Skip to main content

A Review of 'Maleficent'

 A Review of 'Maleficent'

- Aditi Sawant

I'm sure that those of us who are fans of the beautiful and extremely talented Angelina Jolie or were fans of ‘Brangelina’ (Brad Pitt- Angelina Jolie) or are just lovers of fairy tales or just lovers of strong women characters, must have watched the highly celebrated film – Maleficent. The film at first glance can seem to be a sort of a fairy tale, but it isn’t and to tries its very best in proving this point till the very end. Fortunately, it does so. The themes explored in this film are patriarchal habits, human greed, true love and its irony, womanhood, motherhood, the facts and beliefs about fairyland, societal laws and rules, unconventionality, the difference between truth and lies and last but not the least, rebelliousness.


In the very first half of the film, I was filled with utter happiness and awe seeing Maleficent in love with a human and was restoring my faith in humanity by the boundless love which was showered by Stephan to Maleficent. The true love's kiss on her 16th birthday acted like the cherry on the cake.

Maleficent, as a fairy and a superhuman being, is shown very unconventional in the film, unlike our Disney princesses. She has mysteries in her eyes and love too. She has vengeance and care too. Her attire in itself stands as testimony to her personality.  Her wings act like a gateway to freedom but her horns symbolize dominance and authority.  Stephan’s breaking his promise and destroying Maleficent’s personality and identity does have far reaching effects on her. We get to see this overt other side of hers which is really undeniably enchanting and mystifying at the same time. Her want for revenge is justified and very articulately shown in the film. She does also have a very motherly touch to her as we see when Stephan’s daughter is in her shelter and care. She doesn’t hurt the child of her disgraceful lover. She knows the difference between revenge and unscathed atrocity.


She cares for her and loves her, which we also see in the climax as the true love’s kiss. It’s not the Prince but Maleficent kissing her God-daughter Aurora to break the curse given by her for Stephan’s wrong doings. She realizes her mistake towards Aurora but like the vengeful one she is she does have her revenge from Stephan.


Fairy tales are sometimes not meant to realize love but meant to realize what kind of love one deserves at a certain time, mostly at the right time!


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Review of "The Tale of the Rose" by Emma Donaghue

 A Review of "The Tale of the Rose" by Emma Donaghue - Mayura Bhandari “The Tale of The Rose” is a retelling of the popular children’s fairy tale, “The Beauty and The Beast”. It is one of the short stories in the collection by Emma Donoghue, called Kissing The Witch . The story is narrated from the point of a young woman who describes herself as having an appetite for magic. She doesn’t desire suitors, finery or riches. When her father’s ships get lost at sea, her cushy life disappears. But without despair, she gets to work. She washes her father’s clothes, finding peace and satisfaction in it. When fortune smiles upon their family, her siblings ask for riches and finery, but she desires a red rose bud. Her father returns and hands her the rose, explaining that the price of that flower was that he had sold her to a Beast. Obediently, she heads over to the castle, nervous and excited for a new chapter in her life. She recalls the lore the villagers told her. About a young ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Psychological Analysis Of Waiting For Godot

Psychological criticism adopts the methods of "Reading" employed by Freud and later theorists to interpret texts. It argues that literary texts, like dreams, express the secret unconscious desires and anxieties of the author, that a literary work is a manifestation of the author's own neuroses. Here, we are going to apply the same form of criticism on Samuel Beckett’s play, ‘Waiting for Godot.’  Unanswered questions behind the characters behaviour are answered here. We would be looking further to the psychoanalytical approach, Sigmund Freud being the important proponent here. A major focus on the language and how dreams reflect our mental personality are given in his second essay, “Interpretation of Dreams.” The plot clearly states that Estragon has nightmares and Vladimir never addresses them and remains unhelpful towards it, being the one who is aware about their sufferings. The nightmares contain flashbacks and images of a gruesome and horrific event that has hap...
1 comment
Read more

Marxism in Waiting for Godot

Samuel Beckett, the most eminent Irish playwright wrote ‘’Waiting for Godot’’ in French in 1949 and then translated it into English in 1954. This play has been performed as a drama of the absurd with astonishing success in Europe, America and the rest of the world in the post second world war era. For this reason, Martin Esslin calls it, “One of the successes of the post-war theatre” (Esslin, Martin, 1980) In this play, the two tramps, Vladimir and Estragon, wait expectantly to see a man simply known as Godot, a character who does not make an appearance in the play, despite being the titular character. The play begins with waiting for Godot and ends with waiting for Godot. Marxism refers to the political and economic theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, later developed by their followers to form the basis of communism. Marxism introduced ideas such as Dialectical Materialism, Alienation, and Economic Determination. Beckett’s ‘Waiting for Godot’ has a minimalist setting...
Post a Comment
Read more