Maybe I shouldn't bring everything back to film, but I can't seem to help it. Film seems sometimes to be my life. Or at least how I spend a considerable amount of my life.
Anyways, I watched this film entitled Brothers. It was not what I had expected.
The premise of the film is that one brother is in the military and goes off to fight in the war, only to get kidnapped. He is mistaken for dead. His wife and daughters are struggling through his "death", so his brother helps them, only to fall for his brother's wife. While she herself falls for him, she knows her heart belongs to her husband, even if she thinks he is dead, so she stays pure for her husband. When she learns that he is not really dead, she is thrilled, but knows that things with her brother-in-law will be difficult. When her husband returns, he thinks that his wife and brother are having an affair. This, mixed with what happened to him while he was kidnapped in the war, makes him go mad.
When I checked this film out from the library, I thought it was just going to be about mixed up love and a lot of good acting. I didn't realize it would provoke so many feelings about war.
There is one part in the film where the husband is forced to make a choice about his future. He must decide if he will do anything to get back to his family, or if he will instead give his life for the war. This decision was painful to see because I hated that he was forced to make it.
I understand war sometimes. I understand that sometimes war is fought to end holocausts or stop innocent people from being destroyed or to bring down a ruler that has sold himself to evil. I understand this. What I don't understand is what actually goes on during a war.
I sometimes wonder if the men who are killed and the men who killed them even knew why they were dying or why they were killing. Do they even understand what is actually going on? In the heat of a battle, do you stop to think about the value of a human life, or are you just scared out of your mind?
I have not witnessed any sort of war first hand. I do not know what it is like to be shot at and see your friends blown up beside you and feel as if you would do anything and kill anyone to just make it stop. I cannot possibly imagine how this feels.
And maybe it is extremely naive of me, but I wish so desperately that no one had to know what this feels like.
I watched another film about a week ago called The Messenger. The only reason I picked it up was because I am quite taken with Woody Harrelson. But I am very glad I picked it up. I would recommend it to everyone.
It's all about two men who deliver the news of soldier's deaths to family members and what this does to their own minds and lives.
I never thought about these messengers before. I never stopped to think how telling about death as a job could possibly affect someone. But I understand better now.
I also desperately wish that no one had to know what it feels like to deliver the news of a death of someone you don't even know to someone you don't even know.
I've wondered for a long time if I'm a pacifist. Films like Brothers makes me wonder this. Perhaps I am.
War I suppose is just too much for me to really get, to really understand and agree with completely. I suppose it's not my job to understand war, that's for presidents and rulers and commanders to understand.
But sometimes I wonder if they understand it.
I wish I knew how to fight against war. I'm not going to picket or complain to leaders or refuse to support our military or any of that rubbish. That's just silly stuff.
The only way I know how to stand up against war is to love.
But sometimes I wonder if love's enough.
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