This beautiful Lebanese work is at base a compendium of wisdoms set in a quasi-poetic form, but actually a series of metaphors illustrating ancient wisdoms. The vehicle is a journey by foot of a wise man who has been in the mountains meditating and is now walking to the seaside through a village, answering the questions shouted at him by the villagers as he passes (compare Thus Spake Zarathustra). It is a sort of farewell...
This beautiful Lebanese work is at base a compendium of wisdoms set in a quasi-poetic form, but actually a series of metaphors illustrating ancient wisdoms. The vehicle is a journey by foot of a wise man who has been in the mountains meditating and is now walking to the seaside through a village, answering the questions shouted at him by the villagers as he passes (compare Thus Spake Zarathustra). It is a sort of farewell gift to the villagers (read “humanity”) before he embarks on a journey to an unspecified distant land. Thus the entire mise-en-scene is a metaphor for a man (Gibran?) on his deathbed, saying his last words in the form of wisdoms passed on to the next generation. For example, somebody asks “Tell us of marriage” to which he replies “The pillars of the temple stand apart, and the oak and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.” These metaphors tell the asker that while the married couple is a pair (holding up the "temple"), a team, nevertheless they have the right to be individuals also, and that their partnership should not inhibit their growth as individuals. In summary, then, each question asked gets a little “story” told to illustrate the wisdom underneath.
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