At the beginning of the film, Mr. Brooks bowed his head and prayed silently at the dinner party where he was awarded the Business Person of the Year. The prayer comes from a prayer written by Niebuhr in 1934, which is called the most famous prayer of the 20th century, "My God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, The courage to change the things I can, And the wisdom to know the difference" (My God, please give me peace and accept everything I can’t change; give me the courage to change what I can Change everything, and give me wisdom to distinguish the difference between the two).
During World War II, this prayer spread like wildfire. More than 40 million copies were printed in the United States. At that time, no one knew who the author was. Every naval soldier before the expedition got this leaflet. Later, Niebuhr joked that everyone on earth who prays with this passage should pay him royalties. In 1948, Niebuhr was featured on the cover of Time magazine. Then came the Cold War, and the "Prayer of Peace" continued to be popular in Europe and America. In 1976, Carter was elected president and placed the works of the most important political philosopher and theologian in the 20th century in the United States on the bedside, calling him the "Bible" of his political career.
When Brooks lowered his head to pray, another voice kept interrupting, "Come on, you've been a good boy for a long time; forget it, kill people if you want to, don't have trouble with your own desires." After the dinner, in the back seat of his car, the voice turned into a vicious person. It turns out that this entrepreneur is a serial killer who has been gone for several years. On this famous night, he was once again swallowed by the uncontrollable evil in his heart, and said to the other self called "Marshall" that this was the last time. Brooks went out late at night and committed another crime, killing a strange couple on the bed.
Since then, the two characters Brooks and "Marshall" have been in constant dialogue and fighting between the old and the new. As a result, Brooks' life was one praying to God while being kidnapped by the devil. But this movie is not about psychology, but about the soul; its theme is not about the curious split of personality, but through a parable, the fact that "everyone in the world has sinned and is short of the glory of God", It was horribly announced. This is exactly the same as Niebuhr back then. In the face of a falling age and various liberal thoughts that challenge the "evil sex theory" and deny the "original sin theory", Niebuhr reiterated the incomparable truth of sinfulness. He said:
"Original sin is not a kind of genetic corruption, it is an inevitable fact of human existence. It is present everywhere, all the time, including not only the one-sidedness of human rationality, but also the ignorance of human desires. It is It comes from a spiritually evil order, a different level of order. This evil is the result of an attempt to establish self as the center of existence. It is this kind of evil that is strictly sin, and it is here that people His sinful nature constitutes a rebellion against God".
This interpretation of "sinful nature" is somewhat existential, but Niebuhr's hope still rests on the king who gives peace on the cross. This is the background of the "Prayer of Quietness".
A photographer accidentally took a picture of the scene of Brooks' murder. He was excited that he had discovered a famous serial killer. So he proposed to Brooks that the condition not to report is "please bring me next time you kill." Then a female agent also appeared on the scene. She was the daughter of a wealthy man with a net worth of tens of millions. Her father didn't like her daughter. She ran out to work as a policeman to prove her tenacity to her dad. She is going through a divorce lawsuit, and her husband is prosperous, but instead offers 5 million "youth compensation". The extension of the story is based on the life displacement and inner impulse of these two characters, giving Brooks a universal footnote to the "dual personality".
When Brooks said, let's kill the overtaking driver; the photographer was so excited that he said, "I always wanted to get rid of the guys in front of me." When the female agent said to her husband during the divorce negotiations, "I hope you were hit by a car when you went out." I knew that Brooks would really kill the photographers and female agents who wanted him to die in the movie. I also know that it turns out that this movie is not talking about a perverted murderer, but about me. Because when I was ten, I turned away from killing my father. In the "Sermon on the Mount", Jesus explained the command "Don't kill", saying that "Anyone who is angry with his brother will not be immune from judgment." Anyone who abuses others will kill lives. These words are like a light or a knife, pointing directly to people's motives, and the strongest camp in the depths of people's hearts. Let all those who have illusions about self-purification and justice panic and hide their faces and weep.
Brooks is a business tycoon and a loving father. His daughter was unmarried and pregnant, and he calmly advised her not to have an abortion. He said that we will love him more and will help you raise him. When he found out that his daughter was implicated in a campus murder case. He cried in front of "Marshall" and he said, "I have been worried about such a day since she was born." As Niebuhr said, this is not an inheritance, but an evil order, the expansion of a kingdom "from father and son" that cannot escape the power of sin. Just like Noah's son Ham did something wrong, but it was Ham's son Canaan who was cursed. Because fall is like creation and redemption. It is never personal, but human.
Finally, Brooks dreamed that his daughter had killed him. The moment my father fell dead in a pool of blood, the music stopped abruptly. A lost soul was awakened by a nightmare at midnight, and for the third time ended the film with a "prayer of tranquility" in the dark:
"My God, please give me peace and accept everything I can't change; give me courage, To change everything I can change, and give me the wisdom to distinguish the difference between the two. Also give me faith in your righteousness, not to co-current with this sinful world. According to your truth, not mine Will. Believe in God, as long as you commit yourself to your will, everything will be corrected and the road will be straightened. In this way, I can spend this life with my family, be with God, and enjoy the happiness of eternal life. Amen!"
Zhou Zuoren said that we all have two ghosts in our hearts, a gentleman ghost and a rogue ghost. Wang Shuo said, our hearts are half sea water and half flame. Paul said, I like God's law, but there is another law within me, "Even when I am willing to do good, evil is with me." Therefore, "I don't do the good that I want. I do the evil that I don't want." Whether this movie is desperate or not, whether it is suspected of your soul, depends on whether the world is dualistic between good and evil and the outcome is uncertain, or whether there must be a hope of "not letting us meet temptation, save us from evil", beyond Death, fear, and the "Marshall" in our hearts, show the crown of victory. If not, the "Prayer of Quietness" is graceful and of no use; if not, even confession is nothing but self-talk.
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