The last supper

The film The Last Supper seemed to capture perfectly the problem of a people who do not have a sense of belonging in any society as discussed in “Slaver, Race, and Citizenship in the Empire of Brazil: Debates in the Constituent Assembly” by Kirsten Schultz. The best example of this problem is in the film when the Count grants freedom to one of the slaves during the supper. The slave is overjoyed at first, but quickly realizes that he doesn’t have the first clue as to what he will do with his new found freedom. The slaves in latin america and in the movie are stuck in a society where they are not capable of surviving outside slavery. This system of keeping classes so segregated worked to the advantage of slave owners in the movie because although freedom seemed to be so sweet, no society would accept them truly making them free. Along with this theme of society the article discussed the society of slaves within their own group and how different even the cultures were within these groups. This is exemplified a the table when all of the slaves eat together. Each has a story of their home and one is even a former slave trader from his own home. This makes the society of slaves even more diverse and complicated as the film also shows.

According to the reading by John Mraz entitled “Recasting Cuban Slavery” the film is fairly historically accurate. This could also be concluded regarding the similarities between the film from last week The Mission and this week and the subject of the involvement with the church. The themes of both weeks play off of the subject of the role of the church and oppression. Both also draw lines between the use of God and the misconstrued views behind justification of oppression under “divine rights of man.” This seems to be a common themes throughout history using religion as a power tactic or justification for the ill treatment of people or the taking of land. Currently such goes on for example in the middle east with Israel and Palestine and their battle for the Holy Land. Both claiming their stakes over religious beliefs.

I believe that the other goal of the film besides exemplifying the binding society that further suppressed slaves and the obvious involvement of the church in colonization was the twisted beliefs of the colonial christian people. Their ideas about slavery being justified and the way they were able to back up their beliefs with scripture. The film clearly showed this by enacting the Lord’s supper. Not only was it ridiculous that the count was portrayed as Jesus, but that his disciples were his slaves he later killed. The mindset of some early christian colonists was that they had everything from land to people at their disposal because they conveniently interpreted the word of the christian God to feed their needs. This theme is clearly present throughout the entire film.