We saw Avatar this weekend. The trailers had been quite enticing and I knew there was lots of CGI eye candy, but reviews had mostly dissed the story. So while my interest level was high, expectations were set fairly low.
As it turns out, I kind of enjoyed the movie. The alien universe is well imagined, the graphics are amazing, the plot is tight (if predictable) and the action is engrossing. The lead characters did a decent job with the acting and the computer generated characters emote even more realistically. And a shout out to Michelle Rodriquez - Ana Lucia from Lost - who plays essentially an Ana Lucia clone, but does it very well.
So yes, an enjoyable movie - as long as one doesn't over analyze it. But since I'm blogging about the movie, you've probably already guessed that I over analyzed it.
To be fair, if this had just been a run of the mill action flick, I would have left off the analyzing. But James Cameron makes it clear that it is much more - a moral lesson, an allegorical tale, a political statement. And hence, fair game.
Let's start with Hollywood's favourite cliche - the hero single handedly saving the day. It is particularly galling in this movie which purports to be a jab at American colonialism and arrogance. The swaggering colonel and the greedy CEO (humans) look down on the natives (aliens). Their sole goal is to exploit the native land. They make no attempt to understand the natives, underestimate them and treat them with utter contempt and condescension. Terrible, terrible - and we all get to snicker and look down upon the humans. Yet in the end the natives are incapable of defending themselves. It is the good hearted human hero who charges to the rescue, protects the guileless aliens, defeats the evil humans, picks up the prettiest alien female and becomes leader of the tribe. A modern day Lawrence of Arabia with all the accompanying unconscious colonial arrogance.
Speaking of Hollywood touches, the climax is seriously unbelievable... A bravehearted group of patriots, riding hard, swinging swords and shooting arrows descends on a modern army equipped with big guns. Seriously? That tactic was tried in 1854 - it didn't work then, and the guns have only gotten bigger since.
And then there is the movie's main message. Quite clearly, it is all about conserving the environment and respecting nature. Don't get me wrong, I completely support this. However the movie takes it one step too far and sets up a false dichotomy between nature and technology. Right? Or am I imagining that? I felt it as an undercurrent through the movie. Uniformed soldiers and brute machines are juxtaposed against an idyllic, green paradise where everyone lives in harmony with nature. The humans mine expensive minerals (unobtanium?!) and bring in tanks and giant metallic robots. The aliens live in trees, worship trees, and commune with all living creatures - literally, via some convenient mind-melding appendage on their heads. The humans dismiss all this as "that tree hugging crap". The aliens need nothing the humans can bring them, all their simple needs are met by the beautiful forest in which they live. Hey, who needs technology when you can defeat tanks and airborne missiles with arrows and large birds. All nice and sweet and uplifting, and... kind of rings hollow. Like watching a National Geographic documentary full of naked kids deep in some African desert and sighing over the simplicity and romance of their lifestyle.
Quite possibly I'm reading too much into the movie. But it always riles me when people glorify nature by belittling technology. In my mind that is a false dichotomy - science is the most beautiful miracle of nature (and naked kids in African deserts can actually have miserable lives). And I find it a little sad that a movie only made possible by the latest, most sophisticated computer animation cannot find enough space in its heart for a little technology.
Oh, and George Bush has been out of office for a year - so references to "shock and awe" and "preemption" are no longer topical commentary. They are merely a pathetic reminder of how nice it would be if only the Democrats could grow a spine.
2 comments:
I too enjoyed the film, despite its quite well-trodden story, smug cultural condescension and unbelievable climax (humans can travel between stars but can't drop bombs from orbit?).
These things didn't bother me excessively because a) it looked quite amazing (especially at IMAX 3D where I saw it) and b) because the characters, caricatures though they were, were genuinely entertaining (the actor who played Colonel Quaritch was moustache-twirling awesome).
I disagree that the movie displayed a reflexive anti-technology message though. For a start, it would be hypocritical for a production that deployed XXXM dollars and the highest technology ever used in an at-scale film to throw such stones, but also because the main character is only present in the film because of the interlopers' advanced technology - if the aliens couldn't win without him, then they find themselves transitively dependent on human technology anyway.
But why, why, why, did they have to call their superconducting mineral "unobtainium"? That was gratingly lame.
@djm : Maybe I just projected the anti-technology message onto the movie, certainly there's nothing concrete I can put my finger on - just the running contrast between the beautiful, peaceful, warm nature scenes of the Na'vi and the militaristic, robotic, sophisticated yet bland atmosphere of the human bases. At the very least, I think the final battle was anti-technology - guts and the power of mother earth defeat heartless technology.
It is true that the human could not have been there without human technology, but he only came into his own when he left his humanness behind and learned the Na'vi way of life. He could not have won the battle based on his human knowledge, he won it by becoming a Na'vi (and appealing to Eywa).
Unobtanium == super lame. I agree :)
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