Billy Elliot (2000)
- Information at Internet Movie Database
- Cinema in Focus, a social and spiritual commentary by Hal Conklin and Denny Wayman.
- Movie Parables review.
- Review, Matthew Prins, TheFilmForum: Christian Conversation about the Movies.
- "Billy Elliot: the Worship and Caging of the Artist," Amanda Caldwell, TheFilmForum: Christian Conversation about the Movies.
- Review, Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality & Health - Spiritual Practices for Human Being.
- Themes
- Repentance
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In the movie Billy Eliot, young Billy is a lad who joins in on the ballet class which meets in the hall after his boxing club, and is found to be a talented dancer. However, his father and brother refuse to allow the dance lessons to continue, considering it too prissy for one of their family. A climax moment in the story is when Billy?s father, having prohibited his dancing further, marches down to the hall to catch him in the act and to beat some ?sense? into him. The boy, however, defiantly dances his utmost before his father, ?converting? him to seeing what he is capable of. The movie is set during the Margaret Thatcher?s war on the coal workers. So moved is Billy?s father that he crosses the line to join the ?scab? labourers (strike-breakers) so that his boy might go to the ballet academy. The scene is a useful parable of repentance as thinking or seeing again, or turning around, and of the immediate relationship between being converted and acting on the new self- (or other-) understanding. Also useful on repentance is the fact that the father could not be told how good the boy was, and it was only when directly confronted with his son?s talent that he could see his error. (Craig Thompson, Narre Hampton Park Uniting Church, Melbourne, Australia)
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- Repentance
