This is very tricky……Kleos ( fame and glory ) is the reason of Fall of many Heroes. Or should I say, they have become heroes because they fought for Kleos. But,the passage from Odyssey XI presents Achilles’s final judgement on kleos and its value when he tells Odysseus that he would rather be alive and the most obscure human on earth than dead and famous….So, what is the ultimate moral of The  Great Achilles’ Life ?

12. Company of a person makes the person. (Though Achilles does not show any allegiance to Agamemnon, the fact that he is on the side of  the bad king made him go for the war. All the people around him, including his mother, kept on suggesting that the only way to lead  life is to attain FAME )

ps: Need to watch the movie again for some more depth!  :-)

Courage Is Not The Absence Of Fear, But Doing Despite One’s Fear

Nature Provides Exceptions To Every Rule

The Best Way Out is Always Through