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Analysis of the Movie “Silent Light” on Issues Relating to Marriage
The film strongly highlights various issues in a society, community, or in a relationship/marriage, such as love, honesty, adultery, and personality among others. Honesty, adultery, and a feeling of guilt have sprung out more often in the film, especially through Johan, the central character. The author intends to explain and portray how issues such as adultery and dishonesty send the wrong kind of message to the younger generation in the community and create a lot of negative effects in a relationship/marriage. In the movie, Johan’s adultery issues have, in some case, created serious effects to both the community and his marriage and have also provided a wrong example to his children on marriage and relationships. As the film comes to an end, it shows how detrimental various issues can be when Esther collapses and dies, although she later comes back to life.
Silent Light depicts the life of a married man who is torn between staying with his wife and leaving for his lover. Johan is married to Esther, but finds it difficult to resist his attraction to another married woman known as Marianne. The film is set in Mennonite, Mexico, where the community is characterized by strong following of religious rules and God fearing. Johan is in love with Marianne, a mother and a wife in another family, thus creating a moral dilemma to him, whether to stay with the woman that God has already bound him to and seek the right path towards God’s glory, or to create his own path of destiny and leave for the woman he loves. Johan, however, does not conceal his affair with Marianne, but on the contrary, tells his wife, father, and his good friend Zacarias. He feels guilty of having an affair while he still loves and is married to Esther. In my opinion, honesty, such as Johan’s, does more good than harm in a relationship or society and, therefore, should be encouraged. The paper below seeks to highlight the importance of honesty in a relationship/marriage or in a community as evidenced in the movie.
Honesty can be intertwined with personality, when one feels guilty of a wrongdoing and decides to come clean. Such kind of honesty is important in a relationship such as marriage, especially because it helps avoid the effects and the aftermath when everything later comes to light. Secrets are most often perceived in the same degree as lying, and, therefore, have a strong negative effect on the course of the relationship. This is evidenced in the movie when Johan explains to his father that he has already told Esther, his wife, everything about his affair with Marianne. A second supporting argument on the importance of honesty can be drawn from Johan’s honesty with his father as he seeks for advice on what to do about his moral dilemma. In most cases, this extent of honesty may be difficult to uphold, but when upheld, it improves relationships and personality. In this case, his father helps him decide on following the correct path towards realizing God’s glory.
Honesty in marriage is an important virtual for both parties in order to maintain the relationship. Statistically, it can be proven that dishonesty and secrecy in a relationship are two major factors that lead to issues in any relationship and more likely to lead to broken marriages. In an open relationship, most issues that are to likely cause effects in a negative way may be shared rather than hidden, which is advantageous in the long run. This can be evidenced in the movie in the fact that Johan is open and honest to his wife Esther about Marianne. Johan’s decision to let Esther know everything probably saved the marriage instead of holding the truth back. It is possible that if Johan kept the affair a secret, his marriage to Esther would be affected much more, in case Esther found out on her own. However, honesty in marriage is a virtual that needs to be well managed in order to reduce the chances of causing more harm with the truth. In the film, the idea of being honest about the affair later creates more issues than intended when Johan’s wife dies. She collapses and dies after she decides to confront Johan about his affair.
Johan’s decision to seek advice from his father also highlights the importance of honesty. He receives credible advice from his father that he should seek God’s righteousness. His father insists that the correct path to God’s glory is by staying with his wife and avoiding temptations from Marianne. Johan was honest to his father and told him everything about his affair with Marianne. This was advantageous for him because his father reduced the burden of the moral dilemma weighing on his shoulder. His relationship with his father develops even further as a result of his honesty, and he also somehow follows the advice, adding further to his father’s owe and closer relationship.
In a separate idea, Johan also tells his good friend, Zacarias, of his affair with Marianne, hoping that his friend may render some advice or help him reduce the sense of guilt. Zacarias advices him that he might be on a path of destiny and should, therefore, be with the woman that destiny has chosen for him; Marianne. Zacarias advices Johan to create his own destiny and that God’s path can still be realized when one follows destiny. He insists that it might be destiny or God himself who made their path cross and made him fall in love with Marianne. This serves more in reducing his guilt of leaving his wife for his lover, although in the long run he does not. Honesty, in this case, helps Johan acquire some advice that help reduce his feeling of guilt, and thus, in a way, clears his mind to be in a better position to make a rational decision.
In conclusion, Silent Light easily portrays a lot of relationship, community, or society issues from the beginning to the end. The issues highlighted above on honesty and its importance in a relationship and a society do not mention so much on the consequences when one of the spouses involved cannot handle the whole truth. This is brought out by the collapsing and death of Esther as she tries to engage Johan about his affairs. She is overwhelmed by the truth and collapses of a sickness she had earlier been diagnosed. Adultery is also not so much criticized in the work above as honesty is praised. Marriage should be treated as a holly and religious union and, therefore, issues such as adultery should be unheard of. New light also does not place much emphasis on shaping the society/community into avoiding issues such as adultery.