This film attempts to construct an incomparably magnificent worldview based on the theme of the apocalyptic wasteland: the spread and construction of human civilization. The status of the Bible in the Western world is like the status of the Koran in Iran, and the status of Mein Kampf in Nazi Germany. It has always represented the light of human society in the mainstream Western culture for thousands of years. The center of the film provides the cultural foundation, which undoubtedly presupposes the openness of Christianity. It's hard to imagine any film of this type with the Koran or Mein Kampf at its core, and while the theme is still praise, it's blasphemous to the people and society who believe in them. The openness and tolerance of Christianity provides a free environment without pressure for its own derivation.
In the long river of human history, the power of religion has accompanied and grown with us almost since the time of human thought. While people are gradually improving the religious system, religion is also affecting human beings in a subtle way. For a long time, the two put the cart before the horse to form a kind of "God created man, not man. Created a wonderful relationship with God. The world is huge, the scattered continents and the vast ocean separate people's living space, and their respective development histories have also created people's different cultural concepts. Such diversity will inevitably lead to different interpretations of religions by different ethnic groups. For thousands of years, everyone believes that their religion is more universal, so the wars of human beings around ideology have never stopped. The lives lost and the blood lost are precisely the so-called "God" of any religion. What they are trying to avoid, history has always satirized human sins in such a dark humorous way.
Today, the great scientists represented by Darwin have already "killed" God and pushed human civilization to a more rational path. Today, we are no longer entangled in who created the sky, the earth, people and all things, and the meaning of religion is no longer the forced interpretation of the unknown world that was once and now, but has become a spiritual sustenance, a kind of The norm of one's own morals is the life creed that people advocate fraternity and kindness, in order to make the world a better place. But what cannot be ignored is that all of this is based on the fact that human society has reached the level of perfection after thousands of years of development. Although people have hardly started wars for religious purposes, the greedy nature of human beings has never been degraded with the progress of history, and the modern world will never lack reasons for wars. Suppose there is a war that causes the world's civilization system to collapse in an instant, and the whole society returns to the original society without order, law, and chaos. Will the power of religion also return to the original state that was enough to control historical civilization?
This film shows such a world. In terms of the film's expressiveness, it can be said that it has done enough in the rendering of the "wasteland punk" style. Although it is not as representative as "Mad Max", the film The doomsday society represented seems more realistic. After eliminating the gimmicks such as mutants, lunatics, and perverted modified cars, what remains is a world with a collapsed value system. Since the concept of society no longer exists, currency is meaningless, and people are back to barter again. The way of life, and even so, is still the only trace of civilization left in this chaotic apocalypse. In the boundless wasteland, the wildness of human beings as animals is exposed, wanton looting and killing are everywhere, and even the most intolerable cannibalism in Christianity has become a common way of life. The so-called legal system that was in good order in the past has long since become an idealist's dream. As the protagonist Avery said, the things we discarded at will have become treasures that people are desperately fighting for now. The extreme scarcity of materials makes everyone more or less cherish everything before the war, even if it is as small as a milliliter of washing. Hair water has also become a precious luxury at this moment. Such a background setting brings an unprecedented psychological impact to the audience, and the dry heat and sand that can be felt across the screen even elevate the doomsday scene to a new height. Everything is very much like the "Judgment Day" described in the Book of Revelation. The meaning of a "Bible" in the film symbolizes the only light that can dispel despair in the dark darkness.
As a movie, although it has set up such a macro proposition, it is always just an entertainment cultural work, so we don't have to get too deep into the nitty gritty. Just as we don't have to worry about who is the creator today, we don't have to be too harsh at all about whether a mere "Bible" in the film has the power to rebuild the world. In fact, what the film expresses is not the "Bible" itself, but a belief shared by mankind. This belief has supported people through famine, plague, war and death in thousands of spring and autumn. Countless nights filled with fear and trembling have passed. This is a belief in the pursuit of light and eternity, spreading goodness and love, and this is the inexhaustible power it really has. This belief is abstractly called religion. In the film, this abstract religious concept that does not care about national boundaries uses a "Bible" as a figurative carrier and the protagonist Eli as a disseminator. The two combine to rebuild the collapsed human civilization.
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