Love will conquer all but is love moral and more robust than death? Early in the movie, we're introduced to the idea that love is just as strong as death and our protagonist wants to challenge this concept, proposing that love is stronger than death. We're introduced to three scenarios where love is tested - all taking place in different corners of the earth (from my impressions, one takes place in the Arabic world, one on European soil, and the last one - somewhere in Far East Asia) and all yielding the same results: lovers being separated by death. As the protagonist's proposal fails to win, death provides a different offer for the protagonist to get back her loved one - a living human sacrifice. The protagonist tried to find someone willing to give up their life but in the end, she could pull through and offered herself to see her loved one again.
What caught my eye in this movie is the lengths people went to in the name of love. It begged the question of whether love is moral as in most cases love towards a single person resulted in consequences that riled up the whole community. The ending chapter went even further as when looking for sacrifices, the people offered the choice (the "honor") were either old, with arguments that they don't have a lot of time left and might give it up for a younger loved one who has his life ahead of him; poor and living on the streets, having nothing to lose; grieving, trying to overcome the trauma of losing their friends or relatives. To portray it in different words, love or the idea of love is portrayed as more important than a common life, and on the thinking level, at least in the protagonist's head, it's accepted to sacrifice someone who might be portrayed as less fortunate for personal goals. It kind of reflects on real-life society as we can empirically notice that some communities, whether a small family or a medium or large community with members connected by a common agenda, favor their clan or acquaintances over the community as a whole, making choices that favor themselves and those close by first even if the mentioned choices can hurt the community as a whole. In the movie though, the community paradox is somewhat exposed and dismissed, as the ending is the opposite of selfishness and a display of true heroism - the protagonist couldn't cope with the idea of sacrificing a person when finally getting the opportunity to do so and even saved a life.
My final thoughts about the movie are that portrayed relationship between love and morality is that of sacrifice - we either sacrifice ourselves in the name of love or sacrifice the idea of morality. I can't answer if love is moral from personal experience but in the context of this movie, I'd say that the morality of love lies in the choices we make out of love and the placement of love in our chain of values. And whether love is more robust than death, well, I think after watching this movie we can agree that love ain't enough to conquer death but love isn't something that can burn out like a candle - unlike death, love doesn't have an expiration date and true love can reunite even in the realm of the dead.
What caught my eye in this movie is the lengths people went to in the name of love. It begged the question of whether love is moral as in most cases love towards a single person resulted in consequences that riled up the whole community. The ending chapter went even further as when looking for sacrifices, the people offered the choice (the "honor") were either old, with arguments that they don't have a lot of time left and might give it up for a younger loved one who has his life ahead of him; poor and living on the streets, having nothing to lose; grieving, trying to overcome the trauma of losing their friends or relatives. To portray it in different words, love or the idea of love is portrayed as more important than a common life, and on the thinking level, at least in the protagonist's head, it's accepted to sacrifice someone who might be portrayed as less fortunate for personal goals. It kind of reflects on real-life society as we can empirically notice that some communities, whether a small family or a medium or large community with members connected by a common agenda, favor their clan or acquaintances over the community as a whole, making choices that favor themselves and those close by first even if the mentioned choices can hurt the community as a whole. In the movie though, the community paradox is somewhat exposed and dismissed, as the ending is the opposite of selfishness and a display of true heroism - the protagonist couldn't cope with the idea of sacrificing a person when finally getting the opportunity to do so and even saved a life.
My final thoughts about the movie are that portrayed relationship between love and morality is that of sacrifice - we either sacrifice ourselves in the name of love or sacrifice the idea of morality. I can't answer if love is moral from personal experience but in the context of this movie, I'd say that the morality of love lies in the choices we make out of love and the placement of love in our chain of values. And whether love is more robust than death, well, I think after watching this movie we can agree that love ain't enough to conquer death but love isn't something that can burn out like a candle - unlike death, love doesn't have an expiration date and true love can reunite even in the realm of the dead.