You can look at your life the way you want to look at it. You can just survive, exist or you can live. Papillon, added one more dimension to this list of being free. He wanted to be free, break all the shackles of suppression and fly away like the butterfly. The central motif of the movie is the butterfly image that is tattooed on the chest of Papillon, wonderfully brought to screen life by Steve McQueen. He is complemented by Dustin Hoffman who is the infamous counterfeiter – Louis Degas.
Papillon echoes the theme of other great movies which dealt with prison breaks like – The Great Escape, and Escape from Alcatraz. I feel that the treatment here is different. Unlike other movies, this movie is all about a person, an individual who has got a plan and that’s one reason why I enjoyed this one. It gives you a vivid picture of life inside and outside the prison.
The internal life is filled with reclusion, the infamous death sentence machine Guillotine, homosexuality, blood ducking vampire, half rations, cockroach plus centipede soup – the events and things are endless. Life outside the prison is more hazardous with poison arrows, lepers, rapid river, swamps and bounty hunters. This was Papillion’s life and he was not affected by this coz he had his own way of defeating all the odds. This movie is worth watching to understand the true meaning of words like – hope, friendship, courage, and finally freedom.
Papillon echoes the theme of other great movies which dealt with prison breaks like – The Great Escape, and Escape from Alcatraz. I feel that the treatment here is different. Unlike other movies, this movie is all about a person, an individual who has got a plan and that’s one reason why I enjoyed this one. It gives you a vivid picture of life inside and outside the prison.
The internal life is filled with reclusion, the infamous death sentence machine Guillotine, homosexuality, blood ducking vampire, half rations, cockroach plus centipede soup – the events and things are endless. Life outside the prison is more hazardous with poison arrows, lepers, rapid river, swamps and bounty hunters. This was Papillion’s life and he was not affected by this coz he had his own way of defeating all the odds. This movie is worth watching to understand the true meaning of words like – hope, friendship, courage, and finally freedom.
