B"H
Its been a few years and Dan Brown's book "The Da Vinci Code" has lost a lot of its fame. Not only the book but the movie was famous. However, the author Dan Brown made the vital mistake of not following his old routine: Research and the courage of expressing controversial ideas despite the criticism coming from the church and Opus Dei.
After a long time, I watched the movie again a few days ago and finally came to the conclusion that the plot is rather boring. Judaism doesn't have a problem with anyone being married and lets say that the Jew J. had a wife - so what ? All our forefathers were married and so were Moshe, King David and all the others. And, as the AISH article says, marriage makes all those famous Torah figures human.
Okay, it is Hollywood but The Da Vinci Code doesn't give us any details about one of the two main character's Jewish background and doesn't even intent explaining anything. How does it work when a false Meshiach is married, has children and the children are getting married. Who is worthy of marrying into the false Meshiach family ?
When the last descendant of J., in the movie it is the woman SOPHIE, discovers that she actually comes from the family tree of King David (don't forget, it is Hollywood !!!) she stays with this Prior community and lets them protect her. This is not a nice Jewish end and so I will rewrite it:
Sophie finds out about her ancestors, she decides to learn more about her heritage called Judaism and announces that she is going to Jerusalem in order to study at a women's seminary. Or she, at least, goes to Chabad in Paris or London.
I don't watch movies as it is forbidden for us, but I am always told by many fellow Jews that a Jewish movie with an happy end is rare. Is it true?
ReplyDeleteIf it is true, so your happy ending is "un-Jewish" :-)
B"H
ReplyDeleteHonestly, I have never paid any attention whether a Jewish movie has a happy ending. Some movies end with the message HOPING FOR A BETTER FUTURE AND MESHIACH TO COME. Not always in an open way but HOPE is seen as positive.
Regarding the DA VINCI CODE, I just found it boring that the second main character discovers her Jewish heritage and throws it away for some weird Templar ideas. :-) It would have been a fraky ending if she had gone to Chabad or even Neve Yerushalaim in Jerusalem. J.'s descendants finally doing Teshuva.