"THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE"

Robert Altman's 1992 film "The Player" is about a studio executive stalked by a disgruntled screenwriter via annonymous death threats. The executive while searching for his persecutor meets a writer whose screenplay he had rejected.In an accident the executive kills him.Later he has an affair with the dead man's girlfriend,an artist.there comes a moment when they are making love for the first time,that the executive feels that he should tell the artist about the death he was responsible for.However the girl ,despite the executive's repeated attempts,rejects the opening of any such conversation.Did she guess what the man was about to talk about?The man was after all the primary suspect;it was known that he was the last person who had met her ex boyfriend.Did she not want to ruin what she was having?Maybe she was feeling happier wth her current lover.In the very next scene the man is told that the police is searching for him;they have found a witness.The girl sits beside him impassively all the time.
The question that "The Player" poses is -how convenient is the telling of the truth?Whether it's worth ruining the moment ,all the happiness that there is to be followed by doubt,suspicion and hostility.Is the truth to be achieved at the cost of our present contentment?
We often face situations like this :when is it all right ,if at all, to tell somebody we do not like them?How long do we say quiet or indulge in innuendo then?When is it okay to tell someone we have some feelings for them?When is it worthwhile to tell someone close to us we think what they're doing with their lives could be fundamentally wrong or that we dont like their public demeanour?
The truth is sometimes by asking questions like this we might have to look inwards.We may have to make a painful choice.The truth really does not set us free.It puts us in fetters in this case.
Germany immediately after World War 2 had to face the prospect of complete alienation because of its primary role .Today it has banned all references to the Swastika,the symbol of the Nazi party at the helm during the war.It thus still smarts over its role.How we smart when we see someone whose unhappiness we think we have been a cause of.Some things cant be changed.And thus we try to be impervious to change.