The Boat of Life: The Enlightenment of Cold Mountain

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As Darwin’s theory suggests, every life form, ranging from the tiniest plankton to our human beings, has their common basic meaning of life, namely, to hand your gene which is passed down by your ancestors down to your next generation. In this sense, life is just like a small boat full of genes, whose task is to drift from one side of the bank to the other. Some people criticized this theory by saying that it lowers our human beings to be equal to animals. But after seeing the movie Cold Mountain, you will find that even if the simplest aim of reproduction is definitely not easy to be accomplished. The world does not carry us casually. If we truly respect the miracle of life, we should pay our greatest tribute to the miraculous chance of being one of the human races.
What is the most priceless thing in the turbulent period of war? The faith to one’s country? The loyalty to your friends? Or the immortal love between a man and a women? No, although all of them enjoy grand glamour, none of them can take the place of the fact of being alive, for only by being alive can Inman and Ada keep their promise, can a mother protect her child. Actually, it is the responsibility to the beloved keeps all the men and women endure the torture of war and seize any opportunity for life.
In the movie, the women do much better job than men on the part of respecting life. They are prepared to sacrifice themselves at any time in order to protect their children, who are the carriers of the genes of their husbands. Sally, who once was so generous to provide Ada with free meals for many times, never let anybody go into her house since her two sons fled from the battlefields home. It is not until she witnesses her husband’s death for the protection of their children, is severely tortured by Teague and then sees her boys are shot to death by Teague is her radical change understood by Ada and Ruby. Sarah, another respectable woman, suffers from poverty, humiliation, and loneliness day after day, only to feed her infant who has never seen his father. 「It’s pretty much you』ll get if you knock on any door of this warm. Man dead, women left」, she said, with no self-pity. But when the despaired woman gets outraged by the offense at her son’s life, she took away her enemy’s life cold-bloodily.
This war was first expected by men. When the young men got bored to their routine life, they expected something thrilling like a war, in which they can assert their masculinity and get opportunity to change their life. So they celebrate the coming of the war as they celebrate a festival. But in the war, they finally know the value of being alive. They flee, and many of them pay for it at the cost of their lives. Nor does the young town guard understand the meaning. He only gets his so-called 「the confidence of youth」. He doesn』t』 respect life for he doesn』t take it as serious as his ambition. Finally he pays for it also at the cost of his life: he’s too young to understand life.
But not all men screwed it up. Through the war, Ruby’s father turns from a liar, a loafer and a tyrant to a kind father who begins to protect bravely. Of course the most remarkable role is Inman, who never lacks profound understanding 0f life. In the years when so many people lose their integrities, judgments, clear minds and souls, he keeps all of them until the end of his life. It seems that his way home, which contains so many pains, turns out to be a pity for he finally died when he just set foot on the Land of Cold Mountain. However, he realized his dream of returning home and marrying Ada. What’s more important, Foreshadowed by the Indian’s words that 「there’s a plan; there’s a design for each and every of us. You look at nature: birds flies somewhere, picks up a seed, suits the seed out, play grows. Bird’s got a job; sheet’s got a job; seed’s got a job; and you』ve got a job」, and Ada’s mysterious smile on kissing dying Inman, he plants his own seed, a daughter, Grace Inman, an amazing grace of God who carries all her father’s gene of integrity, judgment, clear mind and soul. That’s why Ada finally says that 「every step if your journey was worth it.」
At the end of the movie, Ada confessed: 「this time of year there’s so much life everywhere, I can find you in all of it, as if you were still walking home to me.」 This thought is not a impulsive one out of missing. It’s rational because Inman is the best representative of life, a grace God gives every one of us.