Flicka

 

A few years ago I fell in love with this movie, and lately its symbols and meanings have been coming back to me. It's a story whose characters and images explore the human spirit, embodied in the mustang and a young girl. It's a reminder that the soul can only be reined by love, and that only for love will it be tamed. Otherwise, the soul has to be free to express itself, to run without ever needing to look back. Some souls leap fences, refusing to let the barriers of the world contain them, but every day civility builds more obstacles, and every day it becomes harder and harder to run for as long as you want, and as hard as you want. Freedom is lost through the development of society.

Or at least, it's lost for some. For many, the barriers of society becomes a comfort. I won't willingly give up four walls, a roof and a constant food supply, yet at the same time I must trade in the freedom of self-expression in return for these comforts. Civility disapproves of wild acts of passion, and sees wildness as danger. But I say the need for wild self-expression doesn't intend to destroy. People are afraid of the wild tiger, but you wouldn't be afraid of a mustang, but what is not understood is that neither will kill without just cause. The tiger kills only what it needs to survive.

Philosophical crap aside, I'm not quite sure even the wealthiest of us ever escape the fences the world has built around us. The only time when we can ever run free is in our imagination, and as I grow I feel walls growing tighter around me. It's not a good feeling, but it's not a feeling I know how to escape. My voice is silenced because the things I really want to shout about are considered simplistic and insignificant, unworthy of the educated, sophisticated brain. Everything that comes out of my mouth now must be well-reasoned, toned and adjusted to the season of the intelligent. And as everyone around me becomes more educated, they start to see more uniformly, start to agree on the type of fences we should build and where. I feel the first signs of tightness and sometimes I want to panic.

You must learn their language in order to speak up, and to learn their language you learn their ideas. My language is fading, and I'm not quite sure where the me is, or how she's changed, and whether or not I approve.


[Wild Horses by Natasha Bedingfield]