Review

Review Date: 20-December-09
Spoiler Rating: Medium
Juju Judgment: Juicy

Avatar (2009)

Try as I might, I cannot think about Avatar outside a sociological context. Even when sitting in the theater I was marveling at the movie's content, its impact on those who will watch it, and what it means about today's culture in relation to other cultures from the past. Maybe it's the movie's National Geographic-meets-Tarzan vibe, or maybe I have absorbed too much Jung.

As writer/director James Cameron and his studio want you to know, Avatar represents a significant step forward in filmmaking technology. But it tells a traditional story with a deliberately primitive setting and is one of several recent movies that portray modern humans in a negative light. The hero Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) is a crippled Marine with a chip on his shoulder from being less accomplished than his dead twin brother. The time is 150 years from now when an American company backed by the military is mining a distant planet for a rock that can generate energy. With the help of a scientist interested in studying the natives and their habitat (Sigourney Weaver), the company has been trying diplomatic means to relocate an indigenous tribe who lives atop a rich lode. But the corporate patience has run out. Why dicker with arrow-wielding, loincloth-wearing tree worshippers when you can easily blow them to smithereens? Might makes right and the end justifies the means.

As a final step before resorting to violence, Jake's consciousness is placed inside the lab-bred body of a native (his avatar) and he infiltrates the tribe to find a way to convince them to leave their ancestral home. For three months he receives warrior training from the chieftain's daughter (Zoë Saldana), assimilating the natives' love of nature and symbiotic relationship with the jungle. In the hours when he returns to his own body he reports to a loutish colonel of the smithereens philosophy (Stephen Lang), yet when he is in his avatar he feels most like himself, at home and at peace. When war arrives he casts his lot with the underdogs, leading his new people against the invaders with whom he has ceased to belong.

The fascination of myth-tales like this is how they evince a desire of societies to be better than they are. I do not believe that watching WALL*E makes people more environmentally aware or watching District 9 makes them less prone to xenophobia. But there is some comfort and awe in realizing that these stories could not find an audience if most people did not harbor an understanding of — nay, a yearning for — fairness, discovery, and respect towards the universe and its inhabitants. That to me is the real power of Cameron's technological advances: his ability to express an age-old yearning in the modern vernacular and reach an enormous number of people. Millions will huddle around the metaphorical campfire of the cinema's glow, taking in the import of Avatar on more than an optical level. Then we will go back to being the worthless cockroaches we are, but for a couple of hours we will have been inspired to remember our better selves.

Copyright © 2009 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.