Dogville - An Easter Story

Film Formula Well, dogs don't have souls - that's the point.

Dogs don't need salvation, because it's not possible for them to be guilty of anything. They are incapable of moral culpability, they merely react to their surroundings, and act to service the requirements of their inner erotic (in the true, broader sense of the term) drives, in accordance with both innate instincts and conditioned learned behaviour.

What distinguishes Men from Beasts is the quality of Creative Imagination - we can create parallel universes or pocket dimensions inside our minds whenever we feel like it, and we do, all the time. 

Because, since Man is created in the Living Image of God, having all of the aspects and abilities of God, Man is capable of creating entire universes using just our imagination and preserve the establishment of our Creation by means of describing it with the use of The Word, The Logos. Also referred to as the Krishna Consciousness or Christ Consciousness.

No animal is capable of that - whales may sing, but there is no whale art. It's just an expression of exactly how the whale is feeling in that particular instant, an outpouring of pure emotional need. Just like a dog, howling at the moon.

Note also Grace's tutelage of the schoolkids of the town - all named after Gods and Heroes of the Greek Pantheon.

At one point, Grace reminds their mother about how she had specifically taught one of her children in the principles of Stoicism - "In a way in which he finally understood it."

Pre-Christian Graeco-Roman were unencumbered and unhampered by the central paradox of Judeo-Christianity, which Islam was subsequently wise enough to dispense with once more - the problem of suffering tolerated by a loving and all-powerful God.... That suffering has to mean something, has to serve some higher purpose, that suffering in and of itself is noble and redemptive - that suffering is all part of The Plan, and the more you suffer (or cause yourself suffer), the better and more righteous a person you are as a consequence.

It's simply not true.

The Classical Era Greeks and Romans understood that suffering doesn't mean anything, it isn't noble, nor does it mean anything about who you are when it happens to you, or anything you might have done to warrant such injustice - all it means is that you crossed paths with someone bigger and stronger and they beat you, because that's what ALWAYS happens. Suffering is to be endured - you should always try to never take it personally.

You are not being punished, and God does not hate you.

If you had angered the gods, you would very quickly know about it - Apollo does not arrange for you to be given parking tickets because you offended him and abused the sanctuary of his temple and his High Priestess. He sends monsters.

Suffering is to be endured, then forgotten about at the earliest convenience.

The crucial line is : "A generous God had blessed her with the rare ability to look ahead - and ONLY ahead."

Everyone would be a Saint if relieved from the burden of self-doubt, recriminations, embarrassment and guilt, free their minds from past confusions and ignore, disregard and look past the ugliness of the present.

Why else would people beg to be spanked...?