#102 / Are We Ready For That?

 

Sojourners magazine published an article in its April 2022, issue that was, in essence, a review of two movies, The Green Knight and The Power Of The Dog. The Sojourners article did not really present itself as a movie review, though, but rather as an examination of a poem, "Truth," by Gwendolyn Brooks. That poem, written in 1987, is found at the end of this blog posting. The Sojourners article, by Zachary Lee, was titled,  "The Truth Will Set You Free. Are We Ready For That?"

Quite likely we are not. 

 

My earlier "micro review" of The Power Of The Dog didn't really say much about the movie. Here, let me indicate that I think that Zachary Lee's article in Sojourners got it right. Lee says that it was the fact that Phil, the Benedict Cumberbatch character in The Power Of The Dog, was unwilling or unable to acknowledge the truth about who he was that led directly to Phil's death. 

 

I haven't seen The Green Knight, but I am quite familiar with Sir Gawain And The Green Knight, the wonderful poem on which the movie is based. Zachary Lee's commentary on The Green Knight says that the main character in the film "knows the truth fully well and yet ... attempts to smother it for his own purposes."

In each case, the fault is in the suppression or smothering of the truth. 

So, are we ready to face the truth? We need to be ready! 

Facing up to Nartsuk is another way to state the issue.

That's the truth!

oooOOOooo

truth

By Gwendolyn Brooks

And if sun comes
How shall we greet him?
Shall we not dread him,
Shall we not fear him
After so lengthy a
Session with shade?

Though we have wept for him,
Though we have prayed
All through the night-years—
What if we wake one shimmering morning to
Hear the fierce hammering
Of his firm knuckles
Hard on the door?

Shall we not shudder?—
Shall we not flee
Into the shelter, the dear thick shelter
Of the familiar
Propitious haze?

Sweet is it, sweet is it
To sleep in the coolness
Of snug unawareness.
The dark hangs heavily
Over the eyes.

 

Image Credit:

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_power_of_the_dog

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