Glasses Ever Darkly

Religious skeptics have a long history of reexamining religious phenomenons through an ever changing lens of science. Some of these thinkers attempt to construct a middle path between the two perspectives, demonstrating how science is simply a natural outflowing of Divine Providence. Others use a more antagonistic method, employing science as a conflicting explanation for what was once believed to be miraculous or supernatural. One such example of this latter approach is the 1922 film Haxan:Witchcraft through the Ages. Made by the underrated Danish director Benjamin Christensen, this silent movies explores the history of witchcraft in Europe. While the film begins with a series of images tracing the iconography of the Devil to pre-Christian times, it soon settles into the Medieval period. What follows are a series of reenactments depicting the staples of witchcraft folklore: the local village witch, the Black Mass, black cats, demonically possessed nuns, etc. These visually stunning sequences seek to recreate a world where any tiny physical detail could be viewed as some potent for deep distress, and superstitions could be fatal, especially during a visit from itinerant witch-hunters. Christensen clearly holds to the view of Medieval Europe as The Dark Ages devoid of any science or reason (there is even a short segment demonstrating the cruel fate of medical students brazen enough to study cadavers). This attitude towards religion is reinforced in the final section of the film. Here Christensen revisits the extraordinary occurrences of earlier centuries, and explains them away by using the, then current, prism of Psychoanalysis. In such a manner, the possessed nun who disfigures images of her Lord Jesus is compared to a high class society shoplifter. Both commit their crimes unconsciously, in an attempt to strike out against an environment within which they feel powerless. They are simply sleepwalking through a life that they do not understand. Such individuals should not be feared or condemned, but pitied. Circumstances have made them who they are, and sympathetic treatment will help. Prejudice will only make the situation worse, until you have not one distressed nun, who has slid into disillusion, but an entire convent which has lost its reason.

As I stated above, perspectives shift over time, so that 90 years later, Christensen's linking of witchcraft and hysteria may seem more simplistic than profound. After all, in the intervening years we have witnessed many types of "illnesses" swept under the catch-all rug of  "hysteria." In fact, many contemporary thinkers, including some within psychology, would smirk at the thought of Psychoanalysis being labeled a "science" instead of merely another philosophy, another set of theoretical beliefs. Probing for a deeper understanding often leads to a more complicated portrait, which, in turn, leads me to Beyond the Hills.

Beyond the Hills, which I viewed last weekend at the New York Film Festival, is the most recent movie by the Romanian director Christian Mungiu. It centers on the relationship between two young women who bonded deeply while living in an orphanage. (The film implies that their relationship may have included lesbian elements, but leaves the matter up to the viewer's interpretation). At the beginning of the film Alina is returning to Romania after living abroad in Germany for three years; the reason for her return is to visit her former companion, Voichita, who is now a nun in a local monastery. Alina has been troubled lately, and wants her old friend to accompany her back to Germany. Voichita is willing, but the priest in charge refuses to grant her leave. As the tension between the two women grows, so does Alina's mental distress, which quickly comes to include violent outbursts and attacks against the priest and other nuns. Mungiu never offers a clinical diagnosis of Alina's condition, yet it would appear to be some sort of bipolar disorder or even schizophrenia. (Once again, the reality of mental illness is much uglier than in the rose-tinted world of Ron Howard). The priest and nuns wish to help Alina, but have been given precious little guidance from the doctors which examine Alina after a suicide attempt and violent attack on the community. Left to fend for themselves, they ultimately resort to their own frame of reference: the young woman must be possessed by the devil. In such a way, Mungiu, like Christensen, presents how supernatural lore of old might have quite concrete roots in today's accepted science. Unlike the earlier director, however, Mungiu, does not scapegoat believers for their faith. When tragedy arrives, the priest is the only person anywhere in the film to take responsibility for what has occurred. He may have been wrong to do what he did, but at least his compassion moved him to try something, which is much more than can be said for any secular authority (civil service or medical) who had an opportunities to intervene in Alina's life. At the Q&A after the screening, Mungiu explained that he wished to examine the consequences of indifference, and make us think twice about those troubled souls who we ignore every day with a shrug of our shoulders. In such a way, Mungiu is working in the same tradition as Christensen, whose film is also a plea for sympathy towards those whose thoughts and actions are not easily understood. (Finally, it should be noted that both directors' took their inspiration from recorded incidents; in the case of Beyond the Hills, it was events which occurred less than a decade ago).

Taken together, these two films demonstrate a shared interest in understanding the human experience in order to gain a deeper compassion for those in need of assistance. The fact that one film may be more nuanced than the other simply shows how that search for understanding is a perpetual process of growth. After all, who can predict how thinkers a century from will consider our most profound thoughts on human behavior? We cannot. We can only continue searching for a deeper answer, acknowledging that our comprehension shall never be complete, that the glass will always remain somewhat darkly . . .

Cheers

Ruminations of The End

I have watched the world end three times in the past few months -- not in any metaphorical sense, though, the circumstances of my life are not the best at this moment. No, I mean, this subject seems to be reoccurring in some of the films I have viewed lately. During this year's New York Film Festival, I saw five films (a sixth I was forced to skip due to illness), out of which there were two separate speculations on what The End might be like. (There was an additional third on the roaster, though I chose not to see it). 

The first of these was Lars von Trier's Melancholia. Split into two parts, the second half of the narrative occurs against the backdrop of an asteroid hurtling perilously close to Earth. Scientists proclaim that there is no cause for alarm, though there are others who fear for all. This is not a huge disaster film with a cast of thousands; you could count on one hand the number of characters who appear during this section of the story. Instead, the narrative is focused on a single family, and how they react to unfolding events, as well as to each other. There are no grand heroics, though there is some kindness, what might be allowed under such circumstances. When the end does arrive, there is a bang, though it is not a prolonged one.

In The Turin Horse Bela Tarr limits his focus even further: a father & daughter living alone in a one room cottage in the midst of a stony, desolate, and constantly wind-swept landscape. One man stops by long enough for a drink and a speculative monologue on where everything went wrong (or if it was ever right to begin with); later there is a brief appearance by a wagon of roving gypsies. However, they all seem beside the point -- the father's horse is a more prominent character than any of these visitors. The father and daughter go through their daily routines, trying best to keep to their usual paths. Eventually the weight of it all bears down on them. Eventually, the film argues, one's energy is simply depleted, at which point, you gently fade away.

My thoughts on these two films, naturally led me back to Tree of Life which I saw towards the end of the summer. The concluding point of Malick's film is less clear than Melancholia yet the consensus does seem to hold that it is some vision of the End of Days, an interpretation that would fit within the scheme of a narrative whose range stretches all the way back to Creation. Malick differs from von Trier or Tarr in presenting a more mystical vision of the end, a moment filled with reunion of those previously departed, along with a sense of transcendence. My reading of Tree of Life is that Malick wishes to take as his subject the entire scope of the human condition -- indeed the entire scope of life itself.  Thus, the story of a boy coming of age in 1950s Texas is bracketed between the early days of creation and the final ones. His experience is a universal one: through his seemingly mundane adventures, we may learn of ourselves, and hope to find solace through that knowledge.

Which led my thoughts to The Mill and the Cross. This outstanding film, by Lech Majewski, is a speculation on the painter Pieter Bruegel and the making of his The Way of the Cross. The movie is not, however, a standard bio-pic of an artist at work. Instead, the filmmaker recreates the 16th Century world in which Bruegel moved, imagining the daily events which may have provided the inspiration for his canvas. Bruegel was an artist also interested in the entire range of the human condition, which is reflected in many of his greatest works, including The Way of the Cross. Majewski, in turn, follows this thread, weaving a tapestry that is worthy of Bruegel in both image and content. "Here too," Majewski seems to claim, "is a view of all the elements that make us who we are." Then, in a deft slight of hand I have no desire to spoil, the film admits that this one canvas of Bruegel's can merely be one component of his prolific imagination, which itself is the product of one artist among many who wish to examine what makes us who we are.

Which, in a way, is what von Trier and Tarr are up to as well. The first half of von Trier's film takes place during the course of a wedding reception. Here we watch the ebb and flow of a party, the jerky starts and stops of interpersonal relationships, while a marriage falls apart over the course of a single evening. Similar to Bruegel, von Trier wishes to distill a vast variety of experience into a single night. (I doubt that it is any coincidence that von Trier features Bruegel's painting The Return of the Hunters prominently in his film). In the same manner, Tarr has explained that he wished in The Turin Horse to make an allegory of life; within that battered cottage, he saw the essence of who we are. Indeed, when asked after the screening why he is choosing this moment in his career to retire, his response was, more or less, to point at the now empty screen and ask "what else could I say?"

Except, of course, that we will continue to trudge on, despite whatever our personal toils, in search of some additional nugget of wisdom, until we reach whatever end there is.

Peace.