"They speak truly but touch on only half the matter: we must go deeper." John Calvin
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Phil Tinker reviews a new movie. Taken is an intense action drama following an ex-government agent Bryan (Liam Neeson)…
…in his attempt to be more a part of his daughter’s life, Kim (Maggie Grace). Bryan has previously split up with his wife and his old job pulled him away from spending time with Kim, now he wants to make amends. Bryan’s sincere attempts to love his daughter are often thwarted until his involvement in Kim’s life takes an unexpected turn. Kim goes on a trip to Paris with a friend and Bryan’s concerns for her safety in such a city are confirmed when the naïve girls make friends with a stranger. It isn’t long before the two girls are ruthlessly kidnapped. Suddenly Bryan, with his ‘unique set of skills’ is the only one who can help his daughter.
The film is well made on many fronts. Liam Neeson is both lovable and terrifying as a father who will stop at nothing to rescue his daughter. The character development is carefully executed so that you grow a love for the right people and hate those against them even more.
This story has a particularly dark side to it. The kidnappers are involved with the sex trade into which Kim and her friend are sold into. While the film doesn’t go overboard in showing the horrors of this murky side of Paris, it is very much there throughout. On the one hand Taken could be likened to such programmes as 24. However, this side of the plot gives it a particularly dark edge that causes the viewer to take the kidnapping so much more seriously. Most of us have a limited grasp or awareness of the sex trade. By the time you have watched this film however, your understanding will have changed. Seeing the lovely teenage girl in her normal life at the start brings it home as to the fact that these girls are real human beings. They are as normal as the girl who lives down the road. Bryan’s determination to get Kim back is a force to be reckoned with. In many ways what you see in the film is his fatherly instinct to protect his family. Bryan’s profession means that he is very capable of protecting himself and infiltrating to get his daughter. This makes for some very violent fight scenes. They are incredibly well choreographed, think Bourne, but definitely with a 15 certificate. When watching this film, I and my fiancé who saw it couldn’t help being affected by the realities of the sex trade. Rightly we should be horrified by its existence. We should be reminded of its reality, involving real people, and we should hate it and pray against it. However, we couldn’t help but ask the question, how far away is the lust that drives the sex trade from our own lust? Is the lust in our hearts a different lust to those who run the sex trade? Is ours more ‘domesticated’? How far is it from pornography to prostitution? In thinking about the nature of sin we must be aware of the incredible sinfulness of our desires. In Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount he blew apart the Jewish concept of sin as an external offence to God. How easy it is for us to look at murderers and feel quite self righteous. But Jesus holds the mirror in front of our hearts and says, ‘If you hate your brother, you are subject to the same judgment as the murderer.’ How easy it is for us to look at those who commit these hideous crimes of adultery fueled by lust and feel so distant from it. Jesus again holds the mirror in front of our hearts and says, ‘But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.’ What this film helped us see was that all lust must be hated and fought. It is actually the same lust that lies in our hearts that lies in the hearts of those in the sex trade. Lust is a powerful desire that so easily grips us and our desires. The power of it is such that we should hate it and run away from it. Seeing the out-workings of lust in the sex trade should make us recoil in disgust at the presence of lust in our own hearts as we see it in all its ugliness. May Christ our treasure be so great in our hearts that lust has no room- O Jesus Christ, grow Thou in me, And all things else recede; My Heart be daily nearer Thee From sin be daily freed. (John Casper Lavater)
May I point readers to the article on this website entitled ‘Pornography and the Quest for Intimacy’ which deals more extensively and helpfully with the problem of lust.
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Blog - Look
| Online all the time |
One of the important things about the journal Still Deeper is that it is an online journal. I am a huge fan of books- my living room is full of them, as are most other rooms in the house. My wife alerts me to the fact that this is not to everybody's taste! At the time of the reformation, books were a new technology, invented and popularised by secularists. Humanists actually, to give them their correct title. Their technology was part of the reason for the spread of the reformation gospel. The age of the book lasted from then- till about our generation. It is not that books cease to be used now, rather that they no longer determine the shape of culture. That impacts the way people learn, think and do ministry.The internet is the new printing press. Most theology journals around are based on book formats. Costly, non-interactive, rigidly controlled by deadlines and overheads. Some have internet versions of their publishing- but it is usually just an online version of what is in print. Still Deeper hopes to connect more meaningfully with the post-book age, by using internet publishing in a way that takes full advantage of the internet medium. So Still Deeper has no publishing deadlines- we update articles and blogs frequently and regularly. We have no word count restrictions and welcome submissions from people worldwide. You don't need to be a famous Christian leader (!) to contribute. Our journal can utilise video, audio, pictures, comments, polls and other things not possible in paper format. In addition, while we welcome donations to cover costs- we are free to read and tell others about! Some readers have asked who designed our site. It was professionally designed- by a Christian company based in Egypt. They do a lot of good there generally, and I can highly recommend their services! |
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