The lost garden

Summary

The first films I ever saw were Tarzan films. There wasn't a single Tarzan film shown in Jerusalem that we, the gang and I, missed. We saw them all. It was when we were seven, eight, nine. … There were Flash Gordon films too, and others, all of them presenting a neat, orderly world.

I look back nostalgically on those films, on that world: it was always a simple compound of morality, beauty and strength. It is a lost paradise. Who is there who has never yearned for a simple, symmetrical world, in which the good guy is always better-looking, braver and cleverer (but not by much) than the bad guy, and where he always gets the beautiful girl in the end? All those Tarzan and Flash Gordon films were idealistic to the highest degree. To this day they still remind me of the fascinations of a neat, orderly world. By the time I had seen my third or fourth Flash Gordon I knew what one could look forward to: disorder would eventually join forces with order, and accept its rule. It was a symmetrical world, with rewards and punishments, and a reason and justification for all pain and suffering. Sometimes I could guess right at the start of a film at what point the forces of evil would erupt … but even the sudden, unexpected explosions of evil were amazingly well integrated into what was expected and right. We knew that Tarzan would be captured by the savages. We knew that they would overpower him and tie him up and his situation would be desperate, with no hope of escape.