Who Is Jonah?

[deleted]

i have wonderd The same

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonah_Lomu

Have a look at the birth date. I noticed this 10 years ago when I first heard of this movie.

It definitely isn't set in '68, there's a character who mentions not being disillusioned by the events of '68 though. The simple answer is that most of the film is set in '75 and there's a woman pregnant with a child who is named Jonah. The film is critical of society and seems less than hopeful about the future, so the idea is that thing will be really bad for this youngster (the film ends with a brief scene of Jonah in 1980).


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In addition to what timmy_501 said, the obvious - Jonah's name is a reference to the struggles of the biblical Jonah [Book of Jonah], which parallel the characters' struggles within the film, struggles which will be repeated by every generation of children birthed from the bellies of their respective whales.Each newborn child, each generation, is a potential-prophet-in-waiting, every newborn generation has the potential to change the world for the better.G/d to Jonah - arise, go into the world, that great world, and cry against it, for its wickedness stares me in the face; in the film, the wickedness is lack of environmental stewardship and lack of spiritual fulfillment (both replaced by industrial capitalism and materialism), but the next generation is either not aware that they have the power to effect change or the task is so daunting they don't know where or how to begin and resignation wins or they run away like the biblical Jonah, or they outright reject the idea of effecting the change they've been taught by their parents to effect because they like being enslaved to chains of materialism/money./capitalist-institutions. Parents shaping their child(ren)'s worldview is the same as G/d bestowing divine mission upon a Jonah. Rousseau had a big impact on the film as well, and interestingly enough, Rousseau's work Emile/On Education was influenced by Robinson Crusoe and Robinson Crusoe was culled from the biblical Jonah, and, the film opens and closes with two antipodal didactics from Rosseau that happen to be the two key themes of the Book of Jonah (and the film).