Okay, I have seen this movie three times in ten days. It is my number two favorite movie of all time, right behind Apocalypse Now. So, I thought I should write a little bit about it. But, I want to warn you, there is NOTHING BUT spoilers. I will write a sort of regular review, then there will be large letters saying SPOILER, and then after that, I am going to do nothing but spoilers. So, you should avoid reading that maybe.
So off we go.
Over the past ten days, I have seen the movie Book of Eli three times. I went opening night by myself, and then I went with my friend Billie, and my friend Kristy. I was scared to take friends, because the movie touched me deeply, so you want to make sure people who you like very much like the things that you like, and see the significance. Thankfully, both Billie and Kristy are very smart. So, they dug it.
To be honest, I do not know if this is a good movie. I guess I do not really care. It speaks directly to me in ways that are intrinisically mine. I sort of felt a little bit like the first time I saw The Black Keys. I stood there with tears in my eyes, and thought to myself that someone had found my sound. It felt the same way with this movie.
The movie stars Denzel Washington as a nameless walker. In a post end of the world time, a world covered in ash, and devoid of life. People have survived what might have been a nuclear war, or something. A war is referred to a few times. A good many people are blind, and people make reference to having lost their site after the great fire. They also wear sunglasses constantly when outside.
Also in the film is Gary Oldman as Carnegie. A sort of bad guy, overlord of what seems like a western town trying to find its way. In the tradition of the cowboy movies, Carnegie has a ‘road crews’. Guys on motorcycles who roam the countryside looking for what he wants and doing his bidding. What Carnegie really wants is a book. A special book.
Carnegie has a love interest, or kept woman. Jennifer Beals, in a beautiful role. She is a blind woman who absolutely breathtaking looking. She is a sort of prisoner, lover to Carnegie.
Beals has a daughter in the film played by Mila Kunis, from That 70s Show. And, suddenly I am giant fan of this person. She does a great job with a pretty typically written role, but she is a great choice. I hope she gets more work off of this.
The movie is pretty standard stuff. Lone man walking through the world, trying to live rightously. Runs into overlord, has something that overlord wants, overlord tries to corrupt him, and fighting ensues. Then resolution.
I am not going to say that it is groundbreaking. But, Oldman gives a performance of such rage it felt like he was channeling Laurence Fishburne (I think no one plays understated rage better), and when it flairs up I felt actually threatened by the whole thing.
Kunis and Beals do not have a lot to work with. The Beals charecter is played soulfully, and richly, bordering on a sort of earth mother vibe. Kunis on the other hand plays her part with just enough respect for the fact that she is in fact the youngest in the cast. She clearly gets that she is sitting with Denzel Washington, and her face reveals or portrays that she is in awe of both the man or the charecter. Both of which are incredible appopriate.
Denzel Washington is simply great. His performance is not static, and not at all cliche. the banter he and Kunis have, it is amazing patter. The timing is fun, and realistic, and sometimes blatantly comical, which is nice for a heavy movie like this.
I think the movie is a good movie. One of the better movies of 2009 2010 so far. And for me, it feeds into the themes that I love in narrative.
So off we go…
SPOILERS
The movie is really about a lot of my favorite things…books, faith, survival.
I think a lot of people are getting lost in the fact that it is the Bible. Clearly the statement is that after the war, humans felt that the reason for the fight was religion, and as such the Bible was the cause. So people sought out, and burned all copies of the Bible. I found this telling, given where I work for a living. But, elsewhere, it is telling in our society since we have scope makers putting Bible versus on the weapons of war that are carried by soldier in Iraq.
Either way, I think that the Bible issue is short lived. Since at the end, in the library at the end of the world, all great works of knowledge are sought out, and those works are what will be used to teach the world about itself. On the self is the Quran, the Torah, and The Bible. It is not an unimportant statement.
I also think that the end of the world is important, because the return of humanity will come in the form of a library. The collection of human knowledge. Unfiltered, just collected. And taught back to people. In hopes that people would see themselves again. I think that is an amazing concept, and a true one. The collection of knowledge traces back forever. Alxander the Great set up libraries throughout the known world. One of the greatest places in America is the Library of Congress. The internet could have been a collection of human knowledge, but welll…that went of.
I think the struggle the Carnegie has for the book is interesting. He seeks to corrupt the concept of faith to use it to control people, to get them to bend to his will. He even comments that this is not the first time this has been done. That seems to be a good vocalization of what we struggle with today. The Joel Osteen bastardization of the Bible, making it into a get rich quick scheme, rather than a guide for rightousness. Or any of the great books of philosphy, being used to sell tickets to the next war.
I think that Denzel is revealed as blind in the end. There is some discussion as to where that happened, and I think it happened when he was shot. And slowly after that his progressively lost his sight. The red herring people use is when asked how he knows where to walk he replies that he walks by faith, I think that is sort of a diversion. I think the trauma of getting shot like he does costs him his sight.
If we are to use the rightous man parable, God challenges him. The vision God has told him is to take the Bible to the safe place, and protect it. But, Eli is unable to do it. So, God takes his sight.
The fact that the Bible is in Braile is simply irrelevant to that. I know many sighted people who took the time to read braille.
The library on Alcatraz is amazing. It reveals what is important, and how we can in fact save ourselves. The pursuit of human knowledge, and the collection of said knowledge, that is amazing and freeing.
I think The Book of Eli deals with some of the large ideas of our time. What is knowledge? What is of real importance? How do we change ourselves and the world around us? What is community?
I think The Book of Eli answers more questions than it leave unanswered. I am so thrilled to have seen this movie. I will surely buy it on DVD when it comes out.