Forgiveness on the screen

Seeing as spring is more or less here, I decided to have a bit of a clear out of my film magazines.

Five years of back copies has taken up valuable space that is now needed for toys and baby clothes. As I flicked through the front covers, I was struck by the range of themes that the mainstream Hollywood films use to woo us into the cinemas: Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and The Matrix may all use special effects and multi-release strategies to keep us interested but they also run with themes and ideas that transcend space or Middle Earth and connect with human everyday experience. Love, grief, self-doubt, heroism are all present in many blockbusters and often linking them all together is the theme of forgiveness. In order for relationships to continue in the midst of the immense stresses of the plotlines, forgiveness needs to be alive and well. Frodo and Sam need to forgive each other throughout their journey with the tricksy Gollum, Ron has to forgive Harry for his failures in friendship and so on.

Powerful theme

Forgiveness is even more powerful as a theme when the characters must forgive their enemies. In the film The Interpreter (2005), starring Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn, there is an interesting proposal for helping you to forgive the murderer of your loved ones. We learn that in the fictional African ‘Ku’ tribe, a ritual is held a year after the murder. The criminal is bound and taken by boat to the middle of a lake while the family of the victim stands on the shore. The murderer is then thrown into the lake, unable to swim. The only way that he will survive is if the family swim out to save him. The theory promoted by the film is that this action cures the family of grief, enabling them to continue their lives in peace, whereas letting the murderer drown may satisfy their revenge, but it will cause them to grieve for the rest of their lives. Kidman’s character, Silvia, has had her entire family killed by a heartless President and holds a gun to his head, ready to pull the trigger. Penn’s character pleads with her, saying, ‘If you kill him, you destroy your own life.’ The end of all movies must close with a sustainable equilibrium for the audience to go away satisfied and it seems that forgiveness can give us that through bringing emotional health and well-being to our heroes and heroines at the end of their toil.

N. Ireland

Forgiveness has been on the agenda on television, too. The beginning of March saw the fascinating BBC2 project Facing the truth which puts a version of the tribal ‘Ku’ idea into action. The relatives of victims of the IRA came face to face with the men who killed their loved ones in meetings chaired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The idea is that the victims’ families might be able to achieve some sort of end to their grief through being able to face their enemies and shake their hands in forgiveness.

The episode showing the widow and brother of Dermot Hackett meeting his killer, Michael Stone, was harrowing and shocked many. The Newswatch programme (BBC1 Saturdays at 7.45am) received many complaints about the morality of screening such a raw event. I must confess that I saw a clip of it ahead of time and thought that it was being re-enacted. When I realised that it was for real, I thought that the BBC was using freak-show TV tactics by drawing audiences through the promise of confrontation. Yet the programme makers took great measures to ensure that the participants were not being exploited and believed that the experiences would be genuinely beneficial for the families. After the meeting, Fergal Keane asked Sylvia Hackett whether she now thought it was the right thing for her to come to meet Michael Stone. Sylvia said she had waited a long time for this day and it had given her a ‘little bit of healing. It's been like a life sentence for me and the girls. This was something I just had to do. To show him I'm not just this bitter woman who everybody thinks I'm going to be. I do feel sorry for him. But it was my way of showing I'm a Christian.’

Stark challenge

Watching believers and non-believers forgive their enemies is a stark challenge to any follower of Jesus who in Matthew’s Gospel commanded us to ‘Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven’ (Matthew 5.44). Paul added in Romans that where revenge is required, God’s people need to put their trust in his judgment: ‘It is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord. On the contrary: ‘If your enemy is hungry, feed him: if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this you will heap burning coals on his head.’ The drama of fictional and real-life acts of forgiveness reminds us that although the process of forgiveness may be emotionally costly, the benefits of trusting Christ’s command to forgive are far more rewarding.

Eleanor Margesson

© Evangelicals Now - April 2006
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