ROLL WITH THE PUNCHES
Once in a while we'd come upon a film or a story that would make us think in ways that are deeper and far more extensive than we usually would. This doesn't happen for me often. As I've already mentioned, I see books and films largely as a form of entertainment... they do not usually go beyond the rating of 'I like' or 'I don't like.' I do not look for moral, ethical, theological, artistic or cultural merits. Sometimes though, one would hit me in the solar plexus like one angry, deliberate and personal blow. It sucks up all the air I have and it makes it hard to breath.
A DVD copy of 'The Pianist' has been sitting on the shelf for several months now, another bargain steal from one of fafa Jay's trips. I've always meant to watch it as I wasn't able to catch it in the theatres but somehow, I never got around to doing it. Last night, I braved the late hours, something I haven't done for 2 months, to watch it. I'm still reading that book by Michael Crichton and in it, he has pointed out, very explicitly, the exceptional quality of direct experiences... when you peel off all the trappings of urban, contemporary existence and charge on to life almost in situ. Well, I guess watching this film would be one of those things... for me.
You all know the story by now. It struck me on two points. The first is, how one German's act of kindness could seemingly wipe away all the brutality and inhumanity they have inflicted on the Jews, as I saw it in the context of the story. In retrospect, I realize now that the story has been building up to that and the final twist was so brilliant, it could have been contrived, if not for the fact that everything that happened, happened for real, in one real person's life.
See, there were a lot of people who helped Szpilman... a friend who collaborated with the Germans, a friend who bribed a German so he could escape being transported to Treblinka, a collaborator for the underground who worked side by side with him in forced labor, 2 couples who were old friends and also working for the underground... and all of them somehow left him, one way or another, ultimately. Some of them got caught, almost everybody died and one couple moved out of Warsaw. They hid him in several locations they thought were safe (eventually being proven erroneous) but he was mostly left all by himself. They would look in on him every now and then and bring him food but that was the most they could do. Or would do, perhaps?
Then towards the end, a German Captain found him. Szpilman was only made to prove his worth once, he played his own composition on the piano, which obviously moved the captain so. The following events bore out as surprising and almost miraculous. The captain arranged for his headquarters to be housed in that dilapidated structure in whose attic Szpilman was hiding and in so doing, provided the Jew with a safe shelter and daily sustenance.
That German captain, among all the people who helped Szpilman, was the only one who moved in with him, who stayed with him until the end.
On this note, another thing that struck me was how the irony that one of his oppressors would eventually see him through bears even more weight in the face of all the stupefying difficulties that Szpilman had to endure. It's like Szpilman had to be stripped of all sense of pride and indignance so that at the point when his oppressor offered him kindness, he had nothing else to receive it with, except raw gratitude and sheer relief. If he had not been at the total mercy of this German Captain, if he had it in him to keep on running or present whatever pitieous struggle he still could muster, I'm pretty sure he would have been shot right there and then.
Is this, then, what survival is all about? That when need be, we ought to forego all traces of dignity and learn to roll with the punches, just so we'd live to see another day?
In our civilized societies, structured governments, racial heirarchy; with the advent of globalization, technological free-for-all and urban culture... is it undeniable that there is still oppression going on?
Wherever a person is forced to make do with what would be crumbs from off another person's table, there will be oppression. Wherever a man is made to skitter through rubble, like a gopher burrowing tunnels through the earth below, because another man has claimed the right to walk the earth above unperturbed, there will be oppression. Wherever circumstances force people to abandon homes and uproot their families, there will be oppression. Wherever man is not given a choice, there will be oppression.
I look around and I see a lot of us... still rolling with the punches.
Once in a while we'd come upon a film or a story that would make us think in ways that are deeper and far more extensive than we usually would. This doesn't happen for me often. As I've already mentioned, I see books and films largely as a form of entertainment... they do not usually go beyond the rating of 'I like' or 'I don't like.' I do not look for moral, ethical, theological, artistic or cultural merits. Sometimes though, one would hit me in the solar plexus like one angry, deliberate and personal blow. It sucks up all the air I have and it makes it hard to breath.
A DVD copy of 'The Pianist' has been sitting on the shelf for several months now, another bargain steal from one of fafa Jay's trips. I've always meant to watch it as I wasn't able to catch it in the theatres but somehow, I never got around to doing it. Last night, I braved the late hours, something I haven't done for 2 months, to watch it. I'm still reading that book by Michael Crichton and in it, he has pointed out, very explicitly, the exceptional quality of direct experiences... when you peel off all the trappings of urban, contemporary existence and charge on to life almost in situ. Well, I guess watching this film would be one of those things... for me.
You all know the story by now. It struck me on two points. The first is, how one German's act of kindness could seemingly wipe away all the brutality and inhumanity they have inflicted on the Jews, as I saw it in the context of the story. In retrospect, I realize now that the story has been building up to that and the final twist was so brilliant, it could have been contrived, if not for the fact that everything that happened, happened for real, in one real person's life.
See, there were a lot of people who helped Szpilman... a friend who collaborated with the Germans, a friend who bribed a German so he could escape being transported to Treblinka, a collaborator for the underground who worked side by side with him in forced labor, 2 couples who were old friends and also working for the underground... and all of them somehow left him, one way or another, ultimately. Some of them got caught, almost everybody died and one couple moved out of Warsaw. They hid him in several locations they thought were safe (eventually being proven erroneous) but he was mostly left all by himself. They would look in on him every now and then and bring him food but that was the most they could do. Or would do, perhaps?
Then towards the end, a German Captain found him. Szpilman was only made to prove his worth once, he played his own composition on the piano, which obviously moved the captain so. The following events bore out as surprising and almost miraculous. The captain arranged for his headquarters to be housed in that dilapidated structure in whose attic Szpilman was hiding and in so doing, provided the Jew with a safe shelter and daily sustenance.
That German captain, among all the people who helped Szpilman, was the only one who moved in with him, who stayed with him until the end.
On this note, another thing that struck me was how the irony that one of his oppressors would eventually see him through bears even more weight in the face of all the stupefying difficulties that Szpilman had to endure. It's like Szpilman had to be stripped of all sense of pride and indignance so that at the point when his oppressor offered him kindness, he had nothing else to receive it with, except raw gratitude and sheer relief. If he had not been at the total mercy of this German Captain, if he had it in him to keep on running or present whatever pitieous struggle he still could muster, I'm pretty sure he would have been shot right there and then.
Is this, then, what survival is all about? That when need be, we ought to forego all traces of dignity and learn to roll with the punches, just so we'd live to see another day?
In our civilized societies, structured governments, racial heirarchy; with the advent of globalization, technological free-for-all and urban culture... is it undeniable that there is still oppression going on?
Wherever a person is forced to make do with what would be crumbs from off another person's table, there will be oppression. Wherever a man is made to skitter through rubble, like a gopher burrowing tunnels through the earth below, because another man has claimed the right to walk the earth above unperturbed, there will be oppression. Wherever circumstances force people to abandon homes and uproot their families, there will be oppression. Wherever man is not given a choice, there will be oppression.
I look around and I see a lot of us... still rolling with the punches.
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