An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge Film - Essay Example

The film opens with the visuals of a man being prepared to be hanged to death from a bridge by some military people. As the moment arrives, the man closes his eyes, and the plank under his feet is moved using a lever but as he falls to hang on the rope, the rope is broken and he falls to the river below. Next, what the viewer sees is the man struggling underwater to release his hands from the rope tied around, a life and death struggle in which he finally succeeds, and then daring the firing squad that pours bullets at him from above, he swims to the shore safely. The entire sequence is fraught with breath-stopping tension as at one moment, the man seems to be going to die, and the next moment, he is again seen to be surviving somehow in this race against death. The moment in which the man arrives at the shore of the river, totally exhausted and breathless, yet living and happy to be alive, he sees a small wildflower just near where he was lying half-conscious. And he is in divine ecstasy seeing that beautiful manifestation of life, especially because the same life a moment before was slipping away from him. Thus the flower becomes a metaphor for his survival and hope.

The film next depicts the firing squad once again closing in on him and him running for life like a madman. The hunter and the hunted become engaged in an intense saga of killer instinct and survival instinct. Then the film shows the viewer a gate that opens before the running man, and for a moment, it seems that his trial by fire is over and he has safely arrived at his house. The visuals of a woman and a child happily welcoming him reinforces this impression. He is seen running towards them in relief and immense joy. But, suddenly, something invisible seems to be pulling him back at one stroke, and the next shot that the viewer sees is the man hanging on the bridge. It is only at this moment that the viewer realizes that the rope-breaking and escape sequence that he/she saw earlier was unreal and was just a last thought, vision, or wishful thinking of the man being hanged. There was no escape possible and he died. The film ends here. While watching the film, I have been finding it difficult to even breathe as the struggle of the protagonist in the film had become my struggle for life in an act of deep empathizing. The film had progressed in such a way as not to give any clue about what would happen in the end. This heightened element of suspense is what shocked me in the end and brought tears to my eyes. The protagonist's intense wish or rather urge to survive made sense to me as the emotion that we all feel before the knowledge of inevitable death. The flower in the film, in retrospection, becomes a symbol of human hope for me. It reminded me that even amidst great helplessness and misery, there is a place for hope.              

The film has invoked in me certain philosophical thoughts about human behavior and destiny. This film could deeply move me just because I could feel empathy and sympathy, as a human being. Yet, it is intriguing that in this world, people could kill each other and inflict misery upon each other. This contradiction, again and again, started annoying me after watching this film. I know that there are no easy answers to the mystery that is the human mind- a phenomenon capable of immense love and extreme cruelty as well. This film has also made me think about the craft of filmmaking and the effectiveness of film as a medium of creative communication. How the shots are visualized and edited in this film is a classic example of condensing a great many shades of human experiences into a short period. It is interesting to note that whatever happens in almost half an hour of the film, that is more than 95% of it, is in reality, just a momentary thought or wish that flashes through the mind of a man. How time is stretched and condensed by the magical medium of film is a phenomenon that never stops fascinating me.