 |
Buy Molokai: The Story Of Father Damien Blu-Ray at Amazon..
Product: Molokai: The Story Of Father Damien Amazon Price: Sale Price Too Low To Display Availability: In Stock |
Compare Prices on Molokai: The Story Of Father Damien
Molokai is the tale of a priest, Father Damien, who chose to exercise his life serving in a leper colony. The movie is a daring yarn of grand compassion and persistence in the face of physical hardship and isolation. Filmed on position on the Hawaiian Island of Molokai, the scenery is fine, and it touches on the history and culture of Hawaii. I found the movie very, very tantalizing, but some may come by the conditions of the lepers too depressing to occupy.
An Australian, David Wehan plays the role of Damien. Two other actors you may ogle are Kris Kristofferson and Peter O’Toole, who both play lepers. Peter O’Toole, who I never like previously, seems to have really enjoyed his role.
Molokai is one of the more remote Hawaiian Islands. During a leprosy epidemic in Hawaii during the mid-nineteenth century, the government established a peninsula on the island of Molokai as a leper colony. It was chosen because it was so difficult to win to or rush from.
Buy,Download, Or Stream Molokai: The Story Of Father Damien! Click Here
In the movie, there is a scene where, instead of transferring the lepers to rowboats, the crew forced the lepers at gunpoint to jump overboard and swim to shore. These included women and children. In the exact historical incident, some people drowned, some died from injuries from being bashed against the rocks on the beach, and others died on shore of exhaustion. Although not shown in the movie, often, ships depositing lepers would tie a rope from the ship to land and the lepers had to climb hand-over-hand to shore.
Father Damien had grown up on a farm in Belgium. He was very strong physically and was an experienced carpenter and builder. Before going to Molokai, the historical Father Damien had been a parish priest and pastor in several parishes in the Hawaiian Islands. He learned to suppose Hawaiian and understood native Hawaiian culture. In the opening sequence of the movie, Father Damien is shown helping some Hawaiians perform a house. Bounty hunters reach on horseback to acquire away suspected lepers. Villagers urge and conceal. The scene is reminiscent of the slave catchers in Roots. Historically, before going to Molokai, Damien experienced parishioners being taken away to the colony, and he had assisted people in avoiding the bounty hunters (not shown in the movie) .
Father Damien volunteered to be assigned to Molokai. Damien’s bishop instructed him to capture all measures to avoid infection. In the movie, we watch Damien simply ignoring the instructions. In historical fact, after two months on the island, he formally requested permission from the bishop to risk infection. He did this because it was the only arrangement he could collect the lepers trust.
The leper colony was a living hell. When Damien arrived in 1873, there were six hundred lepers with inadequate housing and food, and no doctors, nurses, or medical supplies. Essentially, there was no law. Gangs of physically able lepers looted the belongings of the very sick. Prostitution and pedophilia were rampant. The bodies of the expressionless were either thrown into a ravine or buried very shallowly, where they were dug up and eaten by wild pigs. To be definite, with the arrival of Damien, there was a valuable improvement in the lives of the lepers, but in the historical reality, the conditions and problems Damien faced were far worse than depicted in the movie.
Buy,Download, Or Stream Molokai: The Story Of Father Damien! Click Here
Besides serving as priest, Damien’s construction worker skills were invaluable. He built, supervised, or organized volunteer labor to produce hundreds of buildings-over half the buildings in the settlement. When he arrived, there was no running water. He built a pipeline (In the movie, there is no pipeline) . Damien cleaned and bandaged wounds and amputated gangrenous limbs. The son of a farmer, he taught the lepers to grow crops (not shown in the movie) . He was the island’s undertaker, funeral director, grave digger, and coffin maker-he built over 1,600 coffins. He also witnessed seven murders (not shown in the movie) .
Besides having no resources to care for the sick, Damien had constant conflicts with both the government health authorities and his occupy religious order. In addition, he had many critics in the medical and clerical professions. The Hawaiian government’s board of health didn’t like him simply because he made them peer poor. He alone was accomplishing orders of magnitude more for the lepers than the whole set government. His religious order was not able to provide any other permanent people to support, until advance the raze of his life. To their credit, they tried, but the only other people they could earn to go to Molokai were misfits that were so unpleasant, Damien sent them befriend. The order had other priests in Hawaii doing obliging work, and they didn’t like Damien getting all the publicity.
Father Damien did not go to the leper colony impartial care for their bodies, although he did so tirelessly. He also went to set their souls. In the movie, it is very enthralling to peruse Damien administer the Sacraments. He buries lepers with half-bodies of rotting flesh, with all of the dignity and respect that one would inquire of to be given a member of high society in Paris or Rome. Right historical witnesses on Molokai said that Damien said Mass every day with the utmost reverence and liturgical decorum in a miniature chapel filled with lepers bleeding and spitting, with Damien seemingly oblivious to an almost unbearable stench of rotting human flesh.
Since 1944, medicines have been developed that halt leprosy from being contagious and spreading within the body. The colony on Molokai was disbanded in 1969. At the time of the filming, there were forty-seven surviving patients from the settlement. Today, they are free to reach and go as they please, although they all feel like outcasts shunned by society. A number appeared as extras in the movie. Today, Hawaiians mediate Damien to be one of the sizable heroes of their place.
Buy,Download, Or Stream Molokai: The Story Of Father Damien! Click Here
When I ordered this DVD I knew a bit about the life of Fr. Damien but nothing about the film. I expected it to be “honorable fare” but not considerable better. What a surprise! Molokai is as reach to being a perfect film as could ever be made. It is an captivating and engaging fable that is told without any of the over-sentimentality one might put a question to from a “religious” film. The screenplay is amazing – absolutely believable and natural dialoge delivered flawlessly. The cinematography is breathtaking and the soundtrack is, well, I’m going to track it down to seize it – a first for me. So mighty for the technical stuff. Fr. Damien was an wonderful individual and an ideal priest. The film portrays this with big respect as it does with the Catholic Church in general – another rarity these days! There are at least a dozen scenes that stand out as illustrations of suitable virtue in practice and from which we can blueprint inspiration to improve our bear characters. This is a fair film in every sense and will remain in my top 10 list of all time vast movies.
The First Years Baby Products
Dex Baby Products
Baby Teething Products