183 Films can tell us a lot about the country where they were made. What have you learned about a country from watching its movies? Use specific examples and details to support your response.

It’s difficult or nearly impossible to travel around the world for most of the people. There are nonetheless a lot of ways to get to know a country other than being there personally. Film is certainly one of them. I’ve never been to America before, but through various movies that I’ve watched a vivid picture of U.S.A has been depicted in my mind already. Amongst them, I think <Pearl Harbor>, <Forrest Gump> and <Fahrenheit 911> are the most influential ones.

<Pearl Harbor> is a war film. It shows us one of the most famous defeat and tragedy in American history, the Pearl Harbor battle. This movie brings us back to the 1940s. From that movie, I know about the political shift before and after the battle; how America finally joined the world war two; how it got over the traumatic impact of battle of Pearl Harbor and finally fought back. Not only the history, but also the life of the Americans in 1940s was shown to us in that movie.

If <Pearl Harbor> tells me about the America in 1940s, <Forrest Gump> tells me what happened in the US between 1960s and 1980s. This movie talks about the life of a people called Forrest Gump. The spirit that reflects from his life is one sparkling point of the movie, but the background of the story should never be ignored. Besides being moved and encouraged by Forrest, I learned a lot about American history in that period. Vietnam War, Water Gate incident, racial problem, ping-pong diplomacy, sex abuse, just to name a few, are all shown in the movie, so that I get to know the country deeply beside the mere fact that it was one of the two super countries at that time.

The previous films bring me the history of the US at different stages, while <Fahrenheit 911> shows the current situation. Unlike previous two, it is a documentary film, so I get even more information from this. American democracy may be a good thing, but it may be not. There are so many works under the table that it put a question mark on the validity of the system. Is it really a democracy or just a sham? There is only one theme of politics: money. Mr. Bush was supported and patronized by Saudi Arabian money; in exchange, he provided special treatment to his patron, even when the country was under the most severe attack after world war two. Just as the director commented, it’s only a simple comparison on the part of the president, billion’s of dollars on the one side from his patron and less than a million dollars on the other side. There is no reason why he prefers the very people to whom he has sworn to be loyal. And the so-called just war against Afghanistan and Iraq cannot escape the theme either.

The image we get from a film may be in some way misleading or prejudiced, but no one can deny the fact that it surely conveys lots of information about the country, especially to people from another country, though in order to fully know the country, experiencing it by yourself is always the best choice.