{"id":1058,"date":"2025-03-27T12:23:24","date_gmt":"2025-03-27T12:23:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fritzkohle.de\/?p=1058"},"modified":"2025-03-27T12:59:16","modified_gmt":"2025-03-27T12:59:16","slug":"the-garden-of-earthly-delights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fritzkohle.de\/?p=1058","title":{"rendered":"The Garden of Earthly Delights"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Or True Freedom Begins Within<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.fritzkohle.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/image.png\" alt=\"Fritz Kohle\" class=\"wp-image-1065 lazyload\" style=\"width:513px;height:auto\" title=\"Fritz Kohle\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"275\" height=\"183\" src=\"https:\/\/www.fritzkohle.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/image.png\" alt=\"Fritz Kohle\" class=\"wp-image-1065 lazyload\" style=\"width:513px;height:auto\" title=\"Fritz Kohle\" \/><\/noscript><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Source: Movies that Matter 2025<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong><em>The Garden of Earthly Delights<\/em> Confronts, it does not provide comfort.<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But then again, and on closer inspection it does. The film offers hope &#8211; if you dare to find it<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Yesterday I was privileged to attend the screening of <em>The Garden of Earthly Delights<\/em> at the Films that Matter festival in The Hague.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This film is not easy viewing. It is not entertainment. It\u2019s a confrontation \u2014 with systems, with taboos, with ourselves. It will not be a box office hit, but it will create value in the long term, for those willing to be challenged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ginto is an 11-year-old street kid in Manila, fighting to survive in a world where everything is transactional, and exploitation is the norm. For Western audiences \u2014 shaped by more subtle forms of control under a capitalist achievement society \u2014 the directness of this film may feel like a punch to the gut.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Filipino audiences face a different discomfort: that a European director has portrayed Ginto\u2019s struggle so unflinchingly well. During the Q&amp;A, someone asked: <em>\u201cWhy can this story not be told by a Filipino director?\u201d<\/em> The answer is simple: when you are too close to the pain, you often cannot see and feel it clearly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Critics may call this yet another post-colonial take from the West. And I was curious too \u2014 would this be yet another outsider\u2019s patronising gaze? But from what I heard and saw, the director Morgan Knibbe approached the story with care and detail. The result is not a film made by a Westerner about \u201cthe other.\u201d It is a film made by a human being about what happens when humanity is stripped away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And that, precisely, is what makes it so uncomfortable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Exploitation Isn\u2019t Always Obvious \u2014 But It\u2019s Always There<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>The Garden of Earthly Delights<\/em> exposes exploitation in its rawest form. But the real shock is realising how familiar it feels \u2014 how close it hits to home, if you care to dig deep enough to see it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Most of us are not exploited through violence. We\u2019re exploited through expectation, obligation, and distraction. We live in a burnout society. In cultures that prize obedience over truth. In belief systems that offer safety in exchange for silence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We trade honesty for harmony. To stay agreeable to be accepted. We follow rules we didn\u2019t write, chase goals we didn\u2019t choose, and perform identities we don\u2019t fully believe in \u2014 all to feel like we belong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This too is exploitation. Just less visible. Less painful. But equally numbing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And it doesn\u2019t belong to one country or culture. It cuts across ideologies, religions, even progressive spaces. When fear becomes the currency of love, when worth is earned through compliance \u2014 we\u2019re not seeking truth. We\u2019re surviving systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The Burnout Loop: Perform, Consume, Repeat &amp; Judge the Other<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So we distract ourselves. We chase the next thing \u2014 the upgrade, the trip, the outfit, the version of ourselves that might finally be good enough. We post curated lives for approval. We fill calendars to avoid stillness. We call it \u201cliving.\u201d But often, it\u2019s just running from one appointment to the other. Otherness and taboos are suppressed &#8211; or exported. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Until we crash. A burnout, a breakdown, maybe therapy. We patch ourselves up, just well enough to do it all again. Until retirement. Then death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>The Garden of Earthly Delights<\/em> invites us to break that loop. It dares us to see how power is extracted from all of us \u2014 not just in the slums of Manila, but in the structures we accept as normal and that contribute from afar to Ginto&#8217;s fate: the developed world exporting their toxic taboos to developing countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Benjamin Moen plays the role of a pedophile who finds himself in the streets of Manila and eventually his and Ginto&#8217;s path cross. Benjamin excels in playing this difficult character who exploits the poorest among us, and who is exploited himself in a violent transactional society without inhibition.. Watching Benjamin character wander through the streets of Manila is unsettling, and it is tempting to remain focus on him and continue ignore the many other forms of exploitation around us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>The Garden of Earthly Delights<\/em> isn\u2019t a story about \u201cthem.\u201d It\u2019s a mirror held up to us. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Should You Watch This Film?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Are you ready to be changed? Can you witness someone else\u2019s truth without needing to explain it away? Do you wonder how exploitation for power works \u2014 not just in politics, but in your own daily life?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Then yes, you should watch this film.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But not to be entertained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Watch it to confront the systems we\u2019re part of. Watch it to understand the mechanisms we\u2019ve internalised. Watch it if you\u2019re ready to stop pointing fingers \u2014 and start looking inwards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Because transformation and happiness doesn\u2019t begin with noise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It begins with the quiet power of the unexploitable within.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Or True Freedom Begins Within Source: Movies that Matter 2025 The Garden of Earthly Delights Confronts, it does not provide comfort. But then again, and on closer inspection it does. The film offers hope &#8211; if you dare to find it Yesterday I was privileged to attend the screening of The Garden of Earthly Delights &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fritzkohle.de\/?p=1058\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;The Garden of Earthly Delights&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fritzkohle.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fritzkohle.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fritzkohle.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fritzkohle.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fritzkohle.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1058"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.fritzkohle.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1058\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1079,"href":"https:\/\/www.fritzkohle.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1058\/revisions\/1079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fritzkohle.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fritzkohle.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fritzkohle.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}