The Morality and Justice of The White Bear

In class last week, we watched a short film entitled “White Bear”.  In it, a woman who kidnapped and murdered a young girl is forever living over and over a day in which she is tortured the same way she did to that little girl.  What was most shocking is that the events of her days were staged by actors in an attempt at justice for her crimes.  The big question being asked is, “is this a moral process for justice”?  I think that this form of punishment may be just, but it most likely is not ethical.  It is just because she is getting exactly what she did to the girl she kidnapped, but it is not ethical because there is just something simply inhumane about making someone go through the same torturous events over and over.  What I found most confusing about this form of punishment is that she doesn’t remember every day of her torture because her memory is wiped of it.  Even though it is cruel to make a human go through that kind of torture, it’s almost useless because she will never learn from it or even remember it for that matter.  Something that also interested me was the fact that everyday civilians were participating in this woman’s torture and humiliation.  It’s sometimes hard to believe that normal people could have the ability to do such terrible things to another person, but this film depicts that maybe we are capable of those kinds of things.  I am curious, however, about the significance of the image on the screens and cell phones. I feel like that was never quite explained. Overall, I really did enjoy the short film.  I really like movies and television shows that have a really good twist at the end and this short film definitely did that.