The other day, I woke up at around 7AM, got ready for school, and left at around 8 in the morning, for my first class would be an hour after that. But thanks to you, oh mighty but i-hate-you-right-now-for-i-have-class-in-an-hour-and-you’ll-make-me-late-for-that rain, I reached Marcos Highway (Marcos Highway pa lang ha, not Katipunan, not the Ateneo) at 10:30.
Great. My first class is 9-10:30. Second is 10:30-12:00. So I’m late for my SECOND class. argh. And by the time I arrive at the Ateneo, I won’t be allowed to go in, anyway. GREAT. I woke up early, left the house after successfully winning against the charms of the usual it’s-raining-so-it’d-feel-better-to-just-stay-in-bed-and-snooze-the-day-away dilemma. I-want-to-kill-someone-ly GREAT. My next class is 3-430 by the way. 4.5 hours of idlessness for me.
So I just decided to go to the nearby malls (Robinson’s and Sta. Lucia) to watch a movie. I had to choose between Fred Claus and The Kingdom. Obviously (or at least if you knew me) I picked the latter.
I had no idea that The Kingdom is an R-18 movie, and I didn’t know that I’d be watching a very depressing movie, full of shoot-em-up scenes plus the blood spurts everywhere, and kill-em-kids-with-bombs-in-my-coat. Good thing that I didn’t know, though. Because depressing as it was, it was, well for me, greatly portrayed, the theme’s message effectively reached the audience.
The film was about terrorism and the murder (from a Westerner’s point of view, that is) of 100 Americans inside the walls of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Gee, Dianne, you’re such a weird-o. Watching this movie, in the morning, alone? haha
Anyway, what I’d like to rave about this one are its last few frames:
Adam Leavitt: What did you say to Mayes to get her to stop crying?
Ronald Fleury: I said we were going to kill them all.
Daughter of (terrorist from an American’s POV and Robin Hood from the extremist Muslims, gack American “term”) Abu Hamza: What did your grandfather say to you to make you stop crying?
Grandson: Don’t fear my child, we will kill them all.
That left me saying, “Oh..My..Gawd. Freaky.”
It’s not really about who started it all (Read: War-against-terrorism and war-against-the-capitalists), who’s to blame for the mutual abhorrence. All of us experienced pain and suffering in one form or another. Knowing that, are we willing to go over vengeance (by going over I didn’t mean let’s-pulverize-em-all-right-now murder lol) and transcend our human (or rather, inhuman) nature of getting back at those who hurt us, because we want “justice”?
It’s not so much a question of how can someone do all these murders as it is of what do we do now or what can we do after all these. I believe that this war won’t stop until such time comes that the person you love the most is killed right in front of your eyes, yet you still can, or will if such time ever comes, say to the killer (or justice-bringer-kuno), “I love you and I forgive you.” That, or the earth will be reduced to a space of nothingness, a place with no memory of its people–people who killed each other in a vicious cycle of vengeance, of bringing people to “justice.” Whatta perversion of this noble idea of justice, eh?
Honestly, by the time I was done watching the movie, I really couldn’t point out who the villains and the victims were. Or perhaps,everyone in the film is a villain. and a victim, as well, or as worse. Whichever way you put it, cliche as it may sound, in a war, everyone loses.
No one but C&H could have said it better:
juanaekis
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