I have breifly watched DM Islam of late, and noticed that DM ISlam is holding a "Phone-in" vote as to whether the film "The Message" should be shown or not. Many sunni muslims oppose the showing of the film while many adherents of the shia creed vote in favour.
The reasoning as to why some sunni muslims opopose the film is because they say that the film insults some sahaba, especially Amir Muawiyah (RAH). Whereas the shia negate this.
Anyhow, who has seen the film? and who reckons the film should be shown or not shown from this forum? Simple Yes/No................NO Shia/Sunni bashing.
I saw that movie... dunno about bashing Muhammad's chums but I thought from an artistic standpoint it was poorly executed.
"1st person prophet mode" kinda weirded me out - like remember when Muhammad goes into the Kabaa to rip down the statues? You see this stick kind of protrude out of the bottom right hand corner and gently pull down statues... it was strange, seemed like revenge of the sticks or something.
That could have been handled a lot better - and more dramatically - if you think about it this is the single turning point in Arab history when they adopt a dramatically different religion that they are going to stick with for the next 1400 years. And given the fact Muhammad thought this was a building for God built by Abraham, he'd be rather passionate about getting rid of the idols.
We should have seen stuff getting smashed to a billion pieces, idols two times the size of the man being pulled down, pagans wailing outside, fire and brimstone and all that fun stuff...
But instead we feel like we're playing some kind of video game, the object of which is to get the little stick gently around strange looking statues and gently pull them down.
The movie really didn't hold my interest... the signature problem is that you aren't allowed to portray Muhammad (curiously enough you are allowed to portray other very important Islamic figures like the companions et al). Ergo you have a story, in which the central character is constantly off screen but still "present" which is just ridiculous.
All the energy of the stories this movie tries to tell is sapped by the fact they couldn't actually [i]show[/i] Muhammad. Like I'd imagine a guy who starts his own religion, state, army et cetera to be a tad bit charismatic. But that's all washed away since Muhammad, as a movie character, doesn't actually exist in the movie.
It was an interesting attempt but they really shouldn't have tried to make a movie out of this. Putting aside the obvious religious problems - when you try to tell a story without its central character, you aren't really telling the story anymore.
I would suggest watching the recent cartoon: 'Muhammad - The Last Prophet' (saw), this also has a couple of 1st-person views, but the movement is more fluid due to animation being a lot less prescriptive. It all looks rather Disney-ish (in a good way), and even the soppy moments are handled quite well.
Even tho its aimed at children, all my friends prefer it to 'the Message' (I don't know what that says about my friends...).
re: the Shia/Sunni issue, all the complaints I've heard are due to the fact that it completely ignores Abu Bakr (ra), who was the Prophet's
closest companion, and many people feel the political agenda took away from the Message's message....
Don't just do something! Stand there.
If a film upsets Sunni brothers and sisters then I believe it should not be shown.
Religious feelings of people of all religions should be respected.
This is the teaching of Imam Ali (AS).
I have seen The Message and it does show Sunni figures in a derogatory manner.
Ayatollah rightly named America as "Great Satan".
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