Today’s trip to the cinema was to see ‘Bonhoeffer’. This was not in pursuit of a blockbuster, but was instead a tribute to the story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, famous as a hero and martyr during the second world war, and for his prolific writing, particularly ‘The Cost of Discipleship‘.
You can read more about him here, and he is remembered by the Anglican church as one of the 10 martyrs represented in statue form above the entrance to Westminster Abbey.
Consensus amongst our cinema group was that this was a good film. We had varying degrees of pre-knowledge about Bonhoeffer, but we all came away feeling that we had learned some more, and that he had been a great man.
On a minor note, we all liked the credits at the end which were overlaid in a flash manner with some of the writings of Bonhoeffer. On that note, we liked his advocacy of “the teachings of Christianity without need of the religion that surrounds it”.
There was a definite sense amongst us of having come away with more than just the experience of having watched a good movie.