I love movies and shows set in Boston.  Good Will Hunting (a favorite), Ted 1 & 2 (on surface immature, but touching at times), The Town (Charlestown robbers), City on a Hill (a bit under the radar, but takes a unique perspective on 90s Boston when the city was seriously fighting crime, especially at the youth level).

And of course, The Departed.  Not about the BPD, but the Staties, Scorsese made a great movie, although he should have given more credit to the original source material – the Hong Kong Infernal Affairs trilogy.  While The Departed tells a story in one time period, the IA trilogy is somewhat similar to the Godfather’s – the inclusion of a prequel and sequel.

Many powerful memorable scenes – deception, internal conflict, grief and loss, the 1997 handover of Hong Kong back to China.  The one scene that struck me the most comes from the final movie (the most convoluted, but ties the series up).  Standing at the graves of two officers, another officer tells the girlfriend of one of the slain – “Events change men, but men do not change events. But these two men are extraordinary because they changed events.”

This quote is simply haunting.  Every human is part of history, but it speaks to the devastating effects of events outside our control and how powerless we often are.

I was originally going to ask how many of us have the opportunity and means to actually change events, to touch history in more than a cursory, fleeting way.  But I realize it’s not about just opportunity and means, it has a lot more to do with will, courage, faith, and sacrifice.  One of the main characters, a mole in the Triads, pretty much gives his entire life in service and the pursuit of redemption.

Another haunting scene occurs during the handover celebrations, where a newly crowned triad boss mourns his beloved wife alone before pulling it all together to greet his reveling guests.  The boss later asks “What thousands must die so that Caesar may become the great?”