The hills are filled with the sound of music

One of the primary factors contributing to the gradual evolution of humankind must be its tendency to perform acts that are not just limited to survival manouvres. Of course, there will be many who will contend that even the seemingly unrelated acts are actually attempts by human beings to attract the opposite sex and thus reproduce better and ultimately keep fighting in the struggle to get chosen as the fittest and thus, survive. However, if we do neglect the rather minor opinion of the die-hard Darwin enthusiasts, it seems that free flowing activities like music, dance, poetry, literature, and so many others are what make humans different from the other species that live from day to day only in order to protect themselves and their offsprings from possible annihilation.

Of the many such differentiating activities, the one thing that keeps coming at the top of most people's lists can be safely assumed to be music. Whether it be the brooding poet giving notes to his ode to some season, or the incoherent lover strumming his violin strings in the dead hours of the night, the sound of music is kept alive and as the moon beam plays hide-and-seek with the lover and the poet, the notes fly up into the air and seem to get mixed into the nature from which they have ultimately evolved. It is in honour of and inspired by God's creations that the best of music comes forth as the ordinary mortal remains immobilized, feeling and listening to the scales finish their octaves as the nature and especially, the motherland that has always given him succour displays its resplendent beauty and wows out all the cynicism.

The immensely popular movie classic "The Sound of Music" opens with the song that has filled the heart of the beautiful, vivacious, funny, and above all different Maria. A would be nun in the Abbey, Maria feels music in her bones and admittedly can not stop singing, not even when she is the Abbey. Nature, the hills and brooks and snow and water...they all bring music as naturally to her as a mother might come to her child in time of need. Maria is full of adventure and the independent streak in her makes her a problem for the Reverend Mother who decides to let Maria go out and feel the real world away from the walls of the Abbey and let her decide and identify the destiny that God has chosen for her.

Sent as a governess to seven children of a proud Austrian patriot, Captain von Trapp, Maria realizes the absence of music in the von Trapp household. The death of Mrs. von Trapp has immersed an otherwise happy family into a gloom from which Maria undertakes to take them out. She teaches the children how to sing and with the notes of "Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti", brings the music back into their lives and the smiles on their faces. In the process, she falls in love (equally reciprocated) with the Captain, their father. Unable to decide her fate and scared of her own self, she runs back to the Abbey and hides in isolation till the Reverend Mother tells her to go out and find her destiny.

The Reverend Mother tells Maria that loving a man does not necessarily mean that she will love God less. A beautiful thought, indeed...something which the fanatics across religions must understand. It is not the celibacy (just to take an example) that is important...what is important is the concept behind it. Loving God with all your heart does not mean that there is no love inside you for anyone else. Loving somone else does not mean that you can not fulfill the destiny that God has decided for you. You can still play your role in the Grand Design and thus make sure that you give yourself over to God (for what God wants is not for us to keep chanting His name every second but to fulfill His scheme of things...finish the job that He has sent us here for).

Maria finally goes back to her family and just as things were starting to get cozy, come the Thrid Reich and the Germans who are taking over Austrian territories. They have not, however, taken over the Austrian spirit yet and as the von Trapp family says adieu to Austria and her people in the Austrian music festival on the stage, they give rise to probably the last independent outcry against oppression. As the mvoie ends rather unfortunately with the von Trapp family making good their escape and leaving behind the mother land that had given them their music, the audience is left with a desire for more...more of the dialogues that are more of songs than dialogues...more of the high-pitch high-note conclusion of songs...more of the dance...more of the smiles...more of the beautiful Austrian landscape.

Julie Andrews is bewitchingly beautful in this movie and with her character being that of a free and unassuming girl, she makes the best out of it. At the same time, Christopher Plummer as Captain von Trapp manages to maintain the inconsiderate-turned-loving father image as also that of the proud patriot. The seven children are as lovely as they come and the youngest of them enchants, in particular. The 1965 classic directed by Robert Wise is one movie that you can watch again and again. It is a movie that you will be happy to show your children, the kind of movie that makes you appreciate the finer things in life, the kind of movie that makes you see the child in you once again...the kind of movie that fills your heart with the sound of music.