Get Busy Living. . .

Marcus Ovnell, the writer/director of the excellent Swedish film The Break-In, is flying down to Cornwall, Ontario, Canada to premiere the above mentioned movie at the historic Port Theatre on Friday, February 12th, 2016 at 7:15 P.M. As a lead up to the very special event, enjoy this interview with the filmmaker from when we spoke at the St. Lawrence International Film Festival a few months earlier. It was clear from the very beginning that Ovnell has a great passion for cinema (especially American). Being a gargantuan fan of films, it took him a minute to narrow down his pick, with Shawshank Redemption taking the top spot in the end.

Ovnell, who has seen the film numerous times, explains it as being “such a smart movie” while also highlighting the unique aspect that we really do not know if character Andy Dufresne “did it or not”. Make sure to watch the video below to hear other ruminations from the filmmaker. Also, keep an eye out for another Ovnell pick coming up in the near future.

Based on a short story by Stephen King and adapted for the screen by Frank Darabont (who also directed the picture), the film follows the voice-over narration of life-sentence serving Ellis Boyd ‘Red’ Redding (Morgan Freeman) as he tells the tale of his good friend Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins).

It does not take long for the two prisoners to become fast friends as they do much good for the inmates within the jail, while also educating each other along the way. With Dufresne’s lead, they are able to rejuvenate the prison library, aid the guards with their taxes (Dufresne was a banker on the outside), tutor the inmates so that they can get their high school equivalency, and other such positive things.

They do all of this while under the thumb of the powerful and sinister Warden Norton (Bob Gunton) as well as his violent underling, Captain Hadley (Clancy Brown). Dufresne has always maintained his innocence, though Red consistently points out that every inmate says that, yet when a new prisoner named Tommy (Gil Bellows) enters Shawshank, he tells the story of a man he met that bragged about murdering the two people Dufresne had been indicted for killing. When something shocking happens within the prison walls, the event brings forth a strange change in Dufresne and he begins to act in a bizarre fashion. Red and the rest of his pals worry that he may have finally lost all hope. Will he be able to withstand the burden of life imprisonment, or will he allow the weight of the world to bring him down?

Shawshank Redemption is a movie that, when first released, was considered to be a box office flop, yet is now considered by many to be the greatest film of all-time. It contains many excellent and impressive features: a solid story, an excellent voice-over narration, strong acting, a perfect cast, a memorable ending and real-life characters (that hold within them sorrow, pain, empathy, hope and many other interesting emotive qualities).

The movie also flows nicely (an impressive feat – as we are taken through twenty plus years of the characters’ lives). The movie posters that hang on Dufresne’s prison cell wall are a life-line to the outside for him. As time goes by, we watch the women on his wall change: from Rita Hayworth in the 40s and Marilyn Monroe in the 50s, to Raquel Welch in the 60s; signaling the ever-changing society on the outside while also demonstrating the never-changing life on the inside.

Shawshank Redemption is, simply put, a memorable movie. It displays all of the elements that make a film special. So get busy living and watch this classic 1994 flick; it won’t feel like it’s been twenty years any way you look at it.