CA 2 Mike Schaufeli e4a
For CA 2 I went to the JT cinema to watch the film ‘’Marathon’’. The film is about 5 men who live and
work in Rotterdam. They work in a garage to fix cars, and they find out they are almost 40.000 euro’s
in debt, and they try to find a way to get out of debt. One of the 5 men was talking about him
running marathons and earning quite some money with it, but the man was handicapped so he
couldn’t run anymore. The 4 remaining men decided to find a sponsor and join the marathon in
Rotterdam. Soon one of the men finds out he has cancer, and that he cannot be cured. He doesn’t
tell anyone about it except the handicapped man, who keeps it a secret.
The handicapped man introduced the men to his uncle to sponsor them for the marathon, they made
a deal : If they all finish the marathon they get 40.000 euros, and if they don’t, than the uncle gets
the garage. From that moment on they decide to have the handicapped man train them for the
marathon. Along the way there are some amusing things and mistakes. When the Marathon is finally
there they rush to the start because they were running late. 3 of the 4 men finished the marathon,
the person who had cancer collapsed 300 metres before the finish and he was brought to the
hospital where he couldn’t be saved.
The 4 men dress his body into the running gear and put him in a wheelchair. They get him to the
place where he collapsed and they take him over the finish, so after all, dead or alive, he finished the
marathon.
I thought the main theme was that you have to work hard to achieve things you really want and
need. This is mainly shown by the man who had cancer, because even though he knew he was going
to die, he pushed through and was determined to finish the marathon.
There were two reasons I wanted to go to the movie. When I saw the movie trailer I thought it was a
very funny movie, and with a lot of humour and jokes in it, so that encouraged me to go. And the
other reason was that we had some free tickets to see the movie.
One kind of culture is really shown, well, a part of the culture, the Rotterdam culture. It really shows
that they don’t like Marrocans, or foreigners at all really, and the use of language, just shows how
different it is from here.
I think this is a quite important film, in my opinion. For me, watching this film was a very nice
experience, and it really motivated me. This film encouraged me to go on with sporting, even though
its hard, even though it seems impossible, that you should just keep going whatever happens.
For me, the film went to hilarious, so very serious and sad at the moment where one man finds out
he has cancer at the hospital. From then on the movie made me think of my aunt, who, even though
she had cancer, fought for a good future of her son until the day she passed away. At the end of the
movie when he collapsed and the other people were waiting in the hospital I got this feeling that
somethings stuck in your throat, and the film was very sad and impressing from that moment on.
Watching this film was in my opinion a very good thing, since I did learn a thing or two from it, one is
to never give up on something you want, and the other one is that true friendship is priceless.
This film was on my mind for quite a while, and it still is, and every time I think of it it still touches
me.