Disappointment with Humankind

Tonight I thought I'd do some good old girly pampering: relaxing 'night in' and a nice movie just to catch up the tiredness that has been affecting me recently. Everything went to plan, but the film I chose to watch. "Imagining Argentina" with Emma Thompson and Antonio Banderas - quality acting, I thought, and perfect equilibrium between suspance and quiet introspective sighs. I must say it had been a while since I watched a movie (other than "Shooting Dogs") which had the ability to involve me so much on both an intellectual and emotional level. Based on a novel by Lawrence Thornton, "Imagining Argentina" tells the story of Carlos Rueda the director of a children's theatre in Buenos Aires in the 1970's, a city haunted by the ongoing disappearance of individuals who dare to take a stand against the dictatorship government. He returns one day to find his home empty; his wife, Cecelia, a journalist, has been taken away for writing a controversial article in local paper 'La Opinion'. Carlos meets with others whose loved ones have disappeared and discovers, that in the extreme desperation of people, he can look into their faces and see the fate of those they love. Somehow, he has no idea how, he can see into the past and the future. People flock to him for news of those disappeared. But no matter how hard he tries, he fails to see his own. Although I had studied about the Deciaparecidos phenomenon in school, especially with regards to Peron's dictatorship, watching the reality and consequences of such a inhumane form of punishment in a much more domestic context, has definitively brought it home for me. Nevertheless, like every time I see the extent of human cruelty, it repulses me and makes me ashamed of being part of that same humanity..Robin Williams interpreting "Patch Adams" in the homonymous movie states in disappointment after his innocent and loving girlfriend has been cruelly murdered by a psychopath: "Humans are the only animals in the whole of creation who kill their own". The killing and, more appallingly in my opinion, the torturing of innocents makes me incredibly angry and disappointed with humankind. But then I am drawn to think that God his innocent son not sparing, sent him to die cruelly at the hands of degenerated criminals and, the most sublime thing of all is that he was being sacrificed for them especially that they may be forgiven and made clean?! No wonder why many have referred to the crucifiction as "the scandal of the cross" - it is admirable that one may die for his friends; but to die for the murderers, paedos, adulterers, liers, ungodly, that's truly revolutionary.Thank you.