The Crucible, 1996

I had avoided any movies, talks, etc, which reminded me of "The Crucible" since the time I had to read a play with the same name, in year 10, High School. The chaos, craziness, dishonest, etc of that play, frightened the hell out of me as a newly migrant to Australia at the time.

But I watched it last night, because of Daniel Day-Lewis, who played John Proctor in this movie. (I have become curious of the actor who dared play the role of the playboy Tomas in the movie "The Unbearable Lightness of Being").

I was real impressed with him and the movie.

Gee, the way he was so convincing in his role as a righteous, passionate farmer, who ready to die for his beliefs, his faith, his values in life, etc, gave me goose bumps.

Winona Ryder was very good too. She looked so dishonest, cunning and nasty, just as the role of Abigail Williams should be.

Joan Allen was incredible as Elizabeth Proctor, the wife of the righteous and passionate John. The two of them were so contrast in personality, except for the love of goodness. While Elizabeth sticked to rules, John sticked to the basic of why rules were made in the first place. They respected each other. They loved each other in their own way, and between their love, remained an uneasiness about the fact that John once did have an affair with Abigail Williams.

The movie was about a pretty but malicious Abigail, who manipulated events which had happened around her, to remove anyone she disliked, among these, the wife of her once, lover. Many residents of the town of Salem joined in with her game, under the name of "destroying witchcraft for Salem". Turned out, that many of them had been habouring anger, vindictiveness in their heart against certain fellow villagers. With Abigail Williams and a court full of proud and brainless judges, the game of revenging was carried out beautifully, even the devil himself could not have done better there.

The result was, many good and innocent residents of Salem were killed by hanging.

Anyone who wanted to learn about human being's weaknesses should watch this movie. It is brilliantly done, the cast did a terrific job, the conversations involved worthed thinking about and being comptemplated.