I've just seen Enemy at the Gates. I was crying within the first 15 minutes. But it isn't the story line that causes me such pain in these types of movies.
It's the mass destruction and bloody images of war.
It makes me wonder what it would be like ... how I would live ... in a world torn apart by daily bombings and riots and soldiers roaming the streets as dirty children hide in the sewers, cold and very much alone.
Driving home, it's easy for me to turn my world into a war scene. Buildings demolished and signs and traffic lights fallen in the streets. Smoke tumbles up as buildings tumble down. Bloodied week old bodies litter the street, forgotten in the panic of a society in turmoil.
It scares me that I can so easily envision my town, my streets, my home ... crushed under the attack of some unknown enemy.
But also, it gives me a sensitivity to what our ancestors went through, the fearlessness that they showed. It makes me know that truly, when faced with difficult choices or impossible situations, I could survive.
So when I cry, it's not because someone in that movie needs to save Private Ryan or kill that sniper before he kills this one, or even because two handsome lovers are torn apart that might have, in some other time, lived happily ever after.
I cry for the real heroes, the familes that suffered, the children that died, the nameless soldiers that believed in their cause and fought bravely for what they felt would lead to a future freedom ... I cry for the hopelessness of it all, for the anger it causes, for the death of their dreams.
I cry for each and every life lost, and somehow, forget that I was ever at a movie at all.
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