There was something disturbing about the movie “Black Robe.” It was something a bit more than the apparent – the violence, I mean. A lot of my discomfort likely sprouted from the humiliation various characters endured.
I take serious issue with that. I don’t know. I can’t look at someone and just watch him hurting without being able to do anything about it. It’s unbearable.
Some of it, too, was definitely a reaction to the theme of loss of religion. Like if you throw a religious man out in the woods, the cruelty of nature and those around him will drive him insane and make him forget what he believed in for so long. That’s a terrible point of view. It’s something akin to misanthropy and nihilism, two of the most depressing ideas ever.
You can look all over in history and find plenty of religious people who have gone through far more than the Christians in the movie and have remained faithful to God to the end. Humans are weak, yes, but as it goes, God’s strength is made perfect in our weakness.
That aside, every other moment in that movie turned my stomach. The priest hitting himself with a tree branch. The girl giving herself up sexually to the enemy so that everyone could escape – doing so in front of her lover and her father. The way people abandoned each other again and again. Loneliness is very painful, and I hated that the priest was so alone, that he was so… tortured by these people, especially when I understood that he really did love them.
1 comment:
I can agree with being a little disturbed by Black Robe. When I was a kid I had this image of Native Americans of being so peaceful, loving, and anti-violence. This is probably mostly due to children's movies like Pocahontas. Now I realize those depictions were not very realistic. By watching the movies on Native Americans in this class I can see that they were pretty violent in protecting their tribes and their territory. It was definitely to see this side of Native American history.
camila casillas
Post a Comment