Silent Light.
The conference Artes, Literatura e Cultura: Uma Perspetiva Religiosa (Arts, Literature and Culture: A Religious Perspective), organised by the Research Centre for Communication and Culture of the Catholic University of Portugal, will take place between 15 and 16 November. My paper “Merciful Hope: A Theological Reading of Silent Light (2007)” has been included in the workshop discussion on the second day. Here is the abstract:
Theology distinguishes between cardinal virtues and theological virtues. Cardinal virtues, as the adjective indicates, are main or fundamental virtues. No wonder, therefore, that Christianity does not claim to have discovered or articulated them. We already find them, for example, in Plato’s Republic as values: prudence (prudentia), justice (justitia), fortitude (fortitudo), and temperance (temperantia). Fathers of the Church like Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, and Gregory developed these virtues in a Christian perspective. But the theological virtues are not humanly acquired, but divinely infused. As Thomas Aquinas wrote in his Summa Theologica: “These virtues are called Divine, not as though God were virtuous by reason of them, but because of them God makes us virtuous, and directs us to Himself.” Hope (spes) is one of the three theological virtues, along with faith (fidei) and love (caritas).This paper is part of a more general research on the representation of theological virtues in contemporary cinema. I argue that hope must be placed in the daily existence of characters for it to become a virtue that allows human life to partake in divine life. Hope can be defined as desiring God and foreseeing union with God. In Silent Light (Stellet Licht, 2007), directed by Mexican Carlos Reygadas, where a married man commits adultery in a Mennonite community, hope appears connected with mercy. Other relevant aspects that frame human drama in the film are the importance of nature and physicality. The natural is the place where the supernatural irrupts and a strong physical dimension allows for expressing the convulsions of the spirit.
