A movie. Mediocre at best (and one that loses its meaning more as you think about it).
A book. More than mediocre, at best (and one that I think haunts more as you think about it).
That is my title tonight...
As tonight I watched the Book of Eli, with friends that I am beginning to see more and more as the Last of the Crazy People.
I just don't get 'belief' anymore. Not in the same way that they do. And I don't think that concerns me anymore. Other than for the fact that they can't perceive 'belief' as anything less than what they 'know' it to be.
That concerns me.
Because what they 'believe' in and what they hold as 'true' are flimsy. Not false - but probably wrong - yet flimsy.
Are they crazy for believing in it? Or did I miss the point of the film. Or the Book of Eli.
I remember going through a similar process when I was in university. There was this hardline Calvinist guy who always wrote letters to the school paper about how homosexuality was wrong. Of course, I disagreed with him, but what was also becoming apparent was that even the less hard-liners beliefs just now felt flimsy and empty to me.
ReplyDeleteI haven't read the book, but I have seen the movie - probably the same time, or around the same time you did. I liked it.
ReplyDeleteWhat I saw in the film:
I saw a man, who defied the norm of loot and pillage, to meet his "destiny". Though we don't find out what that is right out, we do throughout the movie.
Then this other man, who knows that this cherished relic, a book, he's looking for could turn him from petty thug with a band of misfits to the leader and potential salvation of humanity in this post apocalyptic world.
Knowing that the relic contains the power to accomplish this, he stops at nothing to get what he desires.
Yes, there's strong undertones of religion in this book, but I think it's a statement about how something, that without the belief of the people, is just a book. That these books were destroyed and that a simple book brought humanity to a near end. The antagonist in the movie knew that it could also unite humanity if he were the one to possess the only copy left of this book.
I didn't find that this movie was preachy about religion, instead, showed me that a book, regardless of it's content can be used to manipulate people into doing what someone wants, if you utilize the desperate need for hope and comfort.