Compare and Contrast two Films about the Religion - Movie Review Example

Compare and contrast that religion and the religious are dealt with the movie Matrix and Kundun Compare and contrast that religion and the religious are dealt with the movie Matrix and Kundun The movie Matrix and Kundun are two of the recent movies that have thick religious undertones. Kundun is obviously and patently Buddhist in its religious exposition as it is an autobiography movie of Tenzin Gyatso the 14th Dalai Lama and Matrix may be largely Christian in its narrative but it has also other religious undertone such as Buddhism. These differences and similarities of religious undertone will give us a wider perspective of how people in the world seek to interpret his or her Deity through an organized religion. Christianity as a religion is based on the belief that salvation can be achieved through its central figure who is Jesus Christ. According to the Christian belief system, Jesus Christ was sent by God the Father to save mankind from its sins as quoted by its Holy Bible “He who loves the world that He sent his only begotten son”. Christianity is a monotheistic religion that accepts no other god/s or any other form of worship other than the belief that it is only Jesus Christ that can and will save an individual. Any other religion outside Christianity is deemed as pagans or practicing paganism and will not be worthy of God’s heaven. It is also a punitive religion that believes in the existence of hell if one is a sinner and/or does not believe in Jesus Christ as Savior. Christianity’s largest sect is Catholicism with its figure head residing in the Vatican. The next second largest sect is Protestanism which is largely dominant in the United Kingdom, Ireland and Wales. Tibetan Buddhism on the other hand is a form of Mahayana Buddhism that started in Tibet beginning in 641 CE after the unification effort of King Songten Gampo. It formally evolved to Tibetan Buddhism in the Fifth Dalai Lama after a thousand years of the reunification effort. The ultimate goal of Tibetan Buddhism is to attain Buddahood, the highest state of enlightenment and continuous bliss where the mind is free from all obscurations. Tibetan Buddhism distinguishes itself by its teachings of Mahayana and Vajrayana. Mahayana teaches enlightenment of human beings in order to achieve Buddhahood that will liberate man from the cycle of birth and death. Mahayana enjoins a collective enlightenment because individual enlightenment cannot be achieved but only through a collective sense of compassion of being connected with the others (www.buddhanet.net 2008). Vajrayna is one of the ways to be enlightened and is peculiar with its rituals and practice of tantra which is another means to achieve enlightenment through the identity with tantric deities. Christianity is very obvious in the movie Matrix in several ways. The film obviously alludes to Christianity in its characters and various components of the film. For example, Morpheus ship is named Nebuchadnezzar which is a biblical character. On it also is inscribed the word Mark III No. 11 which could allude to a passage in Mark 3:11 in the Christian’s Holy Bible that reads "Whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and shouted, You are the Son of God! Neo’s characterization as the “One” who will liberate humanity from the “prison of the matrix” is likened to Jesus Christ’s resurrection. First he was killed in room 303 then resurrected after 72 seconds and rose to the heavens. The character of Trinity also obviously infers to the three main entities in Christianity which is God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Symbolically, she also resurrected Neo from the dead in the first matrix series. The religious concepts of Christianity in the Matrix such as resurrection and omnipotence of God is dealt with the abovementioned characters and scenes in the movie. The movie The Matrix can be said to syncretic in its religious undertone with several religious layers that can be interpreted in several ways. As Richard Walsh interpreted it in his article, the main character Neo in the movie The Matrix may be a Christ like figure with some justification, but the main character can also be said to have the elements of “bodhisattva, Platonic philosopher or [even] Alice wonderland (80). Even the other heroes in the film were said to be syncretic in order to appeal to a larger movie audience that would include, “Christians, gaming geeks, philosophers, and others can all relate to some piece of the mosaic that is Neo” (80 – 81). Kundun on the other hand was about the story of Tenzin Gyatso the exiled 14th Dalai Lama. The story begun from his discovery as incarnate of the 13th Dalai Lama in the province of Amdo where he passed the final test of distinguishing the things of the previous Dalai Lama (Demerath 2000). It ended with the arduous journey to India as the Dalai Lama is no longer safe in Tibet. In the final scene, the Dalai Lama was asked by the Indian border police asked him if he is the Lord Buddha. Instead of replying he is, the Dalai Lama replied that "I think that I am a reflection, like the moon on water. When you see me, and I try to be a good man, you see yourself." In this statement, the essence of Tibetan Buddhism was captured that Buddhism is a way for man in his quest to be better or attain Buddhahood. Reading between these lines, it only meant that the Dalai Lama is a reflection of man’s effort to be good and enlightenment. Contrasting these to the Christian’s central figure Jesus Christ, he would have answer that he is the “truth, the way and the life, and that no one can enter the Kingdom of His Father except through him”. If we will compare these two beliefs system, Tibetan Buddhism would strive for a state of bliss or a highest sense of happiness through liberation where the mind is freed from all obscurations. In plain language, Tibetan Buddhism would encourage its followers to strive to be better to attain bliss or happiness. In Christian belief however, one’s effort to be better is pointless and has no bearing towards salvation. Regardless of how bad a person is, he will be saved and will go to Heaven if he will believe that Jesus Christ is his savior. This was evident with the criminal beside Jesus Christ during crucifixion who believed and accepted Jesus Christ and was saved according to Christian belief system. This instance of the criminal’s salvation in the crucifixion substantiates the text in the Christian Holy Bible that Jesus Christ is the only Way and no one will go to His Father except through him and that man is already saved no matter how bad or sinful he or she is for as long as man will believe in Jesus Christ as his or her savior. Contrasting this to Tibetan Buddhism belief, the same criminal in the crucifixion will not be saved but neither will he go to hell because there is no hell in Buddhism. Instead, he may be reborn just like the Dalai Lama except that his reincarnation will be a lower life entity such as a cockroach and he must strive to be better in order to improve his being in the next lifetime until he attains Buddhahood. Unlike Christianity, Tibetan Buddhism strives for enlightenment instead of salvation. Though the Dalai Lama is the central figure among Tibetan Buddhism, he does not claim to be the path nor is regarded to be a savior but rather a spiritual teacher who teaches humility which made him appealing even in the Western world (Possamai 2009: 125). In sum, the similarities and differences of Christianity and Buddhahood can be gleaned in this table. Christianity Tibetan Buddhism Central figure Jesus Christ Dalai Lama Savior Spiritual Teacher Salvation Buddhahood/Enlightenment Accepting Jesus Christ as Savior Attain bliss and a mind that is free of obscurations. Resurrection Cycle of life and death Sinners go to hell Improve one’s karma In sum, Christianity only requires a belief in Jesus Christ as one’s savior and one will already go to Heaven as Jesus Christ is the only way to the God the Father. It does not matter if one is sinful such as the criminal in the crucifixion because one can be saved if one will accept Jesus Christ as the One True God. In Tibetan Buddhism, the Dalai Lama may have the same stature of Jesus Christ in Christianity except that the Dalai Lama does not claim to be a savior but a spiritual teacher. Christianity offers salvation while Buddhism offers enlightenment. With regard to ethical excellence however, Buddhism rivals Christianity and outshines it “in compatibility with science and thus modernity” (Prebish 1999:6). These religious concepts are difficult to reconcile with each other that we are better off respecting each other’s beliefs because they cannot be reconciled and any attempt to reconcile them can lead to conflict. Perhaps there is a degree of truism in the dialogue of Mao Zedong when he met with the Dalai Lama whereby he said that “religion is poison”. But probably it became a poison in Mao Zedong’s perspective because his conviction is based on another belief system of Communism which is atheism or the negation of any concept of a higher being or higher state of life. And as what we have learned about how the atheist communist treated the Tibetans, it is also no better than any other religion because it prosecutes and kills its dissenters This paper has only shown that it is man’s nature to seek for ways to understand and worship his or her Creator with the intention of getting better in the process. Bibliography Cusack, Carole M. (2011). The Western Reception of Buddhism: Celebrity and Popular Cultural Media as Agents of Familiarisation. ARSR (online) ISSN 1744-9014 Demerath, N.J. (2000). The Varieties of Sacred Experience: Finding the Sacred in a Secular Grove Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Vol. 39, No. 1 (Mar., 2000), pp. 1-11 Prebish, Charles 1999 Luminous Passage: The Practice and Study of Buddhism in America. University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA. Scorsese, Martin (1997). Kundun. Touchstone Pictures The Buddhist Schools: Theravada and Mahayana. (n.d.). The Buddhist Schools: Theravada and Mahayana. Retrieved January 22, 2014, from http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/buddhistworld/schools1.htm Walsh, Richard (2013). A Modest Proposal for Christ-Figure Interpretations: Explicated with Two Test Cases. Releger: Studies in Religion and Reception 3:1(79-97) Read More