{"id":56243,"date":"2022-02-11T08:20:00","date_gmt":"2022-02-11T13:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.worldcatholicnews.com\/a-crop-of-new-documentaries-refuses-to-erase-the-past\/"},"modified":"2022-02-11T08:20:00","modified_gmt":"2022-02-11T13:20:00","slug":"a-crop-of-new-documentaries-refuses-to-erase-the-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.worldcatholicnews.com\/a-crop-of-new-documentaries-refuses-to-erase-the-past\/","title":{"rendered":"A crop of new documentaries refuses to erase the past"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Let\u2019s start from a metaphor. Call human history a mirror. A factual recounting of the past reflects us as we really are. In clean, clear surfaces, we see our faces and our bodies and our beauty and our flaws with precision. <\/p>\n

Now imagine the reflection doesn\u2019t match who we imagine ourselves to be, the way we imagine ourselves to look. We can do one of three things. The first is to alter our appearance. The second is to alter our self-image. The third is to throw a blanket over the mirror and pretend it doesn\u2019t exist. <\/p>\n

Read the headlines, and it often seems the world has collectively decided to go with option three \u2014 taking books out of school curriculums, proposing laws about what can\u2019t be taught in schools, enacting policies that delegitimize or simply obliterate whole populations of people.<\/p>\n

This is hardly new; the old saw that \u201chistory is a story told by the winners\u201d is axiomatic for a reason. That\u2019s vividly demonstrated in the new documentary Tantura<\/em>, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival amid a spate of films about option three. An old man settles into a chair in his backyard and simply tells director Alon Schwarz that he \u201cdecided not to think about these things, not to think about them at all.\u201d <\/p>\n

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