Theater Thursday: Jean de Florette/Manon des Sources

Shimon emails: Some people seek escapism, others seek exploration. Entertainment is usually about escapism into idealized fantasy, art is about honest delving into difficult truths. And truth isn’t about simple good guys vs bad guys. Even good guys can be deeply flawed, and even bad guys are human, all too human. And Jean de Florette and Manon show this.

Also, the dynamics of power, strategy, and psychology in Jean de Florette has universal implications. The envy and resentment that motivate a farmer isn’t all that different from those feelings inside a tycoon. That is why the stories in the Old Testament still have relevance. Much of them is about goat herders and fathers and son, aka ‘ordinary people’. But the dynamics between father and son, between brother and brother, between husbands and wives, and between master and slave in the ancient texts continue to be relevant because our psychology in the modern world are animated by the same ‘spirits’ and urges. If stories of Jewish goat-herders 1000s yrs ago still tell us something about Jewish oligarchs and globalists today, then the thoughts and feelings that animate Cesar and other charactrers in Jean de Florette can tell us much about our world and how power works. Just like Cesar pulls dirty tricks to destroy others and keep the power, we see same things happening today. Cesars in Big Tech seek to shut off the ‘water’ of information and money. And the notion of ‘incest’ can be used as metaphor. Today’s deep state and big capital are very ‘incestuous’ in that those-in-the-know and those-who-know-whom try to concentrate all the power to themselves. So, finance-media-academia-courts-government all conspire to shut off the metaphorical spring to all of us. Even though the town in Jean de Florette is small, reactionary, and ultra-conservative, the political dynamics of that community is hardly different from globo-PC elite communities. Despite their talk of ‘diversity’ and ‘inclusion’, the elites jealously guard their World of their Own where only those with correct thoughts are tolerated. So, whether it’s a conservative small town excluding outsiders or globo-liberal elite realm excluding crime-thinkers, the structural dynamics of both are quite similar. It’s about ‘keep the water supply to ourselves and leave the rest to die of thirst.’ Look how Big Banks are trying to shut the money supply to dissident people on both the Right and BDS movement. All the financial water is irrigated toward growing flowers for globo-homo stuff. This happens on a national scale. More money flows to Israel while economic sanctions are imposed on Russia, Syria, Iran, or any nation hated by globo-homo elites. US policy is ‘shut off water to syria and just fill it with the sewage of US militarism and support for terrorists’. And even though globo-homo elites may be into race-mixing, their minds and souls are demented because of ideological ‘inbreeding’. Intersectionality is about mating PC with PC with PC with PC to create a monster child where decadence and degeneracy aren’t merely new freedoms but the new morality. At least, decadence in the past was celebrated as decadence. Now, it is enforced as the new morality, even new spirituality. We are supposed to believe that some fat man with a wig is really a ‘woman’ and feel holy about it. The war on James Watson is the result of ideological retardation from too much intellectual incest of likeminded dogmas mated with one another.

Finally, consider the overall arch of Jean de Florette and Manon. We see much that is ‘ordinary’ and ‘everyday’, but it builds into great sadness and tragedy. Cesar, in his rigidity of maintaining the kin, ended up killing his own kin. And today’s Western elites, in their delusion of upholding ‘Western Values'(a very decadent version of it) are only working to murder the real thing. Anyway, Jean de Florette and Manon together work like a puzzle. Each piece in and of itself may be ‘ordinary’ and ‘boring’, but as the pieces begin to fall into place and the bigger picture begins to emerge, we see something greater and sadder.

About Luke Ford

I've written five books (see Amazon.com). My work has been covered in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and on 60 Minutes. I teach Alexander Technique in Beverly Hills (Alexander90210.com).
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