"Do you love God more than you love me?"

by compound complex 18 Replies latest social relationships

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  compound complex

  Controversial Love After his international hit "We Shall Overcome", director Niels Arden Oplev is back with a new drama about youthful rebellion against oppressive mores. Based on a true story, "Worlds Apart" takes an unblinking look at a teenage girl’s struggles, when falling in love makes her challenge the rigid principles governing the lives of Jehovah’s Witnesses. By Eva Novrup Redvall Published in FILM #62, February 2008

  "Worlds Apart" Photos: Jens Juncker-Jensen "Do you love God more than you love me?" 17-yearold Sara asks her father, sharply phrasing the central drama in Niels Arden Oplev’s "Worlds Apart": a teenage girl ostracised by her family and friends because she gets a boyfriend. Her father declares that he can't see her anymore if she chooses to be with her boyfriend, Teis. Sara presses him for an answer: Why does it have to be that way, she wants to know. Does he really love God more than he loves her? RELIGION DIVIDING PEOPLE Religion separates father and daughter. As Jehovah's Witnesses, Sara's family lives under strict rules, dictating what they can and cannot do. Arden Oplev's new feature, based on the real-life events of a young Danish woman, takes up big issues of what it means to grow up in a context that tolerates no dissent from the reigning dogmas. Arden Oplev’s last film, "We Shall Overcome", which won the Crystal Bear in Berlin two years ago, is about a 13-year-old boy, in 1969, who rebels against an oppressive school system personified by a draconian headmaster. In "Worlds Apart", Sara challenges the rules and mores of a rigid religious system. The two films are quite different, both in story and style, but Arden Oplev openly admits that they both deal with issues that are very close to him. "To zoom in on why I made this film, again it's about how adults treat children that are in their power, that are their responsibility," Arden Oplev says. We are in a Copenhagen café, as the Danish director takes a breather from the demanding preproduction for his next project, adapting Stieg Larsson’s bestselling mystery novel, "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo", shooting later this year in Stockholm with a Swedish cast. "The law says parents can't hit their children or sexually abuse them. You can’t mistreat them, but you are allowed to brainwash them all you want, whether in the name of communism, racism or any other fundamentalist thinking," Arden Oplev says. "Probably, that's not something you can legislate, but you can make a film raising concerns about what it leads to."Many films have been made about people drawn into various sects or cults," he says. "But there have not been a lot of films about what it means to be born into and grow up in a sect. What happens when that's all you've ever known and you're suddenly forced to add nuances to what you've learned? What do you do when your image of the world completely shatters and you have to survive? "Worlds Apart" takes up those issues and, of course, I hope the film will generate debate." TRUE STORY After "We Shall Overcome", Arden Oplev was having a hard time deciding what film to do next, when the story for "Worlds Apart"came to him suddenly on an ordinary day in April 2006. "I was reading a really good story in the paper, written like a gothic tale, about a girl, Tabita, who is expelled from the Jehovah's Witnesses. Her story really touched me," Arden Oplev says. "At the same time, I thought it would be exciting to do a story that had never been done on film before in Denmark. Her story was eminently suited for film, which deals with emotions much better than any piece of reporting ever can, no matter how well written. "As a filmmaker, I'm in a phase now where a story's emotions are very important, plus I’m interested in religious stories. My personal view of metaphysics is like the old Bergman quote: Your heart is religious, but your brain is atheistic. It's exciting to explore the relationship between reason and feelings. And after "We Shall Overcome"I felt it was important to find material that I could connect with emotionally," the director says. "What Tabita went through completely fascinated me." Arden Oplev and his regular screenwriter Steen Bille got in touch with the two reporters who wrote the story, and they hooked them up with Tabita. Arden Oplev and Bille did a five-hour interview with her that became the raw material for the film. "Once I had talked with Tabita, I knew I had to do this film," Arden Oplev says. "I was even more fascinated now, because there was so much going on in her story that we never would have thought of ourselves. "Later, we obviously changed certain things to dramatise the story, like the part about denying someone a blood transfusion. In the film, Sara's friend dies after an accident. In real life, it was someone else, but we needed it to be someone we had connected with in the film to make it relevant to the main story. Such changes are always debatable when your film is based on a true story. How far can you go? I’m sure if you took apart "Erin Brockovich", you would find corners cut and things added," the filmmaker says. DRAMATISED DOGMAS Arden Oplev and Bille did extensive research into the Jehovah's Witnesses. They wanted their story to be as truthful as possible regarding the community's faith and way of life. "We took great pains to represent their faith as correctly as possible," he says. "I talked with former Witnesses, I read their literature and visited their church. But of course, you have to deviate at certain points. We couldn't always stick to the exact format of a prayer meeting, for example. Someone is also bound to point out that all Witnesses aren’t as strict as the ones in this film, but I never said I was portraying one of the less orthodox families. "The story has been condensed to a couple of months from a couple of years. We also chose to link two central Jehovah's Witness dogmas. One is that we are living in the last days. The other calls for expelling anyone who does not act correctly. Linking the two, expulsion equals a death sentence, since outcasts won't survive Armageddon and be part of a new and better world. We pushed that point. Some would say too hard. But for me, part of the reason for doing a film about the Jehovah's Witnesses was showing how those two dogmas bring things to a head – for everyone, but especially for the children," the director says. "I do not presume to judge these people. I don't judge anyone. Personally, I think it's wrong of the father to cast out his own child, but I can't make myself the judge of why or how someone would make that decision, since I didn't grow up a Jehovah's Witness myself," he says. "Ultimately, so many people end up doing the same things, believing the same things, as their parents. Say, becoming every bit as conservative as them," Arden Oplev says. TOUGH CASTING Sara, the lead, is played by Rosalinde Mynster, 17. For Arden Oplev, casting is always difficult, but especially so when having to rustle up fresh new faces. "Casting is really hard and I’m completely neurotic about it," he says. "I still wake up in the middle of the night in an anxious sweat worrying about how "We Shall Overcome"would have turned out if we hadn't found Janus for the lead. "Finding the right person to play Sara was just as tough, and just as crucial, because the acting is so central to this film. It's a completely simple, bare-bones story, with no car chases or anything else thrown in," Arden Oplev says. "I hadn't done a realistic film set in the present in a long time, and I found the filmic simplicity of everything hinging on the acting to be very attractive," he says. "If the story had been told from another angle, it would have been 'just' another story about young love. But it's not, because a huge absurdity lurks in the middle of the apparent simplicity. Sara and Teis live in a parallel reality that only looks exactly like ours," the director says. "On the face of it, Sara's family looks just like any other family. But beneath the seeming normality, there's a hidden layer of absurdity. Take the part where Sara and Elisabeth are reading with their younger brother August. They look like any other ordinary kids doing homework, except the subject they are studying is the end of the world and Jesus Christ as the commander of the heavenly armies! "The family's fundamentalist Christian faith puts everyone under pressure," Arden Oplev says. "Perfectly normal, simple situations, like your daughter wanting to go to a party or meeting a boy, instead turn into insurmountable problems." Shooting the first part of Stieg Larsson's "Millennium Trilogy"in the spring (the three novels have sold nearly two million copies in Sweden alone) is a change of pace for Arden Oplev. As the title implies, "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"is an altogether more fiery affair, with murder, mayhem and exploding cars. "Worlds Apart" has only hellfire," the director jokes
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  llbh

  Great post and as you and many know i might yet be in a similar position.

  I look forward to seeing the film

  Regards david
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  White Dove

  Will U.S. people get to see it, too? When will it be released?
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  compound complex

  From Short Review - NY

  **** (Four stars)
  Best known for getting doors closed in their faces, Jehovah’s Witnesses are in the spotlight of this complex Danish drama directed by Niels Arden Oplev. Based on true events, the story centers on a family of Witnesses who must decide—under difficult circumstances—if their love of God is greater than their love for one another, as their faith teaches them. Bringing about this Edenic fall, or so it seems, is 17-year-old Sara, who is blissfully devout until her hormones lead her into the arms of a nonbeliever (as we learn through a series of falling-in-love-in-the-rain scenes). But Sara, we soon discover, isn't the only one questioning her faith and her family. During this emotional tug-of-war, Worlds Apart starts to resemble a sort of religious version of Survivor, where a single misstep—adultery, premarital sex, challenging the views of the “elders”—can get you booted off Jehovah’s island. (Is anyone from CBS reading this?)—Erin Wylie, Seek editor.
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  Nosferatu

  Preview (not in english):
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsOR9rqCVwM
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  restrangled

  That question CC is how I found this website.....my mother chose the JW's over me after a new CO told her to shun me....I have been out for at least 20 years. Not DF'd or anything else. I always supported my mom in her beliefs.

  It was one of the most painful things I have ever been through in life other than my 20 year old brothers death, or my father's.

  .....Its been almost 3 years since she announced she decided she was shunning me, and there has been huge history between us since and its changed but it is very clear on my part that if she ever pulls off the shun BS again....it is all over. There will be no forgiveness on my part.

  Thanks to all on JWD that I was ever able to get to this point.

  r.
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  compound complex

  Thanks, everyone, for your comments and the link, Nosferatu.

  White Dove:

  What I gather from the information I've just posted and what I've read elsewhere, this film will be distributed in the USA and might even be remade (I infer more specific to an American audience).

  Dave:

  I hope your situation will be more happiness and less grief. Good to see you again as I've been away a month. Thanks.

  r:

  Your story is heartbreaking and I'm hoping that this movie - if it does become a hit worldwide - will open hearts and minds. It has deeply affected me. Will it likewise others?

  Gratefully,

  CoCo
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  Hortensia

  I wondered where you were, CoCo. Hope all is well. Haven't seen the movie, but am not surprised that someone made this kind of movie. JWs are a big enough organization AND pretty weird as far as most people are concerned. Enough so that there is an audience for the film
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  compound complex

  August 21, 2008

  Oscars – Denmark Worlds Apart already ready for Oscars In a surprisingly early announcement, representatives of the Danish film industry have already voted in favour of submitting Niels Arden Oplev’s Worlds Apart as this year’s Danish entry for an Academy Award nomination in the Best Foreign Language Film Category. Based on a true story, the youth drama tells the story of a 17-year-old girl raised in a Jehovah's Witness community who must choose between her family and her new love, a non-believer. The film produced by Nordisk Film is this year’s second biggest local hit in Denmark, with over 315,000 admissions since February. (The article continues below - Commercial information) Worlds Apart, which had its international premiere at the Berlin Generation 14+ section, was recently sold by TrustNordisk to IFC Entertainment in the US. Nordisk’s Head of Production, Kim Magnusson, has great expectations for the movie in the US. “We have had a lot of positive reactions to the movie, at the Tribeca Film Festival and in a review in Variety, so I am convinced that the controversial subject will concern a large audience in USA just as it did in Denmark,” he said. Having a US distributor is often crucial to having the right marketing campaign and weight with the members of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Science. Denmark has twice won the coveted Oscar statuette – in 1988 for Babette’s Feast and in 1989 for Pelle the Conqueror. Last year’s Danish contender was Susanne Bier’s After the Wedding [trailer, film focus]. The Oscars nominations will be announced on January 22, 2009 and the Hollywood ceremony will take place on February 22. Annika Pham
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  compound complex

  From Alissa Simon’s Variety review: "Based on a true story, this provocative, well-turned drama … raises universally pertinent questions about fundamentalist thinking without portraying Witnesses’ beliefs as inherently crazy or evil."

  Niels Arden Oplev also co-wrote the screenplay with Steen Bille. Also in the Worlds Apart cast: Jens Jorn Spottag, Sarah Boberg, and Anders W. Berthelsen.

  The Oscar 2009 nominations will be announced on January 22, 2009. The awards ceremony will be held on February 22, 2009.