“Change is inevitable in life.” Everything around you is changing with the passage of time. Each individual has the opportunity to bring about a change in his life. Some people prefer to spend their lives doing the same things and avoid change. Others, on the other hand, are not afraid to try new things. They believe that change can be a good thing. Well, in the movie Les Miserables, you will meet a man who was imprisoned for nineteen years for stealing a piece of bread and then decided to change for the better and make things right again. This character is none other than Jean Valjean. This review will focus on him. A person who undergoes changes, from someone with confused morals to a man with more morals than most, who with respect learns to love and share. The story happened in the country famous for its sophistication: France. It is in the 1800s while the French revolution occurs. As the story is told, see how this ex-con was transformed from a miserable criminal into a heroic, brave and peaceful man.
The story began when convict Jean Valjean was released from a French prison after serving nineteen for stealing a loaf of bread and for subsequent prison break attempts. When Valjean arrives in the town of Digne, no one is willing to take him in because he is an ex-convict. Desperate, Valjean knocks on the door of Monsieur Myriel, the kindly priest of Digne. Myriel treats Valjean kindly and Valjean repays the bishop by stealing his cutlery. When the police arrest Valjean, Myriel covers for him, claiming the cutlery was a gift. The authorities release Valjean and Myriel makes him promise that he will become an honest man. Eager to keep his promise, Valjean disguises his identity and enters the city of Montreuil-sur-mer. Under the assumed name of Madeleine, Valjean invents an ingenious manufacturing process that brings prosperity to the town. He eventually becomes the mayor of the city. Without warning, he meets a young woman named Fantine who has an illegitimate daughter named Cossette. He promised the girl that she would adopt her child and treat her as her own. As time passed, Cossette and Jean Valjean found a new and peaceful life for a while in the convent, but the two eventually left the convent and lived in Paris again. Cossette falls in love with a young man named Marius. The political situation deteriorates in Paris and the city experiences a violent uprising. Marius joins the fight out of desperation. Jean Valjean joins the fight to care for Marius, even though a part of him wishes Marius was out of Cossette’s life forever. Valjean saved Marius’s life, although Marius does not know who saves him. After Marius is cured, he returns to find Cossette to marry. After that, Marius found out that it was Valjean who saved him. The newlyweds rush to Valjean’s side just in time for a final reconciliation. Happy to be reunited with his adoptive daughter, Valjean dies peacefully.
Symbolism is something that is woven deep into Les Miserables; it is kept in stolen silver candles that incite retrieval, and the yellow travel permit that indicates foul social play. As for the candles, they are not very recent. They symbolize a deeper importance. After Jean Valjean is released from prison, the special case that will take him in and treat him as a person is the Priest de Digne. Unfortunately, still making up for lost time in his old ways of agony and submitting badly to survive, Valjean takes the silver the Priest used during dinner. The silver speaks of the Bishop’s goal of approaching Valjean deferentially; henceforth, when a policeman takes Valjean with a large amount of silver in his backpack and returns it to the Priest, the Priest reacts by saying that he had given the silver to Valjean as a blessing and tells him to take the candles as well, advising him that they are worth about two hundred francs. He also advises Valjean to remember that he “guaranteed to use this money to become a legitimate man.” Not only that, the Priest speaks of recovery and redeeming quality when he says: Jean Valjean, my brother, you will never again have a place with insidious, but too big. It is your spirit that I buy you; I remove it from dark contemplations and from the soul of destruction, and offer it to God. As for the yellow ticket, when Jan Valjean finally gets out of prison, he was given that piece of paper. At first, it seemed like a ticket to flexibility, but it definitely isn’t. It’s more like a ticket to a lot more misery. That’s because the Yellow Ticket is an image of social dismissal. Jean Valjean must communicate with him constantly to indicate to people that he is an ex-con, or else she will be ignoring his probation and going back to jail. The thing is, this ticket gets people to fire him wherever he wants him to go. As Valjean tells the priest Myriel: “This is my leave ticket: yellow, as you can see. That’s the reason everyone fires me.”
Arguing largely unreasonable. Whatever he did was take a piece of bread to cheer up his starving family, and he was thrown behind bars for a long time as a result. Now that he’s seized his chance and is out, the so-called free world is in every way more pitiful than imprisonment, in light of the fact that he could rest and eat in prison anyway. Due to that yellow ticket, Valjean unfortunately discovers “the importance of freedom when attached to a yellow ticket”, which is not freedom at all. The yellow ticket symbolizes the disgusting way society treats its untouchables. He shows us that “opportunity” doesn’t mean trouble if what it implies is that you’re allowed to starve and bite the dust.
As someone who doesn’t like to watch musicals and plays, the movie Les Miserables has been a revelation to me that movies like these are a must see. The flow of the story is very organized and well composed. The cinematography and effects were surprisingly good given that the movie was from 2012 and the way the characters played their roles is amazing. The dialogues were beautifully delivered by the characters with the right expression, emotion, and feelings so that the viewers can also sense the excitement and excitement in each scene. Although some of the characters have a limited exposure time, their role left a great impact on the viewers. As for the character of Jean Valjean, he was excellently done. The actor is very fit for that role, it was a bit disappointing because in the end, Jean Valjean died. But overall, the movie was perfect. It gave viewers a clear view of how the French Revolution began and ended. In closing, I would like to congratulate the people behind this very good film. They all deserve a big round of applause.
