| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| BaftaBaby |
Posted - 02/26/2010 : 11:08:02
My tie-in piece to The Book of Eli and The Lovely Bone, etc.
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| 4 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| ChocolateLady |
Posted - 02/27/2010 : 11:41:21
And the key phrase here is "fictional works". |
| Sean |
Posted - 02/27/2010 : 11:05:46
quote:
Originally posted by BaftaBabe
What's inescapable is that the protagonist of this film is dead. That means she's capable of action after death. That's an assumption I resent..........
I haven't seen either movie yet. But, how is an assumption of life after death in fictional works such as these any different to a similar assumption in supernatural horror? It's also not terribly different from an assumption in sci-fi that supra-light speed travel or worm holes are possible. It's just fantasy.
Sure, there will be believers in the supernatural who see supernatural movies such as The Lovely Bones or Ghost or even The Exorcist and believe that such things as ghosts watching over the living or demonic possession could be real. And then there are atheists who see them and know they couldn't be. |
| BaftaBaby |
Posted - 02/27/2010 : 09:02:13
quote:
Originally posted by ChocolateLady
One of the things I liked about the book "Lovely Bones" was the total absence of religion, and that despite the use of the word 'heaven', there was something very non-spiritual about Suzie's being dead.
Moreover, I felt the book focused much more on the family and how they coped with Suzie's loss than on Suzie's after-death experience. That was what the book was about - not God, not religion, not belief in the after life, but rather what people go through after they suffer such a loss. The whole heaven thing was just a tool to make the observance more personal than simply using a third person, omnipresent voice.
Well as you know, CL, I don't review books, but the film makes it crystal clear that the dead Susie is not only narrating the film from some kind of purgatory before she's welcomed into heaven, but she has the power, as a dead person, to influence events on earth. Sounds like religion to me.
The assumption - which is what the article is about - is that religion [and in this case a Christian one] exits and is valid and everyone knows it, so there. As though there is no other pov.
Sadly, the concept of the spiritual - which I've always happily ascribed to the near alchemical creative process - has been highjacked by religious people. But it doesn't come across to me that the film is using a spiritual element as metaphor.
What's inescapable is that the protagonist of this film is dead. That means she's capable of action after death. That's an assumption I resent. Particularly when there's no intelligent argument.
The interviews I've read with Sibald indicate that although she didn't write a religious tract, she wasn't uncomfortable if people swam in that cozy unchallenged pond of religious gloop. Well, they'd have to for her story to work. All the family reaction, in the film anyway, is predicated on those assumptions.
It would have been dramatically interesting indeed if someone in the family presented a challenge to any hint of the supernatural.
But, the film does absolutely nothing to raise the philosophical level of her argument. It just perpetuated the assumption. And people [i.e. audiences] continue to take such cultural detritus as truth.
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| ChocolateLady |
Posted - 02/26/2010 : 21:18:17
One of the things I liked about the book "Lovely Bones" was the total absence of religion, and that despite the use of the word 'heaven', there was something very non-spiritual about Suzie's being dead.
Moreover, I felt the book focused much more on the family and how they coped with Suzie's loss than on Suzie's after-death experience. That was what the book was about - not God, not religion, not belief in the after life, but rather what people go through after they suffer such a loss. The whole heaven thing was just a tool to make the observance more personal than simply using a third person, omnipresent voice. |
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