Monday, January 7, 2008

Let This be a Lesson to Ya!

Mary Beth and I recently watched Metropolis, a 1927 science fiction film classic. We were both semi-impressed with its relatability to the Enneagram.
The film is, basically, about a labor-management dispute. Its tag line is: "There can be no understanding between the hands and the brain unless the heart acts as mediator. "
Here, the hands are represented by the workers, who live underground and work 10 hour days doing things like turning the hands of a dial whenever spots on the dial light up -- and light up they do! Hoo boy! Plus, there's the constant threat of death from flood or explosion.
The brain is represented by the folks who live above ground. They thought up the dial machines and such, and now they want to think happy thoughts and let the money roll in... but due to the heart, it's just not that easy. The role of "heart" is played by Freder, a silly-looking guy in short pants who falls in love with the union leader.
The trio of hands, brain, heart reminded us of the three centers in Enneagram lore -- gut (body), head , heart. Check out this article; its section "Theory of the Enneagram: Centers of Intelligence" explains it all pretty well.
As for Metropolis, everything works out fine in the end, but not without a mad scientist losing a hand, a sexy robot doing the hootchie coo, and a rabble rouser getting kissed in the catacombs. Good, clean fun.
Check out this Youtube video entitled "Freder's Vision." Toward the end, you can see statues of the Seven Deadly Sins coming to life. This is the sort of thing that will happen if your centers become imbalanced.

2 comments:

Mary Beth said...

The Freder's Vision video is cool. When I clicked on it, YouTube said it wasn't available, but I typed in Freder's vision and it was there.

Cindi said...

Fixed it!