Loading ...
`Since fall break, Hollywood has released more than ten different films. Most of these films will probably entertain the intended audience, but I encourage growth and diversity as intellectual film viewers. Why pay nine bucks to sit through mindless dribble like Beverly Hills Chihuahua, when there is such an incredible variety!
Once again, I have fulfilled the duty of research for you and found one of the most brilliant and thought provoking documentaries in years. It is called Religulous and is currently playing at Penn Cinema this week.
Religulous follows political analyst Bill Maher on a holy journey throughout the U.S., Europe and the Middle East to challenge the religious followers and leaders on the intellect of their beliefs. What results is an often hilarious and always thoughtful documentary that offers the questions that no person of a certain faith has had to answer.
As a documentary, Religulous is well developed and most importantly entertaining. Maher has a natural wit that carries the film into its different segments, and he never fails to offer logical explanations for why these certain belief systems are absurd. The director Larry Charles, the filmmaker that also directed Borat, has perfected this documenting style of mocking the average American without them discovering their stupidity until after the film is released. All of these religious followers described exactly what they believed, which provides the hilarity of the film.
For example, one preacher was once a gay man but later married a lesbian and had three kids because he thought God wanted him to be a heterosexual.
However, there is a shocking undertone to the film after it illustrates the tragedies caused in the name of religion. Fundamentalists of all three major religions taking turns killing each other in the name of their own God, does this not seem to be a paradox?
Many viewers may be put off by the film because of their own religious beliefs; however, the subjects of corruption and violence caused by these large-scale faith systems need to be understood and reformed. Maher does not attempt to humiliate any of these believers; in fact, they do an excellent job of it themselves.
He simply documents a quest to find the fallacies of organized religions, and why they create such followings. The lessons in this film remind me of a wonderful philosophy lecture I received from Dr. Smith, where he described the Existentialist principle that a person should live ‘this worldly,’ because no one has certainty about another world. If people lived their lives only thinking of this world, would there be as many murders in the name of God or homosexual males marrying lesbians?
Think about this world and see this truly excellent film. I will end this review with the same message that Maher ends the film: are the emotional and spiritual securities offered by believing in a major religion worth the violent conflicts and humanitarian consequences?
My Grade: A