Please review my film response essay (The Old Man Who Read Love Stories)

[fisa2001]

You can be as harsh as you'd like, I know it's crap

I'm an ESL student btw.

'Although you are not one of us, we welcome you to stay. As one of us.' How does 'The Old Man Who Read Love Stories' demonstrate tolerance?

The film ‘The Old Man Who Read Love Stories’ presents a message to the audience to show that the patience is a crucial requirement that comes along with the every human being. The quote, ‘Although you are not one of us, we welcome you to stay, as one of us’ reflects that it takes time and patience to be accepted somewhere which Rolf de Heer, the director of the film uses his motion picture to illustrate tolerance. Throughout the film de Heer demonstrates tolerance by defining tolerance as something that people are forced to do and something that needs to be abused in order to produce a positive outcome and de Heer also presents the outcome of disrespecting tolerance.

‘The Old Man Who Read Love Stories’ demonstrates that people tolerate themselves and do things that they are unwilling to do. People are forced to do things that they do not wish to do as they are threatened by the others. Whether it was a threat towards their own life, their loved ones, or other factors that they cherish people tolerate themselves from anger and allow themselves to be manipulated by the others. Antonio Bolivar, the ‘Old Man’ was just an ordinary man who wanted to be isolated from other human beings as it can be suggested by the long shot of the El Illdilio and Antonio’s house, where it is far away from the village and is surrounded by the nature. However, Antonio was forced to join in the hunt for the ‘crazed jaguar’ due to a threat from the Mayor who claims that Antonio’s house ‘belongs to the state and in case you’ve forgotten… I am the state around here’ and Antonio fears of losing his house as he had a flashback of the time when the Mayor used his authority to remind him who ‘owns’ the jungle. Hence the Old Man controls his emotions and unintentionally joins the hunt. Moreover, Josefina was a victim of the Mayor’s pimping for ‘extra money in my[his] pocket’ due to her lack of ability to provide herself in the jungle. The long moving shot of the nature, including the jungle and river, where El Illdilio is placed in suggests the broadness of the nature where it is filled with wild creatures. Hence for the sake of survival and the close shot of Josefina’s unhappy face when she was working as the Mayor’s prostitute conjectures that Josefina was forced into Mayor’s pimping. Therefore the film explores tolerance as a capability of dealing with doing unwanted things forcefully.

However, the film also exhibits that sometimes people need to overrule their tolerance to produce a positive outcome towards an issue. People risk themselves to receive the value that they deserve, which is why many workers around the world protest to obtain the wage that they believe is how much they worth or civilians strike against a country for their freedom or one raise their opinion to win an argument against another. Sometimes it goes to a failure, but it can sometimes give people what they demanded. In ‘The Old Man Who Read His Love Stories’, no one in El Illdillio had the courage to stand up against the Mayor due to his authoritativeness, which was followed by the shoulder shot where the camera would be shooting scenes at an angle from the top of the Mayor’s shoulder, showing his dominant power over the others. However, when the body of a Gringo was found by the Shaur and the Mayor accuses the cut’s on the dead body was done by a machete and blames the Shuar of killing the ‘American citizen, their government will start war if they found out’, Antonio defends them by logically proving that the cuts are from a jaguar’s claws. From his rebellious act, the Old Man shares the same authority as the Mayor as the camera’s angle changes and shoots both Antonio and the Mayor’s shoulders at an same angle, showing the Mayor’s lack of power towards Antonio and Antonio also reveals the Mayor’s ignorance and incompleteness to the citizens of ‘your majesty’s’ village as he mocks the Mayor’s accusation by saying ‘[it was done by] Four-bladed machete?’. Hence de Heer demonstrates tolerance in the film by showing that negating tolerance can bring positive outcomes towards a conflict.

Finally, as mentioned earlier, omitting forbearance can also cause disastrous outcomes. Raising one’s argument is crucial in order to get what they want, however it can upset the opponent as they show no respect to the other’s opinion, which ends in negative outcomes such as death, worse relationship between each other and such. Along with demonstrating tolerance, de Heer illustrates the importance of relationship between human and nature. In the film, white people, ‘Gringos’ are shown as a group of people who show no tolerance towards the nature, which can be seen from the shots of El Illdillio where the rusty buildings are modernized for the jungle, showing no sign of acceptance of adjusting to the nature. Gringos, who ‘kill for the sake of the killing’ have failed to forbid themselves from disrespecting the nature and ‘fucked us all up’ by recklessly killing 4 innocent jaguar cubs, which drove the mother jaguar insane who ‘is stronger than 20 men put together’ violently killed people in the jungle as can be seen from close shots of the cuts on dead bodies. ‘We do not hunt jaguars, their flesh isn’t edible and their skin can last a year…’ the Indians, Shuar people have a different chemistry towards the nature than the white people, the relationship that de Heer intended to present. They only kill animals to survive and when they do, they ‘capture their courage’, showing a sign of respect towards the opponent. Also the shots of the Shuar’s village show that the village is built with only the sources from the nature showing that they intend to ‘blend in’ with the nature rather than overtaking it. In result of their tolerance from the nature, both parties were never harmed from each other which is what the director has intended to do by comparing to cultures to show the outcome of failing to cooperate with tolerance.

In conclusion, The Old Man Who Read Love Stories illustrates the importance of the role tolerance in our lives which de Heer demonstrates it by showing how people tolerate themselves to do things that they do not wish to do and by illustrating the horrible results when tolerance has been ignored.  However, the film also defines tolerance as something that needs to be broken in order to achieve a positive outcome.