The 2001 film "O" based on Shakespeare's Othello depicts the similar tragic love story of Desdemona and Othello. The film is set at a rich Southern boarding school with a successful basketball team. Othello, Odin in the movie, is a young black male who joins the basketball team while his schooling is paid for by scholarship money. Odin is immediately recognized by the coach as the captain of the team and the star athlete. Iago, Hugo in the movie, is the senior starter who is jealous of the coach's unprecedented attention towards Odin and his lack of being chosen as a captain. Moreover, Hugo is jealous of the promised love between Odin and Desi, Desdemona. Hugo similar to the play sees the love between Desi and Odin as blatantly wrong. He hurls racial slurs at Odin.
Like the play, Hugo attempts to poison the minds of all the players in his favor. He tries to convince the Dean, Desi's Dad, that Odin is not right for Desi. Hugo seeks out help from the school "slut", Emily, to steal the scarf (the handkerchief). Roger, Roderigo, is madly in love with Desi and basically the school nerd. His desperation to fit in the "in-crowd" demonstrates his loyalty to Hugo and why Roger easily allows himself to be manipulated. Hugo's rampage continues as he tries to breed insecurity in Odin's relationship with Desi. He even convince Odin to return to doing drugs which hype up Odin's anxieties. Desi is actually a respectable woman in the play as she seemingly goes against the ideals of the South by dating Odin and numerous times she stands up to her father and Hugo about Odin.
The poisonous power of jealous drives people to unspeakable ends. Jealousy is defined as the "resentment against a rival, a person enjoyingsuccess or advantage, etc., or against another's success oradvantage itself." Obviously, the definition is spot on for Hugo's selfish actions. He resents the success of Odin which he feels entitled to and advantage of dating Desi. Jealously is such an evil quality that it does end with a fulfilled end.
The jealously of "O" culminates in the final murder scene like play. Odin after shooting Desi finally escapes the blindness by recognizing what Hugo has done all along. Odin says, "You tell them I loved that girl! I did! But I got played! [Points to Hugo] He twisted my head up. He fucked it up. I ain't no different than none of ya'll. My mom's ain't no crack head. I wasn't no gang banger. It wasn't some hood rat drug dealer that tripped me up. It was this white, prep school motherfucker standing right there! You tell them where I'm from... didn't make me do this." Odin reveals how their white supremacy was the seed of corruption. Odin, like Othello, as the black man was not the person to be worried about and watch, but rather one of their own was the one casting spells of deceit.
Lastly, as Hugo is arrested in the movie and taken to police car. The camera's pan out the whole scene and a hawk flying, the school mascot. Hugo as the movie's narrator reflects, "All my life I always wanted to fly. I always wanted to live like a hawk. I know you're not supposed to be jealous of anything, but... to take flight, to soar above everything and everyone, now that's living. But a hawk is no good around normal birds. It can't fit in. Even though all the other birds probably wanna be hawks; they hate him for what they can't be. Proud. Powerful. Determined. Dark. Odin is a hawk. He soars above us. He can fly. One of these days, everyone's gonna pay attention to me. Because I'm gonna fly too." Hugo's final words elucidate his true jealousy. Odin was inherently good and talented. Even his description of Odin as "Proud. Powerful. Determined. Dark." directly relates to the character of Othello. Hugo recognized how different Odin was from other humans and perhaps how he truly wanted to be Odin. These finals words of Hugo could be sort of an epiphany to his blindness of why he committed the manipulative plan. Like Odin, he was probably meant to be around other people. Yet, he still to the very end is so envious of Odin saying he will "fly" to one day.
By looking at "O", I realize the absolute tragic downfall of the characters in Othello perpetuated by the jealousy of Iago. Even as the tagline for the movie reads, "Trust. Seduction. Betrayal.", the characters are susceptible to pitfalls of human nature.
I honestly forgot the movie was based on Othello. Looking at the two works side by side really helped me understand the play. I have watched this movie actually quite few times.
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