Movie - A Reluctant Recommendation?
The Exorcism of Emily Rose
You all have probably already seen this film or read multiple reviews, but I sound my two bits worth anyways. I was not interested in watching it when it was released a year ago because I'm not one who enjoys horror or demon-related stories (seeing The Ring cured me of that!). But I happened to see it tonight, spent an hour researching it, and my mind is still trying to work around it.
Emily raises a host of questions that are pertinent to today's culture and the running conflict between scientific fact and religious faith in the public sphere. What I liked most in the film is how it shows that oftentimes, the two are not so distant. In the film, the prosecutor represents logical reason and the surety of fact, and the defense counsel brings into question the role of faith and its influence over lives and decisions. The logical side demands facts and scientific proof, specifically that insanity, etc. is the cause of death which could have absolutely been prevented with medical care. The faith side doubts the scientific facts and relies on experience. It asks if experience can be proven as a factual reality. So often today religious views are presented as ignorant dogmatism. This film reverses the situation, suggesting that scientific reasoning is really ignorant and dogmatic. The prosecutor makes a case based entirely on the hope that medicine would have helped the girl, while the defense questions the role of medicine and opens the door for the possibility of a new fact: that the girl could have actually been demon possessed.
It asks other realistic questions like, why do bad things happen to good people? Does the presence of evil prove that the contrary (good) must exist? Or, can a demon possessed person prove that God is there? The film never really questions the existence of God, but it does ask about it in relation to the existence of evil demons. And it questions His sovereignty.
Favorite scenes: 1) When the priest and Erin are in his jail cell and he senses that she is under attack by the demons too. I thought it was interesting because it demonstrated how Satan not only desires to destroy believers' faith, but also wants to prevent non-believers from coming to truth. 2) The final courtroom scene where faith and reason come to head. Classic apologetics. The defense of a man plus the defense of faith itself.
What about the demon world? Are people really possessed by demons today? We know Jesus cast demons out of people, and that the apostles did the same in Jesus's name. James doesn't deny their existence, "You believe in one God. You do well. Even the demons believe - and tremble." James 2: 19. What about the creepy parts and horror images? "And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs coming out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false propet. For they are spirits of demons, performing signs, which go out to the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty." Revelation 16:13-14.
This film doesn't (and shouldn't) answer questions about spiritual warfare, but it does do a good job of asking them. I don't understand spiritual warfare or how it works, but I believe it happens in some form. Does it happen like with Emily Rose? I don't know, but I don't think that her "treatment" sought truth. I do know that God says, "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against rulers of darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places." Ephesians 6:12. And I'm grateful that God places his hedge of protection around his beloved. We're called to resist the devil but I think that the smallest temptation is no less important in our spiritual walk than a dramatic physical interaction with a demon. When the Holy Spirit dwells within us, and is working in our lives, God gives us strength for our battles, whatever form they may take.
---------------------------------------------
Interesting links:
Brian Godowa's review of the film is here. You have to scroll down until you reach "9/19/05." I appreciated his view of the theological mistakes in the film. I disagree with him in his view of Erin, the defense. He says she remains agnostic, but I think that's an intentional gap in the film. The film ends with us not knowing for sure if Emily was possessed, so it seems fitting that we shouldn't know how the heroine responded spiritually. We do know that she questioned - and that's what we're supposed to do.
The story behind the film. Reading it makes you realize how much philosophical freedom the director took.
Exorcism. Scary stuff!
Two reviews. One from the Catholic perspective and one from Christianity Today. Both were very interesting to read.
----------------------------------------
The horror element:
Here's an excerpt from an interview with director Scott Dickerson about Christianity and horror. If you're want to read the whole article, you have to sign up for a free membership.
As a Christian, the genre has particular interest to me. I think my real fascination with the genre began when I started film school and I re-read C.S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters. I re-read it because a friend of mine, who is not a religious person at all, had just read it and thought it was one of the best books he'd ever read. That piqued my interest. I had already read it a few years before, but I re-read it. And it just dawned on me that in that book, C.S. Lewis had written an incredibly provocative, somewhat frightening story, that was able to carry tremendous moral passion. Even to a non-Christian reader. There was something about that device, using gothic and demonic story devices as a way of getting at very good and noble ideas. I thought that that was such a fascinating thing that he'd done, so I started looking at cinema as a way to do something similar. Horror is a genre that is often disrespected, because it is sometimes very exploited. And yet, historically, Christians have been making scary paintings and writing scary stories, like Dante's Inferno, for centuries. There's a lot of moral and spiritual passion behind thousands of years of church art that deals with this kind of dark subject matter.
Labels: movie review
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home