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Hachimi Qianjiao
晓雪 2022-03-23 09:03:06
Francois Ozon's "Eight Beauties" is a good movie with eight heroines, because if you put eight women together, there will be drama to watch even if there is no story. The director of the film, Biworth, went the other way, risking the otherwise unremarkable lives of eight well-behaved monks. However, despite the constant repetition of scenes such as prayers, chants, farming, and healing, the expected dullness did not happen. Eight twilight old men easily supported the structure of the story, created the texture required for the film, and everyone's acting skills were praised. Here I do not want to discuss the piety and doubts of the martyrs. Those massacres based on race and belief have never stopped in the short history of mankind. What worries me is how sure the director is to make a real image of a well-known event that happened in the past. After watching the behind-the-scenes footage, I realized how much careful and patient homework the director has done in private to shoot this story that has no suspense in itself. All those inconspicuous details and understated backgrounds make the film real and touching.
Extended Reading
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Christian: [Voice-over] Should it ever befall me, and it could happen today, to be a victim of the terrorism swallowing up all foreigners here, I would like my community, my church, my family, to remember that my life was given to God and to this country. That the Unique Master of all life was no stranger to this brutal departure. And that my death is the same as so many other violent ones, consigned to the apathy of oblivion. I've lived enough to know, I am complicit in the evil that, alas, prevails over the world and the evil that will smite me blindly. I could never desire such a death. I could never feel gladdened that these people I love be accused randomly of my murder. I know the contempt felt for people here, indiscriminately. And I know how Islam is distorted by certain Islamism. This country, and Islam, for me are something different. They're a body and a soul. My death, of course, will quickly vindicate those who call me naïve or idealistic, but they must know that I will be freed of a burning curiosity and, God willing, will immerse my gaze in the Father's and contemplate with him his children of Islam as he sees them. This thank you which encompasses my entire life includes you, of course, friends of yesterday and today, and you too, friend of the last minute, who knew not what you were doing. Yes, to you as well I address this thank you and this farewell which you envisaged. May we meet again, happy thieves in Paradise, if it pleases God the Father of us both. Amen. Insha'Allah.
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Christian: We are martyrs out of love, out of fidelity. If death overtake us, despite ourselves, because up to the end, up to the end we'll try to avoid it. Our mission here is to be brothers to all. Remember that love is eternal hope. Love endures everything.