My friend Ron Reed happened to quote writer C.H. Dodd today in offering the definition of the word “parable.” Ron referenced this in summing up the virtues of The Return, my favorite film of 2004.
It struck me that, while this definition sums up Jesus’s style of storytelling, it also sums up most of the movies that end up becoming my favorites:
A parable is:
A metaphor or simile
drawn from nature or common life
arresting the hearers by its vividness or strangeness
and leaving the mind in sufficient doubt to its precise application
to tease the mind into active thought.
Doesn’t that apply to most of the films you end up having long talks about with your friends and neighbors?