15 Years: (15 Jahre) The movie with more on Yom Kippur
This is for some a review but maybe for others rather, some inspired thoughts after watching “15 years.” What a tumultuous story of stories with Omar of Syria, Harry and Dorothea Mangold, Fleischer or Gimmiemore, and of course the protagonist Jenny. Every character has some intersection with others and their backstories are often as complex as the mystery we are trying to solve.
Jenny was sentenced to prison for a murder she did not commit. In the framework of a love connection and a reality television show for people with disabilities, named Unicorn, Jenny deals with her pain and her desire for revenge, all in the matrix of the repeated message of Christianity: Jesus died to forgive us our many sins.
Mixed in is the troubled household of the religious ladies who deal in group therapy, and gain employment in odd jobs, cleaning at the airport or the conservatorium. They even sing an old favourite of mine and anyone who was born again in the 1970s, “Pass it on.”
The head of the pseudo convent, Frau Markowski, has her own troubles and a visit by a celebrity to the home rekindles her past. It is at the conservatorium that all these worlds collide, and the iron pipe and a knife rear their ugly heads again and again.
For me it was a very real story of redemption and forgiveness, of revenge, pain and suffering. Sometimes I go to the cinema and simply watch, sing along, or fog out. But this one, here on the airplane didn’t allow me to do that. What is my response to these challenging postulates and thoughts? What will be my response if I am falsely accused?
At the outset, the screen shows a quote by Jack Kornfield which reads, “Forgiveness is giving up all hope for a better past.” (Even though Jack attribes this quote to “someone”)[1] I wonder if the message of the cross, the simple death of the Jewish man Jesus, causes us to ponder this message of Kornfield.
Earlier this week I met with a Jewish man who well described the passion of Jesus as a horrible death, and his question to me, amid several questions, had to do with comparing the crucifixion to the deaths of others. Why the blood? Why so much talk about death? And if his death did something good, surely others who die more violently should produce other things?
All good questions, and reasonable.
The substitution of a ram in Genesis 22 when Abraham was told to sacrifice his son shouts ‘mercy.’ On Yom Kippur, we are told to sprinkle blood at the altar of the Tabernacle so that atonement could be made. You see, forgiveness is the oxygen we all need to make the past and the future merge today with real hope. Like the Yom Kippur sacrifice of the two goats (found in the Bible in Leviticus 16), one for the slaughter and the other, the scapegoat sent into the wilderness, we can have a substitute that lasts more than this German-made movie or an annually renewable contract.
More review: Some lines of significance are: “Do you listen to the lawyers when they tell you to lie?” That prompted many thoughts in my head.
“Talent knows no bounds”—that one made me ponder boundaries and that’s always a good thing. What else has no bounds?
“Killing two flies with one swat” is too brutal for Omar, so he tells Jenny the Syrian citation which is similar but “more peaceful”, “Lure two white doves with one kernel.”
Mixed in are great pieces by Beethoven, Schubert and Liszt which always is enjoyable.
Whether this was a good movie or not, this was a good-to-talk-about movie. As we enter the Jewish High Holidays season, forgiveness, the main component promised but rarely totally embraced, is God’s overarching desire to extend to Jewish people, and really, to all people. Jesus, accused of wrong-doing, innocent on all charges, dies in our place, as a substitute, and his blood was spilled about 2,000 years ago. Why? To be the kipporah, the sacrifice for atonement, for each of us, and to bring God’s love to the planet.
How will that happen? When will the far-flung peoples of the earth hear the Good News message of the cross of Jesus and the forgiveness that God wants to extend to each one?
Kurt Kaiser’s song “Pass it on” sung at the beginning, reminded me
“It only takes a spark to get a fire going.
And soon all those around can warm up to its glowing.
That’s how it is with God’s love,
Once you’ve experienced it.
You spread his love to everyone
You want to pass it on.”
You hear the message; you believe, you pass it on. Let’s share God’s love today with others. What do you say? Talent and forgiveness know no bounds.
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[1] We have all betrayed and hurt others, just as we have knowingly or unknowingly been harmed by them. It is inevitable in this human realm. Sometimes our betrayals are small, sometimes terrible. Extending and receiving forgiveness is essential for redemption from our past. To forgive does not mean we condone the misdeeds of another. We can dedicate ourselves to making sure they never happen again. But without forgiveness, the world can never be released from the sorrows of the past. Someone quipped, “Forgiveness means giving up all hope for a better past.” Forgiveness is a way to move on.
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