Protagonist

Protagonist

The documentary, Protagonist takes a creative approach to the pursuit of a better understanding of Greek tragedy and contemporary human tragedy. The official website describes the movie in the following words.

PROTAGONIST explores extremism through contrasting stories of personal revelation. The film features four individuals who have been devoted to personal odysseys - a cause, a quest, an ideal - to the point of total consumption. At first glance the characters appear disconnected: a former German terrorist, an "ex-gay" evangelist, a bank robber and a martial arts student. But as their stories unfold, one starts to see the parallels between the uncommon, common experience of these four men. Each character embarks on a journey for valid reasons, only to find himself so deeply embedded in the cause that he becomes the opposite of what he had intended. He is blind to this fact, though, until the forces of fate and character boil and distill to a single moment of dark epiphany. In telling this echoing story, the film asks: what is the path to extremism? In responding to the turmoil of life, where does one draw the line between the reasonable and the unreasonable? And how does one recover from the delusion of certainty? The four stories in PROTAGONIST are told in parallel threads and structured like a multi-layered Greek drama. Directed by Jessica Yu and produced by Yu, Elise Pearlstein and Susan West, this adventurous documentary is inspired by the works of the 5th century playwright Euripides. The film uses quotes from his plays as thematic chapter headings, providing a provocative common link between our contemporary stories and lending them a timeless quality.”  

http://www.protagonistthemovie.com/

Each of the characters in this movie basically agrees to banish some aspect of themselves in exchange for acceptance and a sense of dignity (whether that be real or imagined). Each of them experiences some element of uncertainty as a child and makes use of solutions that present themselves to regain a sense of certainty, power, and a sense of empowerment or belonging. All experience a crisis of faith at some point in time -  a moment when they must face the fact that they are not who they are pretending to be or that the group they have identified with is not what it claims to be. Each experiences an epistemological crisis that changes their lives.

Question for Comment: Have you ever been certain about something and then lost that sense of certainty? Have you ever been a member of a group to which you were totally committed and then dropped out of that group as a result of some sort of disillusionment? What is it like for you when you realize that you may not think what you had been thinking or that you may not belong to a group you thought you belonged to