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only time in the series, Matron Martha seems to confront the true implications of such religious dogma. These gendered scripts certainly speak more to the contemporary expectations of viewing audiences who want to be simultaneously swept away by historical romance without historical gender prejudices extinguishing the attraction. Nostalgia A widely recognised phenomenon of recent years has been the way
, which this series does not discuss. But inasmuch as Thatcher is ‘represented’, Gervase proves himself to be the ‘ideal’ Thatcherite hero. Something of a synthesis of various right-wing positions, Gervase is a strongly individualistic hero in the neoliberal mould, but he also advocates for traditional values. The writer, Richard Cooper, was himself a deeply committed Catholic. Although it seems that the series, with the Knights of God themselves fuelled by a religious dogma of firm authoritarian leadership, might be a
The Others began as a small-scale, art film project for the European market. The intended setting was Chile, Amenábar’s birthplace. The ambition was to explore the repressions of his childhood, especially the impact of religious dogma on family life and the education of children. Over time, however, the film was transformed into the most expensive, biggest-grossing, box-office hit in Spanish film
powerful parable which suggests a quasi-apocalyptic outcome when we allow religious dogma and its fanatical adherents to challenge and usurp the power of reason. 8 In historical terms, however, neither the above martyrdom thesis nor the destruction of the Great Library of Alexandria are supported by solid, empirical evidence. In fact, in Amenábar’s book of the film, mentioned above, the accompanying text concedes that, by the
left one marriage because it was not an ‘equal match’, so we cannot know if they will stay together. The fact that they can joke about relationships going disastrously wrong might be seen as a positive note on which to end. Mark Kermode, in his review of the film, described this as a ‘bitter-sweet denouement’, which left him wondering if it ‘would have been better’ if this particular couple had ‘never met’. 93 If Disobedience shows a prospective couple parting at the close, torn apart by religious dogma and societal pressures, Loach and Paul Laverty’s film