In the Name of the Father

Four Weddings and a Funeral

Priest

Rob Roy

JFK

K2 - The Adventure

Shakespeare in Calcutta

Second Thoughts on "The English Patient"

Many years later the real terrorist is caught and confesses his guilt in the Guildford massacre. Nothing happens in consequence of this since the police, who has sent eight innocent people to prison, keeps silent about it.

The ordeal of Gerry is fifteen inhuman years in the worst prisons of England for the worst of criminals. He shares cell with his father, who under the extreme circumstances involving several prison mutinies loses his health and dies. By then rumour has seeped out that the Conlons be innocent since the real terrorist never could keep his mouth shut. The scandal grows, the public becomes alert, demonstrations increase, and a female lawyer (Emma Thompson) decides to get at the bottom of things. After fifteen years she finds out that evidence has been withheld and that the alibis for the Conlons were known to the police but never made known to the court. It is publicly disclosed that the Conlons for 15 years quite deliberately were made into scapegoats for crimes they never committed. The worst scandal ever in English history of law is evident and maybe the worst scandal in the world since the Dreyfus affair, if it isn't even worse than that, since here an innocent old father was even permitted to die in prison without any rehabilitation.

And what did the IRA do meanwhile? They just watched and continued with their terror bombs, said nothing and did nothing to prevent the injustice of having the Conlons and three additional youngsters serve 15 years of imprisonment and have their lives ruined. Eight innocent victims: four youths, two children, an aunt, and one father, who was bereft of his life.

The question rises: how many such cases are there who never get any rehabilitation at all?

The two first weddings are happily carried through, but the third one is accompanied by thunder and a case of sudden death, and the fourth is interrupted by a well-deserved knock-out and is never taken up again. Instead there are four extra weddings after the end.

The funeral is the worrying interlude. The one who dies never gets married, but after his death a very good friend steps forth who after the burial comforts himself with another of that kind. The question is touched but never debated, and it is never made clear whether these three were homosexuals or not. Many must assume them to be so.

Speaking about weddings, one of my old flames asked me the other day why I never settled down with a family and wife. I blamed my poverty, but the truth is also that in these frivolous times since the 60s I never found a woman whom I could trust. All my efforts to serious engagements ended in fraud and treason from the part of the lady, and the first example of this was the worst and the most damaging. If you can't do it with a clean breast, I was taught by experience, it is better to keep clean.

Looseness with round words and promiscuities like in this most recommendable wedding and funeral comedy could well be swallowed even if the mouthfuls became a bit thick occasionally, but in the field of love the ugliest impression ever made on me was by tendencies of homosexuality or lesbianism. In that aspect I would probably be regarded as a most out-dated oldish Victorian gentleman without double standards, but I can't be anything else unfortunately for perfectly natural reasons, since I can't accept something unnatural as something natural. It is not intolerance. It's just that no one has been able to convince me that anything unnatural could be natural. I simply can't believe in scientific theories excusing and explaining away homosexuality, since it doesn't make any natural sense.

The best films of the year according to the Free Thinker:

1992 : Tous les matins du monde (the French film about the Viola da Gamba players)

1993 : The Piano (Jane Campion)

1994 : The Secret Garden (Agnieszka Holland)

1996 : Farinelli

1997 : Shine

1998 : Ever After

1999 : Tea with Mussolini

2000 : Love's Labour's Lost

2001 : The House of Mirth

2002 : The Others

2003 : The Russian Ark (Sukulov)

2004 : Girl with a Pearl Earring

The central problem is the obligation of silence under the sacrament of confession, just like in Hitchcock's film "I Confess", where a Catholic priest receives a murderer's confession and must keep his silence about it since that is his duty as a priest, even though he himself becomes a suspect of the murder committed. In that film things are sorted out but not here.

In this story of Liverpool a young inexperienced priest is told in confession by a small girl how she is being abused sexually by her father, and there is nothing he can do about it, since she has told him under the seal of holy confession. The father continues to abuse her, hears that she has told the priest about it, whereupon he threatens the priest if he doesn't keep his mouth shut. Of course this leads into a terrible dilemma for the priest. He can't suffer seeing the girl suffering and developing epileptic fits because of her father's ill-treatment of her, and at the same time he can't break his silence. The girl's mother suspects nothing, until one day by chance she takes her husband by surprise in flagrantia with the child. This is the most interesting scene in the film, since the priest at the same time suffers his severest doubts about his calling. When the mother learns that the priest knew about it she blames him for having done nothing to help the girl.

The question is: had in this extreme case the priest the right to break his obligation of silence? If he had done so the harm had been less for both the girl and the mother. This problem of doctors, advocates and priests concerning the obligation to observe secrecy sometimes becomes severe trials of conscience, and in such moments the doctor or priest or lawyer must also consult his own judgement. According to the Hippocratic oath, the prime concern is not to harm the patient: "What I have seen or heard practising my profession or outside it in connection with people which might be matters of intimacy too delicate to be communicated to others with any constructive result, I shall keep secret and regard as never having been told." This implies that the doctor must judge by himself what he hears if it should be further communicated or not. If you stick to the chief Hippocratic purpose to keep the patient from harm you will find, that the mother did right in blaming the priest for not breaking his obligation to observe secrecy.

The priest's personal tragedy in the film is of secondary interest, while the film mainly depends on the character of father Matthew, an older and more experienced priest, who sleeps with the vicarage maid, who preaches walking around among the pews in his church, who doesn't fear speaking his mind under any circumstances and who even challenges his bishop, who gives him hell for his outspokenness. In the end all the threads of the story are united in a marvellous solution, where even the worst of crimes can be pardoned and forgotten under mutual shedding of tears.

A much more wholesome film, though much crueller, is then "Rob Roy" about the historical rogue Robert MacGregor of Scotland in the early 18th century, about whom even Walter Scott wrote one of his best novels. The phenomenon of Rob Roy is his personality as a paragon of supreme honesty, although he was a thief of cattle and an instigator of atrocities; but the honour and honesty of one single man who is right while the whole world attacking him is wrong is always one of the most fascinating of human themes. The film is excellently written almost like a Shakespearean drama with clearcut characters, a fine story and wonderful surroundings in the Scottish Highlands. It is a joy to see so much health and freedom, so much integrity and honest human initiative in this world, which still today, like in the days of Rob Roy and like always, is constantly suffocating in corruption, human filth and destruction, wickedness and selfish motives nowadays destroying even Dame Nature's own freedom. But as long as there still remains one single man to demonstrate a personal protest, there is still hope for the entire world.

He regretted very much the development of the world after 1945 while he wistfully praised the times before, when lack of food and constant wars had compelled people to work hard and do things right, which had rendered them happy. In those days, he told me, people sang everywhere, they were healthy, you moved mostly on foot although you had to travel tens of miles, and you were happy and content with only little. After the Marshall aid there was never more any real lack of things in Sicily, instead life became comfortable, and no one walked anywhere but went by car even if only a hundred meters, and people in general fell ill and became unhappy. The young ones do not sing any more but get themselves brainwashed instead by deafening rock music and go to discos to get themselves drugged and involved in further criminal activities.

At large he blamed everything on the rich. "It's always those who have money who cynically and ruthlessly invest it in exploitation of every possible unsound kind, socially using youth to further bad music and develop the use of drugs, globally by ruining the environment, politically by weapon industries and the support of violence, and economically by corruption. In the beginning of the 60s the world saw a most promising human development led by capable personalities like pope John XXIII, the secretary general of the UN Dag Hammarskjöld from Sweden, president John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King. If their efforts for a better world had been permitted to continue, the cold war would have ended 20 years earlier. The reversion commenced by the murder of Dag Hammarskjöld by agents of economical interests in Africa, the pope didn't have much time and also another pope was quickly disposed of, the Kennedy brothers were murdered, and even Martin Luther King was murdered. Instead the American arms industry was given a giant leap forward by the prolonged Vietnam war together with all the weapon industries in the world, and the entire peace movement of the 60s was derailed. Thereby the end of the cold war was delayed by at least 15 years. Only Germany and Japan were wise enough to instead of supporting arms industries and atomic bombs invest in peace and peace industries. That's why they are today the strongest economical powers." He concluded categorically, that where the money is, you find evil, the initiative to war and dictatorship, and the beginning of all corruption and destruction; and there you will find that phenomenon called power, which never can be used except to bad ends.

The expedition leader was a millionaire of about 60 years, who paid for everything and continued climbing impossible mountains although he really was too old for that already. His second mate was a young self-sufficient macho hero called Dallas. Number three was his girl and number four a Japanese veteran. To these were added our two chums, one of them a professor of quantum physics with an incredible capacity for always calculating the risks correctly and thereby how to avoid them, married and father of one child; and his pal, an invulnerable dreadnought, who could venture on anything and always be sure to come out all right.

The nature of K2, however, has the disadvantage of refusing half of its climbers to return alive. As our expedition embarked on the attempt in spite of rebellious porters and other unsurmountable difficulties, they met with another expedition on its way down after some evident catastrophes: one among them was mad, and another was dead. A few extra members of the party had been left behind dead up there somewhere in the vast deepfreeze. Our expedition continued, however, its two main characters, Dallas and Dreadnought, having an argument on the way and fighting it out with proper fisticuffs.

This was just the beginning. The old leader soon suffered from emphysema and could go no further, so he ordered Dallas and the Japanese gentleman to continue alone towards the top, while our two chums would remain as reserves: this was not according to the bargain or the program, so violent protests took place but were of no avail: the millionaire decided everything, because he had the money. In the morning the Jap returned from above alone and dying: he and Dallas had lost their tent as they had been taken by surprise by a snowstorm. Dallas was still up there somewhere, and the Jap had at least succeeded in returning alive. After telling so much of a story, however, he expired.

But the two chums decided to dare an attempt as the weather cleared next day. They happily reached the top, but the way down is always much more difficult than the way up, especially on such a mountain. The weather became worse again, soon they could see nothing, and the next moment they lost their footholds and met with disaster. The professor broke his leg in a fall of some fifty meters. He ordered his partner to leave him and save at least himself. The Dreadnought reluctantly agreed to this and not without the wildest protests.

In the meantime the old expedition leader decided to abandon the base camp since his life was in peril and since the weather up there was so bad that the four climbers had to be given up as lost.

But on the way down our dreadnought encountered the frozen body of Dallas. Here the story took its most interesting turn: Dallas had with him all the equipment, such as ropes, vitamins and adrenalin capsulas, which the chums had lost in their fall. Our Dreadnought decided to return with this equipment to his dying comrade. He found him all right, gave him adrenalin injections and put him on his one functioning foot, and with solemn carefulness they started to come down together, while the weather still was the worst imaginable and they didn't even know where they were.

Meanwhile the millionaire and the girl left the base camp by helicopter. The pilot insisted on going round the mountain just to have a last look if any survivor would come in sight for a last chance. Fortunately they thus found the two chums, who could be saved, while only two of the six in the expedition thus had perished.

The greatest losers in the expedition then had been Dallas (dead) and the millionaire, who never again would be allowed on any mountain. Already in the beginning, when Dallas proved so arrogant that it came to fisticuffs on the way up, it was certain that the expedition could not succeed. As an experienced traveller expressed it: If there is trouble between members in an expedition, the expedition should be cancelled immediately. Here the two leading heroes had an almost deadly row and still enforced the enterprise, in which two people died, one completely innocent of any fracas. Was it worth it?

The message of the film was maybe something like: money and power is necessary but never sufficient, while consideration and humanity outlasts death.

At the same time the film was an excellent lesson in sportmanship. Nothing is more important in demanding expeditions than the maintenace of good sportmanship. Intrigues, going behind the backs of others, withholding information, backbiting, betrayal and overrunning - all such matters are purely destructive and the opposite of sportmanship. If such superfluities can not be avoided, it is better to cancel the expedition.

Calcutta has always been the centre of Indian quality films with such a man as Satyajit Ray for a dominating figure, while Bombay more has been the manufacturer of glittering soap operas. The small film "36 Chowringhee Lane" is a typical Calcutta production in its heart-rending realism and sharp expressive down-to-earth humanity and so true to life and conditions in Calcutta that it is almost overwhelming.

Miss Violet Stanhope is a small aged teacher in a girls' school, where she teaches Shakespeare to her girls. The play which she always uses is "Twelfth Night". She lives with a cat at home which she calls Sir Toby (Belch), and her entire world consists only of her tiny old beautiful apartment on Chowringhee Lane, the school and the girls, Shakespeare, and a dying brother in a hospital, whom she visits every thursday. The only other place she visits is the cemetery with the tombs of her relatives from the times of the second world war. Like her dying brother, she is English.

This small world of hers is kept up with a consistent humorous courage by the small lady, and the camera compliments her life with illustrating shots from the life of Calcutta - the poverty, the beggars, the slums, the rickshaw runners, the permanent congestion on Hooghly Bridge, (then still the only bridge across the river,) and the lost splendours from the times when Calcutta was the second city of the British Empire.

The monotony of her life is interrupted one day as she meets an old pupil who necessarily wants to introduce her fiancé to her old teacher. The old lady then insists on inviting them both to tea, and the young couple is charmed by the perfect coziness of her small but wonderful home. They get the idea that it would be the ideal meeting place for them as lovers. Through guile they succeed in persuading the old teacher to allow them to use her home while she is away at school - she is led to believe that the fiancé is a great writer who needs a place to work in peace and quiet for his great books. Miss Stanhope with her fine literary education can not resist this idea.

That's where the tragedy begins, which never fully becomes a tragedy, because nothing can perturb miss Stanhope. At school she is overrun by a younger teacher who takes over her Shakespeare class while miss Stanhope is reduced to teaching grammar. Her brother dies in hospital without her being present, since she is then lured out by the young couple to have some fun with them. Gradually she realizes that they have borrowed access to her apartment merely for their love meetings, but it doesn't matter - she still believes in the young couple as her friends, she continues to encourage them and help them, - and she is present at their wedding. For a wedding present she gives them her old funnel grammophone with records from the 40's of the old fast kind. She wants to invite them home to her on Christmas Day to please them with a real Christmas Pudding, but they decline the invitation, stating that they will not be at home during Christmas. That's how she gets the idea that she will give them her Christmas Pudding anyway, by going to their house and leaving it on their door-step, while they are away.

The Calcutta Christmas is illustrated with overwhelmingly objective pathos. You see all the beggars and homeless, who just lie about in the streets in heaps everywhere, the endless poverty and slum conditions, while a vulgar arrangement of "Silent Night" booms ironically in the air. And miss Stanhope arrives at the house of the young wedded couple to leave her Christmas Pudding. She is encountered by a house full of lights and guests who are having a gay Christmas cocktail-party, and the guests are all young and rich and vulgarly noisy having drinks and luxuries galore. Not until then she understands.

She returns home with her Christmas Pudding undelivered, and she quotes Shakespeare. She recalls two of the most remarkable characters that Shakespeare ever invented - Malvolio and king Lear, the two greatest clowns of all - "Pray, do not mock me: I am a very foolish fond old man, fourscore and upward, not an hour more nor less; and, to deal plainly, I fear I am not in my perfect mind..."

And she returns to her old world of only memories - a young handsome lover who died in the second world war, her only relative the brother, who died completely gaga at the hospital, and what else besides Shakespeare?

What is it then she understood? Suddenly she realized, that no one cared any longer for an old English maid in Calcutta thirty years after Indian independance. She has fallen outside time. At the same time she has witnessed the contrast between the brave new world in India with the young rich generation only laughing at history and her cultural inheritance, unless they could use it for their own selfish satisfactions, and the world she still represents of high educational standards, morals and ideals. And the contrast is too striking.

The remarkable thing is that this film was made in India by Hindus. Both Bengali and English is spoken, and the two pathetic main parts - the old teacher and her dying brother - are also in reality an English brother and sister who have stayed on in India after 1947.

The film and the novel describe the futility of world history in contrast to love, the classical love topic, which is the base of almost every great novel. The second world war with all its unhuman efforts and devastating political cataclysms disappears and becomes nothing in comparison with the tragic story of the lovers, who never can have each other and who rather die than accept it. The performances are outstanding, especially the always brilliant Kristin Scott Thomas and the reliable Willem Dafoe, who gets his thumbs cut off by a Gestapo officer, which makes him a combined drug addict and fanatic angel of revenge - without ever appearing as unsympathetic. The desert photography with its endless dune landscapes like a woman's body is breathtaking and has probably only been equalled and surpassed in "Lawrence of Arabia".

The most interesting aspect of this film, however, is its historical perspective. At the same time as eternal love is posed against the nonentity of the historical present the perspective of timelessness deepens by the mystery of all the prehistorical swimmers in a cave far out in the Sahara. We have already discussed the theories about how the asteroids came into being, the wayward position of Pluto in the solar system and Mars as once a living planet. The swimmers in Sahara confirm the desiccation of our planet. This serious phenomenon is most evident in Tibet. In western Tibet there were once flourishing kingdoms, which gradually were stricken by draughts, so that people had to evacuate more and more areas. There is a very interesting theory about the kingdom of Gugge (pronounced 'Cookie') or its predecessors having once been maybe the oldest civilization on earth, from where people then migrated south (down the Indus valley resulting in the Harappa civilization) and west (down Syr-Darja and Amu-Darja, resulting in the spread of the Caucasian peoples). The oldest accounts in the Bible (Genesis 2:10-14) of the four rivers of Paradise (which could have been the four rivers Indus, Brahmaputra, Sutlej and Ganges, which all have their sources around Mount Kailas in western Tibet,) and of the deluge (with Noah introducing a new chapter in history by coming down from Mount Ararat to plant some wine,) could be remains in the form of legends from the old kingdom of Gugge or its predecessors.

If these theories could be scientifically proved by time it would import, that large areas of the continents once were covered by water, so that only very high lands (like Tibet and Ararat) were populated. And in that case, this would not have been longer ago than just before our known history as it found its beginning in Mesopotamia and Egypt around 7000 years ago.

According to our colleague John B. Westerberg in the Himalayas, this theoretical possibility is what makes the region of western Tibet most interesting: it could be the archaeologically most exciting area in the world.