chariots of fire

Chariots of Fire for those unfortunate enough not to know(and your also unfortunate enough to be so bored that ur reading my blog woah double whammy) is a 1981 British movie that one four Oscars including best picture,best screenplay and best original music score .The movie keeps popping up in any best sport movie list u might see on the net and i mean good lists not ones with Chak De India and Lagaan at the top.And today after wasting 100 bucks and three hours watching source code(well it wasnt a total waste but heh am not so bored that ill be discussing those stuff in a blog!!!)i came back home craving for cinema magic( regarding magic of other sorts i had enough of that today ,sorry cant help but brag) and settled down to watch this lil gem from 1981 .I love sports movies sure its the same sentu of the underdog beating the big bully but this one"s a little more than that.For one it does the whole thing with class and authenticity, secondly the music man where do English movies come up with these tunes from Titanic to Casablanca ,Sound of music to Lion King and this one believe me is  as good as the rest in the list above.Thirdly it truly captures the spirit of the Olympic games  in all its glory .Let me explain the movie depicts the simultaneous lives of Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams two of the stars of the 1924 Paris Olympics though many of u may not be familiar with the names (though u are familiar with the idiot who scored 15 runs of 5 balls and played some ugly shot which he calls the nut cracker or something to get an unexpected boundary in the ipl last night !!!common india whats wrong with you ,the biggest ratings this summers been Ekta Kapoor  and the ipl  ).Its about (back to the movie)the heart of the middle distant runner and the nerve of the sprinter as Harold says one may push guts,bully em but u can hold nerves.Harold is a Jewish Cambridge law undergraduate who is determined to respond to anti-semantic feelings towards him by "running em off their feet" .The other main protagonist is one Eric Liddell who is a Scottish protestant missionary with a gift for running .And thus the movie flows and comes to  life around the methods and dreams of these two extraordinary  gentlemen finally terminating  in the twin endings of their respective events.The two standout scenes of the movie were one when Harold"s coach who was too nervous to go to the stadium  is standing in his hotel  balcony staring at the distant Olympic stadium and finally sees the union jack rising to the top in the distance. A  look of amazement in his face as he whispers choking  with emotion "by jove harold u did it " .The second scene is of course Erics 400 m final . A flier as the american coach puts it to describe eric is one who sprints out of the blocks with fury but has no energy left to finish.Most great films have their moment of magic like the  scene of escape in  Shaw-shank Redemption , or the ghetto scene in Schindler"s list or the the final light saber battle in Revenge of the Sith  moments in cinema which in a natural , mesmorising , spontaneous way capture the very essence of the movie whether it be the taste of freedom of a prisoner or the color of hope of a little girl in red or the despair,and acceptance of tragedy , this was one such moment .As Eric pushes forward  its that moment in which whether it be because of the music , or because of the way he says in that Scottish ascent  "he also made me faast" or the look of pride in the eye of his brother u realize tonight will be the night when the flier wont stop flying and he runs like the wind.