Brynne Valla--Films from Class #2

The first clip we watched works as Midrash in that it teaches us the first commandment: thou shall not have any gods before me. In this clip, the father reveals that he has more faith in what the computer tells him than God. Though his sister and child seem to take greater leaps of faith in God, he relies on his computer for all the answers. Everything is a calculation and he believes it to be infallible. The most tragic part of this clip is when the father realizes his faith in his computer killed his son. Had the father not put more faith in technology than in God, perhaps his son would still be alive. This clip demonstrates the importance of trusting in God rather than in our own logic. The ending can only be tragic when we forgo the first commandment.
In the second clip, we see the commandment: thou shall not kill. A bit of tension exists within this command, however. For instance, we humans are told not to murder. But is capital punishment considered murder or justice? This seems to be the main point of this clip. It questions whether killing someone who has murdered another human being is justified or if it is yet another violation of the commandment that prohibits killing. In the end, it seems as though the killing is unjust. The lawyer cannot find peace with his client’s death, though he seems to acknowledge his client was wrong to commit the crime against the cab driver. This clip seems to suggest that capital punishment is a perpetuation of breaking the commandment not to kill one another.
These films took simple commandments from a religious book and created films that we could relate to or identify with. By creating believable or relatable situations, the films were able to convey some sense of feeling or meaning. In the second clip especially, I could relate to both the lawyer (because I believe capital punishment is wrong) and the cab driver’s family (because his life should not have been taken). Furthermore, I think that this film does bridge the flux of the moment to eternity. The commandments were given to Moses thousands of years ago. The fact that the filmmaker can present situations from today’s modern world and apply them to the old commands represents that ability.