Tag: movies

Black Narcissus and Holiness

I’ve just completed a re-viewing of Black Narcissus (Powell and Pressburger, 1947), and am more than ever impressed by its artistry. And what about it’s message? Even though it is somewhat discomforting, I’ve concluded that’s a good thing. Even though it feels at times like an attack upon Christian faith, I’ve decided to accept it, and welcome it, as a valid and friendly rebuke.

The story is about an attempt to start a convent in the Himalayas of India, to offer education and medical care. It is a place that is extraordinarily attractive, yet resistant, even threatening, to intruders. It is an intensified snippet of the creation. The movie offers an extravagant portrayal of the beauty, sensuality and harshness of the place and its people. This environment elicits thoughts, memories and desires that the nuns had been trying to suppress; and as with any confrontation with truth, it forces transformation. It is a confrontation that can drive some to madness, but will drive others to a closer knowledge of God.

From a Christian perspective, this story deals with the larger issue of holiness: how to be in the world, without being of the world; how to love the world without being subject to the lusts of the world (1 John 2:15-17). The message that is conveyed in Black Narcissus seems to be consistent with that of scripture: the doctrine of incarnation, and the concrete examples in Jesus’ life. He came “eating and drinking”, sharing in all that it means to be human. The call to holiness, or to “deny yourself”, is not a call to retreat from life, but to live for others. Conversely, the false holiness of isolation follows the false god of deism. Holiness is not achieved by a withdrawal from the world, motivated by self-serving fear, but by full self-giving engagement, motivated by love. The nuns in Black Narcissus were not prepared to meet the demands of this kind of holiness.

The failure of the nuns’ mission was due to their half-heartedness. They were trying to serve in practical ways, yet holding back from full engagement. In suppressing their own human fullness, they were unable to fully give themselves to those they were trying to serve. A deeper experience of the natural world, as was provided in this Himalayan convent, inspires a deeper self-questioning and self-knowledge, and in this case it made them aware of their shortcomings. As one of the characters noted, the intensity of the place forces people to take extreme positions, of either full engagement or complete withdrawal. Half-way measures are doomed.

I consider this message to be similar to that of Wender’s “Wings of Desire” or Bette Midler’s “The Rose”. It is a teaching that applies to major decisions of vocation, and it applies to the daily decisions of how to live and relate. It sometimes means simply “showing up”. Much of it is summed up in Paul’s instruction: “rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep”.

Chasing the Wind

I’ve been revisiting some classic movies – chronologically – and the most recent was Children of Paradise (Carne, 1945). It is deservedly ranked among the greats, as an artistic achievement and as engaging entertainment. It makes some good points, e.g. the idea of truth as a revealing or unveiling of the meaning behind visible phenomena, which is characteristic of poetic realism. It also shows due respect for ordinary people, the “gods” in the theater balcony. However, from a Christian perspective, I find serious deficiencies in its message.

Like many movies, it presents a compelling and true picture of vanity. Beginning and ending in street carnivals, its main characters are actors and role-players, both by vocation and in their personal lives. Their “love” relationships are totally unsatisfying and dysfunctional, with everyone pining for the unobtainable, harboring immature and selfish notions about love. Their lives are superficial tragic-comic dramas.

All this is true to life for many people, but it is only a half-truth, in that there is no hint or prospect of hope. The characters are well-developed, and you care about them, but there is hardly any character development. It presents an overly pessimistic, cynical, even nihilistic view of life. This has been a trend in many subsequent European movies, e.g. by Antonioni and Fellini. Such movies seem to wallow in vanity, leaving it ambiguous as to whether it’s a critique, or a despairing acceptance, or an embrace (e.g. L’Aventurra, 8 1/2). This is also the final resting place of Bergman, who eventually gave up the struggle with his strawman spider-god, and resigned himself to hedonism in Fanny & Alexander. I suppose it’s also the theme of David Lynch’s absurd surrealism. His movies, such as EraserHead, Mulholland Drive, Inland Empire, are very clever and intriguing, enticing the viewer to solve the puzzles, but generally to no worthy end. He seems to be challenging us to the impossible task of constructing coherence, in order to convert us to Nihilism. I expect Qoheleth would reckon all this as madness and vanity.

On the other hand, I consider Tarkovsky as highly profitable. His movies are just as perplexing and puzzling, he freely and ambiguously intermingles dreams and “reality”, but in the end, he has important things to say. With some effort, one can take away something worthwhile. Perhaps it’s that surrealism as an artistic method can be put to good use, but as a philosophy it is vanity.

Thus, I draw a distinction between movies that present dismal situations and perplexing mysteries as challenges to overcome, and movies that just seem to say there is nothing more to life, so give up the search. Such emptiness invites evil. It is a destructive influence on civilization, like telling a suicidal person: “why not?” For this, I find fault.