Sean Luffy Decalogue

     After reflecting on the films we watched this week, the Decalogue(s), and the readings we were assigned, I believe that these movies were the mostly closely related to the subject of our class, religion within film, that we have seen so far. Not to discredit the other movies we have watched, however, as each of them were meaningful and thought-provoking in terms of religion as well; I was just particularly struck by how directly these movies related to a religious context that I am familiar with. As such, I believe the cinematography and direction of the film directly contributes to our search of meaning in the film as the grainy, 'weight' of each shot and angle allow the viewer to interpret in any way they feel. However, as we had learned before hand, each movie was directly related to the ideas of Midrash and the Commandments, two of the most common religious ideals of today's faiths. Therefore, the film acts as both a form of interpretation and open to interpretation simultaneously, embodying both sense of the concept of Midrash. In addition, the Commandments "thou shalt not kill" and "thou shall worship the Lord your God" are also represented by the stories of the two films with the genius son drowning in ice and the murderer. 

     The symbols throughout the film that attempted to bridge this understanding between the religious context and the viewer were most evident by the father and the murderer between the two movies. The murderer, who was seemingly predetermined to kill someone and end up dying himself to pay the price for it, represents the struggle of that Commandment and what the consequence of it is; thus, this connects our modern world with the basic idea of this religious ideal. The same is true of the father and son's belief in their calculations rather than in their faith in God, and that comes to its pinnacle at the end of the movie when the father is forced to confront that grief within the chapel at the altar. 

    Feeling through meaning can be found through the intensity and sheer weight of the emotions the characters endure in their respective films. The father had lost his genius son to the very thing that they had a shared love for, something that they had bonded over together more than anyone else; thus, the grief and sadness was palpable from the way the film was shot after that scene. In terms of the murderer, the scene with his attorney before he was hung conveyed the intensity of feelings that he was experiencing in that moment in time, drawing the viewer into a deeper context of the film. 

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