When it comes to high-scoring movies, "The Shawshank Redemption" is always on the list.
In the 27 years since its release in 1994, this "prison theme" movie has not diminished in popularity.
Whenever we relive it, what exactly are we missing?
The film metaphorically depicts the confusion, desire, brutality, and even selfishness or sublimeness of human nature in Shawshank Prison.
The protagonist, Andy Dufran, has a mission of redemption. After experiencing the doom of being framed and bullied, he successfully escaped from prison and was reborn in Nirvana.
After the "hero story" ends, his life and past will sow seeds in our hearts and give birth to a garden in the years.
Just like the spirit of "self-redemption" it expresses, it encourages many people who are deeply desperate to get out of the predicament.
We prefer such heroes, and life also needs such "myths".
Whenever we are bound by fate, Andy Dufran's determined gaze seems to remind us: "Freedom is not outside, but inside." ”
True salvation comes from inner self-redemption.
Accept fate Calm mind
If you draw a curve to life, the line of Andy's 30-year-old year has cliff-like ups and downs.
One moment he was a vice president of the Bank of Polet, an absolutely successful man; a second later, he was involved in the murder of his wife's death and framed as a "cold-blooded murderer."
Sudden bad luck shattered everything, and after God reshuffled, he was reincarnated like a baby in The Shawshank prison in 1948.
If the day's drive and enslavement is a kind of despair; the night after the lights are turned off, it is a hell of dancing demons, terrifying enough to be deadly.
On the first night of his visit to Shawshank, Andy saw the newcomer, who was shouting out of extreme fear, beaten to death by the prison guard Hadley.
After that, Andy controls his emotions, calms his mind, and lives himself into air in a cage full of perverts and thugs.
He could go a month without talking to anyone; he never changed his face when he saw live maggots in his meal or when he encountered sudden insults.
He refused to go thousands of miles away and was ridiculed as a "cool rookie".
Andy, in this way, opened his new life alone, fully accepting the arrangement of fate.
"The Heart is the Lonely Hunter" says: "The more people understand, the more they pursue, the more lonely they are." ”
Growing wisdom in loneliness and calming down in solitude is the way Andy gets along with the world when he first enters prison.
This low-key tenacity, on the contrary, has a soothing power in the Shawshank prison with teeth and claws.
With this, Andy protected himself and was appreciated and cared for by his fellow inmate Red.
The "miraculous" Red helped Andy get a pickaxe, an artifact that will chisel Andy's passage to freedom in 27 years.
The hope of life gradually shines through the high walls of the prison, and everything in life seems to have a slight turnaround.
As the writer Martin put it:
Every powerful person has gritted his teeth and spent a period of time when no one helped, no one supported, and no one booed and asked for warmth.
Past, this is your coming-of-age ceremony, can't go over, this is your bottomless pit.
Although, there is a more or less deviation between the lens language and real life.
But in reality, we will also fall into sudden difficulties, and we will also be overwhelmed by the ups and downs of fate.
Whenever this happens, we may as well be like Andy, living as an "outsider" in bad luck.
Keep your grievances and unwillingness in your heart for the time being, live calmly and tenaciously, first stabilize your heart, and then break the situation and seek change.
Change your life, hold on to hope
In prison, it is the big brother who has always had a hard fist. Under the superficial cognition, all behavior is flattened into violence.
Andy, at one point, fell into "violence" and almost died.
Soon after he was imprisoned, he was targeted by the perverted "Three Sisters" and pulled into the hut to beat or humiliate him.
Each time, he resisted desperately, and there were always new wounds on his face.
This incident made his friend Red understand that Andy is not a rookie with a nest, he has his own principles and bottom line.
More like a living person than Andy's "heroic sense".
He is cunning and kind, and can live a little freedom between the prison guards and the prisoners.
With the exception of Andy and Red, the other prisoners were vaguely tamed.
Their lives can be seen at a glance, one step forward is a high wall, and one step back is an abyss.
Soaked in time, they lose hope and their life-changing instincts.
Just like Lao Bu, who has been in prison for a lifetime, after being paroled, he cannot adapt to the new environment, and in loneliness and tension, he commits suicide.
Unlike "Lao Bu", the taciturn Andy is full of hope in his heart.
He once said to Red, "Of all things, hope is the most beautiful." The most beautiful things, never wither. ”
Hope gave Andy the strength to never wither, and he struggled to seize every opportunity around him to tear the dead and lonely life out of the cracks.
In May 1950, he and Red were assigned to repair the roof at the license plate factory.
By chance, Andy heard that the prison guard Hadley was agonizing over the inheritance tax, and he had the courage to go over and use his expertise to solve the problem for Hadley.
Soon, Andy's talent was appreciated by norton, the warden, who not only promoted him to the prison library as a manager, but also entrusted him with laundering money for himself.
Among the prisoners, Andy's reputation is getting higher and higher, not only has a cellmate who treats him sincerely, but also escapes the entanglement of the "three sisters".
But Andy's desire for change is much more than that.
He wrote weekly letters to the state government for six consecutive years to apply for fees, and finally succeeded in expanding the library and changing the way inmates had fun;
He used the prison radio to play the record "Figaro's Wedding" without authorization, so that everyone could feel the beauty of the long-lost;
He gave Red a harmonica, hoping that his life would be a little new.
Nietzsche once said, "When one knows what one lives for, one can endure any kind of life." ”
This sentence describes Andy, which is most appropriate.
In the airtight repression, Andy never gave up hope.
He hoped that one day, he would settle on the island of Spain; he hoped that one day, he would regain his freedom.
Let hope become a force in our hearts, and change our lives on our own, is the survival rule that Andy taught us.
Insist on justice and redeem yourself
When Andy was in prison for 15 years, the witnesses who decided the course of his life appeared.
Tommy's appearance is a little accidental, he is just an ignorant little leper, wandering in the major prisons.
He is imprisoned in Shawshank Prison for burglary and becomes acquainted with Andy and Red.
With Andy's help, Tommy takes the high Chinese, and the two establish a deep friendship of "mentor and friend".
During a small talk, Tommy talks about a murder that took place at the home of a golf coach at a country club.
At that time, the perpetrator Elmer saw the money and shot the coach and his mistress four times in a row, resulting in death.
Afterwards, Elmer fled away, and the husband of the murdered woman not only suffered a derailment, but also became a scapegoat and was unjustly imprisoned.
All the details match Andy's case, and the truth seems to be right in front of us.
Andy could not suppress the impulse in his heart, and told the warden Norton at the first time, hoping that he would do justice.
Sadly, this time Andy looked at the wrong person.
For his own gain, Norton shoots Tommy, the only witness, and threatens Andy to continue to submit to him.
Tommy's death gives Andy an epiphany: Shawshank doesn't have the justice he wants, and he has to flee.
Noah Webster, the "father of education" in the United States, once said: "As long as you carry the sword of justice to attack, even the weakest arm will be infinitely powerful." ”
For himself, for Tommy's sake, Andy decided to give it a go.
While pretending to submit to Norton, he sped up the pace of his escape.
While laundering money for Norton, Andy creates a "dummy" that will be his new identity after he gets out of prison.
In addition, he collected evidence of Norton's crimes to pave the way for the rest of his life.
Most importantly, the tunnel, which had been dug for more than twenty years, was finally dug through.
In the 8th year of Tommy's death, Andy started his decisive battle with fate on a thunderstorm night.
He climbed from the tunnel of his cell to the sewer, continued to crawl for 500 meters in the stench, and finally regained his freedom.
The torrential rain washed away and Andy's mud, and he walked into the world like a baby again.
Using that new identity, he transferred $370,000 from Norton at the Maine International Bank as his pay.
Before leaving the United States, he sent evidence of Norton's corruption and murder to the newspaper.
He also left Red with the money to find him.
All this was like a miracle in Red's eyes. He said in an almost adoring tone:
"There are birds that are destined not to be kept in cages, and every feather of theirs shines with the radiance of freedom."
If The Shawshank prison is a metaphor for the human heart, each prisoner symbolizes some aspect of our human nature.
The manic Hadley, the dove Norton, the timid Old Cloth, the paranoid "Three Sisters", the righteous Red, the lively Tommy...
Among all sentient beings, there is always someone who will hit you and awaken your memory like an electric current.
And "Andy", who is transformed into a hero, is more like a spiritual belief in the quest of sentient beings.
He interpreted the inner strength very well, and in the self-redemption, staged a beautiful "life reversal".
After watching "The Shawshank Redemption", I understood:
The more unpleasant the time, the more we must calm down, and the difficult road is not for everyone to be qualified to go.
Only by bearing the pain of nirvana is it worthy of the beauty of rebirth.
True salvation is always self-redemption.
Encourage it.
Author | Jin Shanyue should have nothing to dwell in, but to be born with his heart.
Image | Stills and networks from "The Shawshank Redemption" (if there is infringement, please contact to delete)