Straight Story
Straight Story had many features that were different to the other films that we have seen this semester. First off, Alvin set off on a lawn mower which already sets up the idea of the rural areas where the farms and cornfields remain. A way for the realization to be shown in the film, was the fact that Alvin actually had car troubles, multiple times so the idea was that he certainly wasn't invincible. Although, in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, they had car troubles as well, the issues for Alvin seemed more significant since he was already on a low budget trip. Also, Alvin seemed to use the actualization that is brother could die soon and his own health problems as his drive to travel and make-up with his brother. Many of these issues appeared very natural and understandable and he was a man that seemed real unlikethe other movies, with all of their dramatic characters. He was an old man who had health problems and a mentally ill daugther who took care of him and kepy up the house. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary besides the fact that he rode from Iowa to Wisconsin on a lawn mower.
Revelation on the other hand is what happened while he was on the road trip. Each time he met someone he learned something about himself and left an impression on everyone he ran into on his way to Wisconsin. After he meets the pregnant adolescent, he is left with the bundle of sticks that represent family which is the most important value to him. When he met up with the women who hit a deer, he took the deer and ate it, then attached the antlers to his trailer. After his lawn mower broke down again, after a hill, he met a family that took him in for a night and he got to reflect on his experiences in war. It made him relive the pain that he suffered. He then got stronger from that experience and built up the courage that was necessary to meet up with his brother again. As he told the twins that fixed his lawn mower, "a brother is a brother" and that will never change which made him feel worse about the small conflict that they had in the past. These three themes realization, which was the small budget he had for the whole trip and transportation, actualization which is how much time he actually had left in his life and revelation which he went through over the trip were main ideas in this film that tell the story of Alvin Straight, an ordinary old man.