Polis - The city of Scout

What about the movie? Tintin is the white knight without fear, even if the kids of today might appear a bit 'too geeky, and the edges. The journey from sin to redemption Catholic finds himself in his great friend Captain Haddock ...

The output of salt in our film by Steven Spielberg's "The Adventures of Tintin. The Secret of the Unicorn "has revived the debate about the origins and meaning - if there is one - of the Tintin stories.

Tintin is not a Catholic identifiable as such. Do not ever please God when death touches him, and did not ever see in a church. A brief allusion to St. John the Evangelist betrays just a residue of catechism. The guardian angel to Captain Haddock and Snowy, in open war with a devil imagination, make you smile. Religion - Incas, Sun worship, Buddhists, Muslims - is that of the other, must be respected, it perpetuates a culture, and, on this plane, Hergé would rather relativista.Il treasure of the Incas (Le Temple du soleil) or burial of the Pharaohs (Les Cigares du pharaon) should be withdrawn from the curiosity of Westerners. Twice only a "God have his soul!" Tintin escapes, when he learns of the death of an evil Japanese (Le Lotus bleu) and two pirates on the high seas (Le Trésor de Rackham le Rouge). How to millenarianism, he got what he deserved with quell'illuminato that in L'Etoile Mystérieuse, announces the end of time beating on his gong.

However, Tintin is a hero of Catholicism, imbued with the ideal of Scouting that you know the importance in the formation of Hergé, and that was apparent in his earlier books (Jo et Jocko Zette; Popol et Virginie chez les Lapinos). No age, no sex or lust really ordinary, has a job which legitimizes the wandering and the art of camouflage which hangs over his identity: he's an angel, or nearly so. Curious, adventurous, helpful as Brown, the priest of Chesterton detective, seems to come to earth of men to defend the widow and the orphan. Orlando is crossed with Mermoz and Saint-Exupéry, who, as Durlindana, a dog who talks and thinks. The draws for the honor, for free, and challenge the arrogance of the powerful, the venality of the colonizers, protects the weak and oppressed. Ardent anticommunist since his Tintin chez les Soviets, where the Belgian journalist is not a superman comic, Hergé weakens ruthlessly satrapies of Latinos, Yankee capitalists and traffickers in their pay. Alcazar is less cruel than Tapioca, but Tintin makes him promise not to shoot more as if nothing had happened. The monarchy is better than dictatorships Ottokar's red-Plekszy Gladz, since the abdication of King prefers to avoid the blood flows, whereas, among Bordures, you shoot without mercy. But the credulity, greed, stupidity, human have no ideological boundaries. Only one character really cute in Tintin en Amérique: the ethnologist who adopted the customs of the "noble savage", seems to be in Paul et Virginie or Atala. Only one character in Tintin au Congo in value: the missionary with the gowns and the white cap that goes to school and care for the sick. Target the voracity of the thugs in the pay of the multinationals (oil or weapons), the native never has the role of villain. Even if you adjust the clichés paternalistic era in which the Belgians exploited the Congo.

Tintin is a supernatural hero who moves in realistic scenarios, and although poeticizzati caricaturizzati. People close to him are subject to temptation, whiskey for Haddock, Milou for the bones, applied science for Sunflower. But are corrected at the right time and arm themselves with courage. A fund of honesty saves them as in the case of sunflower, uncompromising on "human rights" (Tintin et les Picaros), which drops its inventions if they are likely to be used for a bad cause (L'Affaire Tournesol). This scientist, a little 'ears rang and completely hard, belongs to the brotherhood of the righteous, whose principles have two children: the Indian Zorrino (Le Temple du soleil) and Chinese Chang (Le Lotus bleu). Tintin reserve them a particular tenderness, are figures of the Gospel, in their sublime confidence. They are pure, like Tintin who has the gift of tears, and again becomes the child with his antics, to express his joy. A grace pulls him out of the most desperate risks, like the heroes of medieval epics. Tintin is a western knight of modern times, a heart without a stain in the body invulnerable, like a meteor through the common humanity - its geography, its psychology - doubly enhanced by the taste of the profane from the sacred mystery and moral imperative to save the 'innocent conquer evil.

He loves life too much to be a saint, his curiosity unrepentant connects him to humanity, it sometimes offers a cruise, sometimes a beach to relax in the bucolic retreat where Moulinsart, turned the corner, a glimpse of the steeple of the village. This doubles the Cheverny castle, stronghold of the ancestors of Haddock, recovered (with his treasure) through the generosity of Sunflower, is more or less the Temple of the Grail. If heaven exists in this world, it would Moulinsart home. But we must get away to go to vanquish evil, to gather here and there bits of exoticism as the crusaders who resurrects Tintin (without their bellicosity) and how the missionaries (without their proselytizing.) Is the guardian angel of Christian values ​​that the West constantly denies or scoffs. Without fear, without reproach, outlaws if necessary, the creature of Hergé combines the virtues of candor with which they endeavored to inculcate in the catechism. No matter if Hergé was aware of in designing lovingly Created a monster whose patented (the gorilla L'Ile black yeti Tintin au Tibet) were less harmful of the human race. Although, in everyday life, it does not look so despicable man in the street especially sins inertia. They are the pride, the attraction of profit and the taste of the power to ruin everything, that is, Caesar and Mammon. Tintin stana them, assaulting them and then make them get back into the fold (roughly the Old Europe) to the applause of the good people. But evil is never disarms, and the company has nothing but the Dupont (d) incapable of opposing him. They embody the law, without a capital letter, and ridicule.

At the time of my childhood, we had a missal for Sundays and Tintin books for weekdays. That went hand in hand for our initiations. Since the missal no longer in use, Tintin is now all alone in initiating children to the values ​​of chivalry.

Denis Tillinac