A Movie Review of Sorts

Mom and I recently saw the movie The Sheep Detectives. Reminiscent of old-school Disney movies, it is an innocent and entertaining romp where very human-like sheep are the protagonists. Their loving shepherd, George (played by Hugh Jackman), lives alone in a trailer in the same field as his flock. Every evening before sending them off to sleep, George reads to them from a murder mystery. Only when the sheep are alone do we realize that they can speak with each other as we do. Brighter than we thought, they still are… well, sheep. Then one fateful evening, their beloved shepherd is murdered. The local officer of the small town is neither too bright nor too interested in the possibility of foul play. Therefore, Lily, the brightest of the sheep, decides it is their job to solve the mystery.  Now the story really begins.

If you want to know the rest of the story, you will have to watch the movie. There is, however, one message worth some reflection [spoiler alert]. The flock has the ability to decide to forget something they find unpleasant. They simply count to three and collectively erase the event from their memory. There are, however, two older sheep—Mopple and Sebastian—who do not have or want the gift of forgetfulness. At one point, when particularly frustrated, Lily wanted to quit the investigation and forget the whole thing:

Lily: Tonight isn’t the first time I’ve seen a sheep die, is it?

Mopple: No.

Lily: How many times have I forgotten?

Mopple: More than I can count.

Lily: You’ve carried this all alone, all this time?

Mopple: Yes, I remember every bad thing. But I remember good things, too. I remember my mother’s face. I remember old friends and how they loved me. And you will remember Sebastian, too.

Lily: It hurts. Remembering hurts.

Mopple: I know. But if you forget, you can’t save the others, and Sebastian will have died for nothing. Caleb will come for you tomorrow, and you’ll follow your new shepherd just like the other stupid, frightened sheep. And we’ll all die. I’m sorry, Lily, I am. But it’s our memory that keeps the ones we love alive.

We could learn from these sheep.

I’d like to reflect briefly upon memory–the ease of forgetting, the importance of remembering, and practical ways to cultivate memory.

It is easy to forget. We forget for many reasons. First, we can simply lack the habit of remembering. For the last several decades, schools have no longer trained children to memorize. Now that we can digitally save all the information on a phone or a computer, we have even less need to remember. Secondly, we can be so distracted by a hectic life and copious media consumption that we don’t take time for silent reflection. Thirdly, like Lily, we can intentionally forget because the memory simply hurts too much. Like the sheep, it seems we have conditioned ourselves to easily forget.

If we do not reflect upon the past, we risk the danger of repeating past mistakes or, worse still, of forgetting who we are.  On the first point, philosopher George Santayana writes,