Casablanca (1942)

My Rating 7/10
[Work of Art 4/5, Sense of Life 3/5]

If a movie has a plot, and if tighter the plot finer the movie, then Casablanca has to be one of the finest movies of all time. There’s not a scene that’s purposeless, not a dialogue that’s arbitrary – each event grows from the preceding one – all of them leading to the resolution of a climax. And such climax! Two men in love with the same woman – the woman torn between respect for one and love for another – an airplane ready to soar to a free, new world – yet they must choose, as only two of them can make the journey.

The topmost portrayals of the movie to look forward to? The flamboyance of Rick (Humphrey Bogart) and the tense, profound relationship he shares with Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman). They started and stopped seeing each other in Paris – a patch in their lives which both of them remember passionately. Things changed since then. A war began and raged on. Both judged and chose the direction of their lives, only to cross each other’s path once again. But matters are different now – the values remain the same, the circumstances alter. The director, Michael Curtiz, oversees, quite masterfully, the spiritual conflicts consuming the leading characters. It is, perhaps, the stoic control with which Rick leads his life that moves Ilsa to cry out, “You must decide for all of us.” He decides, and decides well. Toasting his love to Ilsa, Rick exclaims (and the dialogue would venture deep in the imagination of audiences for many years to come!), “Here’s looking at you, kid!”

Casablanca won the Oscar for Best Picture.