A reflection on the movie: Les Miserables

     The movie 'Les Miserables'  had been arousing quite a worldwide phenomenon, producing
 dozens of parodies and a fair critical acceptance. Especially in Korea, the release date of the movie coincided with the election and gathered a great deal of audiences disappointed about the result. The revolutionary vigor and the grand musical number 'Do you hear the People Sing?' left a deep echo in the hearts of those who watched it, and soon the movie was treated as an altar of leftists. Personally, I have no will of supporting a certain political aspect. However, I did grow a bit skeptical about Les Miserables being a flawless political enlightenment.
     Les Miserables is a movie about salvation. The protagonist Jean Valjean's repentance and following affluence  is a manisfestation of individual salvation, while the revolution of February, to which the second sect of the movie is devoted to, is about the salvation of the society. Each of these two themes is developed thoroughly on its own, unraveling into a heartfelt tale. However, these themes fail to blend into one another organically.
     Individual salvation and social salvation are concepts that inevitably contradict each other. The former is often very confined, because one's success means another's fall. Look into the cover of every magazines. People who overcame their hardships and was accepted to a higher social class are the exact faces of those who threw others in inferno.
     Returning to the movie, Jean Valjean is actually a character uninterested in social equality or reformation. He sympathizes the poor and is generous towards them because he was once one of them, but it does not get him to dream the same dreams of those who threw their chairs and tables to build a barricade. He may be a nice mayor who feeds the people working under him, but he doesn't know he can change the system itself so that all people gets a daily bread to carry home. The only reason he puts his life on peril is because his dear Cosette's destined lover is walled in the barricade. He is 'not' a part of the revolution. His life centers around his salvation, and not upon the salvation of France.
The movie, however, seems in complete oblivion of the big gap between him and the revolutionists. It just clumsily juxtaposes a separate story, then sews it up by 'Do you hear the People Sing?', denying the character they developed throughout the movie by saying, 'hey, he was probably into this revolution stuff, because he's nice.' They don't explain why Jean Valjean's life is related with the revolution of February, why he, a rather self-absorbed character is depicted as a 'revolutionary hero' at the end of the movie. The two theme simply doesn't fit together, and they are pouring glue into the blanks to keep it from falling apart.   
     This is why the movie(and the novel if it didn't come up with a better explanation) didn't convince me of its political purity. Jean Valjean's story holds a religious, conservative tone, rather obedient towards the existing social order than against it. Sure, the grand musical scenes may stimulate our lacrimal system well enough, but we must not forget the amount of capital poured into the very scene, and where it came from.