Let the Sunshine In

The movie is thirty years old, the history happened in the sixties, the image's quality and the patterns of clothes and make-ups do not hide its age, but it is still contemporaneous, even treating of a subject of that decade. Full of songs and dances, as a musical has to be, this movie is not tiring, but it is so exciting. Even with couple of scenes with drugs, nobody can say it is a kind of apology to this. Even it talking about Vietnam War, that finished so long time ago, its message can be applied for actual wars. I am talking about Hair, a 1979 film of Milos Forman, a real classic of the American cinema. It is an adaptation of the 1968 Broadway musical with the same title. Despite some criticisms, it was a very interesting job, which shows the history and made history in the seventh art.

I could see this movie in the website Hulu (www.hulu.com) which I recommended for everyone. It is a so easy to navigate website where we can see several movies (mainly classical), documentaries, TV series, shows, talking shows, and everything for free, just with some commercial interruptions.

For those who does not know yet the plot of the movie is simple. It is about one young man, Claude, who left his family in Oklahoma to go to New York City to enlist in the US Army and serve in the Vietnam War. In New York, specifically in the Central Park, he meets a group of hippies that introduce him to a so different style of life. After some unusual experiences, Claude goes to Nevada, for soon goes to Vietnam. However his friends go to visit him and, in a so improbable way, George, a kind of leader of this group of hippies, goes to Vietnam in Claude's place.

For sure there are some unlikely scenes as that one when they go to a party with no invitation and George dance on the table, or this one when the same George goes to Vietnam War mistakenly, but even improbable, these scenes are meaningful. For sure, the characters are stereotypes, and this has to be understood to avoid some criticism about their clothes and behaviors. But we are talking about art, and this resource - stereotypes - is extremely valid, and, if the spectator does not stop looking for problems but let the movie tells what it has to say, this works very well.

Despite these stereotypes we can see a lot of real representations there. It is so amazing when we observe some clothes and habits that, even after thirty years, still continue between us. For sure, jeans and t-shirts for men and women what was not so usual in that time and is the most common clothes today. We also see them wearing the same tennis shoes we wear, as the classic All Star Converse. But about the appearance, of course, the hairs are what speak loudest in this film. Big and crazy hairs are against short and well behaved hairs, hippies and free people in one side and traditional and within standards people in another one. When George decides to help Claude to go out of the base just for some minutes to be able to meet his friends, George has to cut his hair. This can mean George relinquishing his freedom to help one friend, and this is what really happens.

For our days perhaps this movie could be controversial, so imagine in that time. It talks about a lot of controversial issues, as drugs, racism, and non-traditional relationship, with a kind of sexual liberation. It shows people using marijuana and LSD, and some reaction of these drugs. It shows people talk and singing about racism openly, as in sings "Black Boys" and "White Boys", and it shows a crazy girl who does not know who is the father of her baby and is not worried about this, for her this is not so important, she said that the father of her baby is "one of the guys". As I have already said the movie shows that is possible to talk about all these controversial issues without say what is right, what is wrong, just showing that this exists and some people do and/or think exactly as the movie shows. This was valid for that time and is valid until today.

However the peak, the climax of the movie is the last scenes, when George goes to Vietnam in the place of Claude. These scenes are so meaningful. We can see and understand these scenes from different viewpoints, and they can be useful until in our days. In these scenes we see a lot of young people going to the war mechanically, without think so much about that, as a herd, and, in the middle of these young, George is the only one who is really conscious about this, because he is really going to the war with no reasons, without his own will. We can see these scenes looking to Claude who conscious or unconscious opted for love instead or war, because he just went out the base to see Sheila, his love. We can compare those young going to the war with the others, the hippies, living in Central Park. In different ways, both are living a nonsense life, and both are walking to the death (in the film, the hippies survived for more time.) When, in the last scene, they are in cemetery, it is almost as they were asking to
themselves and to us why do I have to obey the order if this will be my end.

Hair does not preach any behavior's rule explicitly. If it leaves us some teaching is we should live intensely, we should do not worry about the other's opinion, but to do what we believe is the best for us. The most important, for sure, is the message of the peace against the war. Here it is not talking about that one, but about all wars, those are all with no reason, no meaning, because the end of everyone is the same, as they sing in the song "Where do I go". More than one teaching, the movie preaches one dream, one day the "peace will guide the planets, and love will steer the stars." It is really impossible to finish seeing this movie without to be contaminated for this message. As the song says, "let the sunshine in".