15 April - "They can never take our freedom"

Braveheart (1995)
dir. Mel Gibson (Apocalypto, 2006)

CAST

Mel Gibson (What Women Want, 2000)

Brendan Gleeson (Gangs of New York, 2002)

Brian Cox (The Bourne Identity, 2002)

David O'Hara (Hotel Rwanda, 2004)

Peter Mullan (Children of Men, 2006)
Gerard McSorley
James Cosmo (The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, 2005)
Alun Armstrong (The Mummy Returns, 2001)
Tommy Flanagan (Gladiator, 2000)
Malcolm Tierney (Great Expectations, 2012)

I haven't seen Braveheart since the first time I saw it, which was in the movie theater, back when I was...small.

I remember complaining afterward about the ending. Everyone dies? What kind of chicanery is this? What type of message are they submitting? How could they make a movie where the hero dies and then all of his friends die too?

I guess I was accustomed to classic children's fare of the day. Perhaps I was unaware this was loosely based on a true story, maybe my mom didn't tell me because at that time I was certain that, at least in the movies, good always triumphs and the hero always wins and if he doesn't get to be with his true love, well, then at least he could have married that French princess.

Of course, William Wallace... (for the sake of simplicity, let me emphasize at this moment that what I know about William Wallace and this time period is general is exclusively derived from this movie and a romance novel I nicked from my mom once called Outlander about an English lady doctor who travels back in time and falls in love with a rugged highlander only to be torn asunder by the ravages of old-timey war. Therefore, all references to historical persons living or dead, but especially dead, are to be understood as referring to the fictionalized film characters and not the real historical figure bearing the same name)

So, of course William Wallace didn't really love that French princess. I mean, he thought she was okay, but he never stopped loving his wife that was slaughtered by English soldiers. So when he was being tortured and killed, Princess Isabelle was totally sad, because William Wallace was probably the love of her life and forever and ever she'll pine over his death, but as he was being tortured and killed, William Wallace was thinking about his dead wife (which made me very teary, akin to the death scene in the wheat field at the end of Gladiator) and I'll bet that the princess did not cross his mind even ONCE. Which sucks for her, you know?

BONUS! Here's a picture of me dressed up as Braveheart: