"Fleshing out ideas for my own projects, I saw three 'hero' movies today:
Black Panther (2018), The 15:17 to Paris (2018), and Samson (2018).
Black Panther (which I viewed in realD 3D RPX Dolby 7.1 Surround Sound (!)) was impressive and the best of the three by far, though the remaining two films — among the genres closest to my heart (documentary, historical fiction, historical drama, including the the chronicling of Biblical or religious histories and accounts) — are certainly well done and cinema worthy.
The 15:17 to Paris stars the three real heroes of the August 2015 Thalys terrorist attack: Spencer Stone, Alek Skarlatos, and Anthony Sadler. In my humble opinion, the film would have been excellent if the script had not only included the 'backstory' of these three courageous young men, but also the backstory of Ayoub El Khazzani, the thwarted terrorist, who was of the same age as the young men who ultimately confronted and overpowered him (though he was misrepresented as seemingly older in the film, in my humble opinion — another deficit for the film, sadly), thereby putting down the terrorist attack within minutes after it had begun. Had El Khazzani's backstory been included in the film, the eventual meeting of these four young men would have touched on a much deeper level, and the growing tragedy of young men becoming radicalized to terrorist ideology and terrorism (becoming 'anti-heroes', or 'tragic heroes' within the immoral context of the terrorist ideology which they have adopted) would also have been brought to the fore.
What life experiences and choices led Spencer Stone, Alek Skarlatos, and Anthony Sadler to define themselves as 'heroes'? What life experiences and choices lead Ayoub El Khazzani to tragically define himself as a 'villain' (or a 'tragic hero' within the immoral context of the terrorist ideology which he adopted)? What could each of these young men learn from the lives (experiences and choices) of the others?
Samson — told more from a Christian perspective than a Jewish one, in my humble opinion — would have been infinitely better if the Biblical story of his Divinely ordained conception and birth had been included, and if the character of the Philistine Prince Rallah had been more human, more complex, less one-dimensional (just as for Ayoub El Khazzani in The 15:17 to Paris).
The representations of Philistine women in Samson — Taren and Delilah, namely — approach greater depths, but also could have been even more well-developed. Sadly, female Jewish characters are not well-developed at all in the film, including Samson's mother. Here, particularly, including the Biblical story of Samson's 'miraculous' birth would have caused the film to blossom.
In Black Panther, it was lovely to see African people — both men and women, heroes and villains, African culture and African tradition (albeit, in a fictional context) represented with such depth and humanity.
Sadly, in The 15:17 to Paris and Samson, this same depth and humanity is lacking for Middle Eastern (or Middle Eastern and North African, in the larger sense) and Arabic culture, tradition, stories and people, including not only the antagonists Ayoub El Khazzani and Prince Rallah, but also the tragic Jewish hero, Samson, himself, as well as his own mother.
A true Middle Eastern (or Middle Eastern and North African, in the larger sense), Arabic, Muslim hero — whether historical or fictional — is something which the world is also direly in need of today."
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Copyright © Ruth Rachel Anderson-Avraham,
5 Adar 5778 / 19 February 2018 (night)
(As edited from the original text and published in other media
on Sunday, 23 Nisan 5778 / 8 April 2018.)
