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Never Mind The Quality, Feel The Bandwidth
The other day I was walking through Harvard Square when a man handed me a 24 page booklet carrying the provocative title "The Three Eternal Destinies of Man". Now call me crazy, call me overgenerous, call me a man with way too much time on his hands, but I always flip through these things when I'm waiting for the subway. I have a sneaking suspicion that I do so mostly because of guilt at the thought of all that paper being completely wasted, but anyway...
I flipped through the booklet, which turned out to be The Twelve Tribes Freepaper. Of course, they have a web site at www.twelvetribes.com. Everybody has a web site. Even the eggs in my refrigerator have a web site, to tell me how happy the hen is and how many more omegas the eggs have.
So along come the Twelve Tribes, with 50% more eternal destinies than regular Christians! Of course, we're all familiar with the Pit of Eternal Torment -- or at least, many people have informed me that I will be familiar with it before long. (Notice how the Starr Report on that site is 1K short at 665KB?) Likewise, we've all heard of Heaven. But the Twelve Tribes, like Tony Blair, believe that there's a Third Way.
As they put it, "How can I believe in a God who throws good people into hell just because they aren't Christians?" It's certainly a good question, and one I've seen many Christians squirm over. The Twelve Tribes answer is that there are the Unjust and Filthy, who go to Hell; there are the Holy, who get to rule with the Messiah; and then there are the rest of us, the Righteous, the people who were basically good but didn't believe. Quite where that leaves Fox Mulder is uncertain.
Perhaps I'm not Righteous, though. The Twelve Tribes seem decidedly uncertain on the matter. After saying that good people who don't believe will still get into the eternal kingdom, they then turn around and say that those who hear the word of god but don't believe will be tossed into the Lake of Fire after all. Damn, and just when I thought we were going to be friends. There's also a long list of sinners excluded from the Righteous -- "cowards, murderers, sorcerers, fornicators, adulterers, sodomites, idolaters, thieves, swindlers, drunkards, those obsessed with greed, and those who love and practice lying". No eternal kingdom for any of them either.
Oh well, on the off chance I can't be Righteous, I suppose I could always be Self-Righteous, telling people that I'm better than them, and that I'll go to Heaven while they burn in Hell. In the mean time, perhaps I'd better get used to fire and brimstone now. And what better way than via Virtual Hell? It's certainly educational -- I'd never realized that John Lennon, angels and the Virgin Mary were demons, let alone that hell had a soundtrack by Mike Oldfield.
Another web-based Tour of Hell lists the characteristics of people who will go to Hell -- and includes the Unmerciful in the list. Surely torturing someone for eternity because he committed a few sins is about as unmerciful as it's possible to get? Doesn't God belong in Hell, by his own rules?
For a more visually impressive depiction of hell, though, you probably need to go see the new movie What Dreams May Come. I did so just recently, so I hope you'll forgive me if I digress into a review...
It's hard to say what the movie is about without giving away the entire plot; but basically, a dead man travels through Hell to try and be reunited with his wife. Like the tormented souls of the underworld depicted in the movie, I can't help feeling there was a truly great movie in this one, kicking and screaming to be let out.
A lot of time and effort was spent on the special effects; and it's true, they're rather nice, and not like anything I've seen before. Unfortunately, the first half of the movie seemed to be entirely there to provide an excuse for lingering special effects scenes, and plodded along at a soporific pace. When the plot finally started, I couldn't help but notice the lack of attention paid to such basics of moviemaking as cinematography, editing, and... well, plot.
The pace, such as there was, was uneven. Sometimes entire sub-plots would be glossed over in ten seconds as the film rushed through to a hurried conclusion; sometimes a minute would be wasted on shots of Robin Williams thinking. The composition of the scenes was cramped and artless, as though they had filmed the whole thing with pan-and-scan TV broadcast in mind; compare and contrast with the unexpectedly excellent cinematography of The X-Files movie.
Also uneven was Robin Williams' acting. The man can certainly act -- watch "Moscow on the Hudson", for example -- but here he seemed to be unsure whether he was in a serious movie or a comedy, and ended up mugging to the camera at inappropriate moments. Either that or it's some kind of nervous affliction he's developed after too many heartwarming family comedies.
Another man with an unfortunate affliction was the cameraman, who seemed to be suffering from "NYPD Blue" disease towards the end of the movie. It's that curious motor neurone ailment which makes a person jerk the camera left and right during a totally static shot of two people standing and talking to each other -- even though the shot was perfectly well composed to start with, and even though the camera's clearly mounted on a tripod. I think it's supposed to make the scene look alive, as if it was shot with a handheld camera, but frankly it looks fake and contrived and annoying. I'd also like to enact a ban on cutaway shots of loved ones which suddenly go into slow motion for no apparent reason -- another ridiculous and annoying cliché which infested this movie. Either it was deliberately excessive, or they were severely short of footage to pad out the movie with when they got to the editing room.
And pad they did, because ultimately there just wasn't enough plot for a two hour movie. They could have easily chopped half an hour from the first hour and made it a far better flick -- but then, they wouldn't have had time to linger on all those special effects, would they? Oh, and a warning: Just when you think you've managed to sit through the obligatory saccharine Hollywood ending without retching, there's another even more nauseating Hollywood ending tacked onto the end.
My suggestion: If you want to see a movie which deals with the afterlife and actually has plot worth sitting through, watch the 1946 classic "A Matter Of Life and Death" starring David Niven.
But in spite of the harshness of some of my comments, "What Dreams May Come" is worth seeing. I just expected so much more, and the movie's frequent artlessness -- ironic, given the plot's obsession with paintings -- denied it the chance to be even half as good as it should have been.
Finally, I find the movie's official web site intriguing. Particularly the Note on The Afterlife, which states that two thirds of atheists believe in an afterlife. Assuming they're not counting Buddhists, I'm fascinated to know what kind of afterlife other atheists think might exist. Anyone care to drop me a line describing their idea of the afterlife? Or even better, put up a web page, and I'll review it...
mathew
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Last updated: Wednesday, 30-Nov-2005 17:06:10 CST
