Review of The Fountain (film)

Posted on January 21, 2012 by

I recently watched The Fountain, a visually stunning 2007 film starring Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz. Of course, I came into the film having heard mixed reviews, but I came away pleased with the overall message.

First things first, this is definitely not a movie that viewers can fit squarely into a genre (action, drama, comedy, etc.). In fact, I don’t like using genre descriptions in general. The Fountain is premised upon a man’s drive to keep his dying wife alive, but it dwells upon the value of life, the meaning of death, and how to deal with grief. While it forays into Christian and Mayan myth, and into Eastern thought on meditation, the lessons a Christian can take away from the film make it worth viewing.

A note on the plot…

Despite the claim in online synopses that this film is three different stories that parallel each other, I’d posit that these “stories” are all about Tom Creo and that they are not as distinct as summaries make them out to be. They are simply variations of the main plot line.

In the main plot, Hugh Jackman plays Tom Creo, a researcher trying to find a cure for cancer while his wife Izzi, played by Rachel Weisz, is slowly dying of cancer.

As Izzi is dying, she is writing a book she titles The Fountain, and she asks her husband to write the final chapter after her death, which she assumes is imminent. The film cuts to the plotline of Izzi’s book throughout, which is the second “story,” or, as I would argue, the first variation.

In the third “story,” or second variation, viewers enter the mind of Tom Creo. In a mix of Mayan myth and Eastern thought, he is a sort of space traveler journeying through the Mayan realm of the dead (a nebula in space) with a dying tree that clearly represents his wife.

These two subplots are woven neatly into the fabric of Creo’s mission to end death and save his wife, as the morality of and issues within his vision are hashed out in Izzi’s book and in the Mayan realm of the dead.

A few take aways…

First, The Fountain teaches that we are not what we should be. Izzi’s disease is tragic, and Tom Creo’s search for a cure for death would at first glance seem like a noble endeavor. After all, creating a way for people to keep those they love by their sides for eternity would be a blessing, wouldn’t it?

However, before Izzi is very ill, Tom slowly becomes immersed in his work and less with her. Once her illness worsens, viewers see him abandoning his dying wife so he can work on finding a cure, leaving her home alone and in the hospital alone. In his mind, whether the imagery was intentional or not, Tom the space traveler chips of small bits of bark from the tree—just as he chips away at his relationship with his wife in the real world—so he can tattoo himself and engage in meditation. All the while, his mantra is that he’s close and he won’t let her die. Tom’s selfishness in what on the surface looks like nobility becomes more apparent as the film goes on.

Secondly, viewers learn that death is nothing to be feared. Izzi is admirable in her composure. Despite spending so much time alone during what she seems to know are her final days, she continues to love her husband and shows little fear of death. She knows it will be Tom who will struggle the most, because, to paraphrase a line from the film, all he sees is death. In preparation, she writes The Fountain for him, with a Spanish conquistador who seeks the tree of life mentioned in the book of Genesis to save his ailing queen. It is Izzi’s forethought and consideration for her husband that aids him most in handling his grief.

Finally, as Tom deals with his grief, and in his subsequent writing of the final chapter of Izzi’s book, viewers see that only in death can one truly live and love forever. In Tom the space traveler’s world (aka Tom Creo’s mind), the dying tree that he hoped to save…dies. And in death, that tree explodes into perfect bloom and he is with it forever.

In Tom’s chapter of Izzi’s book, The Spanish conquistador does indeed find the tree of life, and he is healed of his battle scars…shortly before the tree’s elixir kills him and he merges with nature. His realization? The queen intended them to live together all along, in death.

Back in the real world, viewers see Tom planting a seed to a tree in Izzi’s grave, a symbol of letting her go. We assume he is confident that he will see her in death, where they will live and love again. These lessons are significant for the Christian, as we have no need to fear death, because we have hope that in death we will be what we should be, perfected, and that we will truly live.

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Review: From Homer to Harry Potter, Ch. 1 and 2

Posted on December 19, 2011 by

While attending the annual conference for the Association of Christian Librarians at Cedarville University this past summer, I happened upon a book titled From Homer to Harry Potter: A Handbook on Myth and Fantasy. Naturally, it grabbed my attention, so I grabbed it in return. I’m going to take a page from my blogger friend David’s book (known for his blog on fantasy, The Warden’s Walk), and give reviews based on chapters, rather than one overall review at the end.

True Myths

In the first chapter, authors Matthew Dickerson and David O’Hara set out to explain and define myth, sharing their concern that dictionary definitions do not do the word justice. While many readers might be tempted to simply turn to the works of Tolkien and Lewis for definitions of myth (and indeed both authors are drawn on extensively), Dickerson and O’Hara warn that theirs is not a book about these two great authors; instead, they try to rely on numerous works that they consider indispensable while creating an accurate definition of myth.

What captured my attention in their definition was this: “We take, instead, a third approach, which follows from a different understanding of what myth is, namely, that myths might be fundamentally true and yet still be ‘mythological’” (32). Their example? The Gospel story, which they take to be true, but which contains all the appropriate elements of myth.

Another part of their definition of myth is that it conveys truth. Here they again turn to the Gospel story, writing that it “not only gives us a historical truth about a particular character in a period of history approximately two millennia ago, it also gives us truth about the nature of God independent of those historical events” (35). Ideally, these truths are somewhat universal and would make sense to more than one culture.

The Literature of Faërie

We get another definition in chapter two, but this time of fantasy. Dickerson and O’Hara pull no punches; at the outset they explain that “fairy tale is not a place to deny the supernatural” (43). Fantasy literature, they argue, should have its strongest supporters in the Christian community, because it acknowledges the supernatural and encourages moral freedom! Fantasy literature is where meditation on meaning and purpose happens, speaking broadly and allowing for exceptions.

The quote continues, “but neither is it a place for systematic theology or philosophy of religion” (43). How many times have we been tempted to turn Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy or Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia into mere allegory? Giving in to that temptation, it would seem, essentially cheapens fantasy literature into a different genre altogether.

If a work of fantasy is true to form, it leaves blatant didacticism out of the mix in favor of a more subtle blending of truth and story. The authors quote T.S. Eliot, who wrote that Charles Williams’s novels tell us “about a world of experience known to him: he does not merely persuade us to believe in something, he communicates this experience that he has had” (60). Fantasy literature should teach by experience, so the story is not lost in making the obvious even more obvious.

These few points are only a taste of Dickerson and O’Hara’s process.  I’ve not read much past these chapters, but I like the direction it’s taking, and I’d encourage you to join me in discovering the fun and value of myth and fantasy.

 

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Review of Julia Child’s My Life in France

Posted on December 10, 2011 by

Most people are familiar with Julia Child, the unusually tall and somewhat clumsy woman with the strange accent who cooked on TV quite a lot. (If you aren’t, read My Life in France.) My love for biographies is growing, and My Life in France has only aided that. As an avid cook myself, I was not only charmed by Child’s writing style (which matches her speech patterns uncannily well), but I enjoyed her insights into French food and wines, and I learned more than a few things along the way! Child teaches readers two important lessons: it takes ongoing discipline to master anything in our lives, and life rarely gives us ideal circumstances along the way.

A life of food

To be clear, this book is an autobiography, so it’s all straight from the lips (or fingers, rather) of Child herself. And, as with any person, there was more to Julia Child’s life than delicious food. For starters, she and her husband, Paul, both worked for the U.S. government, which is how they ended up in France, and Paul Child was among the many people interrogated as a result of the second Red Scare.

Child stumbled upon her love of cooking because of her love of French food. Her description of her first French meal, sole meuniére, is vivid:

“I closed my eyes and inhaled the rising perfume. Then I lifted a forkful of fish to my mouth, took a bite, and chewed slowly. The flesh of the sole was delicate, with a light but distinct taste of the ocean that blended marvelously with the browned butter. I chewed slowly and swallowed. It was a morsel of perfection.” (18)

The true foodies among us understand the pure ecstasy contained in those statements. Child had found something she was passionate about, and she pursued it. She attended Le Cordon Bleu, the famous French cooking school, which, unfortunately, was in poor shape with inadequate facilities and not enough supplies for lessons at the time.

What made Child such a remarkable chef, in my opinion, was not her education. It was her love of food itself. So committed was she to the art, the profession, that she was willing to devote the time to testing a recipe over and over and over again, until it was right and, in her words, foolproof. She wanted American cooks to be able to cook from her recipes without any fear of the recipe going sour. In fact, the many publishers who saw the various manuscripts for Mastering the Art of French Cooking complained about how extensive and thorough each recipe was. That kind of discipline and commitment is hard to find these days. Child deserves admiration in that respect.

When life gives you lemons

Another remarkable thing about Child was her ability to power through unpleasant situations and find ways to learn and to accomplish her goals.

At Le Cordon Bleu, Child argued her way into a higher level course, taught by Chef Bugnard, who she remained friends with long after graduating. And though she found the required recipes to be too rudimentary and basic for her graduation examination, she forced herself to learn them well enough to pass (though she had to take the exam twice, after failing the first time).

Child met Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle and began teaching cooking classes with them. They eventually asked her to collaborate on what later became Mastering the Art of French Cooking. When she and Paul were transferred to another part of France, she traveled the long distances and used the mail to work on Mastering the Art of French Cooking with Beck and Bertholle. She writes about the transfer, “My first thought was: What wonderful luck! We could have been sent to Reykjavik or Addis Ababa, but instead we are staying in France! My second thought was: A sudden move to the other end of the country will be tough on our cookery-bookery, not to mention the Trois Gourmandes classes. We’ll manage, somehow.”

Child didn’t doubt that she would still accomplish what she’d set out to do; she simply acknowledged that she’d have to find a way to manage it. After the disappointment of leaving France altogether for Norway, Child chose to learn how to cook Norwegian foods, though they did not appeal to her like French food did. Paul and Julia Child eventually returned to the states, where they spent the remainder of their lives.

In sum

There’s no way I could cover everything in this book. Suffice it to say, Child’s life was rich with food, full of new challenges, and an example of commitment. Readers can learn some great lessons from Child, and perhaps even be inspired to cook through some of her cookbooks.

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Review of C.S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce

Posted on December 10, 2011 by

“Even on the biological level life is not like a pool but like a tree. It does not move towards unity but away from it and the creatures grow further apart as they increase in perfection. Good, as it ripens, becomes continually more different not only from evil but from other good.” –C.S. Lewis, Preface to The Great Divorce.

ImageWhat a quaint thought it is, that one could live a life of sin and spiritual death, die, and in the afterlife slowly be worked into a state worthy of Heaven. In fact, adding to a long line of too-compassionate theologians who have asserted this thinking, Rob Bell’s Love Wins proffered a similar argument. Because the idea that some people would be doomed to an eternity of torment and punishment in Hell is hard to swallow for some, a sort of “marriage” of the two places has been proposed. Universalists have done it, Catholics have done it, and even some Protestant churches are beginning to argue that a soul can be saved post-mortem. “This belief,” writes Lewis, “I take to be a disastrous error.”

C.S. Lewis, in his pithy manner, seeks to divorce heaven from hell, to divorce this view from the church. Aside from being concise, The Great Divorce utilizes great caricatures of people in the afterlife and effectively makes the point that no amount of tweaking in the afterlife will separate a person from his fate.

Some notable figures…

I’ll not spend a great deal of time on the plot or argument; suffice it to say that a man finds himself in a grey, rainy place called Hell, and takes a trip to Heaven with a group of other damned souls, where their loved ones try to convince them to change their ways and embrace Christ.

Lewis creates characters who, though exaggerated in their behaviors and attitudes, will surely reflect us as readers in ways we likely will not have seen before. One of these characters is a man who found his source in academia while on earth. He spends his time in Hell searching for other men and women who care about philosophy and theology, who are intellectual, for his Theological Society. His friend in Heaven tries to convince him that their academics were worthless, saying:

“Our opinions were not honestly come by. We simply found ourselves in contact with a certain current of ideas and plunged into it because it seemed modern and successful. At College, you know, we just started automatically writing the kind of essays that got good marks and saying the kind of things that won applause.” (41)

These men had sought the acceptance of popular culture and studied theology while denying the existence of the afterlife. And while one realized his error before death, the other, even in death, finds no solace in Christ; rather, he hurries back to hell to read his theological paper.

A second notable figure is the mother who had put all her life and hope into her son, Michael. He died young and was saved, and she, now in Hell, demands to see him. She tells the angels and spirits, “I don’t believe in a God who keeps mother and son apart. I believe in a God of Love. No one has a right to come between me and my son. Not even God” (93). After Michael’s death, his mother says that she “lived only for his memory,” keeping his room the same, celebrating his birthday, and mistreating her other children.

Sadly, like the academic, this misguided mother will only choose God if it means seeing her son, which is not really choosing at all. And she too, we assume, returns to Hell to live in misery.

While I won’t discuss too much the classic image of the man with the lizard on his shoulder, The Great Divorce is where it originates. The man sees the lizard, his sinful nature, for what it is, and allows all the pain of killing it. He and the lizard are regenerated into a saved spirit and a steed. While all this happens in the afterlife, I would argue that Lewis’s intention was to show what regeneration looks like in life. I say this because—SPOILER ALERT—the narrator discovers it is all a dream; a warning of what he must do on earth, before death, but a dream all the same. The great point is that regeneration happens now, while we live, and not through some sort of process in the afterlife.

Conclusion

Lewis, once again, makes his point in a colorful manner. Great stories should be mirrors to our own natures, and indeed there are many more character illustrations that will make readers pause and consider how they behave toward Christ. The Great Divorce is worth the time to read, whether you need convincing of this great Biblical truth, or just reinforcement.

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Film Review: Bella

Posted on September 27, 2011 by

BellaI suppose this is more a recommendation than a review. Bella is not a new film; it was released in 2008 and won a few film festival awards. It had been a while since I’d seen it, so I watched it again with a friend last night. I had forgotten just how moving it was. Bella is about three people, each with their own set of problems, and the transformation they undergo in just over a day. It’s a story about redemption and new life.

A note on worthwhile plots…

I make it no secret that I judge the quality of any story based on what characters learned and how they changed from beginning to end. A story full of static characters with no purposes and no roles will not get applause from me nor will it, I would argue, from any audience, broadly speaking.

Bella deserves applause. I won’t spoil the plot, but I’ll try to give you something to chew on as you watch the film for yourself. The two protagonists, Jose and Nina, know little about each other except that they both work for Jose’s older brother, Manny. Manny is a slave-driving boss with a lot to learn about treating others. As the film begins, Nina is late to work because she has discovered she is pregnant, and Manny fires her without waiting to hear an explanation.

Jose, Manny’s head chef, witnesses Nina’s firing, and walks out of the restaurant on a whim to make sure Nina will be okay. In the course of the day, Jose and Nina learn about each other’s backgrounds and they learn from each other. Not only does everyone grow and change for the better, but the story closes with an unexpected and pleasing ending.

Bella demonstrates the human need for atonement, redemption, and someone to give us new life. As a Christian, I found the film’s connections to our redemption in Christ encouraging, to say the least.

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Review of Eric Metaxas’s Bonhoeffer

Posted on September 26, 2011 by

Bonhoeffer“While in God confiding I cannot but rejoice.” –Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Eric Metaxas’s Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy is brilliant. This 591-page tome describing the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer captivated me from the first chapter to the last page. Whether that captivation was due to Metaxas’s understandable and humorous writing style or to Bonhoeffer’s fascinating and God-centered life is hard to separate. Either way, both are commendable and deserve some fleshing out.

Now he is a man we can admire

It’s hard to find people in the modern era who are truly admirable, who demonstrate such great courage and Godliness that they deserve recognition. After reading Bonhoeffer, my respect for him as a person and as a pastor has increased greatly, and my own views on ministry and the Christian life have been altered in like manner.

I won’t spoil the book for those who want to read it, but suffice it to say that God used Dietrich Bonhoeffer to minister to young men who needed to be called up to Biblical manhood. He used Bonhoeffer to stand up for the German church in a time when it was vulnerable to Hitler’s influence and Hitler’s desire to be a god himself. He used Bonhoeffer in the conspiracy to overthrow Hitler.  And He used Bonhoeffer as an inspiration to those afflicted by the awful events of the Holocaust and Hitler’s reign in Germany.

Within all that, Bonhoeffer’s faith transforms from something dry and academic to a truly God-inspired faith. That, for me, is one of the greatest moments of the book. Bonhoeffer’s change marks him not only as a great literary and historical figure, but as someone who began living for something bigger than himself. His subsequent stands for the church and for the authority of Scripture, and his imprisonment and martyrdom for those views make him someone that we can learn from and admire for the right reasons.

Not your average history book

When I embarked on reading this rather large volume, I was expecting the typical dry history of a great man’s life. I got anything but that. Eric Metaxas works to bring the life of Bonhoeffer into focus for the average person. His biography reads more like a compelling work of fiction, a narrative epic, than a biography. Metaxas skillfully intersperses letters written by Bonhoeffer and others into a text driven by the naturally intriguing plotline of Dietrich’s life.

Metaxas chooses to write in a relaxed style, offering his own humorous takes on events in history, and he avoids the stilted language that many authors of historical books are tempted to use. Even though the book is long, the chapters fly by as readers immerse themselves in adventure, love, unwavering faith, and many sorrows.

To sum up…

Take the time to read this book. Even if you have no interest in theology, in World War II, in Dietrich Bonhoeffer, you will walk away having found something good in Metaxas’s Bonhoeffer. 

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Review of The Hunger Games Trilogy

Posted on September 22, 2011 by

The Hunger GamesHopeless. That’s the one word that best seems to describe the situation which protagonist Katniss Everdeen has been thrown into. The Hunger Games trilogy, with each book weighing in around 400 pages, tells the story of Katniss’s struggle to survive in a post-Democratic, post-Christian world, where the Capitol rules all and children must compete in sadistic “Hunger Games” whereby they murder one another for the chance to win—you guessed it—food.

How would I describe effect the series had on me in just one word? Depressing. The protagonist? Detestable. The plotline and forward movement? Anticlimactic.

God Is Dead

Katniss Everdeen’s lovable younger sister is chosen to compete in the Hunger Games, which means almost certain death, and Katniss steps in to take her sister’s place. Katniss’s time in the games, as well as the events that ensue in the books following, raises some serious questions of morality for Katniss and for readers in general: what is one justified in doing in the name of survival? of rebellion? Should we consider taking the lives of others in order to feed our families? There are many others.

While I am aware that not every book series will or even should have any kind of Christian moral influence or hopefulness, I struggle with a book series that lacks, really, any morality or hopefulness in general. One of Collins’s characters sums it up best when he tell Katniss, “We’re fickle, stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift for self-destruction.”

The Hunger Games dives headlong into humanity’s penchant for self-destruction, showing in all its gory detail the murders children in the games, the cruelty of those in power and the torture of innocents, the sex trafficking of teenagers, and the alcoholism and drug addiction of those unable to cope with their problems. All of these are either means of survival, or they become a means of survival for Collins’s characters. And it’s not surprising: Collins has created a Godless world, and so it follows that her characters take all the wrong routes to survival.

Would the Real Hero Please Stand?

Katniss Everdeen is an unimpressive protagonist. She never really embraces her role as a heroine, which is beyond frustrating in a story about a heroine. She is fully unable to handle the situation she is in, and she spends much of the series on a morphine-like drug called morphling, which dulls the pain of life. She vacillates between Peeta, who clearly loves Katniss and protects her to a fault, and Gale, who is driven by anger and hate of the Capitol; and she constantly comes back to the conclusion that she wants neither of them. But not before leading each one to believe she loves him, either unintentionally or for her own survival.

Being the protagonist, Katniss should undergo a transformation, something that shows she learned something in spite of a horrific two years. But she never really changes. Granted, in the epilogue of the final book—SPOILER ALERT—Katniss reveals that after fifteen years of prodding from her husband, she agrees to have children. And she has taken to listing the good things people around her do, as a way of coping with all the loss and suffering she continues to dwell on.

There’s very little to commend in Katniss Everdeen, unfortunately.

Form and Style

What The Hunger Games trilogy lacks in morality and general respectability of characters, it makes up for in writing style. Suzanne Collins has a gift with words, and I must admit, as much as I disliked the series, I couldn’t put the books down. Collins ends every chapter on a cliffhanger, without fail. While this may seem like mere repetition, Collins carefully crafts a question that the reader absolutely must have answered before taking a break from reading. Add to that her skill in capturing characters’ emotions so readers feel right along with them, and you’re in for a thrilling read.

That being said, Katniss’s goal from the beginning of book one is to protect her younger sister, Prim. She takes Prim’s place in the Hunger Games (one of just a few selfless acts she performs) and endures two years of unbearable suffering. So imagine my surprise when—SPOILER ALERT—Prim is murdered by the very people she is fighting for near the end of the trilogy. This is not how great literature is written; authors do not kill off the heroine’s entire impetus for taking on the fight. By this point in the series, Katniss has no special connection to anyone except Prim, and she and readers get to watch Prim being burned alive. No wonder Katniss feels hopeless, and readers feel the weight of depression after finishing the series.

Conclusion

This isn’t a good series to read if you’re looking for a pick-me-up; in fact, it isn’t even a good tragedy. While Collins demonstrates a masterful hand with language, chapter formation, and character, she lacks essentials in her plotline that damage the story overall: namely, the lack of a hero, respectable or otherwise; the lack of a driving force for all the action (and the elimination of what seemed like a decent one); and characters that indulge in self-destructive behavior, for the most part.

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