Poonam Vaidya
Angels & Demons, set to release on May 15, has attracted bouts of controversy worldwide, especially among the Catholics for its ‘Anti Christian’ views, resulting in a demand for the ban of the film.
The Brian Grazer & John Calley production is the prequel to The Da Vinci Code and is a mystery-thriller, based upon the bestselling novel by Dan Brown which revolves around the quest of fictional Harvard University symbologist Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) to unravel the mysteries of a secret society called the Illuminati and to prevent a plot from annihilating Vatican City. The movie, directed by Ron Howard and distributed worldwide by Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) has been accused of presenting the Holy Bible and its sacred messages in a distorted manner and also of attempts to malign the Christian faith and insulting its followers,
Catholic students in Bangalore seem unaware about the release of the film, or its impact worldwide. Thomas K. Thomas, says he hasn’t read the book or watched the movie, and “Doesn’t care much about these religious matters, since they don’t affect him in anyway”. Pamela is more knowledgeable and forthcoming about the issue. She says that she hasn’t heard about the movie, but she vaguely remembers reading the book. “As far as I am concerned, I don’t see how any movie which is Anti Christ should affect anyone. If your faith is firm and you believe in your religion, what anyone says shouldn’t matter, so I don’t see any point in the protests, because at that rate everyone should be protesting against every other religion, and every other Bible and Koran, which says that only their god is the true god. (Implying that others are false)”
Alphin Chacko, another Catholic student, said that he was totally indifferent towards the movie . Remembering Da Vinci Code, which he says was a great movie; he says “All these works should be taken as fictional. They simply cannot be real. There is no need to protest, since one’s faith is very personal and if something as trivial as a movie can break that, it shows weakness of character and shallowness of belief” Tresa George, too, had similar views. She said she cared too much about her religion and nobody, especially one man with a camera, could damage her beliefs. “Why should I be worried about one man’s point of view?” she challenged. “It’s just him expressing his opinion and creativity.” When asked about the ban on the movie, she said that if the producers of the movie had the backbone to make the movie, they should be ready to face the consequences and controversies it brought with it.
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