The Hunt (2012)
What a fascinating look at the danger of spoken word, especially false rumors. This man's entire life is nearly destroyed when a young, innocent girl tells a small lie to her school's principal.
Things spiral out of control from there. This movie just really made me think, it made me angry, it made me sad, it made me frustrated. There were times when I wanted to punch my screen because of the way Lucas was treated.
The very sad and scary thing is, would I have done any different than those mistreating Lucas in these situations? Rumors that he is a pedophile and sexual predator spread around like wildfire, and before Lucas can even understand what is going on, he is shunned out of their community. The owner of the grocery store won't let him shop. People move away from him at church. Most of his good friends abandon him. His dog even gets killed by an angry person.
I would never kill an animal or being if their owner was a pedophile, but I wonder how extreme the other cases are in regards to what I might do. I know for sure that my parents, if they knew someone was a sexual predator, would shift me away from sitting next to them at church. And while technically it's illegal to throw someone out of a store for that it's also something I could see happening.
It's a reality that you can't blame either side for. People are scared when they hear that there is someone weird in their community, but when that person - in Lucas's case - is completely innocent, it turns into a whole new moral dilemma. Things "work out" in the end as Lucas's friends begin to trust him again and they can all meet. But the film doesn't forget to leave a sulfurous aftertaste, what with the final gunfire.
I remember reading a quote once: “Imagine if you have a pillow filled with feathers and you open up the pillow. The feathers will be carried away by the wind and you will never ever be able to get them back.” Lucas will never be able to get some of the feathers back, no matter how hard he tries. Once Klara has opened the pillow, it is all lost.
And now he must face that frustrating reality for the rest of his life.
The Hunt made me reflect on myself, it made me reflect on the world, and I really appreciate it for that. It's something that I could see myself returning to often in the future to look for more interesting things to analyze.
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