Hardly any other director has created as many blockbuster classics in his career as Steven Spielberg. Many people associate the most formative film experiences of their lives with him and were influenced at a young age by Jaws, ET: The Extra-Terrestrial or Jurassic Park.
My early youth was also influenced by a Spielberg film, but not in a positive way. As a child, I watched Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom with my parents, which led to a years of trauma led.
The ripped out Indiana Jones heart shocked me deeply
As a child, I often watched television with my parents. I was often allowed to watch films that were not necessarily suitable for me. That’s how I saw Spielberg’s second Indy film for the first time when I was about eight years old.
What fascinated me most at the time was the sequence in which Harrison Ford’s title character, Willie (Kate Capshaw) and Shorty (Ke Huy Quan) are welcomed into the palace of the young Maharaja with a “gourmet” menu of Indian cuisine.
Culinary specialties such as live snakes, an eye soup and the legendary monkey brain on ice seemed so strange to me that Spielberg’s rollercoaster adventure had already cast its spell over me. After this disgusting highlight, however, came the scene that was clearly too much for my young mind.
The trio has come across an underground temple through a secret passage, where they become part of a grotesque spectacle from a hill without being noticed. The priest Mola Ram (Amrish Puri) is the leader of a gruesome cult and in the scene he targets a new victim.
20th Century Studios/Disney
Mola Ram in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
The innocent man is chained in a prison device and cannot defend himself as the priest tears out his heart to the soundtrack’s increasingly threatening sounds. After that, he lives on (!), after his chest has simply grown back togetherand is then lowered into a lake of lava for a cruel cremation.
I was stunned and completely unprepared to watch the scene, much like Indiana Jones himself. My parents were amused by the spectacle on the television screen and imitated the cult leader’s terrifying “Kali Ma” babble.
I didn’t really care about the rest of the film, because this shocking scene was immediately etched in my mind and I couldn’t think of anything else. Over the next few weeks, the moment with the ripped out heart and especially the terrifying voice with piercing music repeatedly in my thoughts.
My parents would turn the TV back on every time Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was broadcast. Sometimes I was glad when we watched a repeat in the early afternoon. They always showed an edited version in which the sacrificial ceremony was greatly shortened and over much quicker.
Nevertheless, formative film experiences of my youth are to this day inseparably linked to the second Indy part. Steven Spielberg, the supposedly lovable family film director, has just caused a trauma in my life.
20th Century Studios/Disney
The poor victim in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
Today, the Spielberg trauma has been overcome, but unease remains
When I watch Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom these days, I love the Spielberg blockbuster as, in my opinion, the best Indy film. With its crazy pace, unbelievable ideas and spectacular adventure images, the film races past me every time.
Nevertheless, every time I get this brief feeling of unease in my stomach, a brief pressure, when Indy & Co. see the upcoming sacrificial ceremony for the first time from their hiding place. It is no longer the scene with the ripped out heart itself that nowadays exaggerated instead of realistic-shocking looks like.
But the moment when it becomes clear what is about to happen, it immediately takes me back to my childhood. Then the film burrows into my head and once again digs up images and sounds of pure horror.
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