Film Comment: The Wild Dogs

There are several films carrying the title of The Wild Dogs. This is the 2002 film directed by Thom Fitzgerald in Bucharest (Bucuresti), Romania. The film won 4 awards in 2002 from the Atlantic Film Festival and 4 nominations from the Genie Awards and the Taos Talking Picture Festival. It is not of Oscar quality, but it definitely will make you think, and squirm.

Several stories are twined together into a slice of several days in the life of the rich elite and the poor beggars of Bucharest. It takes place during the period of the "cull" of the wild dogs which basically overran the city after the fall of the Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. The characters include, a highly reluctant city-employed dogcatcher; a Canadian pornographer in town to photograph fresh, very young meat; a cynical and corrupt diplomat and his disillusioned lonely wife; bands of abandoned children; hideously deformed "freaks of nature;" gypsies; beggars; and, of course, the dogs.

Unless you are a veteran viewer of hard-edged films I really can't recommend that you watch this. Some of it will make you angry, some of it will make you cry. Some of the language will offend you. You will not believe that Dorutu (a human torso) and "Sour Grapes" (whose knees bend backward as he walks around on all fours like a large crab) are real people, but they are. There were no CGI special effects involved in filming these characters.

The film causes extreme disagreements among its viewers. Some hate it, some say it is an accurate reflection of Bucharest. One Romanian emigrant said online, "Every country they got their poors." Claudita_993, a Romanian who resettled in Canada, said of the dogs, "I felt sorry for them and I despised them at the same time."

The point of the film, from a Christian perspective, is that the people in the film were the actual wild dogs, aimless and hopeless, scrounging each day just to survive, living utterly without purpose. There are no innocent people in the film, not even the children. The only innocents are the dogs. It is a powerful presentation of the sheer lostness of the world living without Jesus Christ.

Film Comment: Green Lantern

Green Lantern (2011) is a superhero movie based on the on the long time comic book series produced by DC Comics.  The film was long considered to be unfilmable until computer generated imagery was perfected.

The plot of the film is well known to long time comic book readers.  After an alien spacecraft crash lands on Earth, the ring worn by Abin Sur, the dying alien pilot, searches the planet for a worthy successor to its prior owner.  The ring is not supernatural, but is instead, the product of a greatly advanced technology.  It chooses a seemingly undeserving recipient, Hal Jordan, an immature and self-absorbed daredevil test pilot.

Jordan discovers that he is now the Green Lantern of his sector of outer space, even if he does not wish to be.  He is told that the ring does not make errors and that he is now a member of the Green Lantern Corps, one of the 3600 super-powered beings who serve as a sort of intergalactic police force.  Of course, he must confront a being who has misused the ring technology and, as a result of his adventures, Hal Jordan becomes the greatest of the Green Lanterns.  This is standard epic fantasy/science fiction.

Many viewers of Green Lantern have noticed the heavy occultic symbolism in this film.  A Green Lantern's power ring converts his/her thoughts into material reality.  As students of comparative religion will know, the essence and the aim of "magick" is the ability of the will to alter and control reality.

The symbolism in this film is quite heavy.  When they are using their power, a Green Lantern's eyes glow green.  Images of the Masonic symbol known as the All Seeing Eye , an eye within a pyramid, occur repeatedly within the film.

The Green Lanterns take their oath of service on their Power Lanterns, from which they recharge their power rings.  The lantern symbols on the rings and on the superheroes chests are identical to the Masonic symbol 101 (the point within the circle ) turned on its side.

There is a strong undercurrent in the film of a secret government involvement in some sort of conspiracy.  One commenter notes that a sign in a bar scene includes the word "harp" and relates this to the HAARP project, a real life scientific research station in Alaska which many conspiracy theorists believe is being developed as a secret government weapon to cause earthquakes and control the weather.

The Green Lantern Corps is, in effect a secret society.  The Corp has initiation ceremonies, secret knowledge, and its existence is not revealed to the public at large.

Tomar Re , the bird-like Xudarian alien Green Lantern who is the first mentor to Hal Jordan, has what one commenter calls "Baphomet legs."  Baphomet is an occult symbol of Satan represented as a human-goat hybrid with legs whose knees bend backwards.

The green "uniform" of the Lanterns is not actually clothing.  It is an integral part of their being, it is who they really are, like their skin.  This is consistent with the occult/New Age idea that our true inner being is divine (our True Self, our Inner Christ) and that enlightenment comes when we realize that we are God.

One commenter claims that when Hal Jordan transforms from his human self to his Green Lantern self that there is a brief burst of light from his wrists and ankles, reminiscent of Christ's wounds.  This occurs at 2:05 of the first official trailer for the film.  What actually occurs at this point is that Jordan's power ring begins to glow, making the back of his hand appear to glow.

Most people who watch this film will not notice or understand the heavy symbolism and many who do, will not care.  That the symbolism is there is so obvious that it must be intentional on the part of the film's makers.  Without falling into the trap of becoming totally paranoid conspiracy theorists, Christians must be alert to the messages being sent out by the world's media.  We really are at war.