Saturday, March 03, 2007

So this is what being a peace studies kid means

I rarely cry in movies. When I do, it's just a tear or two escaping my eyes.

Tonight, I sobbed into my boyfriend's shoulder, not just once, but several times.

We went to go see Casino Royale. He'd seen it and liked it, I had heard it was a decent Bond movie. $3 a piece through the student union board. I'm so glad now that none of our friends could come with us.

Throughout the first 2/3rds of the movie, the violence seemed excessive, but I could handle it. I wasn't enjoying myself, per se, but I was still chuckling at the jokes. Then Bond gets captured. The torture scene was the most graphic one I had ever seen. Even now, it's replaying in my head, and I'm crying again. The way he slumped in the chair, the moans. The fact that he was naked and stripped of his dignity. I know he wasn't really being hurt. I didn't even like his character that much. But I just finished reading The Human Security Report 2005, which gives as detailed statistics as we know them about things like torture. It didn't bother me severely to read it- I was more just trying to get through the raw data to be able to use it in a paper. It's different to get a visual and audio representation of a little bit of the suffering you've been reading about for a semester.

Anyway, I lost it. I cried the hardest I've ever cried in a theater. And then I couldn't handle the rest of the violence in the movie, either, and it didn't help that the ending message was something along the lines of trust no one but yourself, love doesn't work as an alternative.

O God, hear my voice and grant our world your peace.
Hear my voice,
it is the voice of the victims of all wars and violence;

Hear my voice,
it is the voice of all children
who suffer when we put our faith in weapons and war;

Hear my voice,
for I speak for those in every country
and in every period of history
who do not want war and are ready to walk the road of peace;

O God, hear my voice and grant our world your peace.

Send us your Holy Spirit,
instil into the hearts of all people
the wisdom of peace,
the strength of justice
and the joy of fellowship

so that we may respond
to hatred with courage and love,
to injustice with dedication to truth,
to suffering and need
by the compassionate sharing of ourselves,
to war with the non-violence of Jesus,
who brings hope and peace.

O God, hear my voice
and grant our world your peace.

Amen.

from http://www.carmelite.com/prayer/peace.shtml

3 comments:

  1. Funny, too, cause the whole time he's making jokes while he's being tortured.

    And the only time where you can trust no one but yourself is when you are a secret spy killer dude. A yup.

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  2. Anonymous10:07 AM

    Well, that is one movie I will not be seeing. This is not the first time I have heard about how horrific that scene is. I recently read an excerpt from a book written by an "interrogator" in the US Army who is struggling with his demons over what he did. Creepy stuff.

    For what it's worth, I walked out of Braveheart because I couldn't take the torture scene in that one.

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  3. If only we could all see violence as pain, whether on screen or in front of us.

    And yes, it was Creole.

    Great prayer

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