BELOVED

 

ONE STAR – Denny; THREE STARS - Hal

 

 

        While we rarely disagree in our reviews, we had very different reactions to the movie “Beloved.”  Denny left the theater feeling troubled that the film was void of the good which conquers evil.  Hal saw that even in the most destructive of situations, God will find a way to intervene.  We both agree that this is a very difficult film to watch.

        Based on the novel by Toni Morrison, “Beloved” is a fictional tale of a woman who is so devastated by the evil of slavery that she is willing to kill her toddling daughter rather than allow her to be taken back into that horror.  This murderous act proves itself to be a choice which only further enslaves her soul as her daughter’s ghost haunts and torments her life.

        Set within the 1800’s in our divided nation, Sethe (Oprah Winfrey) is a pregnant slave on a Kentucky plantation named Sweet Home.  Under the domination of a vicious slave master, Sethe and her husband make plans to escape with their three children to his mother’s home in Ohio.

        But on the night of their escape, they become separated and Sethe returns to the plantation to find her husband.  Upon her return, she is beaten, raped and sexually degraded by the master and his sons.

        There is no justification or excuse for such evil.  The enslavement and brutal treatment of our fellow human beings is a moral and spiritual scar upon the soul of our nation. 

        Sethe, having barely escaped that night, gives birth to another daughter and is reunited with her children in Ohio.  The joy of their reunion is cut short when she flies into an insane panic upon seeing her former master riding up to the house with the local sheriff. 

        Knowing he has come to take her children back into slavery, she runs into the shed, slits the throat of her two year old daughter, Beloved, and hits her sons’ heads with a shovel.  Her sons recover, but Beloved’s ghost violently haunts Sethe’s home and life.

        This surreal expression of her guilt is disturbing to see.  The ghostly temper tantrums of this murdered girl shake the foundations of Sethe’s home.  Her two sons flee in terror.  Her younger daughter, Denver (Kimberly Elise), surrenders in a morbid alliance with her mother and the ghost, never leaving the house and yard.  And Sethe herself creates an unholy loyalty to the abusive reactions of the demonic presence.  Denying that she did anything wrong in “making my daughter safe,” she is unwilling and unable to seek help in her travail.

        This is often the way evil takes over our lives.  Rather than having the courage to face the evil we ourselves suffered, we instead perpetuate the violence on our own children.  Then, in denial of our own responsibility, we accept the torment of our guilt and shame with a false sense of dignity and loyalty rather than seeking forgiveness and victory over the evil.

        When Paul D. (Danny Glover) comes into Sethe’s life, she experiences a rekindling of love and self-esteem.  But the presence of Beloved’s ghost (brought to life by Thandie Newton) is as real and demanding as a spoiled child.

        This is one of the more disturbing moments of the film.  The embodied demonic presence is shown as a grown woman who has a toddler’s tastes, emotional needs and self-centeredness.  The presence of Beloved, whether real or the traumatic emotional response to Sethe’s brutal experiences on the plantation, is seductive and destroys everything in its path.

        Unable to withstand the presence of this evil, Paul D. leaves Sethe’s home.   This leaves Sethe and Denver completely under the spell of Beloved.  Sethe impulsively spends her entire savings on clothes, toys and sweets to please Beloved.  But in her manic state, she is fired from her job and becomes homebound herself.  Denver must then leave the home to make money for food for her mother and Beloved to live.

        Finally out of the home, Denver confesses the truth of her mother’s demonic possession to her grandmother’s friend.  It is here where healing begins to take place when a group of former slave women who are Christians come to Sethe’s home to sing, pray and hold up crosses.  While Sethe may have been destroyed by the evil she experienced, it is this intervention of God through His people that finally provides a path for the healing of Sethe’s daughter, Denver.

        “Beloved” is a disturbing film about the impacts of the evil of slavery on multiple generations.  From Denny’s perspective, “Beloved” was a spiritually destructive experience leaving Sethe enslaved in her pain pining for her “Beloved.”  Hal, on the other hand, left the film with a sense of hope that Christ had entered into the deepest evil of slavery and freed its daughters and granddaughters with a faith that is deeply felt to this day.

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