This Review Reveals Minor Details About the Plot.
Eight For Silver
Plot Overview
A
nineteenth century French town was plagued by the wolflike
Beast of Gévaudan until the army came and took it out. Shortly
thereafter their Gypsy denizens pulled up stakes and left, for
“the curse had had its revenge and was to be contained in Gypsy
silver.” They next encamped down the road on a valid land claim
of theirs, but the local yahoos rousted them as an example to others.
A Gypsy wise woman (Pascale Becouze) utters an incantation to
a set of canine-heavy false teeth forged by a silversmith and
set up as an icon before a painting of Madonna & child. The
surrounding settlement children dig up the chompers and start
turning each other into werewolves. The army drags its feet as
the villagers hole up in a barricaded church assaulted by a Trojan
Horse/werepup whose mom fingers an iconic crucifix while she prays
before a similar-looking statue of Madonna and child.
Ideology
The children being biblically literate
recite or remove pertinent pages related to their plight: Judas betraying
Jesus for thirty pieces of silver and God's fury poured out upon his
wayward people “As silver is melted in the midst of a furnace,
so shall ye be melted”—Ezekiel
22:22. The easy parallel of Noah's ark to their one safe shelter
in a storm (“the only safe place”) is left for the viewer
to ascertain. The children combine it all to the cadence of a nursery
rhyme repeated in parts throughout the movie:
- One is for sorrow.
- Two is for joy.
- Three for a girl,
- Four for a boy.
- Five for a wedding,
- Six for a birth.
- Seven for a curse that's buried in the earth.
- Eight for silver,
- Nine for Gold.
- Ten for a wolf, and you won't die old.
Going down the list, “One is for sorrow. Two is for joy.” The ark's passengers could well be a model for, (James 5:13) “Is any among you afflicted? let him pray. Is any merry? let him sing psalms.” There was undoubtedly a lot of distress on their voyage occasioning a lot of prayer, and their eventual landfall would have been accompanied by much celebration.
“Three for a girl, Four for a boy.” God commanded them to be fruitful and multiply, both before and after the flood. So far so good.
“Five for a wedding, Six for a birth.” Noah and his three sons getting married would have accounted for four weddings. Where did wedding number five come from? Could Noah have taken a second wife, a concubine say, who for some reason never made it into the ark but her son did? In the Genesis account of the Flood, is a mystery woman, the mother of Ham. (Gen. 9:18-19) “And the sons of Noah, that went forth of the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth: and Ham is the father of Canaan. These are the three sons of Noah: and of them was the whole earth overspread.” Let's look again at Noah's story (Jasher 5:14-17):
And the Lord said unto Noah, Take unto thee a wife, and beget children, for I have seen thee righteous before me in this generation. And thou shalt raise up seed, and thy children with thee, in the midst of the earth; and Noah went and took a wife, and he chose Naamah the daughter of Enoch, and she was five hundred and eighty years old. And Noah was four hundred and ninety-eight years old, when he took Naamah for a wife. And Naamah conceived and bare a son, and he called his name Japheth, saying, God has enlarged me in the earth; and she conceived again and bare a son, and he called his name Shem, saying, God has made me a remnant, to raise up seed in the midst of the earth.
Shem and Japheth were full brothers, Ham was born at a later date (the youngest, see Gen. 9:24) perhaps from a different mother. Noah's wife was older than he was. Perhaps at 580+ years she was no longer able to bear children after the first two. She didn't have any more after the flood, even though it was a time to repopulate the earth. Maybe she stopped bearing before the flood. Ham could then have been stepbrother of the other two.
Researcher Mark DeWayne Combs posits that, “Although Jasher specifically references the births of Japheth and Shem, there is no such reference to the birth of Ham. … that Ham may have been much younger than his brothers and that he may have had a different mother” (389). Combs also observes, “Fathering a child, particularly a son, through a handmaiden or servant girl would not have been an uncommon or forbidden practice in that time period” (165). Historian Kenneth M. Stampp remarks that “Apologists for slavery traced the history of servitude back to the dawn of civilization and showed that it had always existed in some form until their own day” (14).
“Seven for a curse that's buried in the earth.” The Gypsy's curse was swept under a rug, but so was Noah's curse on Ham cum Canaan's line in Genesis.
For those not settled in the sands of
time, I offer this remedial history lesson, with apologies to those
who don't need it. The biblical story is widely known of Adam &
Eve's temptation and fall in the Garden of Eden, how the woman ate
the forbidden fruit and gave it to her husband to eat (Gen. 3:6), God responding by increasing
the severity of the woman's childbirth pains (Gen. 3:16) and making man's toil onerous
(Gen. 3:17-19.) What is less well
known—except in places like the Bible Belt—is a redo of
sorts to ameliorate man's difficult labor. Noah's father Lamech had
(Gen. 5:29) “called his name
Noah, saying, This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil
of our hands, because of the ground which the LORD hath cursed.”
They still had to follow the earlier template to get a reprieve. Instead
of the forbidden tree to be respected by the first couple, there was
old man Noah whose work break was to be respected by his three sons.
(Gen. 6:10) “And Noah begat
three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.” They formed themselves
into two pairs: the eldest Shem & Japheth, and the youngest Ham
paired with his own son Canaan making the numbers even.
When (Jasher 6:40-41) “they all went out from the ark, they went and returned every one to his way and to his place, and Noah and his sons dwelt in the land.” They'd been cooped up together in the ark, so now they spread out somewhat according to some preestablished pecking order. God (Jasher 6:42) “said unto them, Be fruitful and fill all the earth; become strong.” To become strong meant, among other things, taking their needed meds when sick, along the lines of, (James 5:14) “Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.” Children are always getting sick. Here it seemed to be Canaan's turn whose elders would have been his father Ham and grandfather Noah. Oil in Bible times was a medication as was, (1Tim. 5:23) “Drink[ing] no longer water, but [to] use a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities.” Grapes only grow in the summer, but once they're fermented, the wine can be stored. Noah got into the store to set the example for a work break, establishing period(s) of rest from hard work per Lamech's saying. By chance or design it interfered—it had to inconvenience someone—with Ham's youngest son Canaan's need, and Ham could well have been the low-status brother from another mother.
Instead of the wily serpent we had Noah's wife as an on-the-spot influencer, who since she isn't mentioned, did well incurring no rebuke. She would have made herself scarce giving Noah some space to relax when he started drinking. Being a virtuous woman (Prov. 31:27) “She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness.” She would not have let grass grow under her feet but would have gone to visit Ham to make adjustments regarding their diminished store of medicinal alcohol, to advise him to water down the old supply, or whatever. Ham showed up shortly thereafter to check it out. He fell to temptation by mocking his dad to his two brothers, but they would have none of it. This is parallel to Eve earlier failing first then offering the fruit to Adam who accepted it, but here the older brothers did not go along with Ham, so we'd expect them to receive a blessing rather than a curse such as it was. The distribution of labor had to be readjusted on account of the new workers' holiday(s), and Ham for his insolence left himself and his family line open to taking up the slack. Depicted below is that scene rendered in a Civil War vintage woodcut, made after a drawing by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld (German painter, 1794–1872) from his archive, published in 1877.
The alternate image text by licensor iStock.com/Getty Images explains what happened here to Noah and his fermented grapes: “When he drank some of the wine, he got drunk and uncovered himself inside his tent. Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father's nakedness and told his two brothers who were outside. Shem and Japheth took a garment and placed it on their shoulders. Then they walked in backwards and covered up their father's nakedness. Their faces were turned the other way so they did not see their father's nakedness (Genesis 9:21-23).” They covered the old man to prevent him from catching a chill as it was no longer summer. In our movie the trees are still bare, but it's warm enough to hang sheets out to dry. The peasants begin trimming the vines in preparation for the growing season.
Ham had put himself in jeopardy according to, (Prov. 30:17) “The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it.” Especially pertinent in this case is Noah's control over the animals including the raven (Gen. 8:7) although Proverbs often gives general principles rather than specific results. Nevertheless, there is precedent when some kids mocked a man of God for not having a covering of hair on his head and they got mauled by beasts. (2Kings 2:23-24) “And … as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head. And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.”
There's a parity of eye loss and servitude
given in (Exodus 21:26) “And
if a man smite the eye of his servant, or the eye of his maid, that
it perish; he shall let him go free for his eye's sake.” Ham
and his line—represented by Canaan in his lineage—could
be given servitude rather than mutilation. This would be in keeping
with the sentiment of Job in, (Job 31:7-8) “If my step hath turned
out of the way, and mine heart walked after mine eyes, and if any
blot hath cleaved to mine hands; Then let me sow, and let another
eat; yea, let my offspring be rooted out.” In that woodcut-derived
picture above we see Ham after disregarding his mom's caution, checking
up on his dad, getting carried away by an eyeful of the dishabille
inebriate, and gesturing with his hands. If he were to “sow,
and another eat” and his “offspring be rooted out,”
that would mean him becoming a slave and his offspring being
carried away in slavery. Okay.
The Bible's account leans towards the latter. (Gen. 9:24-27) “And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son [Ham] had done unto him. And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.” When Noah woke up, he blessed as a pair the lines of his two respectful sons and cursed Ham's line—pairing Ham with his youngest son Canaan as was Noah's wont—giving them servitude to his other two sons'. (Jasher 73:35) “For the Lord our God gave Ham the son of Noah, and his children and all his seed, as slaves to the children of Shem and to the children of Japheth, and unto their seed after them for slaves, forever.”
Ham's youngest son Canaan is the particularly noted recipient of the punishment. Later when the Israelis invaded the promised land, the Canaanites were due for destruction, but the Gibeonite branch (the Hivites of Joshua 11:19 & Gen. 10:15-17) did a deal with Joshua who was the Jewish leader. They'd heard what happened to other Canaanite tribes, so they sent ambassadors dressed as if they'd come from a long journey (Joshua 9:3-6) and persuaded Joshua to make a league with this “distant” tribe. When it was discovered they'd tricked Joshua into sparing them, (Joshua 9:24-27) he made them bondmen, which was more to their liking. If this trick is indicative of the character of the original Canaan, he might well have been malingering to get out of his chores, which would also help explain Noah's hesitation to coddle him with wine. And when it came time to deal with the sin, it affected the whole line of Ham.
More germane to modern times is perhaps the lineage of Cush, Ham's oldest son (Gen. 10:6,) Cush meaning black in Hebrew, having settled in Africa, some to become in later years African-American slaves. Researcher Bodie Hodge confirms that, “As a general trend, Ham is the father of many peoples in Africa” (122). Dr. Ide adds, “Ham sired four sons: Cush (translates as ‘black’) … and Canaan the youngest” (62).
“Eight for silver, Nine for Gold. Ten for a wolf, and you won't die old.” Alchemists long sought to transmute base metals into gold and themselves into other kinds. Here humans are changed into wolves, creatures that are hunted relentlessly until killed. “The Lord has made it part of His plan that man's reaping shall be according to his sowing.”—Healthful Living, 25. (Letter, May 19, 1897) as quoted in writings of Vance Ferrell. The wicked land baron who slaughtered a village of Gypsies will with his family reap terror and death; a greedy son who mocked his father's work break will reap added work laid upon him and his line.
The movie makes an issue of when the curse
would be finished. By Jasher's reckoning, Ham's curse would last forever,
but as noted in writings of Vance Ferrell, “Our people are
well-aware of the fact that ‘forever’ in the Bible should
very often not be translated ‘forever’ but,
instead, ‘as long as a certain situation exists’”
(75.) In this movie a love ballad Come Over the Hills, My Bonnie
Irish Lass claims, “I'll be your true love forever,”
but forever obviously doesn't mean they'll never die. Negro
slavery will likely have become moot once Christ has sacrificed
himself for all, and if they Christianize themselves. The
werewolf curse will end by military intervention.
Production Values
“” was written and directed by Sean Ellis. It stars Boyd Holbrook, Kelly Reilly, Alistair Petrie, Amelia Crouch, and Max Mackintosh. The acting was universally fine but the movie's dreary cholera pandemic seemed to have put the characters on edge.
MPAA rated it R for strong violence, grisly images and brief nudity. Physical models were used for the werewolves making them scarier than the electronically manufactured. Either way these pictures haunt my dreams at night. The editing used jump cuts to advantage.
Review Conclusion w/a Christian's Recommendation
Gypsy werewolves are creepier than the occidental ones. Bible knowledge would help one apply this historical fantasy to Bible and modern times. See it for variety.
Works Cited
Scripture quoted from the King James Version. Pub. 1611, rev. 1769. Print. Software.
The Book of Jasher. Translated from the Hebrew into English (1840). Photo lithographic reprint of exact edition published by J.H. Parry & Co., Salt Lake City: 1887. Muskogee, OK: Artisan Pub., 1988. Print, Web.
Combs, Mark DeWayne. End the Beginning. USA: Splinter in the Mind's Eye Pub., 2014. Print.
Ferrell, Vance. The Feast Days. Altamont: Harvestime Books, 2006. Print.
Hodge, Bodie. Tower of Babel: The Cultural History of Our Ancestors. Green Forest, AR: New Leaf Pub., 2013. Print.
Ide, Arthur Frederick. Noah & the Ark: The Influence of Sex, Homophobia and Heterosexism in the Flood Story and its Writing. Las Colinas: Monument Press, 1992. Print.
Stampp, Kenneth M., Professor of American History at the University
of California (Berkeley).
The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the
Ante-Bellum South. Vintage Books, 1955. Print.
bibles.n7nz.org