The Weekly Writing Challenge #2 - My Favorite Movie - The Color Purple -

"The colour purple - this is almost a winged word not only within the women's movement, because these three words stand for hope and self-realisation" Purple is a colour that is omnipresent in the women's movement. It has a symbolic character there. This symbol is also used by the women in Steven Spielberg's film "The Color Purple". The film shows the life of the African American Celie, whose life is marked by psychological and physical violence. It shows her path to an emancipated and self-determined life.

But why purple? There are various explanations for this. The preferred one is that the male blue and the female red unite in her, only to merge into each other as equals. "The archetypal figure of the double sex, the Greek hermaphroditus, is connected with the symbolism of violet.'"Purple, or violet, has thus stood for a connection between man and woman since ancient times. Moreover, Alice Walker is an activist for women's rights and chose this colour for a reason.

The most important purple element of the whole film is the flower field. In these moments Celie feels free and happy. Steven Spielberg uses this flower field to create a cinematic framework in his work. At the beginning he shows the two sisters, Celie and Nettie, playing frolicsomely in a purple flower field. They can still be children, because only then does Celie's life begin to be determined by others. In one of the last scenes of the film Celie and Nettie meet again after decades of separation. Again in a purple flower field. Possibly in the same one, because Celie now lives again in her parents' house, which she inherited after the death of her stepfather. In this scene both sisters wear purple clothes, Celie in the form of a dress and Nettie also as a dress and as a scarf, visible from afar, fluttering in the wind.

In the scenes in which Celie is free from the male oppression in her life, the colour purple usually appears. The film begins with a reserved and oppressed Celie and ends with a Celie who is now self-confident and can look into a self-determined life, united with her loved ones.