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By Peter T. Chattaway
THERE IS a lot that can – and will – be said about Avatar over the next few months.
The latest sprawling epic from Titanic director James Cameron is a technical marvel and, at times, an awesome thrill
ride. It also has the clunky dialogue and simplistic political and
philosophical posturing that we have come to expect from his later efforts. And
already there is much talk about the film’s chances at the Academy Awards in March.
For now, two points stand out for me.
First, perhaps the most interesting thing about Avatar – which is set on an alien moon called Pandora in the year 2154 – is the way it reverses some of the most famous elements in Cameron’s earlier films. In doing so, it implicates the audience in the atrocities
committed by some of the human characters against the alien species there.
For example, Cameron’s classic sci-fi horror flick Aliens climaxed with a sort of hand-to-hand fight between a tall dark monster and a
woman who evens the odds by climbing inside a machine that has arms and legs
much bigger than her own.
In Avatar, there is a similar climactic battle between a large dark creature and a
human-driven walking machine; but this time, the human is the bad guy – and we are supposed to be rooting for the monster.
More significantly, perhaps, Terminator 2: Judgment Day revolved around a cyborg (part human, part machine) who was originally invented
by other machines to infiltrate the humans against whom they were fighting – but becomes increasingly humanized, as he spends time with his former enemies.
Avatar, on the other hand, concerns a marine who projects his mind into a hybrid
creature – part human, part alien – in order to spy on the aliens; and along the way, he ends up ‘going native’ and turning against his fellow humans.
The second thing to note is that Avatar is the most explicitly spiritual of Cameron’s films to date, though the spirituality on display is not without its
complications.
In the past, Cameron’s films have often had an element of religious allegory or a sense of awe in the
face of the unknown: consider The Terminator, which is essentially a modernized nativity story; or The Abyss, in which godlike aliens bring peace to the world.
Avatar, on the other hand, puts spirituality front-and-centre in its depiction of the
Na’vi, the alien race who live in harmony with nature and keep in touch with the
souls of their ancestors. The aliens even worship a mother goddess whose name,
Eywa, sounds a bit like Yahweh said backwards.
Humanity, on the other hand, is depicted as an utterly soulless collection of
business and military interests who have already killed earth’s spirit – assuming it ever had one.
The main exception are the scientists, whose leader, the intriguingly-named
Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver), wants to befriend the Na’vi and learn more about their culture.
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And here’s where things get interesting: Na’vi spirituality is not simply some invisible thing that has to be taken on
faith; instead, as Grace points out, it can be scientifically demonstrated
because it has a biological basis.
But merely knowing about it is not enough; as the film moves along, Grace and
one or two other characters come to see that subjective experience of this
spirituality is more important than the objective study of it.
And while the film comes down hard against human business and human militarism,
it says nothing about human religion.
So unlike a number of films that have revolved around the supposed conflict
between ‘true spirituality’ and ‘organized religion,’ Avatar is content to pit postmodern faith against modern materialistic skepticism and
leave it at that.
It may be rather New Age; but even so, there is something there that we can work
with.
• • •
Neither of the two Narnia movies produced to date were anywhere near as faithful to their source material
as they could or should have been; but in the past, Doug Gresham – stepson to C.S. Lewis and a producer of the films – has defended them anyway.
So it was interesting to come across an interview with him a few weeks back at
narniaweb.com, in which he expresses some “ambivalence” about the third film, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader – which recently finished shooting, and is due for a Christmas 2010 release.
Gresham stated: “In this movie there are a lot of differences in it – to, as Hollywood says, ‘drive the plot.’ I’m ambivalent as to whether they’re necessary or not. I don’t really think so. But that’s the way they wanted to do it, and it was either that or not make a movie; so I
said, ‘Well, go ahead and do it.’ It will be very interesting to see the audience’s reactions.”
The studio, 20th Century Fox, issued a press release in July that may hint at
some of the differences. Among other things, it says King Caspian and the
others have embarked on their “entirely uncharted journey to Aslan’s Country” in order to “save Narnia, and all the astonishing creatures in it, from an unfathomable fate.”
– filmchatblog.blogspot.com
January 2010
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