I was amazed by the development of the motion picture between 1920 (The Mark of Zorro) and 1933. And the creativity of Hollywood in movie making, I am just running out of words to express myself. Apart from all the music, singing and dancing, the airplane-wing-dance sequence at the end of the film was just astonishing, and according to Wikipedia, it’s made by special effects, but I actually believed that it was true airplane doing the trick when I was watching the movie. I don’t which would surprise me more, its being special effects or its being real.

Since we are here to talk about the border, in this movie, there is actually a two-way of crossing the border, as in the first part, the young Brazilian lady has crossed the border north to US, and in the second part it’s Roger Bond crossing border to the South. The film is focusing more on the second crossing, which is understandable, as it’s a Hollywood movie, and moreover, it’s male dominant at the time.

However, I find that the female protagonista’s crossing the border to the north doesn’t seem to change too much her usual behaviour, only that she is more flirtatious at the first scene, and Roger does fall for that, and of course for her beauty.

And the leave of Roger in the end was not expected at all, because from the first class we’ve been focusing on how people can change after cross the border, either imaginarily or physically, and usually they free themselves more when they cross the southern border, but Roger’s leave makes him more like a northerner, abiding by the moral protocols and being a gentleman. In the end it is Julio who acts more freely although he doesn’t cross any physical border.

Another interesting thing about crossing the border is when Roger’s small plane mis-lands on what they believe is a desert island, and both of them are talking to their true self and get persuaded and kiss one another. I think this kind of fighting between the true self and the social self (I don’t know if it’s called id and ego in Freud’s work?) is very popular among the audience even to the actual date, since people in the society always have to act apropriately, but in fact many social rules are not very natural and humane, and this kind of inner fight does happen a lot, but we don’t talk about it too often in our daily life, like it’s something that we only talk to a shrink, our best friends, or only in our diary. And now we can see it on the big screen. It makes me feel somehow that I myself is there on the screen and let go some depression and anxiety. So to me, walking into a cinema is kind of like crossing a border.

Last but not least, I really don’t like the scene when the woman shouted cannibals when she sees some indigenous on the “desert” island. It brings back all the memory of the cruel colonial history, and yet the director is trying to make fun out of it.