Just A Voice

On the movie' the village'

This is a thought provoking plot. I have been thinking about this for a long time now.
I guess that now I can finally begin to put in into words
If you look at the plot and central themes of the village it will make you wonder, am I not living in a village myself. The very title itself implies the theme of the the movie constraint. A village is a tiny pocket with their own separate customs and traditions. Now we can see there probably is nothing wrong with having your own traditions but what happens when you completely close off the village , to ensure that no outside influence enters. We can see now how this will breed a generation of intolerance since they were not exposed to the idea of choices and other possibilities. It has been a while since I started this blog and during this time I have seen another movie that followed closely with the plot of the village called population 436, in this movie the villagers lived on the superstition that they must maintain the population at this number, therefore a new visitor or newborn would lead to a lottery in which one of the villagers willingly sacrificed them self at a festival. In this movie the villagers that refused to accept the doctrine were sent to the local hospital to be cured of the 'fever'. This hospital was nothing more than a house with a psychiatric ward and a basement to perform a lobotomy on those who refused to be cured.
Now back to the village and this movie, in both instances the elder villagers used fear to keep the others within the village. Can this not be compared to a household, a village, a community, a culture, a country?
Now I wanted to look at this from another angle.
Look at the village and then determine the constructs of the mind or the so called box. This village that we create for ourselves, based on what we perceive or have been trained to think is wrong and right. basically led to believe that we must follow this particular set of ordained rules or face the consequences form a higher power if not now then pay dearly after dying?
Be it whether we exist within the strict boundaries imposed by religion or government how many of us have actually caged our mind based just on information that has been passed on? superstitions?
There is the safe a color and enforced dress code, can we think of religion, culture or society that also imposes this? Think of the dress code and what is modest, dress is not based on the land but rather on society, who has imposed a strict rule on what is modest and what isn't.
If we go against this we anger the Gods, superstition reigns? The creatures in the village, created by man to instill fear into the villagers to maintain the beliefs that they were fed, now isn't this still so with society? the media like the leader villagers feeding, brainwashing the mind of the youth, into believing what is socially acceptable and caging the spirit now.?
central theme of isolation , superstition, how does this relate to modern world? Are there not countries that still maintain that you adopt their culture before migration in order to keep outside influences out. Then again aren't their countries that say there is a certain way of doing things and even will boldly label it ' the XXX way' and anyone who does not adhere to these constructs be considered a threat too?

In this movie we can see how we limit our ideas and beliefs to that of the village as well. How some are still tied by racism, which is nothing more than beliefs passed on from generation to generation. The likes and dislikes of men that formed society and made its way into doctrine.
The question that both these movies raised was are we living on beliefs and fears that may not really exist, but are actually rules and constrains formed from the whims and idiosyncrasies of others before us.

posted by Just A Voice @ 6:43 PM