I was completely fine with this movie until Cuba Gooding Jr. told Robin Williams his wife was going to hell because she committed suicide. I felt as if the director wanted to prove that we should all be Christians and devoted to God, or else we'll go to hell. To be honest, I was disappointed. I was expecting something more meaningful besides the whole "bag full of chemicals/soul" debate.
sharePutting aside the religious arguments, this film has no resonance. Utterly inert and muted.
shareThey only did that for the film. In the book "hell" was more of a temporary self imposed punishment that would happen due to guilt over actions taken in life or an over abundance of negative emotions such as sadness or anger. Once the person learned to get pass those things they would go to summer land. In the case of Annie she also had to stay for the rest of the time she would have spent on earth had she not committed suicide. They changed it for the movie because they were afraid they would offend the more vocal Christian groups and get boycotted.
Dale Cooper: Are you Laura Palmer?
Laura: I feel like I know her. But sometimes my arms bend back.
I thought all religions frowned upon suicide.
shareEvery religion has a proscription against suicide. Even Buddhism, which isn't really a religion has one. If you commit suicide, it is a permanent stain on your Karma and you will never achieve Nirvana...
shareI know this was a comment made several years ago, but as a Buddhist, I can tell you this is not true. Every sentient being has the buddha nature inside, pristine, unsullied, our true natural state. And every sentient being is a buddha waiting to awaken, no matter what choices were made in past lives. In the Buddha's own lifetime he took on a serial killer as a student, and he attained enlightenment. Buddhism should be without dogma....to say all suicides cannot attain Nirvana is dogmatic. Buddhism is the Middle Way. The Buddha even said to not believe anything just because it is written down, or because of who said, even if it was the Buddha himself. He taught us to be lamps to ourselves.
I thought it was a beautiful movie. :)
beautifully said..
share:)
shareBuddhism should be without dogma....to say all suicides cannot attain Nirvana is dogmatic.
Wow. This movie did a number on you, and it's just a movie. It presented some ideas about how things "could" be, and you took it to heart and got defensive enough about it to come here and post.
So think about this a minute. You think the movie was disgusting because it presenting some conceptions that you don't share or agree with. Even though, the movie follows through and actually DOES agree with you (hence the main character rescuing his wife from hell, disproving the theory that suicides never come back).
did you really think about what you wrote before you clicked Post Reply?
No, this movie tells you how things are. It makes you think of things like heaven and hell as universal truths.
To be honest, I was mad that I was forced to watch this in one of my classes.
Although, this movie does monopolize people. I was strongly affected by this, even if I don't share the same beliefs. It treats suicide as being something inhuman, as something disgusting. So yes, I felt it was disgusting because I've contemplated suicide once or twice.
Not that it's any of your goddamn business.
Oh you have contemplated suicide before?? And you feel its a beautiful thing, eh?? Then if you contemplate killing someone in cold blood then it must be beautiful too!! Suicide in any religion is a taboo..Suicide is more horrific than even killing someone..
Pineapple, get a shrink!!
It's not beautiful, I can assure you that. And before telling people to get a shrink, grow up, you bigoted, religious prick.
shareWow Vikram, way to come out of left field and attack someone for something they didn't even say.
If you took a moment to read instead of just projecting, you would have seen that far from calling suicide beautiful, Pineapple only objected to its being depicted as inhuman and disgusting (which I don't agree that this movie does). As if suicidal people don't have enough problems, you also want us to accuse them of being less than human and disgusting? I think we can all agree that suicide is horribly sad and wasteful, but people are driven to it by circumstances and emotions more trying than any you have, apparently, ever experienced.
And, no, suicide is not "taboo" in all religions. Maybe you should have a clue about the beliefs of other religions before you make a sweeping statement like that. The Ancient Roman religion allowed for suicide and even encouraged it under certain circumstances. Buddhism and Taoism would seem to be lenient on this point. And even the Bible never specifically says that suicide necessarily leads to damnation. I don't know what Jews, Muslims, Zoroastrians, Hindus, etc. believe on this subject, but I'd bet my life savings you don't either.
Read carefully back over this thread, Vikram, and notice how it was a respectful conversation until you came in like a mad dog, raging about something that no one said.
I have no hope at all that you will read or understand this. You'll probably just string together a bunch of question marks and exclamation points again.
"I think we can all agree that suicide is horribly sad and wasteful, but people are driven to it by circumstances and emotions more trying than any you have, apparently, ever experienced. "
Not necessarily true. Not every person who's committed suicide has experienced more pain than everyone else. It's how you handle the pain that matters. Some people just can't handle certain types of pain and cop out, while other people have experienced worse pain but could deal with it.
Sure, you're right.
I was making a point more about vikramsamal specifically, than about all people who may or may not have contemplated suicide. I assume vikramsamal is not familiar with those depths of emotions, because if he were he probably would have responded to pineapple's comment with compassion rather than judgement.
I see now, though, that that's not a safe assumption. Vikramsamal may have suffered quite a lot. In fact it may have been suffering that made him so insufferable. As you say, it's all about how people handle their pain, whether they can learn from it or only deflect it onto others.
Hozana I was trying not to respond to this but it was so funny(this post of yours) I couldnt hold myself back..What I was saying that suicide is basically killing your beautiful self that you have got to live and no matter how tough and compelling situations are, a true human being has to fight out and not give in to those troubles..Yeah I have seen my share of problems and never considered suicide..Good luck.
shareOh you have contemplated suicide before?? And you feel its a beautiful thing, eh?? Then if you contemplate killing someone in cold blood then it must be beautiful too!! Suicide in any religion is a taboo..Suicide is more horrific than even killing someone..You're literally a retard.
No, this movie tells you how things are. It makes you think of things like heaven and hell as universal truths.
wow you really went somewhere different with this movie. This movie is based on a certain mythology like most good stories. Their ideas about suicide is just that... an idea.
I really like the story even though I don't believe that people who commit suicide would be punished that way.
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I think you missed the point. Gooding's character, at one point, even explicitly states that where she is NOT hell (especially not in the organized religion/Christian sense). In essence, it's not even about the Christian faith, but rather about spirituality in general. The wife's mental state (as we see William's state as well) affects her afterlife environment (ie. to Williams: "You will see your kids when you are ready to see them") and since the wife committed suicide in the grip of misery and despair, her own mind traps her in that cycle after death. It has nothing to do with believing or not believing in God. In a way, her presence there doesn't even have anything to do with God. It's about overcoming her own "hell", not the literal one meant in the bible.
shareYou have to be retarded if you even watched this movie knowing about the Heaven/Hell premise and subsequently made this post. Here's a challenge for you: come up with a better reason for the wife to get sent to Hell while still presenting her to the audience as a good person. You know, because the whole point of the movie was for Robin Williams to have to go to Hell and back to recover his soulmate--not because the movie had anything to do with Christianity. I beg you, never breed.
share[deleted]
Aw, did I heart a nerve? You're a complete clown, nothing more to be said. You were looking for reasons to be offended so we'd throw you a pity party. Loser.
shareIt's explicitly stated in the movie that it has nothing to do with that. That it is an interpretive, not literal hell. Which every other user in this thread seems to understand. But in any case, for you to get this defensive and high-and-mighty ("never breed", really?) over a difference of opinion certainly says more about your own character.
shareYeah, I don't remember why I got so annoyed and made such ridiculous posts, but it definitely wasn't warranted. I apologize
shareI was completely fine with this movie until Cuba Gooding Jr. told Robin Williams his wife was going to hell because she committed suicide. I felt as if the director wanted to prove that we should all be Christians and devoted to God, or else we'll go to hell. To be honest, I was disappointed. I was expecting something more meaningful besides the whole "bag full of chemicals/soul" debate.
Like many others have said, the film is not necessarily about Christianity, and don't let the Christians who say otherwise convince you.
Throughout the whole movie, and particularly in the scene(s) where Cuba's character is first introducing Chris to the afterlife, it is REPEATEDLY stated that whatever a person WANTS their afterlife to be, that's what it becomes. I don't think that wasn't JUST a convenient plot point. In my opinion, it was also a direction to the VIEWERS of the movie that whatever form of spirituality THEY wanted to believe was being depicted, that's what it was.
When Chris asks Cuba's character, "Where's god in all this?" he replies,
"He's up there... somewhere. Shouting down that he loves us, wondering why we can't hear him. You think?"
This wasn't to specifically put the movie in a Christian context, but to recognize that there are people who do believe in a god, and in their own personal "heavens", he exists. Notice he added that little glimmer of doubt at the end, "You think?" right after the scene where it was pointed out that all you needed to do to materialize something in your world was to, essentially, believe it to be there and it would.
I actually think the line "[He's] shouting down that he loves us, wondering why we can't hear him" is a subtle and rather clever way of saying that the characters DON'T believe in a god (he's shouting, trying to get them to believe, but they choose not to so he thinks they just "can't hear him"). As someone else said, it was probably to keep the religious nuts from, excuse the pun, "raising hell" over a movie that doesn't fit with the very narrow belief system and considering the movie already lost a ton of movie without a boycott from the church, it was a good decision.
And by the way, obviously being an atheist myself, I believe the entire notion of an afterlife to be BS anyway, pretty much just a natural method humans find a comforting way of coming to terms with inevitable death. As someone who just doesn't find it necessary to believe in anything like that to continue functioning as a human being, I enjoyed the movie purely as a work of fantasy and nothing more. Anyone who thinks there is something wrong with that is, frankly, an ignorant moron in my book.