Who kills "people" is not a sin?

Kendall 2022-02-04 08:15:34

"When you look long into an abyss . The abyss looks into you".
This work is about the death penalty. The whole film is divided into six chapters, and the rhythm of the whole film is also promoted by these six chapters. At the beginning of the viewing, I knew Herzog's point of view: against the death penalty.
This kind of subject matter also holds this point of view, so I guess the form is a large number of interviews and stacking of group portraits. But from the first paragraph, I got stuck. The crime, using a large number of police live video to expose the crime, two young people took the lives of three other people with brutal methods, and the crime was inexcusable.
Interviewing the deceased brother, Herzog said, "Describe your brother." Ten years after the incident, he still had to try his best to restrain his emotions, clearing his throat several times to hide his crying. "My brother is my best friend," he said. The victim's sister also said, "My brother is my best friend."
"Although there is no better way for them to be punished, the death penalty is undoubtedly the easiest one," I thought. At the same time, I am even more puzzled. In order to realize his creative intention, Herzog undoubtedly chose the most difficult one, taking death as the origin, and taking the first step with him from the landmark of evil.
So enter the second chapter, two interviews with acquaintances, while they paint the portrait of the criminal, they also outline the outline of Conroe: poverty breeds, crime occurs frequently. Learning to read in prison is the only good thing among the bad things. Of course, none of this can lead to an understanding of the criminal himself, but our understanding of the criminal has become clearer. He grew up in such a Conroe, so this chapter is: The dark of Conroe.
Chapter 3 talks about time. Is death the end of individual time? The passage of outer time never stops, but what about our inner time? In this paragraph, Jason said, "If I get out of prison in 2041, I will be 59 years old, and I will be 19 years old when I come in." Jason's father's concept of time is vague, and the victim's sister said that she was unable to communicate with others normally for four years. Everyone at the center of the event was tormented in their own inner time. This kind of discussion is actually very weak. The victim's time stays at the moment of death, and the time of the death row prisoner is the same. They died prematurely and lost the possibility of their future, as did the two criminals. For those who have died, what can bring them to rest? If it is a life for a life, two people are not enough to pay for the lives of three people. Just as Wu Fei mentioned in his analysis of "Alive" with the theory of suicide, "It is not the fate of Youqing who returned to Chunsheng."
I don't think Herzog himself could answer this question. He opposed the death penalty, arguing that "people should not be executed by your country, there is no room for debate on this matter...I think the only exception is a state of war". But the victim's sister said she felt relieved after Michael died. This is a rebuttal to Herzog's point.
Before I had always wondered why Herzog had laid out the sin itself in such detail that the pain of his relatives could be seen at a glance, it was unacceptable that he wanted to express his opposition to the death penalty.
Now it seems that this is a better way. Except for wrongful convictions (unknown to bystanders at the time), criminals sentenced to death have committed cruel crimes. While presenting such and such facts to the audience, Herzog conducts his own "objective" exploration. The object of his observation is not death row prisoners, but "people". He tried to oppose the "people" who were obliterated by the state. Returning to the focus on the ontology of human beings, there are several subsequent paragraphs "A glimmer of hope", "The protocol of death", and "The urgency of life".
So far, the inner narrative of this film can be divided into two parts: those who push others into the abyss of death also fall into the abyss; those who push hands and fall into the abyss are both "human" in nature.
Michael and Jason killed three people, one to life and one to death; Jason's father was sentenced to life in prison for murder when he was a child; the captain of the firing squad executed more than 120 people; the victim's sister went to see Michael in person was sentenced to death. Among these people, the deprived and the deprived are immersed in their own pain. Even if we speculate that the murderers were unrepentant and enraged, they are still suffering. Not to mention the possibility of misunderstanding from the sidelines, pain is just pain itself.
Herzog opposes the death penalty, because the object of the death penalty is "people", and the close relationship between "people" and themselves is the driving force for his creation of this work. In the fourth chapter, Jason's wife is interviewed, who is convinced that Jason was involved in the matter but definitely did not kill. Before marrying Jason, she ran around for Jason, whom she had never met. Jason wrote to his mother that he had fallen in love with her. After the girl found out, she drove two days and two nights to see him in prison, and that was the first time they met. She said that when she left the prison, a rainbow appeared in the sky, from me to Jason. Seeing this, some people should feel ridiculous and nervous.
But this is the "human" emotion, which the onlookers find funny, ugly and superficial, but it does exist objectively in this way. Can you kill that feeling because she loves a criminal? Even if we, as bystanders, despise it, we know we can't.
Herzog does not seek answers to the audience's concern, "In what way other than the death penalty can they be punished, and in what way can they experience the same amount of pain as the victim?". Personally, I think that the prisoner must have mentioned his feelings for the victim in the interview, but very little is reserved in the film. Michael almost always talks about his own feelings. It made him appear cold-blooded.
However, Herzog does not seem to be trying to prove their point that "people" should not be put to death. So he does not shy away from the brutality of the murderer, nor does he shy away from the mourning of the victim's family. He put the tragedy and life in the film, and what we see is that they are "people" at the origin of the criminals who are about to be sentenced to death and those who are sentenced to life.
They have no right to take the victim's life, but when it happens, they are sinful. So who has the right to deprive "people" of their lives, is it an innocent person? Or are we?
"When you look long into an abyss . The abyss looks into you" is an answer that can't be called an answer.

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Extended Reading
  • Katheryn 2022-04-22 07:01:56

    This is a documentary pondering the weight of the death penalty, and Herzog presents every aspect of (a) death penalty through interviews with the people involved. Regarding the abolition of the death penalty, I once thought it was imperative, but after watching the film, I felt that this should be a matter of reprieve-or, even if the death penalty was abolished, it should also be conditional and step-by-step.

  • Audie 2022-03-27 09:01:23

    Does a man deserve to die when he commits a crime? Think about it. Except for nature, who has the right to judge others dead. Think about it. . . We don't have to discuss it, this is not a discussion. Nor is it an opinion. . . Just think about the meaning of life. So whether it is a sinful person or an innocent person. . . No one can escape the thought of life and death.

Into the Abyss quotes

  • Fred Allen: Hold still and watch the birds. Once you get up into your life like that, and once you feel good about your life, you do start watching what the birds do. What the doves are doing. Like the hummingbirds. Why are there so many of them.