In these movies, Buddhists are portrayed a little differently. While looking at any movie in general that is put out by Hollywood, it is clear to see that Buddhists are usually portrayed as sitting cross-legged in a contemplative pose meditating, with eyes closed. In these movies, they attempt to give a glimpse into the lifestyle of someone who is Buddhist, or in these cases, believed to be a reincarnation of someone with great power.
Milarepa follows a young boy who has grown up in poverty since his father died while he was a young boy. His uncle and aunt took all of their riches that were rightfully his at age eighteen. His mother is about to give up so she has to send him to train with a great teacher of black magic, to punish his aunt and uncle for all of the torture they put him and his mother through. He ends up tearing apart the village with his power. This movie I think casts Buddhism in a negative light. It makes it seem as all the power is used for bad, as opposed for good, which isn’t always the case. The movie itself is very dark and desolate, reiterating that point, making it difficult to enjoy.
Little Buddha follows three children believed to be a reincarnation of Lama Dorje as they journey to Bhutan. Within the movie, the story of Siddhartha is also told, who becomes Buddha. In the end, you realize that all three are reincarnations, just in the three most important parts: body, speech, and mind. This depicts Buddhism in a more modern setting, with the ancient story as well. I think this is to make Buddhism more relatable, while still being able to tell the truth about Buddhism. They westernize it so people will hopefully understand it better, which may or may not have been the best idea.
Four Lions and The Infidel show two very different takes on Islam. Four Lions follows four Muslims trying to find their Jihad so they are planning a terrorist attack to blow something up. They are really unsure about what they are trying to plan and keep changing their plans multiple times. One of the four, Barry, is quite the radical. He is the brains behind the whole plan and the one who knows what really is going on, even though he still isn’t really too informed. Faisal is at the opposite end. He is so innocent and doesn’t know what’s going on and ends up accidentally killing himself with explosives. They end up deciding to bomb a London marathon. While they are getting ready there is one crosscutting scene of the main character, Omar, and his brother. Omar is preparing bombs, and his brother is simply minding his own business at his home. You see cops preparing outside a house and I was led to believe that they were outside the place that Omar was making explosives. The knock on the door happens and you realize that the officers are at his brother’s house. Omar’s brother is a devout Muslim and lives peacefully, yet they go to his house. Omar follows a more modernized practice of Islam yet he is the more radical, which is sometimes different than what most people expect when thinking about Islam. He also has a really hard time justifying his plans to his son.
On the other hand, Mahmud grew up in a Muslim family, and then discovers that he was adopted. He originally had been born into a Jewish family. This is difficult for him, as his son is trying to marry a woman whose father is very anti-Semitic. He is trying to embrace his Jewish roots, yet struggling to seem as if he doesn’t like Jews for his potential father-in-law. Of course it ends up blowing up in his face, and he almost loses everything in a very publicized moment. He makes one last effort to reconcile himself and succeeds, much to his son’s relief. It is especially hard for him, as he has to admit that he has not been the most devout Muslim, yet he is trying his best. It’s a very different case from that of the four Muslim extremists in the first movie. Religion is looked at in a completely different light.
Mulan:
The movie begins following a young Chinese woman named Mulan as she prepares to meet with a matchmaker. Despite her best efforts, the matchmaker tells Mulan that she will never bring honor to her family. She is crushed, as she feels she has failed at her only chance in life to bring honor to her family. She soon discovers that there is a war, and that her disabled father has been recruited and must show up at camp the following day.
That night, Mulan decides to take his place. This leads her to cut off her hair and pretend to be a man. A small dragon, Mushu, and a cricket for luck accompany her. There are many trials and tribulations but eventually she and her fellow recruits become the soldiers that Shang, their general, wants them to be. They go into battle and Mulan (known to the men as Ping) makes a risky move that ends up saving them all, but injures herself in the process. The medic then finds out and reveals to the rest of the surviving soldiers that she is a woman. They desert her and head to tell the emperor that they defeated the Hun army.
She shows up in the capital to warn them when she realizes that the Huns are still alive, and when the Huns attack, the soldiers rely on Mulan to defeat them. In the end, the emperor gives her the highest honor in all of China.
The Wizard of Oz:
The winds begin to pick up as Dorothy, a girl raised by her aunt and uncle, is running away from home. Her evil neighbor, Miss Gulch claimed that Toto, Dorothy’s dog, had bitten her and needed to be put to sleep. Dorothy escapes with Toto, only making it down the road, to a fortuneteller who convinces her to head back home. Just as she reaches the house, the twister draws near, causing a window to break, knocking her out.
She ‘wakes up’ in the Land of Oz, needing to find a way home. Glinda, the good witch of the North gives her two important directions to follow: Don’t let the ruby slippers off your feet, and follow the yellow brick road. She sets off on her journey, meeting a few very interesting and distinct characters on her way to Emerald City. Together, the motley crew sets off to see the Wizard of Oz, who will give each of them what they are looking for.
After quite the trip, the Wizard asks for one final favor, to kill the Wicked Witch of the West and bring back her broom. Upon doing so, they discover the truth about the wizard and he gives them what they came for, a heart, a brain, courage, and a way back home. Dorothy then wakes up in her bed, realizing that a loving family is all she ever needs.
INTRODUCTION TO RELIGIOUS THEME:
When watching Mulan, it is much easier to notice religious themes than when watching the Wizard of Oz. The two movies do share a similar religious idea though, which is pilgrimage. In certain religions, such as Islam, going on a pilgrimage is a very important aspect to help strengthen your faith. Even though within these movies, the pilgrimages taken by the main characters are not for religious reasons, they do lead to personal growth, which is an important aspect of any pilgrimage, religious or not. While on a pilgrimage for religious reasons, such as the one Reda and his father were on in Le Grand Voyage, there isn’t only spiritual growth. Reda completely changes from the beginning of the movie to the end. Both Mulan and Dorothy experience similar changes as their movies progress.
Within these movies, it is also easy to see the idea of Joseph Campbell’s Monomyth scheme. Both Mulan and Dorothy fit the mold for being a heroine, and as we all know, many religions have myths as a big part of their history. I do want to point out the definition of a myth, which is a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining some natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events. This does not mean that the story is false, which is a common misconception of myths.
One last religious theme I noticed in both films was that of truth. Truth in religion is very important. We want to know that what we believe is true. Religion is all about believing that certain myths are true, and sometimes negating others. In each of these movies, our heroine deals with the struggle of what is true and what is just an illusion.
QUESTIONS:
1) What makes Mulan more religious than The Wizard of Oz?
2) How does the main character change throughout their pilgrimage?
3) What is the true, and what illusion is covering the truth?
4) How does the hero’s journey outline interlock with these two stories?
5) Within these two movies, how is the truth discovered on the pilgrimages?
EXPLANATION:
Within Mulan, there are several blatant references to religion, such as when her father prays to their ancestors, or when her grandmother walks across the street while covering her eyes to test her lucky cricket. At the end of the movie, the emperor mentions Heaven. I also noticed some less obvious references to religion. At the end of the movie, the main characters climb five pillars to rescue the emperor, which may or may not be a reference to the five pillars of Islam.
Concerning the theme of pilgrimage, Mulan begins her journey thinking she has brought no honor to family, and has failed as a daughter. She considers joining the war a good way to make up for that and to help protect her father. In the end, she becomes a hero for all of China, and doesn’t worry about her self-worth. She proves to the world that it doesn’t matter whether you are a woman or a man, you can still achieve greatness.
At the beginning of The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy is unhappy with life on the farm. But after her travels through the Land of Oz, she discovers that she is very blessed where she is at home. Both characters learn about themselves while trekking across the unfamiliar lands.
The idea of truth is shown differently in these movies. To join the federal army, Mulan pretends to be a man to take her father’s place. Throughout the movie, her fellow soldiers build up a trust with her alter ego, Ping. When it is revealed to them that she is a woman, they completely throw her to the wolves, leaving her to freeze in the mountains. But in the end, they realize that she is still the same person that they had come to know and rely on her to defeat the Huns.
In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy ‘lands’ in the Land of Oz after a tornado ‘picks up her house.’ She ventures through this unfamiliar land, meeting some similar faces. The illusion of Oz helps her to realize that there is an underlying truth that shows how much everyone at the farm really cares for her.
NEW FILM:
Because there are so many themes within this movie, I had to mainly focus on the idea of pilgrimage in my film, with a little bit of the idea of truth. With the limited time, I could only fit so much content. I start at the beginning of each movie and progress through, showing the similar parts in each movie.
In Mulan, she begins the movie bringing lots of dishonor upon herself. This causes her to create the false identity that is Ping to make something of herself. She joins the federal army and is able to defeat the Huns by taking a risky move. In the end, they discover who she truly is, and discredit her completely. She then comes back to save the emperor and after all she has done for China, the emperor honors her. The truth of her identity is revealed and she brings the highest honor of all to her home and to her family.
Dorothy has a different experience. She begins the movie concerned about how an evil neighbor treats her dog, and no one will listen. This drives her to run away. But with the bad weather she heads back home, but gets caught in the twister. She must travel through the Land of Oz to be able to return home and must defeat the Wicked Witch of the West to do so. She successfully kills her by accidentally getting her wet, causing her to melt. She wakes up from her dream realizing how lucky she is to have such a loving home to live in and with such great friends, the truth that she discovered while in Oz.
The Secret of Kells is quite the contrast to Des Hommes et Des Dieux in relation to how monks relate to the world around them. The Secret of Kells focuses on a young boy practicing to be a monk. He is told to never go beyond the wall surrounding their home. Being a young curious boy, he disobeys to try to help Brother Aiden of Iona. He falls in love with art and creating an illustrated book, the book of Kells. What I noticed in this movie, is the intricate detail of patterns; some of the patterns had religious symbols embedded into them. The monks in this movie are also trying desperately to complete this circular wall, closing them off from the world around them. This is quite a contrast to the monks’ attitudes in Des Hommes et Des Dieux.
The monastery in which the monks in Des Hommes et Des Dieux live, is situated right by a small village. The monks interact constantly with the members of the village, offering support and medicine. This is so different as the monks are reaching out into the community to help others, as opposed to closing themselves off from the world for protection. This movie also puts a lot more focus on the religious aspect of being a monk, with lots of prayer and worship time. In the end of both of these movies, both monasteries end up being invaded, which goes to show that closing yourself off versus being open and helping others has no effect on your safety. I think this shows that even if the risk is high, we should still try our best to help others.
The idea of morality is an interesting topic, as each person has their own morals, so some things that may be considered immoral to some people may be completely acceptable to others. So I just need to point out that this article will be based off of what I consider moral/immoral, which may be different from others. Within a society, there are social norms that people are expected to follow. Throughout both of these films, the main characters seem to have little to no morals or cares about how they are acting. They do very bizarre things and sometimes it seems like what they are doing is completely illogical.
As Spring Breakers begins, there are four friends who are trying to go somewhere for a spring break trip. Three of the four go and rob a small rest stop to get money, which is unsettling to the fourth friend, ironically named Faith. Faith represents morals within this movie. And because of that, she doesn’t even last for half of the movie. She is religious and gets uncomfortable pretty quickly as things get sketchy. Her morals keep her from acting in extreme ways, and because of her discomfort, she leaves the situation early to get out before doing something that goes against her beliefs and morals. The other three, who show no sign of religious beliefs, stay and continue to do crazy things until Cotty gets shot. It is then that she realizes that she cannot stay any longer and decides to go home, leaving Brit and Candy to go wild and crazy with Alien, the completely immoral man who bailed them out of jail and is only looking to have a good time, and make money without doing anything but stealing and dealing. What is shocking to me is that at the end of their spring break, they just go back home to continue their lives as if none of their immoral spring break had ever happened.
Natural Born Killers takes the approach of serial killers, which opens our minds to see what it may be like to someone who has committed many bad crimes. To Mickey and Mallory, they’re living free and as celebrities. Their minds may not be fully there, and the cinematography shows that through many cuts and lots of random shots, such as the random cartoons, and the way that much of it is shown almost as if it is a TV show. At one point, the words “too much t.v.” are shown across Mickey and Mallory…So what that leads me to wonder is if the film is trying to show that they believe that too much television will corrupt kids lead them to doing bad things such as the 52 murders that Mickey and Mallory did within 3 weeks. The whole movie is immoral, from the corrupt cop, to the crazy TV show star Wayne Gale. No one is truly in their right mind within this movie.
Batman really embodies the idea of a myth. While I was in high school, I took a mythology class, and we learned about Greek and Roman gods. All great heroes have a journey to greatness, and in Batman Begins, Bruce Wayne is the hero. As you watch the movie with the idea of the monomyth scheme in mind, it’s clear to make the comparison. But disregarding the scheme, I also made some connections to the idea of a myth. In fact, the whole idea of Batman is a myth. Batman isn’t real. He is just Bruce Wayne. He is a living myth as Batman. He becomes a household name and somewhat infamous. People know Batman and believe in him. I think the same thing happens with characters from our favorite movies and stories. He is similar to Santa or the Tooth Fairy for that matter. At one point, he encounters a young boy who says that he believes in Batman, but none of his friends did. But at the same time, Rachel doesn’t like the idea of Batman and Bruce being the same person, which is slightly out of character for a myth, as in most cases the hero gets the girl. But then again, this is only the beginning of Batman.
In contrast, when watching Almost Famous, you don’t really expect any similarities to a myth, but surprisingly, there are quite a few. In fact William Miller fits the role of a hero rather perfectly. He has all of the qualities and follows the monomyth scheme quite closely. I was quite shocked, considering the movie seems as though it has nothing really to do with heroism or going through a tough challenge. Penny Lane acts as the perfect Goddess/Temptress, and as he gets stuck on tour with the band, he is forced to continue his journey. He has his life back home to worry about, and his mother and he have a falling out. But at the end, he gets the cover story for Rolling Stone, gets Russell to learn a thing or two, and recovers his relationship with his mother, leading to the happy ending. Everyone ends up living a better life than they were living at the beginning of the movie.
Both of these stories deal with the idea of whether or not someone is telling the truth. Both Ed and Pi are telling their life stories to people. Some people are more willing to believe them than others.
Pi’s family is moving to America, and get in a shipwreck, leaving Pi as the only survivor. All he has a lifeboat, a tiger, hyena, monkey, and a zebra. After the first few days, the only two left are the tiger, Richard Parker, and Pi. The two survive in a hyper real situation at sea, encountering many different scenarios. What is really interesting is that Pi tells the story to the two insurance agents and they don’t believe the story with the animals, so he tells the same story, changing the characters to people instead of animals and retells the story, as a much summarized version with characters as people instead of animals, and they accept that version so much more easily. It is the same story. The characters have just been changed and the details simplified to make the story more understandable. It all boils down to the same story. It’s all personal preference. Which version do you prefer?
The same is true for the story of Edward Bloom’s life. He tells so many grandiose stories, and his son hates it and cannot stand it. He just wants the truth, like the insurance agents. But his dad never boils down the story for him, which he can’t stand. He thinks his father’s stories are all lies. At his father’s funeral, you realize that they aren’t completely false. You see Ping and Jing, the ringleader, and Karl. They exist, just not to the extent that his father told. He added embellishments to make the story of his life one that would be more enjoyable to hear.
I think Pi and Ed are very similar men. They both lived quite extraordinary lives, and make the stories of their lives exciting for people to listen to. They tell the truth. They just make their lives more wonderful. As a child, the child would prefer the story with Richard Parker and the Siamese twins, not the story with the cook, and two identical twins. The stories exist. It’s up to the creative minds to enjoy the stories rather than worry about the validity of the statement. Because when it comes down to it, they are true.
What are you seeking in life? Where is your life headed? What is the motivation behind what you are trying to accomplish? These are all questions that I believe were running through Tom and Reda’s lives constantly as they were on their journeys.
On the movie poster for The Way, it says “life is too big to walk it alone” which I do not think is a good fit for the meaning of this movie. It isn’t a good tagline to explain what you are about to watch. The movie shows that one must search to find meaning in life. Tom has lost his son, and has no other children. Before his son left to go hike the Camino, he asked his father to come with him. When he goes to where his son died to identify the body and get his belongings, he decided to walk the Camino for his son. Along the way he leaves some of his son’s ashes at various points. His voyage along the Camino is how he mourns his son. It is a journey for him, letting go of his son as he continues the voyage.
Reda gets forced to participate in his father’s pilgrimage to Mecca, even though he isn’t a Muslim, as his father cannot drive. Just like Tom, he and his father encounter many hardships on their journey, both of them encountering a theft at one point. When they are almost there, Reda is nearly ready to quit. He even grabs all of his belongs and abandons his father, but ends up continuing on. Clearly the relationship between Reda and his father is not the strongest, but it is a working relationship and through every rough patch, they still love each other at the end of the day. When they finally arrive at Mecca, Reda’s father leaves him to go worship with the other Muslims. After a day, Reda’s father does not return, and Reda finds out his father died. He had reached the end of his path, and had accomplished what he was intended to accomplish in his life. From all of this, Reda mended his somewhat broken relationship with his father before he died. It wasn’t just a pilgrimage for his father, it was a chance for them to strengthen their relationship while they still had a chance, and allow Reda to learn just a few more life lessons from his father, such as giving money to the poor.
What I find interesting is that the concept of loss is one of the most universal feelings among human beings, yet it can bring out some of the most unpredictable behaviors within us. We all deal with the similar idea of loss, yet we all respond so differently. In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Joel stumbles upon a slip saying that his girlfriend Clementine had him erased from her memory and then he also makes the same choice to get her removed from his memory. He is choosing to lose the memory of her. This helps show us that there are conscious things that we can do to force ourselves to try to lose things, and remove them from our lives. This is quite different from in The Fountain, where Tom knows that he will lose his wife to a brain tumor, yet he has to come to terms with the fact that he will lose her. He tries everything in his power he can to save her. He is testing on monkeys to see if he can find a cure. That is his only hope to save his wife. In his eyes, it is the only thing he can do to try to help her. These two stories look at very different aspects of loss. One is the conscious decision to lose something versus the other one knowing that you are going to lose something and there is nothing you can do to stop it.
What is interesting about Joel’s scenario is the fact that after he made the decision to forget, he was going through all the memories to forget, and realized all of the good memories that he had with Clementine. The good memories outweighed the bad, and in the end, he really didn’t want to forget her.
When looking at Isabel, she had come to terms with the fact that she was going to die. She had accepted her fate. Her husband Tom had a much more difficult time accepting this fact. In parallel, there is a man who is doing everything he can in his power to keep a tree alive, but he fails. The third parallel is the search for the tree of life. If he can find it, he will live forever with the queen. All of these stories are the same, just being told through different mediums. In the end, the treasured item dies and is lost.
Is loss infinite? Once we lose something, is it gone forever? Or can we get it back? Depending on one’s religion, the answer will vary. We can gain things in different forms, or meet again in an afterlife. The topic of loss is one quite hard to grasp by human minds, it toys with our emotions, and can change our lives permanently.
While watching Children of Men, the film is shot in some scenes from behind Theo, the main character. While watching the film, I felt as though I was playing Call of Duty, as the camera follows him as the camera follows the player within the game. At one point in the film, there is blood that even gets splattered on the camera, as it does when one is about to die in the game. Call of Duty 2 was released in late 2005 and Children of Men was released in 2006. When we think of apocalypse, we usually associate it with war, fighting and unrest among humans, and by filming it similarly to the gameplay of Call of Duty, a popular game at the time, you get the association to war, which in turn helps to establish the idea of an apocalyptic setting, as it is a familiar idea to people watching the film who are familiar with the gameplay.
Take Shelter takes on a different approach to the idea of an apocalypse. Within this movie, you switch between first person and third person points of view. At some points, you are viewing the world through Curtis’ eyes, and at others you are on the outside watching. This helps create the sense of the apocalypse being within his mind, and not a part of reality. What is noticeably intriguing about this fact that you use to establish between reality and perception throughout the film is what happens at the end of the movie. You learn that he and his wife are aware of his mental illness, and to distinguish between a real storm and false alarm, he looks at his wife for reassurance and nods her head if there is a real threat, but shakes her head if he is simply imagining it all. At the end, he looks at her, and she nods. Even his daughter stops what she is doing to acknowledge the growing storm. And everything he worried about seems to come true. This leaves you as the viewer confused, as you don’t know whether it truly is reality or simply just a part of his wife’s imagination, or one of several other ideas that can be found on the Internet.
Both of these films really capture the uneasiness that comes with the idea of an apocalypse, or the idea of the world ending. It is a difficult topic for many people to talk about, let alone grasp the idea of what will happen, how it will happen, and even when it will happen. We have these ideas in our heads of what it will be like, and Children of Men takes those associations and spits them back out at us to help us understand it, and Take Shelter takes the unpleasant interactions that people would expect to have when faced with the idea of an apocalypse and spits those back out. Both of these films help reiterate what we already know and expect about the end of the world, and yet at the same time, put their own creative spin on the topic.
Religion & Film Scene Reflections 