The movie The Debt can be seen as being both implicit and explicit in its ideology. There are moments where the story seems to be told without a particular slant, but I believe the movie's true ideology is explicit. The audience is told the story of three agents through the use of flashbacks. The agents (Stephen, David, and Rachel) were supposed to kidnap Dieter Vogel and bring him back to Israel for a trial because of his atrocious actions against the Jews during WWII. They kidnap him, but are unable to leave at their assigned time. Eventually, Voge lescapes, but the agents all agree that they will tell the world that Rachel killed him. They figure that he will never show his face again so their story will be safe. Yet, David is not really happy with this decision because he wants Vogel to stand a fair trial and not to be thought of as dead. This is where the explicit ideology comes.
In the scene where David visits Rachel when they are older after her interview, he explains that he has been traveling for years just looking for Vogel. Rachel asks him why he has continued to search, but David tells her that he wants to bring Vogel in for justice and then tell a journalist the true story. Rachel tells him that she doesn't agree because she has to look out for her daughter. David is representing the movie's real ideology--you should always tell the truth even if it will hurt you. David's viewpoint is there to persuade the audience that it is morally right and the only true course of action for the characters to take.
The second scene of explicit ideology comes at the end when Rachel is at the hospital to kill Vogel. She writes a note to a journalist explaining what really happened over thirty years before on their mission. This scene is meant to show that the morally right thing to do has finally been done. The truth is going to be told to the world and justice will be carried out. Rachel has made a decision that will hurt her daughter and herself, but she knows it is still the right thing to do.
I found your views different from my blog and your analysis very interesting. I did think the movie showed a greater implicit slant because the director portrayed the moments through the three Mossad agents. An explicit slant would have shown scenes with a direct and greater emphasis on the Israel government and their role. Instead, the message was more implicit and showed to the viewers the conflict between the three Mossad agents and the moral and ethical dilemma they faced because of the lack of timely assistance from their government and withdrawal of assistance from the American government. To protect their country and bring peace, the agents had to come up with a significant cover up that took place in 1966 and live through that lie until thirty-three years later.
ReplyDeleteThe viewers were left to question the actions of the Israel government and whether they were really interested in finding and prosecuting Nazi war criminals. The implicit message was a subtle jab at the Israel government not taking responsibility for any mishaps in a mission, but instead leaving the three patriotic Mossad agents to clean up the mess up which ended up taking two of their lives.
I am in opposition to your posting on the ideology of this film. I do agree that the film embodies both explicit and implicit ideologies but the main ideology in the film is implicit. The film shows how the three Mossad agents deal with the failed mission and the twist in the escape story has affected their lives 30 years later. The viewers are not exactly aware of what the Isreali government stance is on the matter, then or even now. We know that the explicit ideology involves the extreme patriotism of the three Mossad agents but their morals and values of bringing the Surgeon of Birknaeu to justice for all of his victims is more important than keeping their heroic roles in society. David and Rachel believe that this is their chance to successfully complete the mission but Stephan is in disagreement. The moral delimma of the three characters brings them back to Vogel and he does eventually die at the hand of Rachel.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your opinion, as I had considered the same argument. The movie definitely suggests that the truth is more favorable than lying. However, since implicit ideologies are more subjective, I feel that this ideology had to be explicit because honesty is a value most Americans expect. There is always a huge public outcry whenever one of our political leaders or cultural idols is caught in a lie, even though corruption seems more rampant in recent times. We want to be able to trust our nation’s leaders and become angered when we find it’s an idealistic notion. We expect our entertainment to support such values. If the movie had left room for an interpretation that the agents’ dishonesty is a good thing, the movie would not have been as well received. Thus, I feel that an explicit ideology is necessary because Americans like to have their core values reinforced.
ReplyDeleteOur viewpoints on this movies differ, but I found your post interesting because you mention that the ideology has explicit qualities. My comment on that is that implicit ideology is implied and therefore up to interpretation. However, if someone interprets something quickly, then the ideology would kind of seem implicit to them. I'm not saying that this is what you did, but it's something interesting I've realized.
ReplyDeleteI would like to say that the ideology in a film is not necessarily reflected in parts of the movie. Though David has very clear-cut beliefs, he's not the protagonist. We are not necessarily made to see his beliefs as clearly as we see Rachel's. In the end, Rachel does follow his line of thinking, but it takes her a while to get there. Also, David's suicide is kind of his character's defeat. That's how I saw it, anyway. I'm not being very clear, but what I'm trying to say is that if the ideology doesn't dictate--and The Debt has a variety of viewpoints--then it's not necessarily explicit, though David's beliefs certainly are.
Kelly I think you did a great job making a point for the film having explicit ideology. In my blog, I wrote about he film having implicit ideology but I definitely see that there are ways that one could call the ideology explicit and you did well in explaining that. I think the fact that David continues to say over and over again that he wants the truth to come out, helps the point of it being explicit. He even makes it his life goal to tell the truth about the situation. Also, when Rachel is going to kill the doctor, she writes that letter to the journalist despite the fact that it would hurt a lot of her family. These are all points that support your argument for the ideology being explicit.
ReplyDelete“You should always tell the truth even if it will hurt you.” I agree with this statement and that the ideology of the movie embodies this. However, where I differ you with you is that this statement is explicitly expressed in the film. At no point in The Debt does anybody say “tell the truth, it is the right thing to do.” Had these words or something very similar been said, then I would agree that this movie had explicit ideology.
ReplyDeleteI also think that the characters that lied (Rachel, Stefan and David) are not made out to be villains and therefore the ideology is implicit. There is a slight hint that, yes, what they did was wrong and they must pay for it, but you still feel for these characters who tried to help their country in the aftermath of the Holocaust. I think that had the three main characters been portrayed more strongly as outright villains, the ideology would have been much more explicit.