Allegory of the Head and the Heart

It's finally Friday evening, and I'm feeling so exhausted, looking forward with relish to a weekend of rest and recreation. Here I am again in front of my computer with a blank page. I'm still undecided: should I be writing a very serious article or should I just ramble and kind of shoot the breeze with my non-existent readers? Perhaps I should go for the latter...

Just yesterday, as I sat in front of the TV, casually channel-surfing, I chanced upon a rerun of The Bounty--the 1984 version, directed by Roger Donaldson, starring Anthony Hopkins and Mel Gibson. This happens to be one of my all-time favourite movies for many reasons. The Vangelis soundtrack was definitely one of them. Because the movie soundtrack was never officially released, the music has remained generally unknown, but I must say it is among Vangelis's best.  

The moment the synthesizer strains of the Bounty theme played, it resonated like an anthem of my youth. I couldn't really believe that I've been watching this movie again and again for the past 4 decades!  And you bet I know every line uttered by every actor in this movie. 

Why am I so obsessed with this now forgotten movie? At a superficial level, it is a grand Hollywood movie with a star-studded cast. It's rarely that you are able to find so many Oscar winners in a single movie. Imagine a cast with names like Laurence Olivier, Anthony Hopkins, Mel Gibson, Daniel Day-Lewis, Liam Neeson and Edward Fox. The only other movie that I know having so many A-list stars is A Bridge Too Far (another one of my favourites). 

Being a period adventure drama based on the true story of the mutiny on the ship Bounty, the action moves swiftly from the stately boardroom of the English Naval office, to the stormy oceans of the Atlantic into the tropical splendour of Tahiti island. It is a grand popcorn-chewing cinematic experience. Why wouldn't anyone like it? But to me, it was something more.

The performances of Anthony Hopkins as the Captain William Bligh of the ill-fated ship Bounty and Mel Gibson as Fletcher Christian as one his officers and personal friend in the crew on board were riveting. The movie showed how their relationship deteriorated from friend to foe, from loyalty to betrayal and their world, from decorum to chaos, from civilisation to savagery. All on an endeavour that was suppose to be a rather boring voyage commissioned by the Royal Navy to the island of Tahiti to bring back the breadfruit plant, which its fruit can be potentially used as cheap rations for the slaves. "A green grocery trip", as described by Fletcher Christian at the beginning of the movie.

Captain Bligh was driven by ambition. As a naval officer who had spent the greater part of his life in the seas, he wanted to take the opportunity in this voyage to circumnavigate the globe, while the younger Christian, was eager for the adventure. And for the young crew, they had heard so many stories of the mysterious island of Tahiti in the South Pacific where "women wore no clothes". Not only were they cavorting around half-naked in grass skirts, they were also very casual in granting favours to visitors. To them Tahiti was paradise in every sense of the word. 

Captain Bligh was a hard disciplinarian and life on the ship for sailors were harsh. The punishment for mutiny was death by hanging. While the captain maintained decorum and distance, the crew was understandably intoxicated by the easy sensuality of the natives. Imagine what it was like when it came for the time to depart from the sunny palm-fringed beaches of Tahiti, into perilous seas towards cold and grey England. Mutiny was inevitable.

It was a classic tussle between the head and the heart:  Bligh was all reason and discipline; Christian, the romantic passions of the heart. Maybe it's this conflict that bears that finds resonance in me. I'm a bit of both and at different moments in my life, one or the other wins the tug of war. 

 I've always been the yuppie who rebelled against corporate conformity. There'd always been a bohemian streak in me that I had difficulty in taming; a hidden impulse to break away from the strictures of middle-class morality. A mutineer, if you will.

Sitting there in front of the TV after dinner on a lazy weekday evening after work, I was transported back to the heady days of my youth, when The Bounty was an allegory of the eternal battle between the head and the heart.