"Welcome back to the fight. This time I know our side will win."
("ขอต้อนรับกลับเข้าสู่การต่อสู้ ครั้งนี้ ผมรู้ว่า ข้างเราจะชนะแน่นอน")
สมศักดิ์ เจียมธีรสกุล กล่าวเกี่ยวกับหนังเรื่องนี้ไว้ว่า "Casablanca (1942) ซึ่งเป็นหนังโปรดที่สุดของผม (และถือกันในบรรดานักวิจารณ์หนังว่า เป็นหนึ่งในหนังยอดเยี่ยมที่สุดตลอดกาลเท่าที่เคยสร้างมา ในอันดับต้นๆ)"
สมศักดิ์ ยังกล่าวถึงยืนยันอีกว่า "ผมดู Casablanca เป็นร้อยเที่ยวแล้ว (เรื่องจริง ไมใช่โม้) จนเรียกได้ว เกือบจะท่องจำบทสนทนาได้เลย ใครที่ไม่เคยดูนะครับ เล่าคร่าวๆคือ พระเอกเคยเป็นนักสู้เพื่อความชอบธรรมมาก่อน แต่พบกับความผิดหวัง เพราะฝ่ายที่เขาเข้าร่วมต่อสู้ด้วย มักจะแพ้เสมอ แต่ในหนังเรื่องนี้ ในที่สุด พระเอกก็ตัดสินใจ เสียสละอย่างใหญ่หลวง (เสียสละนางเอกทีเขารักมากสุดชีวิต) เพื่อประโยชน์ของการต่อสู้คร้งใหม่อีกครั้ง (กับพวกนาซี)
Casablanca เป็นหนังการเมืองที่โรแมนติกที่สุด หรืออาจจะบอกว่า เป็นหนังโรแมนติกทีการเมืองที่สุด เท่าที่รู้จัก ดูให้ "ซึ้ง" แบบการเมือง ก็ได้ แบบโรแมนติกก็ได้ (หรือทั้ง 2 อย่างพร้อมๆกันก็ได้) แหม... อยาให้เขียนเลย เดี๋ยวหยุดไม่ได้ เขียนได้เป็นวันจริงๆ . . . บทสนทนา พระรอง (คนที่พระเอกยอมเสียสละนางเอกให้ เป็นหัวหน้าขบวนการต่อต้านนาซี) จับมือบอกลาพระเอก แล้วพูดประโยคดังกล่าว ... "Welcome back to the fight. This time I know our side will win." ("ขอต้อนรับกลับเข้าสู่การต่อสู้ ครั้งนี้ ผมรู้ว่า ข้างเราจะชนะแน่นอน") สมศักดิ์ กล่าว
ที่มา : http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=139068612818005&id=100001298657012
Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) is a cynical American expatriate living in Casablanca in early December 1941. He owns and runs "Rick's Café Américain", an upscale nightclub and gambling den that attracts a mixed clientèle: Vichy French, Italian, and Nazi officials; refugees desperately seeking to reach the United States, as yet uninvolved in the war; and those who prey on them. Although Rick professes to be neutral in all matters, it is later revealed he ran guns to Ethiopia to combat the 1935 Italian invasion and fought on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War.
Ugarte (Peter Lorre), a petty criminal, arrives in Rick's club with "letters of transit" obtained through the murder of two German couriers. The papers allow the bearer to travel freely around German-controlled Europe and to neutral Portugal, and from there to America. The letters are almost priceless to the continual stream of refugees who end up stranded in Casablanca. Ugarte plans to sell them to the highest bidder, who is due to arrive at the club later that night. Before the exchange can take place, Ugarte is arrested by the local police under the command of Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains), a self-admitted corrupt opportunist. Ugarte dies in police custody without revealing that he had entrusted the letters to Rick.
At this point, the reason for Rick's bitterness re-enters his life. His ex-lover, Norwegian Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman), walks into his establishment. Upon seeing the house pianist, Sam, Ilsa asks him to play "As Time Goes By". When Rick storms over, furious that Sam has disobeyed his order never to perform that song, he is shocked to see Ilsa. She is accompanied by her husband, Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid), a fugitive Czech Resistance leader who has escaped from a Nazi concentration camp. The couple need the letters to leave for America to continue his work. German Major Strasser (Conrad Veidt) arrives in Casablanca to see to it that Laszlo does not succeed.
When Laszlo makes inquiries with Signor Ferrari (Sydney Greenstreet), a major figure in the criminal underworld and Rick's friendly business rival, Ferrari divulges his suspicion that Rick has the letters. Laszlo meets with Rick privately, but Rick refuses to part with the documents, telling Laszlo to ask his wife for the reason. They are interrupted when Strasser leads a group of officers in singing "Die Wacht am Rhein". In response, Laszlo orders the house band to play "La Marseillaise". When the band looks to Rick for guidance, he nods his head. Laszlo starts singing, alone at first, then patriotic fervor grips the crowd and everyone joins in, drowning out the Germans. In retaliation, Strasser has Renault close the club.
That night, Ilsa confronts Rick in the deserted café. When he refuses to give her the letters, she threatens him with a gun, but then confesses that she still loves him. She explains that when they first met and fell in love in Paris, she believed that her husband had been killed attempting to escape from the concentration camp. Later, while preparing to flee with Rick from the imminent fall of the city to the German army, she learned that Laszlo was in fact alive and in hiding. She left Rick without explanation to tend to her ill husband.
With the revelation, the lovers are reconciled. Rick agrees to help, leading her to believe that she will stay behind with him when Laszlo leaves. When Laszlo unexpectedly shows up, having narrowly escaped a police raid on a Resistance meeting, Rick has waiter Carl (S. K. Sakall) secretly take Ilsa back to the hotel while the two men talk.
Laszlo reveals he is aware of Rick's love for Ilsa and tries to persuade him to use the letters to take her to safety. When the police arrest Laszlo on a minor, trumped-up charge, Rick convinces Renault to release him by promising to set him up for a much more serious crime: possession of the letters of transit. To allay Renault's suspicions, Rick explains he and Ilsa will be leaving for America.
When Renault tries to arrest Laszlo as arranged, Rick forces him at gunpoint to assist in their escape. At the last moment, Rick makes Ilsa board the plane to Lisbon with her husband, telling her she would regret it if she stayed, "Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life."
Major Strasser, tipped off by Renault, drives up alone. Rick shoots him when he tries to intervene. When his men arrive, Renault pauses, then tells them to "Round up the usual suspects." Once they are alone, Renault suggests to Rick they join the Free French at Brazzaville. They walk off into the fog with one of the most memorable exit lines in movie history: "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."
(Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casablanca_(film) )
In the wake of Argentina's dramatic economic collapse in 2001, Latin America's most prosperous middle class finds itself in a ghost town of abandoned factories and mass unemployment. The Forja auto plant lies dormant until its former employees take action. They're part of a daring new movement of workers who are occupying bankrupt businesses and creating jobs in the ruins of the failed system.
The story of the workers' struggle is set against the dramatic backdrop of a crucial presidential election in Argentina, in which the architect of the economic collapse, Carlos Menem, is the front-runner. His cronies, the former owners, are circling: if he wins, they'll take back the companies that the movement has worked so hard to revive.
