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Date Posted: 11:10:56 01/02/05 Sun
Author: Chris
Subject: Movie recommendation

After a recommendation given by Joe, yesterday evening I watched the DVD "The Remains of the Day" with my wife. It is a really great story and movie. Thank you for making me curious about it Joe, as I think otherwise I would have never watched it.

I think all current UBF and ex UBF members should view it. It gives you a lot to think about. The main focus here is not an evil autoratic regime - though the Nazi regime plays an important role in the movie, but only in the background - it is also not about obedience, but about serving. Whom do you serve? Is servantship in itself good? Is it good to turn over all moralical and ethical decisions to others whom you believe to be moralically "superior"?

Again, the movie theme is not Germans who obeyed their evil Nazi masters in the name of absolute obedience. The story is more subtle. In the movie (novel), the butler Stevens serves his master, Lord Darlington, very loyally and faithfully. Lord Darlington is a very good natured man, who, however, moralically fails completely, because he is too naive about the Germans and makes too many compromizes with their evil ideology in the name of "peace." Stevens, in turn, serves Mr. Darlington so loyally, but without ever caring to have an opinion of his own. He is just happy to "serve" and even carries out commands which are against his conscience, in the name of loyalty.

If you transfer it to UBF, Stevens can stand for an unquestioning UBF member who has handed over all moralic responsibility and decision making to the UBF leaders and just wants to "serve" (believing to serve God, but actually serving UBF in the first line) and does not want to worry about anything else. Lord Darlington can stand for a good natured UBF leader. He also reminded me a little bit of our dear Tony in certain aspects, also being the perfect English gentleman and advocate of "appeasement politics." (Sorry Tony, no offense, but I really had to think about you when I saw the movie.) Another UBF analogy is the failed marriage theme and the theme of people behaving unnaturally and untruthfully, e.g. people who love each other not being able to express their real feelings because of their wrongly understood roles of "absolute servantship."

Again, I highly recommend the movie to everybody. Much more ingenious than Samuel Lee's favorite movies such as "Gladiator" or "Glory." (Really, we had to watch them in our UBF center because Samuel Lee had recommended them.)

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