It's not easy being green part two (it's not what you think!)
I saw a green flower tonight, in a flower shop window, on my way home from the movie. Er, make that a documentary: La Machine de Morth Khmere Rouge. Rithy Panh is the name attached to it, so I assume he was the director?
Green flowers are freaky fun.
The film was excellent, but I suspect a lot of people will echo the sentiment of some guy I overheard - "there's no point!" It is basically about a couple guys who were tortured in the Cambodian "concentration camps" (what did Pol Pot call them?), in the place they had been tortured, going through documents and talking to some people who performed the torturing. There's not a lot of plot, and there are no surprises. I can't quite imagine what kind of resolution these people are expecting. Pol Pot to kill himself after leaving a video saying he felt really bad about everything? An angel to come and heal all their wounds and smite the "bad people?" This sort of thing happens all the time, there is no resolution. The pain won't go away, and even torturing the torturers wouldn't help anybody. Getting upset about it won't help anything, unless you channel it someplace useful. Like this documentary.
This could have been a horrible film to watch, but I thought it was very well done. Each person took responsible for his own emotions (guilt, reaction formations, or whatever), so the audience was left to deal with the facts. The spooky thing was that the details weren't contested, and nobody got moral about it (it's horrific, yes, and it happens all the time in so many countries, but being moral about it won't ever stop it from happening when the people obsessed with power have no morals). This means we got to see the people's brains work.
One guy was quite adamant that he had no karmic debt because he was just following orders. I don't know about that, but the important thing is that a lot of people in that position feel the same way. They watch as their families are killed in front of them, then they are taught in the usual way how to shut off their feelings so they can be as psychopathic as the person in control (oh yes, it is so typical - methods used by abusive parents and white collar criminals everywhere, some of whom inevitably end up in the government - everyone who is a slave to the idea of power knows these NLP techniques). The fear is so big they can't see the eyes of the person they are killing. These techniques have been used for millenia.
You could feel the "karmic debt" just dripping off this guy, as he talked about how he can see now that it was against the law and he feels bad that he was forced to do these things (Against the law!?!). You could see the pain in his mother's eyes as she tried to speak to the person he used to be before his soul shrivelled. She could not comprehend what had happened to him. I hope when she sees the film she can understand a little more.
The film made no judgements, just asked a few good questions. "How could you miss this? What went through your mind when you were doing this?" Good questions, with sensitive and naked filming and no sensationalism. I can respect that. Very Socratic.
I was talking earlier today about people who are obsessed with bomb shelters and war games and stuff like that. I must have picked it up from my dad, in a very warped way. He was little when they had nuclear bomb drills (duck and cover!) in school all the time. That kind of fear, of something so big you can't really imagine it, has changed a lot of people permanantly. We live in its shadow all the time now, but we're used to it now. Then it was new and terrifying. This documentary dealt with a lot of things that were happening when I was being born, and I didn't know anything about any of it.
I was brought up knowing that people are all basically the same, and that there's no reason why the same thing won't happen to me that has happened to someone else. It's not just other people who get diseases, who get in car crashes. It's people. I'm people. So I live every day, knowing in my bones that this kind of atrocity can happen anywhere. Those were people a lot like us, with different languages, but the same hearts. It could happen here.
It does happen here, with not so many people involved. Just a kid, or just a family, or just a company, or just a woman, or just a small area of society. It happens all over the place. I don't dwell on it, but it's always there, and it puts life in perspective. I know that anything I own might be taken away tomorrow, the people I love could get run over by a truck or get cancer or whatever. Stuff happens. So I am grateful that I have diabetes instead of multiple sclerosis; I have been threatened and manipulated but never brutally beaten without my consent; my brother is having problems with his eyes but he is otherwise pretty much intact and functional; my car got squished but public transportation is way cheaper; I'm "broke" but I still have enough money for food and safe places to get some if I run out. Life's really good here. Canada rocks.
A couple people in the documentary mentioned a faction or something called the "macquis." Hmmm.
Green flowers are freaky fun.
The film was excellent, but I suspect a lot of people will echo the sentiment of some guy I overheard - "there's no point!" It is basically about a couple guys who were tortured in the Cambodian "concentration camps" (what did Pol Pot call them?), in the place they had been tortured, going through documents and talking to some people who performed the torturing. There's not a lot of plot, and there are no surprises. I can't quite imagine what kind of resolution these people are expecting. Pol Pot to kill himself after leaving a video saying he felt really bad about everything? An angel to come and heal all their wounds and smite the "bad people?" This sort of thing happens all the time, there is no resolution. The pain won't go away, and even torturing the torturers wouldn't help anybody. Getting upset about it won't help anything, unless you channel it someplace useful. Like this documentary.
This could have been a horrible film to watch, but I thought it was very well done. Each person took responsible for his own emotions (guilt, reaction formations, or whatever), so the audience was left to deal with the facts. The spooky thing was that the details weren't contested, and nobody got moral about it (it's horrific, yes, and it happens all the time in so many countries, but being moral about it won't ever stop it from happening when the people obsessed with power have no morals). This means we got to see the people's brains work.
One guy was quite adamant that he had no karmic debt because he was just following orders. I don't know about that, but the important thing is that a lot of people in that position feel the same way. They watch as their families are killed in front of them, then they are taught in the usual way how to shut off their feelings so they can be as psychopathic as the person in control (oh yes, it is so typical - methods used by abusive parents and white collar criminals everywhere, some of whom inevitably end up in the government - everyone who is a slave to the idea of power knows these NLP techniques). The fear is so big they can't see the eyes of the person they are killing. These techniques have been used for millenia.
You could feel the "karmic debt" just dripping off this guy, as he talked about how he can see now that it was against the law and he feels bad that he was forced to do these things (Against the law!?!). You could see the pain in his mother's eyes as she tried to speak to the person he used to be before his soul shrivelled. She could not comprehend what had happened to him. I hope when she sees the film she can understand a little more.
The film made no judgements, just asked a few good questions. "How could you miss this? What went through your mind when you were doing this?" Good questions, with sensitive and naked filming and no sensationalism. I can respect that. Very Socratic.
I was talking earlier today about people who are obsessed with bomb shelters and war games and stuff like that. I must have picked it up from my dad, in a very warped way. He was little when they had nuclear bomb drills (duck and cover!) in school all the time. That kind of fear, of something so big you can't really imagine it, has changed a lot of people permanantly. We live in its shadow all the time now, but we're used to it now. Then it was new and terrifying. This documentary dealt with a lot of things that were happening when I was being born, and I didn't know anything about any of it.
I was brought up knowing that people are all basically the same, and that there's no reason why the same thing won't happen to me that has happened to someone else. It's not just other people who get diseases, who get in car crashes. It's people. I'm people. So I live every day, knowing in my bones that this kind of atrocity can happen anywhere. Those were people a lot like us, with different languages, but the same hearts. It could happen here.
It does happen here, with not so many people involved. Just a kid, or just a family, or just a company, or just a woman, or just a small area of society. It happens all over the place. I don't dwell on it, but it's always there, and it puts life in perspective. I know that anything I own might be taken away tomorrow, the people I love could get run over by a truck or get cancer or whatever. Stuff happens. So I am grateful that I have diabetes instead of multiple sclerosis; I have been threatened and manipulated but never brutally beaten without my consent; my brother is having problems with his eyes but he is otherwise pretty much intact and functional; my car got squished but public transportation is way cheaper; I'm "broke" but I still have enough money for food and safe places to get some if I run out. Life's really good here. Canada rocks.
A couple people in the documentary mentioned a faction or something called the "macquis." Hmmm.