Good Friday
04.09.2004Today's the second day of the lengthy Catholic Easter. Sick as I was, I dragged myself out of bed, headed up to Alto Irpavi for a big family lunch w/ all the aunts, uncles, cousins. We had a shrimp & lobster soup (little lobsters, not the big Alaskans). During Lent (the 40 days before Easter), you don't eat red meat on Friday — especially on Good Friday.
Today's a big religious day in Catholic countries. This is the day for stations of the cross, a special mass (the only one all year w/o eucharist), and other important rites. Yesterday the last supper was commemorated; tomorrow's the three-hour-long Easter Vigil. I hope to be healthy enough for the long vigil, which is important to me.
Oh. Another tidbit of Bolivian Easter: You can't play cacho (a dice game) on Good Friday. Because this is the day of the Passion — the crucifixion — and the gospels record that Roman soldiers cast lots (w/ dice) for Christ's clothes. So no dice on Good Friday.
Most places are closed today, starting last night (Holy Thursday). We're on national Easter holiday until Monday.
Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ is the big movie right now. For obvious reasons. I think the movie's polemic in the US (and some other places) stems from a culture clash or sorts. As per its title, the movie focuses on the passion (crucifixion) of Christ. This is three-day-long religious celebration for Catholics. Secular culture in general (even many protestants) prefers to focus on "the message" of Jesus ("be nice to people," yadda, yadda, yadda). But that makes Jesus no different than any new age guru, doesn't it?
And while the movie was criticized for (alleged) historical inaccuracies, it wasn't the point of the movie. Gibson (as a Catholic) was making a movie about the Passion of the Christ. That has doctrinal, ritualistic, and theological significance based in the Christian gospels. Like it or not. In a society where Easter means little more than chocolate bunnies & egg hunts, a movie about the brutal torture & death of a religious figure just doesn't fit well.
Posted by Miguel at 06:32 PM
Comments
Well, I was watching this movie as a movie. And as a movie it is a bad movie, but I wrote about this enough, in short: no character development, no context, bad slow motion choices and redundant scenes. Cheers, N.
Posted by: Nenad at April 10, 2004 12:15 AM
Quit writing about food until Sunday, will ya?
i'm fasting!
Posted by: steph at April 10, 2004 02:03 AM
I am not, actually Melanie and I are trying to avoid serious work so much we just decided to take a long to walk to D&W, lol. Good luck, Steph.
Posted by: Nenad at April 10, 2004 11:14 AM
I actually haven't seen the movie yet. Since the person I planned on going w/ went w/o me ... But I plan to see it & see what I think of it as a movie. But I think most (though not all) of the criticism's of the movie were of the secular-religious kind, not artistic.
Posted by: Miguel at April 10, 2004 04:22 PM