"Casablanca"

 

"Casablanca"

Casablanca is a classic 1942 romance that tells the story of how Rick, the cynical owner of a ritzy bar in Casablanca under control of French collaborationists, helped Ilsa, his old Parisian flame, and her husband Laszlo, an anti-Nazi partisan, escape from war-ravaged Europe to America.

The narrative is propelled mainly by uncertainties: over whether Rick, played convincingly by Humphrey Bogart, would shed his cynicism and stick out his neck for the sake of someone he loves, even though he’s sure her heart could never belong to him, and whether Ilsa, a both luminous and generally aloof character mesmerizingly rendered by Ingrid Bergman, will stay with Rick or leave with her husband.

When all is revealed during the final scenes of the movie, it becomes apparent that even the not-so-genuine confession of love made by Ilsa to Rick, probably just to get her and her husband the all-important letters of transit, alongside sweet memories of a brief, happy past, are enough to push Rick to make a life-changing decision at great risk and in a spirit of selflessness until then kept latent under a nonchalant facade.

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