The song, I Dreamed a Dream, is perhaps the saddest, and the most tragic song I heard in my entire life. It hit the very core of sadness and despair that can happen to any man, or woman for that matter. The fact that it is one of the songs in Les Miserables makes you understand why.
The story of Les Miserables is a story full of tragedy. And that precisely is the source of its appeal in its translations, first to literature, then to the arts through the theatre, and now through film. When it was made a play, the songs and the production made it even more powerful. And now in film, Les Mis will be even more unforgetabble, as what is immortal as it is, will now even be immortalized for generations to come.
To say the least, the movie did justice to the original play. Despite its reel limitations and its unavoidable commercialisitc nature, you can see the effort to be faithful to the spirit of the theatre. It has succeeded in drawing the right emotions as with the play. The movie should not be comparable to the play, however. It is a new perspective of appreciating the original Victor Hugo masterpiece.
In the end, despite all the tragic plots of the story, the main message of Les Mis is the hope and love that comes out, and that triumphs, despite the environment of despair. And this is what the story wants you to know, the hope and the love involving the characters and their individual battles, not the tragedies themselves. This is encapsulated in the final statement of both Fantine and Jean Valjean in the movie, "to love another person, is to see the face of God."
The tragedies provide the drama that made the production appealing. But it is the message of hope and love that makes Les Mis simply immortal.
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