By sye in Op-Ed
Mon Sep 11, 2006 at 12:13:00 AM EDT

I watched this Iranian film "The Last Supper" (2002) last night.

Plot Synopsis: Mrs. Mashreghi, who is a prominent university professor, is divorced from her husband. She leads a happy life for a while until one her students who is almost the same age of her daughter falls in love with her; a love which is completely rejected by society.

Editorial Reviews from Amazon.com:

Product Description
"In this searing domestic drama about a very unique love triangle, a professor of architecture history divorces her husband after 26 years of marriage. She returns to the house of her father, along with her supportive daughter, to begin life anew. When a handsome young student enters the picture, the bonds between a mother and daughter are stretched beyond the breaking point. And unable to endure the humiliation, the husband sets off a chain of events that leads to heartbreak and destruction. A fascinating tale of falling in love and of seeking revenge; another powerful new film from Iran. - Editorial Review from Amazon.com"

Director Fereydoun Jeyrani has fabricated a tragic ending for this love tale. Love ends while violence sees the day.

Another film I watched most recently "Life is beautiful" (1998) is also about love and family 'out of norm', facing tragic fate which seemed beyond anybody's control. But faith and happily-ever-after souls triumphed not by discrediting and questioning vehemently other's evil intention but rise above it with a blissful faith that is untarnishable no matter how evildoers try to subject it to.

Two details in "The Last Supper" touched me deeply.

1. Mrs. Mashreghi was about to leave the room and told the Univ. officer 'I refuse to answer any more question". He stated that if she walked out of that room and didn't write down all she know, both her and her student will be expelled from the University. Mrs. Mashreghi turned around. Walked to the table, grabbed the pen, take a long look at Univ. administrative personnel, and wrote down "I felt earthly love towards him".

    

2. In the beginnig and at the end of the film, Mrs. Mashreghi's old nanny was telling the story with tears. 'My lady wants to write everything down in a book. So people will know her story....'. After Q&A section seemed over, the police says 'She doesn't want to see her father. She only wants to see you.' ( she, being Mrs. mashreghi's daughter). On her way to the cell, the nanny stopped by the standing father, " I don't want her to die...'. the father says with a seemingly heartbroken emotion. In the cell room, the daughter was asking 'Is my mother still alive?'. 'Yes, She is...". The old nanny says without hesitatation. 'Do you want to keep her letter? Can you read it to me? ' The nanny hold hands with the daughter. The young woman repeats her mother's words monotoniously to her mother's most faithful old nanny: ....A woman's heart must be filled with love. Or else, malice, hatred and revenge eat her away... You want me to stand on earth and yet run away from early love?...

When Mrs. Mashreghi wrote down 'I felt earthly love towards him', i doubt that i can ever feel exactly what she has on her mind. The film is in Farsi with English subtitles. Can I ever ever grasp the undertone of her language through the lense of filming and how can I know for sure what is common between us?

'I felt earthly love towards him' can be
1. 'I shall feel earthly love towards him'
2. my heavenly love command me that i bent my will to write this down 'I feel earthly love towards him'
3. I am following what i feel at that moment and i copy it down what he once wrote me 'i felt earthly love to you'

A Chinese scholar once wrote this long essay, professing a profound view on Chinese history. In our ancient history, timelines are always blurred by our classic notion of time in our language. Scientific inquiries on history done by the West must focus on timelines which is the universal measure of all things objective. Yet if we tell the history as it concerns our living in our time, can you tell 'what is in the future and what is now and what is past' from what is in our mind and what is not?'

The eternal recurrence of the same 'Last Supper', deliverance of 'salvation'.

"Indeed, the conception of 'salvation' itself in the teaching of the Meditation School was so different from the usual Buddhist interpretation as to make this teaching (Ch'an or Zen) almost a separate philosophy. Starting from the proposition that the nature of ultimate reality is unknowable by the human mind, which seeks to comprehend anything by analyzing it - that is, by t aking it apart and so destroying its necessary oneness - the teaching of the Meditation School required its disciples to learn, first of all, to abandon rational thought as an avenue to "enlightenment.' The lession the typical Zen master tried to teach by setting his pupil to work on finding the answer to some seemingly impossible question, such as, "If a goose grew up from the gosling stage inside a large glass jar, so that its size now keeps it from getting out, how would you get the goose out of the jar without either hurting the goose or breaking the jar?" When the pupil finally realized that some questions are incapable of being answered in any rational way, that is, that some questions should never be asked in the first place, he was ready to perceive that the way to the truth did not lie through man's propensity to seek understanding with the mind. He must abandon the habit of making distinctions and attempting definitions and looking for logical connections. His salvation - that is, his entrance into that state of perfect enlightenment which would bring him permanent peace - would come in an intuitive flash of insight that had nothing to do with rational thinking. But he must first empty himself of all faith in the pwoers of the mind to teach him anything."

This abandonment of dependence upon human reasoning power and the cultivation of a readiness to receive sudden impressions from outside oneself were the 'salvation' or reaching out to Nirvana in the Eastern realm of wheel of life as old as the telling in Hindu classics, the Ghagavad-Gita, as new as my teacher's untiresome writings, falling like rain drops on unmoving earthy and muddy paths . Yet life endures in seeds of all living things.