De La Salle At The Movies: The Revenant

Sometimes the truth is only found at the movies.

“God’s presence is found within all students and other members of the learning community”- St. John Baptiste De La Salle

Going to see The Revenant is a borderline religious experience.

Every movie one sees at the cinema is similar to going to church. We all congregate to the big screen and have hope that we see a little aspect of life. The Revenant by Alejandro G. Inarritu is a story about a group of fur-trappers travelling to America. During the first half of the movie, they evade some Native Americans who ransack their base camp. The whole film seems to be a chase across the wild tundra of the American wilderness.

It is a movie about brutes ravaging an indigenous land. During some scenes over a fur trade between the Navajo and the French, the Navajo chief unexpectedly spoke perfect French. The French were obviously shocked by such an educated response coming from the mouth of brute.

However,  historians now know that most natives were supremely smart but in a different aspect of life. Education is a similar concept, but not a similar process for all people. Our founder St. John Baptiste De La Salle knew this. De La Salle went out of his way to teach and to educate the masses regardless of social class.

There were many causes for the downfall of the Native Americans, but the main reason was because they were viewed as less. People of color have been viewed as a less than superior race. This is something St. John Baptiste De La Salle wanted to eliminate. His teachings set out to establish the equality of all students that are eager to learn.

Perhaps there was no justice done in the case of the Native Americans. It is still an unresolved issue in our country. Our human condition must come into question every time a movie like this comes out. Are we still capable of such atrocity?

If everyone was truly treated equal then this problem of the human condition would be solved. We would no longer work for the pleasure of money nor kill for the sake of revenge. I think if we learned this, we would learn to be a community regardless of what our ancestors had to do to get here. We would be better off being sympathetic individuals just as De La Salle was.