2012 Movies I didn't get the time to review - Part II
Zero Dark Thirty
Life of PI
The last line in the movie 'Life of PI' is an interestingly postmodern way to discuss the question of God, you will want to see the movie to appreciate that. I am not going to ruin that. What struck me was the relationship between the boy and the Tiger, especially the regret that the boy feels that Tiger did not love him as he loved it (that it did not turn to look at him to say goodbye at the end). The boy loved the Tiger unconditionally, but the Tiger did not seem to care much that he existed. This is kind of like how man's relationship with God is. God loves man unconditionally, but man lives as though God does not exist. Of course, unlike the boy, God isn't powerless, He in His sovereignty ordains life such that we get to understand His love for us and reciprocate.
Amour
Amour is an Oscar nominated French movie. The conservative spin is that the liberals nominated this low budget movie for the Best Director spot just to get the idea of euthanasia legitimized in the eyes of the society. It is a story about an old couple who are loving towards each other until the wife has a series of strokes and is paralyzed. The wife resents living, then nurse resents taking care of her strangely the husband sees it as an unwelcome chore too. Given all this contributing factors, the husband decides to smother her with a pillow and puts her to sleep. Before doing so, he tells her a story about how he himself suffered when he was in boarding school and how he couldn't communicate his pain to anyone else. Pain is hard to bear. Human weakness sometimes makes people give up instead of tarry on. But there is another side to this, pain and suffering are means for us to depend more on other people and on God, a society which is radically individualized will have a hard time understanding this and so wants to commit euthanasia (of the old) and abortion (of the young).
Kill Them Softly
I loved the movie Kill Them Softly, it starts with a campaign speech by the then Senator Obama and then ends with the Inauguration speech of the President Obama. Through the movie you often see the powerful men of Government making speeches about money. Hank Paulson and George Bush address the financial crisis in speeches over a TV playing in the background. The foreground and background have something in common, both are about money. In the foreground story the money game is played in flesh-and-blood world of radical individuality. In the background meta-story with Paulson, Bush and Obama the same money game is played using polished lexicon of collective responsibility. The movie ends with a scene in which Obama talks about how as Americans everyone is one and united, and Brad Pitt who plays the hitman in the movie says 'this is America and here you are on your own'. Is Obama right or Pitt right. They both are. We are made in the Image of God, like the Trinity we are united but still distinct. We are to bear our own burdens, but we are also to help others bear their burdens. We can't err fully to either collectivism or individualism, both need to be held in balance.
Zero Dark Thirty is a movie about the tracking and killing of Osama BinLaden. The scene that caught my attention is the last one where after the job is done Mia is sitting in a specially chartered cargo jet. The Pilot asks her where she wants to go, she stares blankly. It kind of seemed to imply that she did not know where she wanted to go. There is something deep about the idea of a 'place' that we want to go to. Going 'home' or going to 'office' is almost a part of our identity. To not know where we want to go is almost to deny an identity. Mia is so focused on hunting down Osama that she loses her self into it. This can happen to Christians too, we are so focused on some goal in life that we forget that we are all on a journey 'Home'.
Life of PI
The last line in the movie 'Life of PI' is an interestingly postmodern way to discuss the question of God, you will want to see the movie to appreciate that. I am not going to ruin that. What struck me was the relationship between the boy and the Tiger, especially the regret that the boy feels that Tiger did not love him as he loved it (that it did not turn to look at him to say goodbye at the end). The boy loved the Tiger unconditionally, but the Tiger did not seem to care much that he existed. This is kind of like how man's relationship with God is. God loves man unconditionally, but man lives as though God does not exist. Of course, unlike the boy, God isn't powerless, He in His sovereignty ordains life such that we get to understand His love for us and reciprocate.
Amour
Amour is an Oscar nominated French movie. The conservative spin is that the liberals nominated this low budget movie for the Best Director spot just to get the idea of euthanasia legitimized in the eyes of the society. It is a story about an old couple who are loving towards each other until the wife has a series of strokes and is paralyzed. The wife resents living, then nurse resents taking care of her strangely the husband sees it as an unwelcome chore too. Given all this contributing factors, the husband decides to smother her with a pillow and puts her to sleep. Before doing so, he tells her a story about how he himself suffered when he was in boarding school and how he couldn't communicate his pain to anyone else. Pain is hard to bear. Human weakness sometimes makes people give up instead of tarry on. But there is another side to this, pain and suffering are means for us to depend more on other people and on God, a society which is radically individualized will have a hard time understanding this and so wants to commit euthanasia (of the old) and abortion (of the young).
Kill Them Softly
I loved the movie Kill Them Softly, it starts with a campaign speech by the then Senator Obama and then ends with the Inauguration speech of the President Obama. Through the movie you often see the powerful men of Government making speeches about money. Hank Paulson and George Bush address the financial crisis in speeches over a TV playing in the background. The foreground and background have something in common, both are about money. In the foreground story the money game is played in flesh-and-blood world of radical individuality. In the background meta-story with Paulson, Bush and Obama the same money game is played using polished lexicon of collective responsibility. The movie ends with a scene in which Obama talks about how as Americans everyone is one and united, and Brad Pitt who plays the hitman in the movie says 'this is America and here you are on your own'. Is Obama right or Pitt right. They both are. We are made in the Image of God, like the Trinity we are united but still distinct. We are to bear our own burdens, but we are also to help others bear their burdens. We can't err fully to either collectivism or individualism, both need to be held in balance.