Monster
Last night I watched Monster with Matt. It's a paintful film full of emotional & visceral impact without cinematic flourish relying almost wholly on the talents of Charlize Theron to convincing portray the true story of a serial killer prostitute. Other than some of the voice-overs, Theron was pitch perfect, and by the end of the movie I wanted to curl up in a corner in the fetal position.
I don't think I've seen anything dive more into sin and madness and pain since I read Crime & Punishment. It freaks me out knowing that to some extent the story told was true. I like my safe, sterile little world. I don't like knowing there's pain out there that I can't give an account for.
Again, I realize that much of these feelings I have are more about my response to the film than the film itself, but I can't help but feel that the movie had deep down an implicit argument against any kindof hope or grace or, and please forgive me fpr using the term, metanarrative to it all.
I walked away revisiting arguments against the existence of God. I walked away marching down an all-to-familiar line of inquiry straight through "evil" to it's existence being for the glory of God right past finding that a utterly BS explanation for the order of things and ending up where I always do: that it's all Divine fiat and I just have to submit.
Sometimes its really frustrating to feel like our faith doesn't give us an explanation for things, at least not for anything outside of ours and other folks lives. At "best" our faith tells us, personally what or Who it is we're missing in our lives. Just don't ask Jesus to answer twenty questions about "why" when He show's up. You wont get any answers.
Josiah Q. Roe | By Josiah Roe | 08:57 AM
Comments
Man I just started reading Crime and Punishment last week, and just in the first few chapters there is some really heavy stuff. The guy's dream about the horse being beaten to death, for instance, and then the cruel murder he himself commits. Good grief it was disturbing.
There's something to reading, watching, hearing stuff like this though. A friend recently told me she hating Johnny Cash's "Hurt" because it's depressing. I couldn't help but feel like she was really missing out on something, though. As if it's the "right" kind of depressing that we all need a dose of once in a while.
Posted by: John at February 9, 2004 09:29 AM
My faith has been tested many times in my life but never so much as through the death of a friend. I watched her slowly and painfully lose everything. I have never seen anyone suffer like in the last two months of her life when she was dying of cancer. I was with her almost around the clock and I have never prayed so much in my life - or felt so completely helpless. Somewhere in that time I truly felt like God left us - that he was a cruel and uncaring God. Losing my friend was hard but losing my faith turned me into a walking dead person. It took me a little over a year to let go of those last two months and to let go of the God I thought I knew. I know that I won't understand that period of suffering or so much that I see around me until I leave this earth.
Cash's Hurt is a beautiful song. It's sad when people look for distraction away from the depressing because there is so much healing in the things that echo our sorrow.
Posted by: Gypsy at February 9, 2004 10:55 AM
Sounds like how I felt after seeing Boys Don't Cry. I can't say I had ever before seen a film so full of clueless people.
Posted by: Tommy at February 9, 2004 09:27 PM
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