“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand/ while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels[a] shouted for joy?
Job 38:4～７
Introduction.
2011 film The film begins with a quote from the Book of Job, which refers to God-given suffering. The protagonist, Jack, has grown up and had a successful life, but on the anniversary of his brother’s death in the war, he looks back to his own childhood, 1950. A strict father, a kind mother, whether to live a worldly life or leave it to God’s grace.
This article will be updated as a critique during the winter of 2024
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“When did you first touch my heart? “
I find myself saying the word world. When were we conscious of our ego and when were we conscious of God? The language of the book of the Bible attempts to take root in the nobility on a daily basis. For example, even Christians can choose their words biblically, conscious of the words of love, of the joy of birth and of the day on which they touched the world, or they can speak in modern terms, even without realizing it. Nevertheless, What has become the foundation of our sensitivity becomes Christian although we are not consciously aware of it. It is easy to match the words and values of the Bible over a long period of time, as they are latent in our daily lives. If you study the history of philosophy, including Western literature, you will know that Augustine put his object together in a philosophical way to God.（ In Japan, the pursuit of bliss and spiritual freedom, which are also guaranteed in Japan, was at the origin of Christian values） We also have Christian values in our hands in this manner, without being aware of them. But we rarely get a chance to make contact with God’s Word. The film dynamically shows the world and the open air against the background of the evolution of times of a distant American family. Nature is celebrated, as in the Old Testament, but the tiny family world is irreplaceable.
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In 1950, during the childhood years of the protagonist Jack O’Brien, the family reflected the conservative thinking of the Cold War period. But they were not dictated to by anyone.
but, as we grow up, Jack’s America is a place of skyscrapers, modern architectural homes, to which we feel a feeling of familiarity. This is because it closely resembles the cities we are witnessing. The family image was also, as the film begins, originally chosen by two persons who loved one another and created a family. And yet, if you show a strict father, a kind mother in neat clothes and a neighborhood woman of color, they settle into the structuralism of the ‘1950s’ era. The times are created by man, and if his work is freedom or stagnation, Considering this question, Or in philosophy, is it ‘structuralism’, the idea that what we think is unconsciously selected by our social systems? it is not surprising why the opening quotation was from the Old Testament book by Job. (Jack O’Brien for short: JOB)
Christianity is also often misunderstood, especially today, but the organization of Christianity does not directly determine one’s life. (Principle) Being a serious man, God gave Job all sorts of hardships. The story is about God answering Job’s questions. The meaning of this quotation from Job, about what controls the mind and makes it free, is to make us aware of the outer limits of those human creations. The exuberant natural beauty always present in the Old Testament stands for the very Father of Jesus in the New Testament: Jesus is also studying the Old Testament. When the mother in the film pointing to the sky and saying “That’s where God live”, it is the beginning of making the child aware of God, but is it the beginning of allegiance or a compass? To whom have we pledged our allegiance? What about our compass?
Some days the abode of God in the sky, where his mother taught him, is beautiful, and some days it is out of sight. God can give and God can take, and the remembrance that is with Job is no longer the time he had with his brother who was alive. It is a remembrance after the death of his brother. Why was the father so strict with his eldest son, the protagonist, it begins with the story of his father’s desire to become a musician. As a devout Christian, he never became a musician, preferring to work in a factory. His father was not proud of him and was rather stern with his eldest son, Jack, not wanting him to resemble him: Jack did what his dad said and was mature. While his father is away on business trip, he finds a brief rest with his sweet mother and a sense of freedom, But the neglect of his father’s absence brings Jack to turn slowly to delinquency. When his father returned from a business trip, Jack was rebellious.
Over time, the children grew up, only to receive news of their brother’s death in the war.
Research into the Vietnam War draft suggests that until 1975, conscription was by lottery. The eldest son, in contrast to his younger brother who passed away as a result of the lottery, became a winning adult, following in his father’s footsteps. With the details of how it happened, the film comes to the sea imagined by a spirit world that seems to be self-healing.
Is the father, who gives and takes away, like the God of the Old Testament？ and the kind mother like the Virgin Mary？ and yet where is Jesus, the savior Jesus is absent in this film.
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Christianity is also often misunderstood, especially today, but the organization of Christianity does not directly determine one’s life. (Principle) Being a serious man, God gave Job all sorts of hardships. The story is about God answering Job’s questions. The meaning of this quotation from Job, about what controls the mind and makes it free, is to make us aware of the outer limits of those human creations. The exuberant natural beauty always present in the Old Testament stands for the very Father of Jesus in the New Testament: Jesus is also studying the Old Testament. When the mother in the film pointing to the sky and saying “That’s where God live”, it is the beginning of making the child aware of God, but is it the beginning of allegiance or a compass? To whom have we pledged our allegiance? What about our compass?
Some days the abode of God in the sky, where his mother taught him, is beautiful, and some days it is out of sight. God can give and God can take, and the remembrance that is with Job is no longer the time he had with his brother who was alive. It is a remembrance after the death of his brother. Why was the father so strict with his eldest son, the protagonist, it begins with the story of his father’s desire to become a musician. As a devout Christian, he never became a musician, preferring to work in a factory. His father was not proud of him and was rather stern with his eldest son, Jack, not wanting him to resemble him: Jack did what his dad said and was mature. While his father is away on business trip, he finds a brief rest with his sweet mother and a sense of freedom, But the neglect of his father’s absence brings Jack to turn slowly to delinquency. When his father returned from a business trip, Jack was rebellious.
Over time, the children grew up, only to receive news of their brother’s death in the war.
Research into the Vietnam War draft suggests that until 1975, conscription was by lottery. The eldest son, in contrast to his younger brother who passed away as a result of the lottery, became a winning adult, following in his father’s footsteps. With the details of how it happened, the film comes to the sea imagined by a spirit world that seems to be self-healing.
Is the father, who gives and takes away, like the God of the Old Testament？ and the kind mother like the Virgin Mary？ and yet where is Jesus, the savior Jesus is absent in this film.
My interpretation as a Christian is that the film portrayed Jesus’ absence. A celebrated absence from Jesus is the three days before his resurrection after the crucifixion, but there is also a story in the Gospel of Mark, for example, of a master who goes on a journey. The film repeatedly turned our attention from the inside to the outside, and the trick was to turn our awareness towards the ‘absence’. Early in the story, Peter Rabbit’s father goes to Mr McGregor’s house, where he is later killed. Next is the father’s absence on a business trip.
Next is the father’s business trip. The final would be his brother’s conscription. The absence by crucifixion is extraordinary, but the absence of Mark’s Gospel fits into everyday life. In Mark 13:32-37, Jesus says that a person who leaves his house to go on a journey should assign the servants He assigned them tasks, gave them responsibilities and told the ‘gatekeepers’ to stay awake. To be able to open the door when the messiah returns.
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The film is based on the director’s own experience, his brother committed suicide (research 2022) I did not know this at the time of the film’s release in 2011, but when I looked it up recently, I heard the real story was his brother’s suicide, which seemed to make sense. The absence of Jesus (the Messiah) is a sign of this, and for the person concerned, it is an illusion that their faith has disappeared, but they have realized that this is not the case and that the sentiment is always Jesus who has gone on a journey. Nobody thinks that hope is on a trip when they are disappointed: Usually we see it as a loss of hope.
Having changed suicide to war death, the hatred of the father appears to be a transitory adolescent thing. By making these changes it seems like forgiveness to the director’s father.
There is one scene where the father admits and confesses that his educational policy was wrong, but the son, who grew up, forgives his father not to be wrong. Where did his brother’s soul go, did it go to heaven, “Why didn’t you (the Messiah) come?”, these are questions that cannot be answered easily. In the sense of creating something that cannot be settled, it celebrates the nature of the Old Testament, which is the Messiah travelling to the end of the world beyond our visibility. The reason why the Messiah’s presence was not clearly expressed is probably because the Messiah’s return is not certain.
Probably the reason he did not clearly express the presence of the Messiah is because we are not sure if he will return. Even if the noun faith becomes a verb, it cannot reveal its existence as a ‘noun’ to those who do not believe. Unless you find its existence in the other person’s mind, the messiah is in someone else’s thought. However, we are supposed to practice love as we should. That is kindness and forgiveness.
If you had to choose how to live, which one would you choose? Which life would you choose, to call the nature you witness worldly or to call it a blessing of God? Which would fulfil the heart of the real world you witness? Or which affliction would you accept? Suffering will always come no matter which you choose. When did the question definitively come to me?
At a Bible study group meeting, I was asked why I was baptized. One man replied that it was because of the miracles of Jesus. I had nothing to say. I can remember, in the middle of one of my seminars, I saw myself opening the revolving door and walking out. Looking up, all I see are skyscrapers and I lose my sense of direction. There was a scene in the movie where my dad lost his job: My father was also laid off from his company. This major restructuring of a large company was treated in a good way, as a rebirth of the company. My mother ran away from home and I had to rush to work, abandoning my dreams at the time. What did I need to know to be able to accept them, how many times the share price had increased with the sacking of my fathers? If it was by God that I was deprived, I thought I could have it again. If it wasn’t God, I would just be deprived. But what I knew was that now God was absent. For me, too, the Messiah was absent. After a long time, however, this event has ceased to be of any importance. The major foreign companies that tormented employees of the father’s generation back then pulled out of Japan last year. My mother has also come home. Yet, for me, Jesus is always absent. Tree of Life was not a highly regarded film, even for Catholic priests. And that’s just as well, because they can’t say anything other than ‘be present’ to them. For example, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” (Matthew 7:7), the world may also need a presence that gives hope.
I have a lovely cat in my house. He understands whether a kind word or a harsh word is spoken. My mother did not believe in God. I held this child in my arms and taught him about God’s house. I never heard my mother talk about God, but I still loved her voice. I wonder if what a mother being tells her child is about God or the beautiful sky. Even in the moments of time that pass by, I have found that I too receive love and then give it again. It was not an elaborate declaration of faith that was important. It was the words I love you.――It came from the Kingdom of Heaven.
Summary.
Tree of Life, a film released in 2011.
Despite being described as a Christian film, I had never seen this film rated by the Ministry.
By quoting the Book of Job, we are deprived of many things: the death of a classmate, the loss of his father’s job, the death of his brother, but there was no scene worthy of praise from God at the end of the Book of Job. It was thought to be a self-sacrificing, paisicidal film, with love as pain, a Christian peculiarity, but when I watched it again for some reason, I recognize there was no figure similar to Jesus, followed by a father, a mother like Mary, who is a symbol of God. The master of Mark’s Gospel goes on a journey, however, to the place where the master of the Gospel is not. The master of Mark’s Gospel goes on a journey, But while waiting for a person to be the ‘keeper’, so ‘the absence of Jesus’ was noticed.
In the real story, his brother committed suicide. ‘The absence of Jesus’ has been with me for a long time. But recently, hope has been travelling about absence, about whether to live in the secular or in God’s grace.
If nature or God’s grace, then the visual beauty of that nature may be the journey of Jesus, or so it seemed to me. In the real story, his brother committed suicide. ‘The absence of Jesus’ has been with me for a long time. But recently, hope has been travelling about the absence. Whether to live in the world(Nature) or in God’s grace.
If nature – God’s grace, then the visual beauty of that nature may be the journey of Jesus, or so it seemed to me. So, “stay awake.”
Chris Kyogetu 