The War Prayer

This is one of several dozen short films that are currently posted on IMDb for viewing in the United States. For how long and if it's available where you live is something you'll just have to check out for yourself.

This film is based on a short story by Mark Twain written during the very bloody conflict where American soldiers conquered the Philippines.. It begins at a church service where the crowd is praying for soldiers serving abroad and the atmosphere is akin to a pep rally. Suddenly, an ill-dressed man enters and announces that God has heard their prayers and he's ready to grant them exactly what they wish for--if that's REALLY what they want.

The film is well made and very, very hard-hitting. It is very clearly anti-war and its point is to get you to re-examine your attitudes towards your country's enemies. There's a very good chance it will offend you, but more importantly it does make you think and any film that does that is a success.

War is human nature at it's worst. It is the last refuge of the incompetent (or Congress), it is the destruction of the poor, the elevation of the powerful. It can bring out the best in us only when we are able to transcend the worst. I've loved Clemens since my youth and discovered this work about forty years ago, right after I got back from Vietnam. I wish, fervently that this could be discovered by more people, more often. Perhaps War could be made obsolete, a sad and regrettable product of our more primitive past.....

Then again, perhaps not. After watching what has happened in America over the last ten years, let alone over the last 105 years, I think that we can be held up as a portrait of humanity at it's free-est.... and it's worst, at times. Since 2003 and the invasion of Iraq, the US has slunk into the depths of it's own worst fears: it has become a bully and a tyrant that can only strike that which it cannot understand.

Peace is all that any human wants. Let us try to give that to each other....