(A review of the film Life and Death of David Gale)
What makes one's life meaningful, a white-collar job with a hefty salary? A big flat at the centre of metropolis? Windows of opportunity for an epicurian post-retirement experience? Having a colourful pix appear on the front pages of newspapers? Awards and momentos, and, after death, obituries written by experts in leading news magazines?Answers vary as per perceptions and the way you are 
born and brought up. But does it look much better that our desires get prolonged constantly? That we have always desires and values?
Fulfillment is not desirable for an activist in an unbalanced society.
*
The eponymous protagonist of the film, 'Life and Death of David Gale', has such a perception of life. 'Fantasies must be unrealistic. The moment you get what you seek you don't have want any more. In order to continuously exist desire must have its objects perepetually absent', he says in his classroom.
Only values that are based on a happiness in future can make our lives meaningful.
**
David Gale had such an idal. He was an activist with the Death Watch, an NGO working for the abolition of ca
pital punishment. As a staunch campaigner, he articulated his politics, earning enemies. But when he was arrested for raping and murdering his fellow activist Constance, none gave him a chance of suspicion. He was earlier arrested and acquitted for raping his lady student. After all, Gale's sperm was there inside Constance's womb.The jury had all evidences to sentence the capital punishment. Gale is, by 'sheer coincidence', being dragged to a situation which his politics calls inhuman and undemocratic.
***
Investigative journalist Betzy ( Kate Winslet) gets the rare chance to interview Gale and bring the truth (if Gale's version of it really exists)into public. What happened in Gale's, as well as Constance's, life is revealed through a conversation between Gale and Betzy in jail and, in the climax, through a videotape, a proof valuable enough to acquit Gale. However, Betzy, who is unable to beat the time alloted to her, is also unable to save Gale.
****
The story only begins after Gale is executed. In the second transcript of the vediotape, we see how the storyline of the film merges with its phiolosophy
*****
There is uncertainity all around at the time when domination over people is getting newer political dimensions and justifications. Terms as revolutionary as democracy and freedom are widely misused to justify the greed of a few tycoons with a dozen adjectives. This uncertanity prevails over the sphere of activism by the metamorphosis of an activist into
unpredictable forms. What continues to happen in Palastine and Iraq happens in the life and death (With or without capital letters) of David Gale as well.
