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Sunday, May 10, 2015
I've been on a dark/creepy video marathon for the past few days and I got reminded of this absolute gem I have watched a few years back: The Backwater Gospel If you have 10 minutes to spare, I highly recommend you watch it. It is truly a work of art. Dark, grimy and as violent as a short animated film can get feel, with lots of humanity in it, definitely one of my favourite short films. And for once, scrolling through the comment section was a joy. One comment stuck out to me in particular: "Attempting to run from the inevitable equaliser is equivalent to attempting to outrun your shadow. Regardless of your intentions and pursuits, one day, you will simply fall to the ground, and meet with that skeletal collector. Do not find this depressing. Instead, see it as a demand to act. Live as you would tomorrow today so tomorrow you may do as you wish." And the part that struck me to my core, "Death has patience. Life does not." The sentiment of make your time on earth worth while, so eloquently phrase. Looks like I have a new mantra. And if you've finished the video and want the writer's explanation of this short film, here's another comment to sum it up: "You guys arguing about religion being "right" or "wrong" and stuff really need to see the "Making of" video for this. It explains in good details what this whole thing is about. For people who can't be bothered, allow me to explain in a nice wall of text. The Town of Backwater is where this setting takes place. This town is constantly switching beliefs of God, praising Him during good times and cursing His name during the bad times. When this story is taking place, times are really bad. A heat drought is happening, crops have a hard time growing, morale is low. This is perfect for the Minister. The Minister wants to control the town. He doesn't actually believe in God, he just sees God as a means to control. He's not a real Christian. Since the town is being rough, the Minister is there to preach "salvation" and to "fear the Lord", because salvation gives the people a false sense of hope, which keeps them coming to the church, and if they fear the Lord, they'll fear the person preaching His Holy word. The Minister is the representation of the Old Testament. The tramp arrived to the town by accident. He was driving drunk one night and had an accident in the town, which destroyed his car and made him lose a leg. Since leaving the town is impossible, he decided to make his car into his own little personal house and live there for now. From day one, the Minister and the tramp hated each other. The tramp kept pointing out the hollowness of the Minister's teachings and faith and trying to make the other townspeople realize this, which angers the Minister, who sees the tramp as a thorn in his side that he just can't get rid of. The tramp is the representation of the New Testament, thinking that you don't need to constantly be in fear of God, that you'll be fine if you just do good things, so the teachings of the Minister to "fear the Lord" has no meaning for him, and he's not shy of letting the Minister know it ("Submit to the Lord!" "Why don't you try it?") The God in this story is the one of the New Testament. He doesn't believe in divine punishment, but the hypocrisy and selfishness of the town is driving him up the wall. So He decides to put the townspeople to the test by sending his Angel of Death to visit: The Undertaker. Contrary to the belief of people and of the children's song the tramp was singing, the Undertaker works directly under God's orders, instead of being some devil. The Undertaker goes to a town because someone will die, but everyone, excluding the tramp, believe that someone will die BECAUSE the Undertaker is in town, which makes them all fearful and panicky. So, God gives the townspeople a test by sending his Angel into the town, and ordering him to just sit and wait. The tramp sees him first, and decides to have some fun with the town by freaking them out ("The Undertaker's coming!"). This makes the townspeople scared and they immediately retreat back into their homes. This angers the Minister, since, like I said up there, he wants people to fear him, and he's losing power by having people fear the Undertaker instead. So, seven days pass, and the people are getting more and more scared, wondering why he's still waiting, wondering which one of them was going to die. The only one not fearful of the Undertaker is the tramp. Since the tramp has a New Testament way of thinking, he knows that the Undertaker isn't there to kill someone, so its destiny that will tell who will end up dead, and if it's him, so be it. On the seventh day, the Minister sees that he lost all control over his people, and he believes that the reason the Undertaker is still there is because the tramp is still around. So, on the seventh day, he brings all the frightened townspeople into the church and uses their fear to fuel an anger against the tramp, which makes them all go out to kill the tramp. The tramp, when he sees them coming, gets up and tries to run to the Undertaker for protection, but he falls. Even if he had made it, though, the Undertaker would've done nothing, since the Undertaker and God are only observing. The townspeople prove their selfish and arrogant nature by stoning the tramp right after the Minister says that the one without sin should cast the first stone. After they kill the tramp, they look at the Undertaker in the hopes for a reaction, but the Angel just sits there, waiting. Then, a rainstorm falls down, and, after a week of drinking, fear, desperation sleepless nights and the feeling of being forsaken by the Lord, the townspeople become bloodthirsty savages, and not a single one of them lives to the morning. So, what was the test sent by God? Well, the Minister was right in his teachings, about "one bad apple ruining the bunch". But it wasn't the tramp that was the bad apple, it was the Minister himself. Sure, the townspeople were scared, but if the Minister hadn't made them turn violent, the Undertaker would've simply left at the end of the seventh day with not a single life lost. God wanted to see if the townspeople would think for themselves instead of listening to the Minister's evil ways...and they failed. So the moral of the story? It's not "religion is bad", like many people seem to believe. The true moral of this story is "Think for yourself and do what is right." It doesn't matter if you're an atheist or a believer, as long as you do good, then only good will come out of it." It was unfortunate that I watched it for the first time not able to fully understand and grasp what message it was trying to convey other than the selfishness of humans. Second time around, I was able to get to what the writers tried to explain through this story and it made me love this even more. |
SiMin. 23 years old From Singapore. Studying at TUM Loves animals, tv shows, book, music, food and fashion. I'm insane and I love it. Stupid stuff makes me giggle. Steel Panther is forever my favourite. Hiddlestoned. |Twitter| |Facebook| |YouTube| |Instagram| |Victoria Frances (go see her art!)|
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