The Ox (Oxen) (Sweden) (1991) (moviesbyrizzo)

                                                                                                                            
Oxen (The Ox - Sweden, 1991) - directed by Sven Nykvist
starring Stellan Skarsgård, Ewa Fröling

Nescit plebs jejuna timere,
"a starving populace knows nothing of fear"

Latin Quote: Cessante causa, cessat et effectus
"The cause having relented, the effect begins to cease"

download button

This is a great movie offering from Sweden although it will depress you to view it
in its entirety if you have any sensitivity on the issues that are raised in it.


You may be familiar with some of the history of the great Irish spirited folk who  were
sent packing from Britain and headed to a lovely land today they call  Australia.
It is my sincere view that some of the best examples of greatest British spirits
are in fact in this region or from this region as the case may be.

The harsh treatment and insanely cruel standards of  justice have often been applied
in times of great economic depression or in areas devoid of real spiritual guidance in favour of religious or other ideas of a similar fundamentalist nature in even the extreme too perhaps


This movie speaks to the issues of harsh justice and the grief that befalls a fine
young couple that you see above. The man is quite Irish spirited as we
understand  the genre and the lovely wife with him is in fact well meaning
and well intentioned  for him and grief is all that we see come in this tragic tale
of cruelty that seems to  find little to comfort those suffering in the circumstances
of near starvation  conditions and the extremely harsh penalties meted out in
these conditions as I  refer to above here.
He has erred against his community in the
tale which is being told here, however it is still my contention that the
sentence was harshly administered and no doubt too lengthy perhaps too
The moral of the story I suggest is that when someone does something
wrong, that is not a valid enough reason or excuse rather to do something
insanely harsh by way of punishment in order to consider some kind of justice
done.

The Irishman in the movie did err against his community at large while trying to do
for his own family, However I don't think understanding sufficient to his spirit
prevailed to make for a reasonable outcome for all concerned. Sometimes
all that a good enough person needs is a talking to or a warning or even a slap
on the wrist. On the other hand for those that do evil with intent to be that way
(and that certainly isn't something this man should be accused of), whatever
sanctions - even extreme that may apply may be insufficient to do true and real
justice to serve the community in a real way.

Where truly lovely spirits can be found, a lighter approach to punishments should
be taken in matters such as this as that is punishment enough if the person concerned
is a conscionable nice enough person to take a point and seek to improve
his behaviour if he can accept the wisdom of it, which he should be able
to in such a case.


Michael Rizzo Chessman

(moviesbyrizzo)

 

 

Mainpage