Friday, June 29, 2007

The Believer

Rating:★★★
Category:Movies
Genre: Drama
Thanks to the wonders of (Foxtel) cable TV - I got to watch quite a bit of non-conventional movies that otherwise I would not have seen. One of them was "The Believer". Check out a review here : The Believer Review.

Its basically a film about a Jewish boy from a conservative religious family, writhing in self-hatred, who rebels against his faith and culture- and somehow ends up by becoming a Neo-Nazi. Its a difficult film to watch. I did not watch it straight through- there were several scenes which I skipped. But the movie contains several moving moments which really get you.

1. The scene at the religious school where he, as a very young teenager, openly gets angry at the story of God ordering Abraham to sacrifice his son. He gets totally angry and openly mocks God in the classroom- finally challenging God to strike him down if "He were real"- shocking his teacher and fellow students.

2. The torah scene. Read the review- here The Believer Review.

3. The last scene. He's frantically climbing the staircase in his old religious school , he meets up with his religious teacher who tells him that he's finally agreed with his heretical views. He ignores his teacher and keeps climbing and climbing. His teacher calls out to him to come back because there's nothing to see up there, but he keeps on climbing... and climbing... and climbing.

2 comments:

Jason Mullinder said...

It can be difficult to watch, I think it challenges many peoples views of skinheads etc while affirming that many do meet the stereotype. The struggle this guy has, somehow clinging to his faith in Torah despite all the disillusionment. A friend recommended this film to me mentioning some similarities to the main character.
Not sure if you caught one phrase in the Abraham debate "The story of Abraham and Isaac has nothing to do with Abraham's faith, it has everything to do with God's power".

Yauming YMC said...

Yeah, I remember it now. Watched it several years back- it does raise a few a lingering doubts. But in the end, thats what faith is about isn't it? Believing in something intangible. If we got everything nicely packaged, there would be no mystery, and no reason for faith.