Saturday, July 17, 2010

I can't believe I forgot to write about this...

I watched "Invictus" for the first time a couple of weeks ago. It blew me away. It's set in newly post-apartheid South Africa. Even though segregation laws had been done away with, the people of South Africa were far from being united. It's actually a pretty accurate portrayal of true events, and that always gets me. The movie itself is mostly clean. There are a couple dirty words to beware of, one of which is pretty blatant, but the rest are kind of hard to make out because they are being mumbled by Rugby players with South African accents.




Rent it.

Also, the movie is named after the famous poem "Invictus" by William Ernest Henley. It's my new favorite. It's amazing to me how literarily incompetent I am sometimes. I had never heard of it until watching this movie, but I love love love it.

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me
Black as the pit from pole to pole
I thank whatever Gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell grasp of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid

It matters not how strait the gate
How charged with punishments the scroll
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.



I may or may not have just typed that entirely from memory. Booyah.

3 comments:

  1. i love that poem. and i love you memorized it.

    i also love you.

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  2. I watched it for the first time 2 weeks ago too! Oh man. Loved it. I also love that poem! Also, you should look up the conference talk that quotes that poem. It is also pretty epic.

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  3. yay for great movies and better poetry. you are my hero.

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