Amazing Grace
It's a great movie, but I don't know if you're ready for it...
I’m not sure whether to tell you about Amazing Grace. I’m happy to let you know the movie is very good & extremely well made. The script is excellent & the cinematography superb. The actors are also top notch, and the basic hero of the the story is an inspiring Christian man - William Wilberforce. No doubt you would enjoy it.
And yet… I still hesitate to recommend you watch it.
Amazing Grace is all about Wilberforce’s efforts to abolish slavery from the late 1700’s onwards. In those days, slaves were rounded up from their homes in Africa & forced aboard massive ships. The slaves were chained and placed in cramped & unsanitary conditions, and taken to work for white people in England and other places. However, before the ships arrived at their destinations, often over half of the slaves were dead.
The viewer is taken on a journey with Wilberforce, as he becomes a Christian, learns about the slave trade, finds influence in the British parliament, and then through sickness and other trials, persists with his quest to abolish slavery, despite continuous opposition.
It’s an inspiring tale. Yet, here’s why you need to be careful about this movie - there is a twist that comes after you have finished watching.
You will start wondering…
“We know slavery was abolished years ago right?
We don’t keep slaves at our own homes, do we?
We aren’t sending ships to round up Africans any more, are we?”
Then, you will feel compelled to look up a website like http://www.stopthetraffik.org, and do some research.
Then you will realise there is more slave labour happening in the world today than there was in Wilberforce’s time.
Do you really want to be confronted by slavery? Do you really want to find out that a great amount of the things we take for granted - cheap clothes, chocolate, coffee etc. - are made by slaves, often children?
It may mean big changes have to be made. It may mean you get involved in the campaign. It may be very uncomfortable.
That’s why I hesitate to recommend this movie to you - I’m just not sure if I want to put you through that.
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