The tagline of the movie ‘Only God Forgives’ says ‘Time to meet the devil’. It features a moody underworld sub-chief, who is almost as taciturn as capable of snapping into fits of rage, for not very valid reasons. While watching, I thought he is ‘the devil’.
Then enters a police sub-chief of sorts, who is also taciturn, and capable of ‘meditated’ violent wrath, supposedly for justice. (It is arguable whether he had to be that violent though.) Then I thought… this guy is ‘the greater devil’, that ‘the lesser devil’ gets to confront. But during a post-screening interview, the actor who played the policeman remarked about ‘playing God’, the titular character, whom I thought was missing.
This reminded me of how devillish being ‘godly’ can be, at least according to some faiths, when it comes to concepts of having wrath that wipes lives out, and willingness to mete out eternal damnation. Then it becomes confusing – how the supposedly polar opposites of godliness and devillishness seems conflatable. Contrary to the movie title, the policeman is hardly forgiving. (And isn’t the eternally unforgiving the eternally unforgiven by the eternally damned?)
That the film with such a title was made in Thailand is strange too, being a largely Buddhist country, where Buddhists don’t subscribe to a living higher power who is out to damn, capable of eternal non-forgiveness by sentencing many to endless hell. It is only our negative karma that damns ourselves – even if expressed through someone, and self-damnation (and other-damnation) is limited by the karma created.
Related Article:
Is There Eternal Heaven Or Hell?
http://thedailyenlightenment.com/2011/08/is-there-eternal-heaven-or-hell