When humanity was mercilessly slaughtered by a scimitar, and blood stained the whole world, faith came into being.
In April, a middle school called ETO in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, temporarily became a Tutsi refugee camp because it was a base for peacekeeping forces. And outside the iron gate of the school, there were Hutu militiamen wearing machetes. They shouted loudly outside the gate and refused to leave for a long time, hiding in every corner waiting for an opportunity to face the pictures that came out of the iron gate of the school. The Western people started the killing.
In the school, a British priest and his young entourage witnessed this scene. For a time, their beliefs, their courage and psychology were greatly impacted. In the end, they were forced to make a choice, either to stay or to deal with the refugees. Running together, this difficult multiple-choice question was finally distinguished by faith.
The movie "Killing Forbidden Zone" is adapted from real events. The role of Father Christopher has a story prototype, while the idealistic English teacher Joe Kona is a fictional character, a composite of many characters in Rwanda. You can see the shadows of teachers, workers and even students from him. Regarding the subject of the Rwanda massacre, "Killing Forbidden Zone" is not a particularly eye-catching movie compared to "Rwanda Hotel." The film’s purely Western narrative perspective is destined to incorporate many Western elements, and beliefs have naturally become the spiritual core of the film.
In the middle school of ETO, Father Christopher and Joe Kona have been proclaiming peace with the love of God. Before April, this school seemed to be going on according to their wishes. Everything was spent every day and night in peace and harmony. An iron wall seemed to separate the two worlds. Hatred and peace were thus diluted by faith. .
I have been deeply impressed by the two details in the film. One is the movie title. Joe Kona leads a team of students to organize a race and simulates the tension of the competition with an exaggerated interpretation. Among them, Joe Kona rushes to interview his Hutu translator for his honesty and simplicity. It’s hard to think of his facial expressions that in the subsequent massacre, this Hutu translator would become a servant with a machete in his hand. Perhaps, once the hatred in the spiritual sense breaks, faith is just a prayer, and the existence of the iron wall in the physical sense does not seem to be very important.
There is one more detail. When Joe Corner discussed God with his students, he was caught off guard by a student’s problem. Father Christopher’s timely appearance helped him get out of the predicament, which made Joe Corner a lost faith. , It's hard to let go for a long time. This detail reflects the two Westerners’ understanding of faith, and it also shows the complex mentality and mental state of many Westerners, Joe Conner: faith can be exchanged for peace, but what is faith? When Joe Kona finally looked at the hopeful eyes of his Tutsi female student and had a difficult choice with whom to leave the ETO Middle School with the peacekeeping force, and the moment he got in the car, he saw Father Christopher crowded among the crying refugees, he seemed to understand. What is faith. Faith is not language, but the spiritual light in the depths of the soul. It was precisely because the priest chose to face the scimitar and blood with the refugees that he gave the Tutsi female students faith and had the courage to run out of the dense forest barefoot.
I think of the last shot of the movie "The Pianist". When the pianist climbed out of his hiding place, a road lined with ruins of houses followed in the footsteps of the pianist, slowly looming in the gray-white shot. At the end of "Killing Forbidden Zone", the same scene also appeared: a road beyond sight, with dense green forests on both sides, a Tutsi girl kept running forward listening to her rapid breathing. I don’t know whether the front is heaven or hell. What supports her to run is the faith in her heart; it is also the faith that convinces her that this is a road to rebirth!
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