A Prophet.- An interpretation

Dir: Jacques AudiardSeen at the Jerusalem Cinemateque Sun 3^rd Jan 2016.

This is the first movie I saw of 2016. I certainly hope that it’s not prophetic.

I think that movies depicting people being locked up in prison hold us in rapt attention because most of us have conscious and sub-conscious fears of being locked up. I certainly identified with the prisoner in this movie because of my fear of being locked up and my fear of people in authority.

They’re all copies of an authority figure which my father represented to me. Every scene shows the prisoner interacting with authority figures and throws him into deeper complications with authority. His first struggle against authority is striking a blow at a policeman. For this he is convicted to spend the next 6 years in prison.

Here he encounter a worse authority figure  than the policeman, who is a criminal authority figure, namely of the underworld who makes harsher demands on his obedience than the authority of the law.

His obedience to underworld authority ends when he’s ordered to murder a Moslem leader. This and the illness of his best friend, also a Mowlem bring him to a realization that there is, after all only one authority to whom he must show obedience and that is Allah.

In fact this movie shows the path followed by a prophet according to the Koran:

'We hear, and we obey. We seek Thy forgiveness, Our Lord, and to Thee is the end of all journeys.'" (2:285)

The message of the movie is obey and seeing that you must obey someone it might as well be Allah, otherwise you’ll find yourself having to obey murderous commands given  to you by law enforcement personnel or by criminals.

Chronicle of a death foretold. - An Interpretation

Cronaca di una morte annunciata (original title) Dir:
Francesco Rosi Seen at the Jerusalem Cinemateque Tue 5th Jan 2016

Not having read the book I can’t say how close this movie sticks to the story by the great author, Gabriel Garcia Marques. The scenes in this movie are works of art, joined together and put in a sequence that gradually reveals a multitude of plots all woven into one. Long after seeing the movie, the scenes, of their own accord come back into my mind, like a tune that once heard is never forgotten, demanding to be considered the main plot.

A man, on the prow of a river boat looks at the approaching land. The scene, without words, only the thudding motor of the boat, feint sounds of voices coming from the land, the brilliant white of an elegant mansion, contrasting with the dark gold of the water and a glimpse of narrow alley ways opening on to a wide plaza, hints to us that dramatic events, now memories, are going to be revealed here.

Even now, more than a week since seeing the movie, I ask myself, what I can learn from this tragic story.

The town’s folk have just celebrated a fairy tale marriage of a young woman. Immediately her prince like husband reveals her lost virginity on her marriage bed and returns her to her mother as spoilt property.

The lesson I learnt from this movie is that a woman whose honor has been taken away has the right to name the price for its recovery. Her price is the life of the most popular young man in town, full of the joy of life and hope in the future. It doesn’t matter whether it really was he who had robbed her of her virginity. The fact is that a fallen woman is dangerous; she can name the price of her lost honor. She chooses him to be the sacrifice, because he is worthy.

He is killed just like a sacrifice, stabbed to death in the town’s main square, while all the people of the town, his friends look on.

I wouldn’t have come to this conclusion had I continued, like most viewers, I suppose, to dwell on the mystery of whether it was really he who had taken away her virginity. If it wasn’t him, then who was the true defiler? Why didn’t she give him up to be murdered? Was she protecting someone? Who was she protecting? Was it the doctor? Or was it someone in her immediate family? Maybe even her father or one of her brothers?

The Night Porter - An Interpretation

Dir:  Liliana Cavani 1974 Seen at the Jerusalem Cinemateque. Tue 12^th Jan 2016

This movie shows us that once a Nazi always a Nazi, but Nazis, like all humans make certain concessions to their lust for pleasure, especially the pleasure to be had from a woman, especially when she is at their mercy.

From the woman’s point of view her gratitude for the mercy the Nazi has shown her, knows no bounds and she is ready to place herself, once again, but this time voluntarily at his mercy, when she meets him after the war and she suffers the consequences.

These actually could have been good, that is she could have ended up having a happy marriage with the Nazi who had rescued her. 

But loyal Nazis still thrived even after the war and a pure blood German living with a Jewess was intolerable in their scheme of things. 

Their pursuit of the couple creates the tension that makes this movie an excellent thriller. 

This added to raising the question of how we are to relate to Nazis who had mercy on their subjects, makes this movie great.

The Purpose of Religious Belief

I'm sure that the perpetrators of terror attacks carried out by Muslims are motivated by the thought of punishing the infidel or something like that, based on instructions in their holy book about what a person should believe.

From the little I know about Islam; its ideology is to convert the whole world or to destroy it in the process: redemption or destruction. This is the primary agenda of all monotheistic religions; this is Judaism's intention also; only the Jewish method is one of "wait and see" and letting events take their natural course". Islam and Christianity have a more militant approach to reaching this absurd goal. 

I emphasize that I don't reject all beliefs. But they are primarily symbolic and fictitious, science fiction in the minds of clever people with vivid imaginations thousands of years ago. The belief that hostile efforts can fulfil these goals is unacceptable. 

There is wisdom in those conceptions.  Mohammed, Jesus, Moses, and many others were wise people who logically figured out what the world needed to survive forever. It's a lovely idea, but it's not practical or realizable.

They've produced excellent books with sublime, powerful words. But the ideals are only good in theory. It's ridiculous to attempt to realise them. They are pipe dreams.

I love ideas. I fill my days with them, thinking and dreaming about them.

But should we endeavour to apply those concepts to our lives?  They belong in libraries, cinemas, theatres, art galleries, and churches. They add beauty to our existence and direct us to moral visions. The notions are romantic, and our existence benefits from imagining how wonderful the world would be if realised. But some are foolish, and we should not contemplate making them real. Their actuality abides in their creation. I will never plan to turn my life into the painting of a beautiful scene I happen to see in a gallery.

We love creativity and wisdom and express them forcefully, but are they practicable? Mankind's task is to decide what is possible and what is not. God gave us advice. The Bible uses the word commandments for emphasis, but they are, in fact, only suggestions, and we are obliged to choose which to fulfil and which not.

The almighty doesn't mean we must perform all His commandments. People who do that are crazy.

It wouldn't make sense for God to command us not to keep His laws. The best He could do to help us is to give us the example of Adam, who used discretion whether to obey the order not to eat the fruit of the tree of wisdom and decided to disobey the Lord and as a result of his disobedience human beings began to reproduce themselves and we exist.

Adam disobeyed, and that's what He expects us to do after due consideration.