Brave Heart (the movie)

17th century Scotland; it wasn’t as beautiful as it looks today as a part of United Kingdom; as then it had several land-and-title athirst nobles who ruled here, followed by the invasion of the most ruthless king – Edmond Longshine – ever of England quenching the thirst of nobles bartered with their freedom. The movie ‘Brave Heart’ talks about the then situation of Scotland.

What is freedom? Is it a mere concept of illusion, a cause of vendetta; or is it a reality, a real truth. Dictionary says: “The condition of being free; the power to act or speak or think without externally imposed restraints”; but it explains it otherwise too; it says: “Freedom is immunity from an obligation or duty”. Is it? Duty to whom? Obligation to what? The tyrants or one’s own government. Freedom is not for a country, but for a man, his ideas, his creativity, his existence. Freedom is a necessity – rightly so the movie opines. What is he, if he is not he? And who is he, if he is not free? Freedom is freeness – not democratic or autocratic – of ideas, of ideals. A man – whose father and the eldest brother had died in pursuit of freedom, whose house is smashed with hanging cadavers of his fellow country-men by the roof, whose little love was wounded with the death of his kinships, whose life blossomed far from his home, but who is now learned and have returned home, who has found his adolescent love again, and who wants to marry her, beget his genes, and live in peace – is a commoner, a no one, a some one, a blurred identity lost behind the chaotic society. Did he have any right to dream of freeness, of freedom – to go and see her girl, to marry and settle down to dust? No! There was a social obligation that a newly wedded woman must sleep with the incumbent noble of the territory. How could any simple man, a plebeian, allow this to happen to his wife? How could he not protect her from such tyranny, such dystopia? So he did. He married in dark, inviting none, convening no formal congregation of a typical wedding ceremony. But the evils can see through the black. And they saw, and immured his wife, first with the power of rules, then with the power of their brawn, and then with the power of their cruelty; and she hung, lifeless, by the wooden pole in the mid of her village, her throat slit, her blood squirting, her eyes hopelessly wandering for her man. He came, he fought, and he conquered. But what he conquered was only the dead, unanimated corpse of his wife. And the rebellion began. A quest of freedom dawned with a commoner, whose once blurred identity gained the burnish of differentially; and later people remembered his name – William Wallace.

Like Scotland, Ireland was another victim of immoral, land-hungry nobles’ venom. And the forces joined together.

The movie gives a great lesson upon who to believe and who not to believe. Two men, as the movie depicts, Fortran and Steven came to volunteer in the army of William Wallace. In appearance, behavior, and disposition, both were in contrast. The first man came and courteously knelt before Wallace and vowed to fight and die for him, then presented him a black colored shovel weaved by his wife especially for Wallace. This immediate and terse chivalry made his way into the army. The second man, didn’t bow, didn’t kneel, but rather went one step ahead and said: “Is he William Wallace – ah! – I am prettier than him.” He seemed slightly insane as he conversed with the almighty himself defending: “In order to find his equal, an Irishman is forced to talk to the God.” He was arrogant and blatant and blunt and had asked: “If I risk my neck for you, will I get a chance to kill English men?” Courtesy and bluntness don’t go together. Yet, contrary to this popular belief and ancient traditions of juxtaposing courtesy with virtue, after few days, bluntness won over. And after few years, the courteous nobles fell down. Courtesy is important – no doubt! – but it becomes essential only when it comes pure. Like of a gentleman who opens the door for a woman. People are of many kinds – they differ in their virtues; but they confer in their vices. The key to understanding them lies in the understanding of their virtues.

And virtuous – as William Wallace was – might die, but can never be blurred in anonymity. He died in the end, but his death was eternal. Rightly as he had said: “You run now and you would live for a while. Then after many years from now, when you would die on you bed, you would beg for this one chance to die for something of importance. For all those years, you would live, you would plead for this once chance, the chance which you are fleeing today.”

“Fine speech.” The Irishman had said back, “the almighty says…”

A man is what he believes in.