The Black Death is not only ugly, sad, cruel, ugly, it is also completely dishonorable. In the fourteenth century, as the bubonic plague flourished in Europe, a solitary English village managed to keep the plague at bay, first by renouncing God, and secondly by torturing and killing Christians who killed in the name of God. The fatal flaw of this premise is that it lends credence to the criticism of violence on both sides of the religious spectrum. The thought is, if I am a Christian who believes that it is God’s will to commit murder, and if you are an atheist who is fed up with years of intolerance and persecution, you are welcome to kill me. In the process you showed that you were just as impatient as I was. How sad that we have imitated our equality in our need for mutual compassion.
Religion has historically been used to justify some of the worst crimes against humanity, from the Spanish Inquisition to the Salem Witch Trials to the Holocaust to the 9/11 attacks. We don’t hear much, but about the totalitarian regime established in Albania after World War II, which guarantees an atheist in the state. Under the Agrarian Law of 1945, the properties of religious institutions were included; by 1967, under the government of Enver Hoxha, all religious freedoms were officially banned. During the next twenty-four years, those who practiced religion, or even those who owned religious property, were subjected to disgrace, reproach, imprisonment, and in some cases execution. In this he includes Shtjefen Kurti, a Catholic priest whose crime was baptizing a child in secret.
It is shameful to persecute someone in the name of God. On the same subject, there is no theory that pleases to pursue it under the name of “material scientific knowledge world view. in the people.” In both cases, basic human rights are violated. Both dogmas go. If you are a Christian, or a Jew, or a Muslim, it is not right for me to preach about what I believe. If you are an atheist, it is not right for me to preach what I do not believe. Faith — or the lack of it — is a unique and privately observed process. There are enough problems in the world without fanatics of all persuasions trampling on other people’s beliefs.
And this I return to the Black Death, which preaches to us in the extremes from both ends. The effect is so much worse than the insatiable disgrace; no reason, either probable or excusable, shall be found. At the religious end, we have a young monk named Osmund (Eddie Redmayne), whose faith prevents him from dating the girl he loves, Averill (Kimberley Nixon). He flatters her to leave, when the village is decimated by plague. Alas, he cannot go with her, because sin for the sin of serving God takes her away from her monastery. But then a group of Christian mercenaries, led by the pious soldier Ulric (Sean Bean), enters the convent and challenges the monks to lead them to a distant village; Untouched by the plague, it is reported to be a necromancer, meaning that someone can raise the dead. For Osmund, this is a golden opportunity – the knights are asking for a village not far from where Averill said he would be waiting. He would lead the volunteers to them.
At last they came to the swampy convent, and although there is no pestilence, the villagers appear to be kind, peaceful, and prosperous. The leader, Langiva (Carice van Houten), also invites them to a common dinner. Ulric is not convinced. Why is the leader a woman? Why do women count men? And why do they seem really confused while bowing their heads in prayer? I had already alluded to the situation, but I had not yet compared the perverse aspects of the film, most notably the ruthless violence. The most glorious of the films in the Black Death would be pressed into sheer visual perversity; in this film, throats are cut, beheadings, burning at the stake, stabbings, and even picking limbs from horses.
This plays into the ugliness with which the film was filmed. color scheme is muddy and muted, like dirt smeared on a camera lens. Landscapes are almost always overgrown, shrouded in fog, littered with rotting corpses. This may be the way in which the film is “effective” – after all, what happens is called the Dark Ages. But the visual style cannot make up for the screenplay’s complete lack of modesty. It’s not that you tell this story the best way. Absolutely nothing will be achieved with it, except a deep sense of nihilism. The more I feel about the Black Death, the sadder I take it; It portrays humanity at its worst, and I feel that it only challenges the worst of people.
