Jesus Complex?

Sometimes you wonder. Is it just you, or is everybody going a little mad? Are people increasingly indulging in self-defeating activities which will, in a matter of time, blow up right in their faces?

Why do they open themselves up to vulnerability? Is their desire to express themselves so important that it has to be imprinted digitally to the end of times. Why is there a pressing need to be with them or against the rest? Is there no middle ground? Why do they think it is a test of love to exhibit bedroom antics to the full view of the public? And still call it expression, even when others call it exhibitionism.

You know there is no wrong or right answer? Truth is a multifaceted son of a gun with the last laugh when it finally comes to the fore. Your time is getting near, and you want to ride in the sunset, hurting fewer and fewer people every day. You want to thank your lucky stars for the times in your life, which you had in your own right, which had been unpredictable, but in the end, you hope you really had the time of your life.

You want to reduce your sins, collect brownie points, and make the remaining times on Earth less controversial. You tell yourself to let bygones be bygones. Lest, you need not forgive nor forget, but let it be.

But hell no! People do not want to let it be. They want to have the final say. They find joy in holding tightly to the rein. They find joy in saying, ‘I was right; you were wrong!’. If I, an able body, can think this way, why not a more confident people who exude piety through all their orifices can indeed assess the whole imbroglio in such a manner?

You give up. In times like these, you develop a Jesus Christ complex and engage in a solitary soliloquy with yourself. Forgive them, God, for they know not what they do.

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Two sides of the same coin?

Devil All the Time (2020)

At one look, it seems that the story is going all over the place. At one time, you think that one particular character is the protagonist, but wham! she is killed off. Then another also killed off, and another yet again. There are plenty of killings and dying on the whole, but then, it all builds up to make sense at the end. There are many cryptic messages embedded within the storyline that questions the perception of what evil really is. Our divinity and evil part and parcel of the same continuum, not in contradiction but a mere extension of a spectrum? 

One complements the other. Just like how light is appreciated in darkness, evil is necessary for us to appreciate goodness. Like how it is a necessity that Tom never catches Jerry for the excitement to continue. Will E Coyote will never have the Road Runner for dinner for Coyote may become mad if, one day, he gets up in the morning to realise that he has nothing to do. Satan can never lose if Goodness were to be appreciated. The fight (if there is one) has to go on as long as life exists. All the events that happen in the name of God and the Devil are the ones that give meaning to the journey of life. We kid ourselves that everything is a mission as willed by God, even though we wonder why He who heals the wounds also send the flies.

After much beating around the bush, the viewers would realise that the movie is basically about a boy and a girl pair (Arvin and Leonora) who end up in the same foster home. Since both grew up together from a young age, they are close. Together they both carry the heavy baggage of sins of their parents. Arvin's mother succumbed to cancer whilst his father, a WW2 veteran, commits suicide after failing to revive her despite offering a sacrifice to God. Leonora's father, an evangelical preacher who was not right in his head, thought he had an audience. He believed God's orders were to kill his wife and resurrect her from death. He attempted, failed, bolted off and only to be killed by a husband-wife pair of serial killers.

Leonora grows very religious like her mother and is taken for a ride by a visiting preacher. She kills herself after finding herself pregnant out of wedlock. Arvin avenges her death and lands up with an encounter with the serial killers.

The complicated plots are set in the heart of the Bible Belt of America, where everyone is Christian by default. Everyone has their vision of how religion should be. Some expect something divine to be one that is kind, loving, tender and all accepting. Others justify violence in the name of the law to ensure the tenets of the religion are enforced. Many endure sacrifices for salvation. We use the name of the original sin as a get-of-jail free card to excuse our follies. We follow the same ill-fated paths that our fathers followed and say it is genes or 'sins of our fathers' in theological terms. 

Simon of  Cyrene to Jesus' aid to carry the Cross

As seen in the film, many seemingly unrelated events happen in our lives, but they do affect us in mysterious ways. Are these mere coincidences or sleight of hand of the Maker himself? Are they of no causal relationships as insisted by Freud or meaningful synchronicity as described by Jung?

Perhaps blind faith does not do anybody any good. True, religion forms a platform upon and above which intellect should complement the scriptures. This is best described by the painting of Jesus' long journey to Golgotha. A battered son of God could not carry the Cross. A random passerby, Simon of Cyrene, was summoned to aid in the task. In the same vein, one should not just depend on the Grace of God; we should make an effort to do it ourselves as well.

A gripping movie with Tim Holland of 'Spider Man' fame as Arvin. 

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The blind leading the blind!

Sathyathai Thedi  (Seeking the Truth; @Asothoma Sathgamaya, 2013)

First, it was Zakir Naik who was heard telling his congregants that the old Hindu scriptures did indeed quote of the arrival of a messenger of God. In his usual style, he went on ranting his references to the said inscriptions. Just that people are too set in their mindsets to accept that, he alleged.

Now I hear the same pitch being repeated. This Christian evangelist film tries to sell the idea that the Ama Veda did hint of Prajapathi, the Lord of the Universe, being Jesus Christ himself. Somewhere in it, it was apparently mentioned of the Creator who needed to be sacrificed for atonement. In their eyes, it fits perfectly in their narrative that Jesus, who is God himself, had to be sacrificed to wash the sins of Man.

The whole film can be described as a hermeneutical gymnastic as the protagonist goes on rattling verses after verses from the Veda, Upanishads and even Kural to drive home the message that the Bible is indeed version 2.0 of the ultimate Truth.  

Imagine the audacity...

The alternative title of the film is Asotha Sathgama. As we know, it is an ancient mantra, also named Pavamana Mantra, is from the Upanishad. It is recited during offerings, and it encourages us to open our inner realisation to come out of our ignorance to embrace the transcendental reality. A fourth line of 'Om Shanthi, Shanthi, Shantihi' is often added to emphasise us to be at peace with the Universe.

asato mā sad gamaya,tamaso mā jyotir gamaya, mṛtyor māmṛtaṃ gamaya

"from the unreal lead me to Truth, from the darkness lead me to the light, from death, lead me to immortality."

I gather that the makers of the film refer them to belong to a new denomination called 'Indian Christians'. Unlike the Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox Churches or Protestants who garnered knowledge from the respective areas that they prospered, these Indian Christian have no qualms in appropriating pearls of wisdom of the Hindu tradition. After all, Hinduism is not a religion but a way of life. Hindu, in ancient times, referred to the civilisation around the Indus Valley. 'Indians Christians' just cherry-pick the knowledge of their ancestors to seek their perceived ultimate Truth of their Maker.

St Thomas' arrival 53AD

The story revolves around a retired Brahmin Sanskrit scholar who comes out from being a closet Christian, much to the ire of his son with whom he is staying. His conversion soon becomes an embarrassment to his family and the members of the Brahmin community where he is respected. The scholar slowly teaches everyone in the community his own understanding of his new religion. Pretty soon, everyone in the community sees the light and embrace Christianity one by one, including the short-fused son.

The filmmakers are hoping to connect to the segment of the population who see the practice of Hinduism as a ritual filled archaic meaningless practice. These ignoramuses, in the lowest ebb of their lives, when they are vulnerable and are looking for straws to clutch, see evangelists as their saviours. Unlike practitioners of the Hindu faith who are seekers of knowledge, these Christian soldiers are out in the field to attend to the nitty-gritty nut-and-bolt issues of daily life. With the threat of death or sickness, a hand in prayer goes a long way in gratitude and seeing things in a different light. This is how faithful lieutenants are made.

All these do not make sense. We claim to respect each other's religion, but yet we are quick to run each other's faith down to proclaim that our's is superior. In reality, we are all groping in the dark trying to put two to two to paint a composite picture is what life, the journey and the reason for our existence are all about...

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It is all faith!

Risen (2016)


Like what my friend says, it is about love and faith. Faith gives us that tuft of hope when the going gets tough and the end seems hopeless. The fight would go on by offloading some of the pressures to an overseeing Being, while Man can continue doing what he does best. When anxiety builds up and all odds are stacked against him in an unfair distribution, Man starts asking what the meaning of life is all about. What he gets is a muted, deafening, stony impassive silence. When he thinks the Power above would be just and equal in his distribution of comfort and happiness, what he sees are random occurrences and chaos.

Nonbelievers accuse believers who surrender themselves to outlets like self-indulgences and religion as quickly laid out answers to the questions of life as committing philosophical suicide. He accepts the absurdity of our dull and futile lives by actually killing off our ability to inquire and reason. He seems to be taking the easy way out without really giving a fight.

The believers would argue that life is too complicated to be understood by our feeble mind. That life is how it is and it is all a question of faith and conviction.

This film, viewed from the point of a Roman soldier, Clavius, who is summoned by the Judean prefect, Pontius Pilate, to investigate the rumour which was rising in Jerusalem. After Jesus was crucified (referred to as Yeshua of Nazarene), his followers talk of his resurrection and a possible rebellion. This would give a bad image to Pilate since the Roman Emperor Tiberius Caesar is due for a visit. Clavius, the faithful and reliable soldier, has to investigate the disappearance of Yeshua's body. The movie narrates his subsequent discovery and later amazement of Yeshua's healing powers and ascension to the Heavens.

Unlike 'Passion of Christ' which relied on the gore factor as their selling point, this down-to-earth flick concentrates on character building and the telling the political manoeuvring that occurred during the last few days of the Son of God on Earth.

Hope of Deliverence

Son of God (2014)

It is only human nature to be inquisitive. The human mind always tries to explore the unknown and try to go beyond the boundaries made by Man. Hence, when it was mentioned in our newspapers that the above film was banned by the local film council, the only natural reaction was try to watch it and that was a piece of cake.
After watching the whole 2h44m presentation, which is more of a docudrama, you come to realise that it was no big deal. It did not appear to be controversial or powerful enough for its viewers to be born again. In fact, it was like an Easter performance for a Sunday school students. Maybe some the depiction of cruelty of man to each other may be too much for young hearts to stomach.
It runs through Jesus' life story concentrating mainly from the time he enters Jerusalem during Passover.
Looking at it from the outside, the situation of people in that era is similar what people are going through all the time. Tyranny rules, people in power decide for their own interest, the poor are helpless in a hopeless situation looking for someone to lead to revolt the cruel regime, they have hope, they persevere hoping that their suffering would be rewarded and they go on life on Earth no matter how bleak things appear to be.
The story does not dwell into controversial subjects like Mary Magdelene.
It is always their own people who would get their own kind in trouble as the Jewish priests were all out to put an end to the life of a young charismatic leader to whom people especially the downtrodden  showed more allegiance to. They also pass the buck of meting punishment to the Romans as they were afraid of repercussions. Hence, the Roman way of punishment for many crimes.
Pontius Pilate actually appears not too keen to punish Jesus. He was willing to forgive him in the spirit of Passover. People of Jerusalem instead decided to vote for release of a murderer.
It is iconic that just when Jesus is praying before his apprehension in the Garden of Gethsemane, the others are also praying at the same juncture - the Jews with Passover and the pagans with their idols.
The religion of the poor continued to flourish under the disciples. The tradition of helping the needy and the poor must have continued with the nuns, nurses and schoolmasters from missionary schools after that.

Fiction that angered many!

Alert: Sensitive topic, readers' discretion advised!

The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)

The more you suppress something, the more people want of, e.g. the plunging of the cleavage! Once it is in the open, the more people will shy away but then some people would swear that something are better left to imagination so that the discovery would all be worth it!

Just like that, the curiosity in me wanted be to view and judge for myself the film banned in many countries including Malaysia and Singapore -The Last Temptation of Christ. 

The movie can be roughly divided to 2 parts - the first being His revelation of being the Son of God and the second (which is the one angered most believers) which is the purely fictitious part.

Jesus, a carpenter, is collaborating to make cross for the Romans much to the chagrin of the Jewish people including his friend, Judas. He has these pains and voices in his head that keep on coming and irritating him.  He tries fasting, whipping himself but in vain. He is convinced it is God talking to him. He is not interested but wants to be left like everybody else. He wants somebody else to be The One. He decides to goes a wandering to find peace but not before bidding farewell to his childhood friend who had feelings for him (and vice-versa), now a prostitute, Mary Magdalene.

After some soul searching about his fears and low self esteem, he is told to return to spread The Word of God. Along comes Judas to kill him but instead becomes his follower. Then He sees Mary Magdalene being stoned for working on Sabbath. He stops the mob with the all famous phrase (slightly altered), "he who had not sinned cast the first stone...".

Then he starts his preaches about love and the number of disciples grow bigger. They form the newest radicals who are out to challenge the practice of the people of the day and the rule of the Romans.
After his baptism and self discovery in the desert again, Jesus managed to control his temptations from Satan. On his return, he goes on a rampage of miracle of healing the blind and raising the death. He then goes for the jugular, to take over Jerusalem. After a failed attempt to take a temple, he confides in Judas to inform his whereabouts to the Romans as his calling called him to die on the cross. After the Last Supper, He is caught and is crucified. His followers run into hiding.

While dying on the cross, a little girl emerges to claim to be his guardian angel to release him from the cross. She leads him to a wedding procession where he is to be wed to Mary Magdalene. The consummation results in a pregnant Magdalene who unfortunately dies suddenly with the baby in situ. 

A devastated Jesus is coaxed by the guardian angel to marry (cohabitate) Lazarus' sisters, Mary and Martha and has many children with them. Jesus grows old feeling happy thinking that this is how one finds God, through family life and children. During one of the family outings, he overhears a preacher preaching about Jesus and resurrection. Jesus about everything but the preacher insists that that type of talk gives hope to the people.

Jesus grows old as Jerusalem is engulfed with raging fire. On his death bed his disciples drop in. They were infuriated with Him for being a coward running from the cross and the rest of them had to do the dirty job of fighting the Roman. They show Him that He had indeed fallen for Satan's temptation and the guardian angel was no guardian angel but a manifestation of Satan himself.
Jesus pleads to God for forgiveness for failing in his duty and pleaded for Him to be brought back to the cross. And He did...
I can understand the discomfort felt by the puritans. Putting artistic expressions aside, the story tellers were just testing the waters by humanizing the Son of God - making him appear delusional both auditory and visual in nature, feeling frustrated for this disturbing feeling, working for God's enemy (Romans) with the hope that He would be not chosen for God's job, depiction of him as a fire brand youth indulging in worldly activities, fearful of relationships with persons of the weaker sex and even seen kissing men in a few scenes.
From a purely artistic point of view, Daniel Dafoe gave a true life like image of what the modern world expects Jesus to look like even archaeologically he is said to have more Negroides features. Martin Scorsee, being the master director he is did not disappoint in this outing.