Nation Of The Damned?
These days I don't really get a chance to watch any movies but last night I finially had the time to relax a little and decided to go to the video store to rent a movie. I don't watch horror movies anymore since, quite frankly, I often feel like I'm living in my own horror movie during my day to day life. So I wanted to rent a comedy but I couldn't find anything I liked. So I wandered around the store and I decided to rent a movie called "The Village Of The Damned.' It was a 1995 remake of the old 1960's version that went by the same name.
The 1960's version had the following review:
"Plot: A mysterious forcefield affects the English village of Midwich, causing everybody within its radius to fall asleep. Afterwards every women of child-bearing age is found to be pregnant, including teenage girls and women whose husbands were absent. All give birth to blonde-haired children who have remarkable intelligence and a complete lack of emotion. As the villagers band together in fear, the children demonstrate powerful mind control abilities and group together to defend against all that threatens them.
"This fine adaption of John Wyndham’s 1957 novel is one of the few successful attempts at translating the paranoia of 1950s American sf across the Atlantic. The fear of takeover in American films like It Came from Outer Space (1953), Invaders from Mars (1953) and Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) is adapted in uniquely English ways - the film makes considerable play between the sedate normality of the English countryside and the creepy arrival of the unexplained.
"The very effectiveness of the 1950s sf paranoia films was that the aliens were not BEMs but wore the very same skin that humans do but without emotions. And Village of the Damned is one of the most effective examples of this - the children are all human but their humanity is subtly exaggerated in a way that makes them seem infinitely more alien - slightly raised foreheads, a preponderance of blonde hair. (In an effect that director Wolf Rilla tried to argue against, they have also been given glowing eyes when their powers are in operation, something that crudely and unnecessarily overstates their chill presence). In some respects the film could almost be read as a film about the fear of Nazism - it is after all about taking on a group of Teutonic people who seem intent on becoming the Master Race."
Well, after watching the movie I was stunned to see how accurate it portrayed the present times.
Although the 1995 remake was not as good as the original it still accurately portrayed the fundamental differences in people that lead to gross misunderstandings resulting in wars that have repeated themselves endlessly throughout history.
In one scene of the movie all the people in the small town were assembled in a church because they were terrified of the profound indifference that some of the local children showed to human life. In this scene the local priest was describing to this congregation a fundamental difference that he was noticing in people, almost as if there were really two races in their local town, that is, there are those who can feel empathy and there are those who simply cannot.
In this particular scene the priest was comforting the congregation after the death of Melanie Roberts whom the children hypnotized to commit suicide when she became distraught at discovering that these children were not really human. The priest said:
"And God said let us make man in our image after our likeness
"The image does not mean outer image, for every statue or photograph would be man.
"It means the inner image...the spirit...the soul.
"So we gather here today to remember the inner beauty of one who lost her hold,
Melanie Roberts, who somehow lost that image of herself as a creature of God's bountiful spirit
"But what of those in our midst who do not have individual souls...or spirits?
"They have one mind that they share between them...they all have but one spirit.
"They have the look of man ... but not the nature of mankind."
I thought this was a superb description of the situation that we find ourselves in.
For example, how else can we explain the likes of George Bush and his invasion of Iraq without any real cause or of Ariel Sharon's quest for a 'Greater Israel'
by the annihilation of the Palestinian people by bombings, massacres, assassinations, curfews, arrests of "wanted youths," all of which continue to destroy their economy and the lives of every Palestinian person on a daily basis?
I often wonder if leaders such as Bush, Sharon and Blair share a common mind...a common spirit.
As Gurdjieff said:
"A considerable percentage of the people we meet on the street of a great town are people who are empty inside, that is, they are actually already dead. It is fortunate for us that we do not see and do not know it. If we knew what a number of people are actually dead and what a number of these dead people govern our lives, we should go mad with horror."
The 1960's version had the following review:
"Plot: A mysterious forcefield affects the English village of Midwich, causing everybody within its radius to fall asleep. Afterwards every women of child-bearing age is found to be pregnant, including teenage girls and women whose husbands were absent. All give birth to blonde-haired children who have remarkable intelligence and a complete lack of emotion. As the villagers band together in fear, the children demonstrate powerful mind control abilities and group together to defend against all that threatens them.
"This fine adaption of John Wyndham’s 1957 novel is one of the few successful attempts at translating the paranoia of 1950s American sf across the Atlantic. The fear of takeover in American films like It Came from Outer Space (1953), Invaders from Mars (1953) and Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) is adapted in uniquely English ways - the film makes considerable play between the sedate normality of the English countryside and the creepy arrival of the unexplained.
"The very effectiveness of the 1950s sf paranoia films was that the aliens were not BEMs but wore the very same skin that humans do but without emotions. And Village of the Damned is one of the most effective examples of this - the children are all human but their humanity is subtly exaggerated in a way that makes them seem infinitely more alien - slightly raised foreheads, a preponderance of blonde hair. (In an effect that director Wolf Rilla tried to argue against, they have also been given glowing eyes when their powers are in operation, something that crudely and unnecessarily overstates their chill presence). In some respects the film could almost be read as a film about the fear of Nazism - it is after all about taking on a group of Teutonic people who seem intent on becoming the Master Race."
Well, after watching the movie I was stunned to see how accurate it portrayed the present times.
Although the 1995 remake was not as good as the original it still accurately portrayed the fundamental differences in people that lead to gross misunderstandings resulting in wars that have repeated themselves endlessly throughout history.
In one scene of the movie all the people in the small town were assembled in a church because they were terrified of the profound indifference that some of the local children showed to human life. In this scene the local priest was describing to this congregation a fundamental difference that he was noticing in people, almost as if there were really two races in their local town, that is, there are those who can feel empathy and there are those who simply cannot.
In this particular scene the priest was comforting the congregation after the death of Melanie Roberts whom the children hypnotized to commit suicide when she became distraught at discovering that these children were not really human. The priest said:
"And God said let us make man in our image after our likeness
"The image does not mean outer image, for every statue or photograph would be man.
"It means the inner image...the spirit...the soul.
"So we gather here today to remember the inner beauty of one who lost her hold,
Melanie Roberts, who somehow lost that image of herself as a creature of God's bountiful spirit
"But what of those in our midst who do not have individual souls...or spirits?
"They have one mind that they share between them...they all have but one spirit.
"They have the look of man ... but not the nature of mankind."
I thought this was a superb description of the situation that we find ourselves in.
For example, how else can we explain the likes of George Bush and his invasion of Iraq without any real cause or of Ariel Sharon's quest for a 'Greater Israel'
by the annihilation of the Palestinian people by bombings, massacres, assassinations, curfews, arrests of "wanted youths," all of which continue to destroy their economy and the lives of every Palestinian person on a daily basis?
I often wonder if leaders such as Bush, Sharon and Blair share a common mind...a common spirit.
As Gurdjieff said:
"A considerable percentage of the people we meet on the street of a great town are people who are empty inside, that is, they are actually already dead. It is fortunate for us that we do not see and do not know it. If we knew what a number of people are actually dead and what a number of these dead people govern our lives, we should go mad with horror."
posted by Capricious Mad Hatter @ 4:15 AM
0 comments
