I saw the movie a couple of weeks ago, and I was impressed. As I have been telling my friends: it's a very good movie, but not a great movie. I have found the dominant theme to be a salient one. There is a great scene in the movie where the main character's father is going to be executed. As he stands before his son, prepared for death, he delivers the following line with a look that doesn't contain a hint of fear: "My son, do not be afraid."
Fuckin' A.
I think what Melly Mel is trying to illustrate in this movie is that courage is the antidote to the decay of culture. There are some great father-son talks where fear is described as a poison, destroying everything it touches. Even when it seems that fear is justified, it is to be brooked no quarter.
It reminds me of a story that is told about St. Francis. One of the brothers was seeing a vision of the Devil, who was appearing as St. Francis and telling him what a waste all his penances were. The Devil would assure this brother that despite any of his efforts, he was doomed to Hell. This brother eventually told Francis about these visions, after struggling with a fear of the saint himself. When Francis heard it he told the brother, "If you see him again, tell him 'I shit in your mouth.'" Basically, "Fuck off," in the parlance of 13th-century Italy.
The saint understood that the only response to fear was "fuck off". This corrosive force will dissolve your whole life. It will try to put you up against a wall. It may leave you for years powerless and unwilling to change. It may leave you in a cage that grows comfortable as the years pass on.
Remember: "fuck off".
2 comments:
Tony,
I have been known to employ the Apostolate of Strong Language from time to time as well. I find it is something useful when talking on eggshells amongst others of my faith begins to have the sickily-dickily sweet whitebread odor of Ned Flanders and fails to communicate the gravity of a situation.
Of course, I would like to offer another apostolate, the Apostolate of Friendly Sarcasm. It is a sign of fondness when one is addressed in such a manner... to think that mere annoyance of another's words can be redirected to the source as a humorous negative reply is a good thing. Correcting others need not always be done in stern bashings of the head with a Book of Systematic Belief; sarcasm can be enlightening, too.
by the way, the AoSL was something employed by Saint Josemaria Escriva.
my adapting it and creating the AoFS resulted from another communication that reminded me of the saintly writing, after reading this blog entry. Purely tangental stuff, but new movements are borne from tangents anyway, right? ;o)
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