La boutique de l'orfèvre

It has been quite a culture shock, in only 50 years, so many of our basics - including our feelings about marriage - turned about and pointed in the other direction entirely!

This film endeavors to address it all and it does - in a helpful, sensitive and entertaining fashion.

Not long ago, Marriage was assumed to be the natural and most desirable path for any decent person. Then came the population explosions, and upgrading of human rights/responsibilities in all directions and social experiments running rampant, with human guinea pigs for the project.

Changing approaches to marriage has been one of these experiments. The human experience sources partly in the wonder of the special relationship of TWO - but today, people do exactly as the young couple in the story - they express doubt - they ask "why ?"

And that is the thing: not all that long ago no one would wonder about marriage - it was half the foundation of adult life. To question marriage would be a horrifying prospect. And today it is much more than a questioning - it is often a casting off of marriage - this new reality - and those coming of age are even happy with this sad idea !

The Jeweler's Shop is not perfect. Criticize the film for "missing it" in places but films like this and NEEDED and more of them.

Technically, the story is an allegory or even a parable of sorts, since it has a moral and lesson for us, and many of its mechanics are simplified to empower the moral.

And yet it was written so it could be simply enjoyed for its story without the moral message coming on too heavily. And we were entertained. Nice.

Would I have watched this film if it had not been written by Pope John Paul II in his theater arts days? I don't know.

But, it was lovely! Thank you...Dzien cuje!