Alternately titled; Weeping During a Kids’ Movie
Mr. Chili and Punkin’ Pie rented The Seeker late last week, and we sat down together to watch it on Sunday afternoon when I came home from the fellowship.
About 3/4 of the way through the film, though, I almost had to leave. There’s a scene in the film where the manipulator of the forces of darkness is trying to get the Seeker to relinquish his signs (I’m not going to go into plot details here; they’re unimportant to my story) by freezing him and all of his village out of the manor in which they’ve sought shelter. There are thousands of icicles on the ceiling, and the Darkness steps off of his horse and sets off a tremor that shakes the icicles loose. They start raining down on all of the frightened people below.
Saturday afternoon, Tom had delivered a presentation about the genocide in Darfur. He made special mention of things called fleschettes, which are essentially nails with fins on them that are shot out of aircraft. The fins make sure that the nails fly point-down, and they shred the helpless people on the ground.
I felt as though I were a little post-tramatic stressed when I watched the acted panic and terror on the screen, and I found myself unable to choke back tears because I know that, in this case, art really IS imitating life.
Or, rather, death.
Yes, it is definitely time for vacation. Our last unit of the year is on Dafur and genocide in general. Luckily it’s how we end the year so we can decompress and start all over.
Does your cottage have a dock?
I am always amazed at the myriad ways we humans can come up with ways to hurt fellow human beings.