'MODERN TIMES'

Modern Times is the first Chaplin movie I have seen. This silent movie was filmed in 1936 during the Big Economical Depression.

I was really surprised when I watched this film, because I wasn't so enthusiastic with the idea to watch an old movie, that's why I found this film so interesting in the way that it showed us comedy; romance and tragedy all in it. The most interesting thing in this movie is that we can see how the main character of the movie Charles Chaplin, turns against modern society.

From my personal point of view I have to say that the whole movie has lots of hilarious scenes without too much of a plot, but its entertainment value is what really matters in this silent and critical movie.

In Modern Times, Chaplin represents a factory worker who attempt to live in an industrial society. In the film we can see the dehumanization process of modern industries.

In the middle of the movie, Chaplin's character met a young orphan woman who helped him to find a work. I really like these two main characters, because the film also allowed us to see the American dream of those times in the way that Chaplin and his love dream about living in a beautiful home with the typical idea of the perfect American family, the worker husband and the stay at home wife.

What is really interesting in this movie is that it portrayed the situation that was happening in the beginning of the 20th century times. "Modern Times", as I said before is set in the Great Depression, but its themes are not outdated. Through the film we can also see that Chaplin is always looking for a sense of identity within his mechanich mind. Despite that situation, for viewers it's very easy to forget that we are watching a fims with such complex social problems , because Chaplin has the great ability of make us laugh out loud the whole movie, even though the fact that sometimes he was facing some problems, like the time whn he was at jail.

I really appreciate the image of Chaplin being run through the situations that he had to face, due to as I said before, he consider the dehumanization of technology and modern times to represent in a critical way what was happening. From that point I think that in today's world there is a return to the importance of human connections.

In my opinion, the two most important moments in the film are the scene in a department store involving a blindfold, and the funniest moment in the film to the mad Chaplin inside of an out of control machine. I think that these two moments of the film are just a handful of moments that make Modern Times the great masterpiece that it is.

From my personal point of view, the aspect of the film that made me have a critical and strongest thinking was the idealistic thoughts that we have about what is modernity. In our hearts, many of us are always looking for exuberance and good life, but in the movie we can see an absence of need for materialism and modern stuffs.

To conclude, I completely love the end of this film where Chaplin and his young woman were walking on the way to the future with a smile on their faces, even though all the bad things that they had to face, such as living in poverty situations in a world that didn't have so much opportunities for them. For that reason, I honestly recommend you this film, because it give us the chance to think that even though all the things that are not working in this world we can make little changes and also, because it reminded us that we can’t forget the idea to live suffering because of that. This movie encourages to try to keep going with our own pursuit of happiness.

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