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Inside Mecca (2003)
Inside Mecca
"Inside Mecca" is a National Geographic documentary movie directed by Anisa Mehdi that describes the set of mandatory for Muslim community rituals that usually done during the annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca - Hajj. This movie displays the experience of three pilgrims that have different religious, economic and social backgrounds and that are from three different countries: The United States, South Africa, and Malaysia. This film shows that Hajj is not only the set spiritual ritual but also it is a God's test that is created in order prove Muslims' readiness to give up comfort and pilgrim to the Mecca without any material belongings except their ritual clothes. During the Hajj, all pilgrims are obligated to participate in following rituals. First of all, all pilgrims must attend Al-Haram Mosque where holy Kaaba is located and walk counter-clockwise around Kaaba seven times. Then they must travel to the tunnel between hills Safa and Marwan and move fast back and forth seven times in this tunnel and drink Zamzam water afterward. Lastly, they must go to the Arafat mountain in order to stay there one night and perform the stoning ceremony in order to fight their devil. When the rituals in Hajj ends people shave or cut their head and sacrifice to the God a sheep. Afterward, the official part of Hajj end and three-day celebration of Eid begins.
One of the best points of this movie is that it describes the experience of three totally different persons and shows all the difficulties that they faced before and during the Hajj. For example, Christian parents of Fidelma O'Leary were completely against her decision to accept Muslim. Moreover, through the experience of Malaysian Ismail viewer can notice that in order to make a Hajj people should be ready for it not only physically but also mentally. Through this film, we can clearly see that making a Hajj requires serious and thorough preparation for it. So, people cannot just take their baggage and passport and attend the Mecca. It has its own rules and regulations that should be followed in order to enter Mecca. It is good to see that the importance of these regulations is highlighted in this movie.
Another interesting and educational point of this movie was that it showed that every ritual that should be done during the Hajj is linked to the important religious and events that led to the emergence of one of the most popular religions - Islam. For example, it visually showed that counter-clockwise walking around the Kaaba seven times is similar as Muhammad did when polytheism fell giving the rise for Islam in Mecca. Also running back and forth in the tunnel is analogous to the actions of Ishmael's mother when she was left between Safa and Marwan hills with his son without any water and food. In order to find some water to feed her son Hagar run with desperation from beginning to the end of the road seven times and Allah decided to reward her with healing Zamzam water. In addition, the stoning ceremony is held in order to fight with devils inside of each pilgrim as Abraham did to fight a real devil. During the Hajj, this ritual is considered as one of the most dangerous ones as people become angry at their devil and throw all of the stones that they collected with blind passion.
Moreover, this movie provided with a rational picture of the events that were happening during the Hajj without any idealization. This can be clearly seen in scenes in which people moved from Mecca to Mina in order to perform a stoning ceremony. Even during the Hajj South Arabian and American pilgrims experienced racism and nationalism from other pilgrims that made similar rituals. It is clearly seen that this incident hurt them and that they did not expect such treatment during the Hajj. Unfortunately, even inside of the community that propagates the equal treatment of every people there are individuals that have socio-economic prejudices towards their peers. This was one of the most disappointing events that were happened in this movie.
One of the interesting paradoxes that occurred in this movie is the fact that even during the Hajj some of the people are not perfectly equally treated. For example, inside of the tents that were built for pilgrims near the Arafat mountain people can buy the comfort if they have enough money for it. For this money, they can buy better food, drink or accommodation. To my point of view, such kind of treatment contradicts the idea of Islamic society where everyone should be treated equally.
For me, it was a really emotional movie as it shows all the emotional problems that three main characters experienced and provides with their own personal stories about their difficulties that they faced in their entire life. Moreover, at the end when they cried viewer can notice that they found some peace and attained internal relief.
Overall, I would recommend this movie for my peers that are unaware of the reason why the majority of Islamic people perform Hajj.
Al-risâlah (1976)
The message
"The message" is a biographical and historical movie filmed by Moustapha Akkad in 1976 and that describes the life of prophet Muhammad from the time that he became the messenger of the God. The events that were described in this movie were held on two main sacred Islamic cities Mecca and Medina. According to this movie, Mecca was the birthplace and the place of becoming the prophet of Muhammad. He was the first person who came to the belief that there is only one god - Allah. This belief came from the message on his head that was delivered by Allah in order to enlighten the people. In this movie, it is also implicitly described the history of the book Quran containing all messages of the God that were sent to Muhammad and that were orally transmitted by him to other followers. Through these messages, Muhammad wanted to convince people that God is one and God is Allah. Unfortunately, the majority of citizens of Mecca (especially older people and upper-class people) were against his actions as they see their religion as a source of their wealth. The reason for this was that in the time Muhammed there was a strong class division that was beneficial for the upper-class people, however, according to Muhammad all people are God's creature and therefore all of them have equal rights. Even if Muhammad and his followers experienced a strong resistance in their way of convincing the people that people actually have only one God, at the end of the movie, they were able to put a foundation of the development and spread of the new religion - Islam. Moreover, they proclaimed the Mecca as a sacred place where people can get themselves closer to God.
Overall the movie "The message" has a lot of symbolic elements that perfectly portrays the religious beliefs and ideologies of people that lived at that time. First of all, clothes that characters wear shows the classes that they belong to and fully displays the division of classes. A perfect example for that is the absence of clean and proper costumes worn on the servants and presence of massive accessories and various colorful and expensive clothes on the higher class that serves as a good sun protector. Moreover, the same style clothes that they were at the shows that they finally accepted equal rights for everyone that was present in the ideology of Islamic religion. The same pattern is present in the accessories of their camels and horses. Secondly, the presence of the various statues of several Gods shows the elements of idol worshiping and polytheism. Also, the way that Mohammad crashed the main statue that is located inside the Kaaba symbolically shows the fall of the polytheist belief in Mecca. Thirdly, the respect of the people towards the sacred place is shown in the scene where people decided to build a house at the place where camel bowed down towards the ground. Finally, some of the viewers can notice the presence of "Shaitan", Islamic devil, in this movie. It is clearly seen at the moment when Hind acted like a crazy when she pierced with her knife the dead body of Muhammad's follower.
The interesting fact about this movie is that even if it was the bibliographical film about the Muhammed his character and his voice were not presented in it. It was happened due to the fact that in Islamic traditions showing the image of God's prophets is strictly prohibited. However, we can notice that sometimes the lens of the camera was shown as the eyes of Muhammad in order to deliver some important information about the crucial events.
To my point of view, the cinematography of the movie was really outstanding. The graphical quality was perfect for the time when it was filmed. The decorations that appeared on it makes the viewers feel the ancient Arabic atmosphere. The musical accompaniment that was performed shows the mood and emotions of all scenes. For example, the tense music during the battle makes the viewers worry about the fate of the main characters. I also enjoyed the acting of some of the actors, especially of those who had a difficult role with wide rage emotional spectrum. The most disappointing element of this movie is the scene of cruelty towards the slaves and early followers of Muhammad. Because of this fact it is not recommended to show it to children for educational purposes.
To sum up, I would recommend this film to others as it is a good and easily understandable source of knowledge about the emergence of Koran and Islamic religions. Moreover, as I have noticed representation of the majority of historical events are done with great accuracy. This fact makes the movie "the message" not only interesting but also very informative and educational.
Martin Luther (1953)
Protestant Reformation
Martin Luther is a documentary movie filmed by Irving Pichel with the support of the Lutheran Church. This film is about the life of the German priest who decided to give up his study of law (even if he was succeeded in that) in order to devote himself into the monastic life. At that time, the whole power in the Roman Empire was divided between the Emperor and the local Catholic Church. Even if he fully devoted his life into the Church and followed all strict rules of the religious doctrine he confessed that he could not love a God. Consequently, his mentor wanted to expel him from the Church, but Catholic theologian Staupitz convinced the Church further strict study will help to find Luther's way to love God. Staupitz was one of the first people in Luther's live with whom he argued the issue of the indulgence.
The issue of giving the indulgence by the Church for the money led to the economic decline among both rich and poor people. So, the Martin Luther was against this type of the indulgence as he thought that Church abuses their authority and seeks only their profit in order to become a superior power. Because of this contradiction to his belief, he decided to find his own way to love and believe in God. Later on, after his excommunication from the Church, Martin Luther came to the conclusion that people can find their way attain the faith on God only when they will be able to read and understand the Bible. Therefore, he decided to translate the whole Bible into the German language. Through this Bible, he came to the conclusion that people do not need the Church. The only crucial thing for people should be their faith solely on Jesus Christ. After rejecting the authority of the Church, he decided to continue his study, but for that time as a theologist.
At the beginning of the XVI century, he took a degree of Doctor and as a result makes a decision to became a teacher. Moreover, at that times Martin Luther wrote his set of doctrine called "The Ninety-Five Theses" that aimed to convince people to reject the authority of the Church and find own way to attain a faith through the Bible. In order to share his doctrine with other Christians, he nailed it to the door of the Catholic Church. Through teaching and his "The Ninety-Five theses", he has begun to spread his ideology throughout the Holy Roman Empire. These interrelated events led to the emergence of the new branch of Christianity - Protestantism. The ideas of Protestantism founded by Martin Luther fully rejects the ideas of Catholic Church that were mostly based on the clergy, meditation, and monasticism. In the movie, it was displayed through the scenes where Martin Luther was burning all books in that there was written the rules of Catholic churches.
Overall, the cinematography was not impressing as it was an old movie that was filmed when the overall cinematography was not fully developed. The quality of video and audio was to some extent poor and sometimes it was hard to understand some dialogue and visuals. On the other hand, the symbolism and the content of the visuals were really outstanding and perfectly suits the overall content of this movie. Moreover, the black and white colors and old-fashioned music displays the documentary mood of this movie. In addition, the cast of this film was a surprisingly good even if in that times the art of acting was not popular enough in order to have such highly skilled actors that perfectly convey emotions of characters.
At the moments when I noticed that the movie was filmed with the support of the Lutheran Church, I was quite skeptical about this movie. I thought that this movie was created in order to propagate the beliefs of this Church and spread its ideology all over the world. However, at the first scenes of this movie, it was clarified that the scenario was based on the facts extracted from the research done by theological scholars Theodore Tappet and Jaroslav Pelikan that were the honorable Professors of Ivy league.
As for me, this film was a really good source of knowledge about the history of the Christianity.
Little Buddha (1993)
Movie Review
The "Little Buddha", filmed by director Bernardo Bertolucci, is a religious movie that perfectly displays some traditions and beliefs of followers Buddhist traditions. This movie shows two parallel stories that had happened in different periods of time with around 2500 years difference. One of these stories is about the boy whose name is Jesse and who is selected as one of the possible candidates of reincarnation of the honorable teacher and head of the Buddhist monastery in Seattle Lama Dorje. In this storyline, it can be clearly seen that even if the family of Jesse was skeptical about the idea of reincarnation and other Buddhists' beliefs they supported Jesse's desire to become acquainted with Buddhist traditions. The tolerance of Jesse's family towards the religion that they never experienced and that their child chose really deserves respect. During the whole film, Lama Norbu found two other candidates besides Jesse for the role of the reincarnation of Lama Dorje. At the end of the movie Jesse and the other two candidates finally recognized as a pure reincarnation.
Another storyline is about the historical facts of Buddha. Events that were happened in the second storyline are presented in the book called "Little Buddha" that Jesse was reading throughout the whole movie. This book accurately describes the life of Buddha from the birth when his name was Siddhartha till the moment when Siddhartha became a Buddha. Siddhartha was born into a royal family whose fate was to become the next king of India. According to this book in the movie, Siddhartha the half of his life was living in the blind ignorance about the death, suffering, and oldness because of father's will. At the moment when Siddhartha witnessed the death and illnesses of people, he decided to leave the city in order to find a way to stop the suffering. Later, at the end of the movie, he realized that the body, pain and feelings do not exist and the soul that travels from the one body to another is the most important thing that people have to concern about.
Through this book, Jesse became acquainted with the history of the Buddhism and its values. Basically, this book and Lama Dorje's student Lama Norbu put most of the contribution to Jesse's decision to visit the Bhutan that is located in Valley of Tibet and where he was tested for being a real reincarnation of Lama Dorje.
Overall, this movie perfectly shows the culture of Tibetan monks that follows the Buddhism. The cinematography of this movie is very beautiful and full of small details that create a realistic image of the people that followed the Buddhism. Also, it provides us with a wonderful picture of the ancient Indian cities and nature along with Buddhist monasteries that exist in a modern society. As a result, "Little Buddha" could be considered as an educational movie that qualitatively portrays the lives and traditions of the Buddhist monks and their history. Moreover, it shows the history of the birth of the Buddhism in the way of the fairy tale which makes people easier to understand and memorize it. It can be clearly seen that the cast of this film was selected thoroughly, so it made easier to feel by myself the atmosphere of the Buddhist tradition. In addition, modes such as sound and visualization were selected wisely without any odd outre elements.
On the other hand, some elements of cinematography consist of some unrealistic parts which could cast doubt on the existence of Buddha for some of the viewers. For example, when flowers of lotus appeared on the road of Siddhartha or when the tree branch went down when Queen Maya gave a birth to her first son Siddhartha. Unfortunately, these illusions made by special effects were a bit disturbing and made it feel like I was watching the fantasy rather than a drama. However, these small elements are the only omissions of the director and for me, this movie was quite realistic.
Overall, "Little Buddha" is a quite good educational movie that is oriented not only for adults but also for children that helps to become acquainted with the traditions and beliefs of followers of Buddhism. To my point of view, Bernardo Bertolucci did quite well in writing the scenario for this movie and for me it was really interesting and informative to watch it. Moreover, as it can be noticed, this movie does not have any obtrusive propaganda of beliefs of the Buddhism and for me, it was the most favorable fact about this movie. In this film, it is implicitly showed that people should choose to follow Buddhism by themselves. For a person that follows another religion, such kind of details play the significant role in their impression about this movie.