"He Loved Big Brother"

[poliphilo]

In Peter Mullan's terrific movie about institutionalised abuse, The Magdalene Sisters, an archbishop treats the imprisoned girls to a Christmas showing of The Bells of St Mary's and the sadistic, power-mad sister in charge stands up and gives a cooing and ingratiating little speech about how she used to go to the movies with her father and how she liked the westerns best.

And the realisation dawns that not only does this terrible woman believe that God is on her side, she also, God help us, believes that she's cute.

Monsters never think of themselves as monstrous. Stalin loved drinking games. Hitler was fond of children and dogs. Mao went among his people with a great big silly grin on his face.

I won't (because I'm a bit of a fraidy cat) mention the names of any grinners, smirkers and jokers who are still alive and in power.

Sister makes her twee little jokes and the girls laugh at them.

The self-delusion of the ruler is perfectly matched to the self-abasement of the ruled.

Comments

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

I saw that movie. It was chilling.

Kate and talked yesterday about how one always knows the truth about oneself, even while one is blustering and pretending on the outside.

But that isn't entirely true--there comes a point, for some people, when the outer person can be just a human-looking shell, while something entirely other lives within.

In Franz Werfel's wonderful book The Song of Bernadette, a novel about the life of Bernadette of Lourdes, she is being interrogated by a bishop, and he asks her: "What is sin?"

She answers: "The love of evil."

It's an interesting answer.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

But how does one know what is evil?

The sister in the film believed that she was a good person who was punishing sinners and leading them into the paths of righteousness.

She would happily have agreed with Bernadette.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

I've just come home after seeing the movie Constantine, which is about
a war between Heaven and Hell, with God as a disinterested scorekeeper.

There are strict rules, and one is that if you commit suicide, you go to Hell, period. The movie's Hell that looks like Dore's illustrations of the Inferno.

Evil and Good aren't mentioned, really. Just rules--Christian rules.

--

As for the nun in the movie, you are correct; and I have read that the Nazis listened to music to calm them while they were doing their "difficult work." They may have even felt--yes, I suppose they did feel--that they were eradicating evil.

--

Having just returned home from the movie Constantine, in which a psychic man battles demons and watches the battle on earth between Heaven and Hell, I am feeling woefully unable to articulate anything coherent about the nature of evil.

(The bleakest part of the movie was the concept of God as disinterested scorekeeper. Evil and good aren't as relevant, or as black-and-white, as the list of rules--Christian rules. For example: if you commit suicide, you're off to Dante and Dore's Inferno Hell. Period.

Of course, there are loopholes, as we know. But suicide doesn't seem to have any.)

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Sorry--forgot to edit, and tossed in two versions of the same idea.