Simon Robson- Decalogue

 In these Decalogue movies they portray the original 10 commandments in modern stories as to make them more powerful and familiar to a modern audience. The ones that we screened focused on the commandments of "Love the Lord thy God and have no god before me" and "Thou shalt not murder. The visuals that were shown throughout these stories showed these commandments and related them to things that we understand more in a modern sense. The films use midrash in order to commentate on and emphasize the importance of these commandments. 

In the first film we watch the man puts too much of his faith into things such as technology, measurements and science. As a result of this he faces the consequences and loses his son. This represents the idolization of earthly and material things. It emphasizes the idea of faith in God and God alone. We can see here that the father becomes frustrated and we see the powerful scenes of his pain and his return to the church. It also featured a scene of Mary crying which represented the sadness of both the human man and the sacred being. The visuals in this film give a very intense tone and bring a lot of the intimacy and feeling to the viewer. 

In the second one, we see the effects and complications of death. Although he was working towards the murder, the actual idea of death deeply upset him and made him want to change. The visuals here are moving and bring the viewer to see the pain and remorse that is felt. It brings about the ideas that the death penalty also does not prevent any crimes and does not serve much purpose other than revenge. 

Comments

  1. Religion and Film 2021February 18, 2021 at 1:54 PM

    Really good discussion of the film. The one thing I would say is that I don't know if the film is necessarily saying have faith in God alone rather science does not replace God. This film does show has incredible the technology is and what it can do but it wants the view to know that just because it is incredible does not make it something to be worshipped.

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