[My Takeaway from a GOOD MOVIE] Victoria & Abdul / ヴィクトリア女王 最期の秘密
<In my series of [My Takeaway from a GOOD MOVIE] notes, I'll be writing about my humble thoughts or opinions related to a movie I recently watched.>
It's dinner time. A solitary dinner as usual.
And as usual, I decide to check Netflix to see if there is anything pleasantly entertaining enough to watch as I consume my meal.
Like anyone else, I have my preferences of shows and movies that I take the time to watch. Horror is the one genre that does not make the cut, and I also avoid movies that focus on slavery or the Holocaust; basically, movies with a lot of violence and cruelty. Truth be told, I'm in awe of people who could watch such movies at will, with no difficulty to speak of. I wonder why they are able to do so. Are they desensitized ? But then, I wonder, if they are desensitized to the scenes of violence or horror could they be desensitized to the scenes of intense joy or brilliant victory as well? Or, is one's desensitization selective? Questions to be answered in a future note? Perhaps.
This evening in particular I was pleased to find that a new movie had just been released on Netflix. One that I was interested in viewing since I first saw the trailer over a year ago: Victoria and Abdul.
I watched the movie, never losing interest, succumbing to tears at the end, and thereby acknowledging to myself that this movie was indeed GOOD.
In this note I'd like to simply share the main reason why I liked this movie, and that reason can be found in the movie title itself.
Victoria and Abdul *.
Before I watched the movie, I didn't think much of the title. I thought it was a nice title but that was all. At some point near the end of the movie however, the thought occurred to me that deep meaning can be found behind the title. That is, I felt the title purposely wanted to give us the impression that this movie is telling us the story of a relationship between two human beings. The name Victoria refers to Queen Victoria. Why is the title not "Queen Victoria and Abdul"？ I'd like to venture the guess that the reason is because Queen Victoria was a human being before she was a queen, just as anyone else would be. She was simply Victoria. To know this truth, we must have noticed the pure human bond between the queen and her <munshi>, Abdul. A pure human bond that does not weaken when up against meaningless rituals and customs. Despite the fact that he is constantly told not to do so, Abdul makes eye contact with the queen in their first encounter. In the following scene, Victoria's reaction is revealed to be a most human one: "I thought he was handsome", she said. This remark alone tells us that Victoria does not look down on Abdul, writing him off as someone lesser than herself; an inferior Indian servant. On the contrary, her comment could have been coming from a teenager with no royal titles, just an average person. An ordinary human being. Then we have Abdul who, though some might call him naive, dares to look into the queen's eyes, staring upon her in bold but utterly sincere interest.
And perhaps, it was not just because the queen thought Abdul was handsome but also because she was struck by his sincerity and humanity, that she requested to meet Abdul again, and again, until they had become good friends.
My takeaway is this: Humanity responds to humanity. Sincerity responds to sincerity.
This is a movie review type of note that won't give away the movie's ending so to know what emotional scene might have caused me to succumb to tears, you'll have to do yourself a favor and take the time to watch this GOOD MOVIE yourself. Do make sure to leave your sensitivity on.
* "Victoria and Abdul" is the movie title most commonly used. However, there are a small number of countries, including Japan, which chose different titles.
Funny enough, Spain chose to title the movie "La Reina Victoria y Abdul", which translates to "The Queen Victoria and Abdul". So my aforementioned ventured guess would likely come to moot in Spain? Yes, no, maybe so? Ha. I wonder why they chose that title. Interesting.
For reference, see this link:
https://www.imdb.com/title /tt5816682/releaseinfo