2011; a great year for British films and proof you don’t need Hollywood big bucks to make great movies.

Among this years low budget hits Attack the Block was written and directed by Joe Cornish (from the TV Adam & Joe Show). This is an exciting funny and acute take on the alien invasion theme. It honours its filmic inheritance, but does not, a la Shawn of the Dead, parody it. Wyndham Towers is the tower block in South London attacked by aliens and defended by black teenage hoodies. It stars no-one you have heard of, mostly new faces, but they are convincing and engaging. It speaks up for inter-racial and inter-generational understanding, and is a kind of coming-of-age movie. Boys become men, or at least step towards true courage and dignity.

Monsters was made for less than £500,000, mainly because it was written directed, designed and photographed by one man, Gareth Edwards, with a cast of two, a largely improvised script and home-made special effects - again by Mr. Edwards This is Science-Fiction again, but with very different aliens, and a love-story. The director, actors and sound man traveled across Mexico looking for locations and recruiting amateurs as they went. No doubt he will be offered mega-bucks for his next movie, but Monsters showed that he does not need them to entertain us.

Ken Loach usually works on a low budget too (perforce) and his Route Irish is as committed and passionate as any of his works. Route Irish is the dangerous road that led through the Green Zone from Baghdad to the airport during the 2^nd Gulf War and subsequent occupation. British troops in Iraq were gradually replaced by ‘private security personnel’ aka mercenaries (often the same men who had served as soldiers there). Mark Womack plays such an exSAS trooper, trying to find out what led to the death of his mate, played in flashbacks by the Scouse comedian John Bishop. But this is no comedy. It is a political and personal thriller, with serious intent. If you appreciate Loach’s films, see this.

I will include Eire as British in order or praise The Guard, written and directed by J M McDonagh, and starring Brendan Gleeson, Don Cheadle, Rory Keenan and Mark Strong. This was shot around my beloved Galway Bay, Gleeson’s homeland, and he plays the local Police - or Garde - sergeant, caught up in a drug plot being investigated by the FBI agent played by Cheadle (who played such in Traffic). This is a culture-clash comedy, a buddy movie, a comedy caper, and utterly unPC. I loved it.

Two more British films had bigger budgets, but did not use them for flash-bang-wallop. Strictly speaking Never Let Me Go is also science fiction, adapted from Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel, (though of course if a novel is good surely it cannot be science fiction!). Carey Mulligan Andrew Garfield and Keira Knightley live in a parallel present to our own, and a darker one. Their performances are quietly underplayed, its moral message understated. and both are all the more moving for it. The film is beautifully shot, and scored.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Sailor is adapted from John le Carre’s novel, directed by Tomas Alfreson, the Swede who made the brilliant Let the Right One In. Competing with the beloved 6 hour long BBC/Alex Guinness version is a hard task, but Alfreson concentrates on the feel as much as the plot, and it is not the world of James Bond. MI6 is presented as a seedy, squalid, suspicious, sexist, snobbish world (oh, rather like Bond’s after all). A wonderful (if rather under-used) British cast, includes Gary Oldman as George Smiley, Kathy Burke, Benedict Cumberbatch, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, John Hurt and Mark Strong. Despite the convoluted plot Alfreson has the courage to take his time, to allow us to watch Smiley, watching, thinking, suppressing his responses. A friend of mine said she loved it, but hadn’t a clue what was going on. I give thanks that an intelligent demanding movie topped the charts.

Another film with a British Director and leading actors is The Debt. John Madeen directed Mrs. Brown and Shakespeare in Love, but this is different, a thriller about an Israeli Mossad squad’s attempt to kidnap a Nazi war criminal and take him from East Berlin back to Israel to be put on trial. But the snatch goes badly wrong. Thirty years on we see the fall-out from that failure. Helen Mirren plays the older version of the agent played as a younger woman by Jessica Chastain, and Tom Wilkinson and Ciaran Hinds play her colleagues. This remake of an Israeli film has a script worked on by Peter Straughn, who also contributed to the adaptation of Tinker, Tailor…. and is a taut political thriller with a moral edge. What is the debt, and to whom is it owed?

Of course the biggest budget went to the last Harry Potter; the Deathly Hallows part 2. in which David Yates ‘brings the closure that Potter fans have been seeking and dreading – something they and Harry have in common.’ (BFI) For years I assured parents worried about the ‘witchcraft’ element that this series was simply a morality tale about the victory of good over evil, of love over hatred, and Harry did not win his battles by being a better magician than Voldemort, but by the courage and loyalty of his friends (and Hermione doing her homework!). The question was never 'will Harry defeat Voldemort', but how. Now we know that J K Rowling was a Christian all along, but did not publicize it. If I had, she said, everyone would work out the ending.

Source Code was the second film by the British director Duncan Jones, son of David Bowie, who had a critical hit with his low budget sf hit Moon in 2009. This time he used his bigger budget well, with Jake Gyllenhall and Michelle Monaghan (so good in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang) a convoluted plot and great special effects – but the message is that love conquers all. Ahhh. Stylish.

There have been some great classic DVD/Blu-ray releases this year including Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil, Coppola's Apocalypse Now, Scorcese's Taxi Driver, and Blood Simple, (both the Coen Brothers dark original and a hilarious Chinese version by Zhang Yimou, of Hero, House of Flying Daggers and the Beijing Olympic opening ceremony fame). Also John Carpenter’s hilarious Dark Star, another low budget triumph and Douglas Trumbull’s prophetic Silent Running, and Roeg's The Man Who Fell To Earth and West Side Story.

So, three good new sf films and the release of three sf classics. Three handsome literary adaptations, and the best year of the British film industry for some time. I hereby declare 2011 to be a good vintage!

Light in the Darkness; films for Advent

light in the darkness

A season of films around this theme in preparation for Advent.

(Light shines in the darkness. Christians believe that the light of Christ will not be overcome by darkness. These films explore darkness in different dimensions; the political, commercial, personal, in grief, guilt and the shadow of Auschwitz. All of them are in their own ways difficult to watch, or to hear. Those in the early stages of grief may find Truly, Madly, Deeply to much to handle. Those who find 'strong language' -as the BBC coyly puts it) will struggle with Precious. Two have subtitles, and that may be difficult for some viewers. When we show films we are responsible to those we invite, so let us be careful, and make clear what people can expect. )

Persepolis; an animated autobiography about a girl’s life under in the Shah’s Persia, during the victory of the Ayatollah, her exile in Paris and return to Tehran – a funny account of dark political times. (Cert 15)

Michael Clayton (George Clooney) has to address corporate darkness and his own complicity in corruption as he seeks justice for a colleague driven to madness by their companies activities. (Cert 15)

In I've Loved You So Long, Kirstin Scott Thomas plays a woman released from prison after 15 years, trying to rebuild her life and relationship with her sister. (In French with subtitles)

I'm a Cyborg is an unsettling romance set in a Korean mental asylum, directed by the celebrated Korean Park Chan-Wook, (Cert 15, subtitles) Precious is abused, rejected, illiterate and dangerously over-weight. This is our toughest film, but is about people’s capacity to learn, grow, and flourish, when their preciousness is recognized. (Cert 15)

Truly Madly Deeply (Julie Stevenson & Alan Rickman) is a passionate story of love, life and death. ‘Ghost for the thinking classe’s, both funny and demanding.

Life is Beautiful in Roberto Benigni’s film, even when Guido’s family is overshadowed by the Holocaust. This Italian film was nominated for 3 Oscars in 1999. (subtitled)

The Fisher King, directed by Terry Gilliam, is as visually fantastic as we would expect, but also a funny and moving story of guilt, grief, love, madness - and free Video club membership.

Sitting in the shade of The Tree of Life.

Terrence Malick’s latest film, The Tree of Life, has confused and divided critics.

It has been described as incoherent, self-indulgent and grandiose. Some have added that it is ‘Christian’, using this as a negative description. Others have described it as an inspirational, deeply personal meditation on life, the universe and everything.

Of course any film critic or fan will approach a new Malick film with high expectations. Three of his previous films, Badlands, Days of Heaven and The Thin Red Line have an assured place in the history of cinema. When Days of Heaven was released in 1978 Variety unhesitatingly claimed it as ‘one of the greatest cinematic achievements of the last decade’ and Newsweek described it as being ‘hauntingly beautiful, unashamedly poetic, brimming with sweetness and bitterness, darkness and light.’ Malick has been described as American cinema’s great poet-philosopher. After Days of Heaven he did not produce another film until The Thin Red Line in 1998. Opinion was then, and is still now, divided on that film, but it is certainly unique among World War 2 movies in its portrayal of the spiritual, emotional, ethical and physical needs and dilemmas of men facing violent death on a daily basis. Malick universalized these issues, exploring the cosmic drama of death and birth, destruction and creativity. All three films addressed the particular and personal, the horrific killing spree of Kit and Holly in Badlands, the farmers losing their harvest to locusts in Days of Heaven, and the daily life of soldiers at war in The Thin Red Line, but each attempts to relate them to the greater themes that concern us all.

The Tree of Life attempts the same, but this time the particular is much more directly personal to Malick. In this film the O’Brien family are raising their 3 sons in Waco, Texas, Malick’s home town, during the 1950’s, Malick’s own teenage period. The O’Brien family mirrors Malick’s own - tragically so in that the middle brother in the film dies aged 19 and one of Malick’s own brothers killed himself some years ago. The O’Brien story is told almost impressionistically, with little dialogue or exposition. The narrative seems to be the memories of Jack, the oldest boy, recalled during a mid-life crisis of his own. The voice-overs are often confused, as the young Jack struggles with his Oedipal feelings towards his parents. The power of the ‘dare’, the fear of failing to fulfill such a dare, or to go against the gang’s group mind, make young Jack feel guilty when he does things that he hates doing. Young teenagers may not always have a moral code, but they do have powerful emotional responses to right and wrong, and when Jack steals from a neighbour’s house an item that has clearly erotic connections with his feeling for his mother, he is deeply ashamed. All this, even including the death of the brother, hardly reaches the scale of tragedy portrayed in most theatrical dramas. When the tragic telegram arrives Malick introduces a long sequence depicting the birth of the universe, the formation of stars, the shaping of our planet and the emergence of life on Earth and this has confused and troubled many critics. The disparity of scale seems to have shocked them. But Malick is interested in exploring the depth of the ordinary and its connection with the over-arching, even the transcendent. His films are not about heroes and heroines, or grand dramatic figures undergoing extraordinary experiences. They are about people like you and me. And they are about scale.

In their book The View from the Centre of the Universe ⁽¹⁾ Joel Primack and Nancy Ellen Abrams suggested that human beings have a unique view-point on the Universe. We can glimpse both the microscopic and the macroscopic, the inner workings of the atom and the vastness of time and space. ‘Consider the size of a living cell and the size of the universe. Think of a single cell on the tip of your finger. That cell is as tiny compared to you as you are compared to Planet Earth. A single atom in that cell is as tiny compared to you as you are compared to the sun.’ (p177)

This awareness of the ‘little and large’ may not be comfortable for us. In comparison with the lifetime of the Universe, calculated at some 3,700,000,000 years, our short span seems insignificant. Compared to the vastness of space, which we measure in millions of light years, our local reach is laughable. In The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Douglas Adams wrote of the Ultimate Perspective Vortex, a device that would drive any human being mad simply by revealing to them their utter insignificance in the grander scheme of things. (It is true that Zafod Beeblebrox III came out of this device even more impressed with himself than before, but he was crazy before he went in to it).

But I remember an anecdote about a Professor of Astronomy who told his students that ‘from the point of view of astronomy we are miniscule organisms crawling on a speck of dust, orbiting around a pin-point of light, a sun that is only one of a hundred thousand million suns in our galaxy; a galaxy that is only one of a hundred thousand million others. From the point of view of astronomy’, he concluded, ‘we are utterly insignificant.’ But he was contradicted by a student. ‘No, Professor, I beg to differ. From the point of view of astronomy, we are the astronomer.’

We have invented the telescope and the microscope, and are poised betwixt the views they offer. We try to connect these perspectives and make sense of them, and of our own lives, caught in this parallax view. Philosophy and theology, science and art each attempt this in their own ways. Very rarely, movies also explore the tension between the cosmic and the quotidian,the life of the Universe and our own all too brief lives. Charlie Kaufmann introduced a brief resume of cosmology into his film ‘Adaptation’ (2002) as a joke, and it was a good joke. ButThe Tree of Life attempts to make this connection in a very serious and explicitly theological manner.

Malick asks ‘how can we live in this universe and believe in a benign creator God?’ His film explores the very nature of the Creator of the universe, the God for whom, as the theologian Sally McFague suggests, the Universe is a metaphor. ⁽²⁾ In The Tree of Life Mrs. O’Brien is in love with God – and with God’s creation. She delights in the glory of light and the playfulness of water, she walks beneath trees in the dappled sun-light and plays with her three boys with uninhibited pleasure and freedom. She believes in Grace, not Nature. She sees Grace as self-less; nature as self-ish, Grace as yielding; nature as power seeking. And she believes that the point of our God-given life is love.

‘There’s a joke among cosmologists that romantics are made of stardust, but cynics are made of the nuclear waste of worn out stars.’ Mrs. O’Brien is certainly some kind of romantic. Oscar Wilde quipped that a cynic knows the price of everything but the value of nothing. And the values we bring to our appreciation of the universe and our place in it dictate if our view is inspirational and hopeful or despairing and resigned.

Jeol Primack is a professor of physics and his wife, Nancy Ellen Abrams is a science philosopher, artist and lawyer. They believe that we exist at Midgard, the unique point of scale in the universe. We are midsized. And our size makes it possible for us to be intelligent.‘Creatures much smaller than we are could not have sufficient complexity for our kind of intelligence because they would not be made of a large enough number of atoms. But intelligent creatures could not be much larger than we are, either, because the speed of nerve impulses – and ultimately the speed of light – becomes a serious limitation.’ (p174). Without intelligence there can be no evaluation. Being the size we are we cannot only think the Universe, we can value it.

Primack and Abrams recount the cosmologist’s joke about romantics and cynics (p279) and describe these attitudes as a choice between an existential or a meaningful response to the scientific facts. ‘When the Newtonian picture destroyed the comforting medieval universe and people stared out into endless space and shivered at how small they were, they felt for the first time the existential terror of cosmic insignificance’ (p120) But they argue that we are not insignificant, we are capable of giving meaning to the universe, and therefore to our part in it.In this sense we are central. There is no evidence for or against this; it is an attitude. ‘There is nothing in modern cosmology that requires the existential view, nor anything that requires the meaningful view. The bottom line of both views is scientific accuracy. Both hold that interpretations of reality where science is compromised for ideological purposes should be rejected. But given this bottom line an attitude towards the discoveries of modern cosmology is every person’s choice.’ (p274f).

Malick also sees humankind as meaning-makers. We not only observe the Cosmos, we can make a meaningful connection with it, despite the disparity of scale. He believes in the Creator God. Primack and Abrams also believe in the Creator God. They once adopted the existentialattitude, a position initially reinforced by Primack’s work on the Cold Dark Matter theory in the mid 1980’s. But the more they explored the implications of scale, and our mid-placed position at the Uroboros, the center of the universal scale, the more they were able to see the unique value of humankind – and of our ability to value the universe. Thus the possibility of a loving God, the One who gives ultimate meaning to all things, became more tenable for them.They saw that ‘the more that people discover about the universe, the faster God keeps expanding, always ahead, pulling yet teasing scientists. As God expands, God also deepens at all levels.’ (p277) This is close to the medieval view that all science is a sub-set of theology, the meta-physic, the study of ultimate reality (qua Paul Tillich).

This film is a work of art, not a scientific or philosophical argument. But the same distinctions between the existential and the meaningful, the natural and the graceful, is explored here, and at a deeply personal level.

This film also addresses the question raised by the existence of suffering in a universe created by a loving God. What can be more deep and personal than grief? The death of Jack’s brother weights down on him, and contributes to his mid-life crisis, which is the framing device of the film. This is not simply the crisis brought on by middle-age, the waning of powers, the force of gravity, and the prospect of death, but also a crisis of faith. Was his mother, who he loved, right to believe in Grace, or was his Father, who he feared, right to believe in Nature?

‘I am more like you than I am like her’ he once told his father. Mother and Father reflect differing images of God. Can he love and be faithful to the mothering God of Grace, when grace means yielding to the power of death? Can he believe in the gracious nature of a God who created a universe in which suffering and death are inevitable, and our struggles against them are ultimately futile? Or should he embrace his father’s determination to be strong, to survive even if it means looking after number one at whatever cost?

Earlier in the O’Brien’s family’s life Jack’s father was made redundant. He never took a day off work and every Sunday he went to church and paid his tithes, and yet he was made redundant.This was not fair. There are explicit references in the film to the Book of Job, directly quoted from and explored during an overheard sermon. Job was a good man who did not get what he deserved. Or rather, he got it and then lost it. His harvest, beasts, children, home, fortune and health were taken away.

And Job raged against God, asking in effect ‘why aren’t you being fair to me?’

The poet who wrote the book of Job painted in words what he knew of the majesty of creation – and therefore of the Creator – and rebuked Job for his arrogant assumption that he knew how creation works, and could therefore find grounds to complain that his life was not working according to plan. Job’s faith was being tested, but not his faith in God. Job never stops believing in God. If he did he would have no-one to blame. No, what was tested was Job’s understanding of the very nature of God. Job wanted God to be fair. Just as we do when we complain that arbitrary suffering exists in the universe created by a loving God. As if love meant the negation of suffering. As if love was safety. As if we had a better pain-free working plan for the universe.

Suffering and the God of love, the Theodicy question, has burdened Christians since the earliest days. As Jurgen Moltmann puts it in ‘The Trinity and the Kingdom of Heaven’⁽⁵⁾ ‘The suffering of a single innocent child is an irrefutable rebuttal of the notion of the almighty and kindly God in heaven. For a God who lets the innocent suffer and who permits senseless death is not worthy to be called God at all,’ (P 47). This is, Moltmann goes on to say ‘the open wound of life in this world. It is the real task of faith and theology to make it possible for us to survive, to go on living, with this open wound. The person who believes will not rest content with any slick explanatory answers to the theodicy question. And he will resist the temptation to soften the question down. The more a person believes, the more deeply he experiences pain over a suffering world, and the more passionately he ask about God and the new Creation.’(p49)

For Moltmann, and for many, this is an eschatological question; it can only be answered at the end of time. In the meantime we have to ‘survive, to go on living’.

It seems to me that the question of ‘suffering and the God of love’ is most problematic when we, like Job, want God to be fair and just and even nice, and therefore the universe, that metaphor for God, to be fair and just and nice.

But the universe is what it is. It is all we have got. It is not nice, but it is profoundly beautiful.Among the infinite reaches of space and in the light of impersonal stars intelligent life and self-giving love have sprung into existence. God is found in both Nature and Grace, in the cruelty and splendor of natural processes. God may not be nice, but God is beautiful, even when this is a terrible beauty. God is life-giving love. Our proper response, as living, loving elements in this universe should not be that of resignation and despair, but of gratitude and hope.

In ‘Being a Person; where faith and science meet’ ⁽³⁾ John Hapgood recalled Teilhard de Chardin’s thoughts on death and suffering in Le Milieu Divin. de Chardin’s work, bringing together theology and cosmology, was controversial, but Hapgood, also a scientist and priest,writes that ‘(de Chardin) is surely right to believe that human being need some grand vision of the cosmos by which to live, and which can make sense of both the heights and depths of experience. Scientific visions currently on offer tend to marginalize the very things which are most central and precious to ordinary human life, those most closely associated with our consciousness of being persons.’ (p235.)

In ‘A Big-enough God; artful theology.’ ⁽⁴⁾ Sarah Maitland wrote ‘We need to accept all the data that we have got; we, you and me, our experiences, identity, history, personality, our selves, are an integral part of the revelation of God in creation. (p10)

The Tree of Life brings together the cosmic and the mundane, the immensity of Creation and the apparent inconsequentiality of human life. But it tells us that these are inseparable. That the one only finds meaning in the other. Without the Cosmos being the way it is there could be no life, no meaning and no love. We, as human beings, may not be the point of the Universe, that would be an hubristic assumption, but the ability to know, to value and to love, which we sometimes - imperfectly - embody, may well be. The Creation miracle is that the first light has evolved into what we are, or may be becoming.

The Tree of Life is a grand cosmic vision, addressing the heights and depth of human experience, and seems to be seeking to acknowledge all the data we have got, cosmological, evolutionary and personal, in ways that may be unprecedented in cinema. It has left audiences and critics divided. That is hardly surprising, because so has the question of the existence and nature of God, which is this film’s explicit focus. It will divide believers from non-believers, but it will divide believers too.

There is very little dialogue in this film, the emotional details and depth and complexity are conveyed by old fashioned acting and directing skills. This film shows rather than explains. The cosmic and evolutionary passages are literally luminous, guided by Douglas Trumbull, the special effects master-mind of 2001: a Space Odyssey, Close Encounters of the Third Kind andStar-Trek who temped out of retirement to help bring this vision to the screen. These last two characteristics, the reliance on image and the ground-breaking use of light, connect The Tree of Life to another film that Trumbull worked on, and also severely divided critics 30 years ago,Blade Runner. That film was also concerned with the meaning and value of life. ‘What is life?’ it seemed to ask. And it answered ‘life is precious’. That is not life’s definition, but its value. If we so choose.

In The Master and his Emissary, the Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World ⁽⁶⁾Iain McGilchrist reminds us that purely intellectual enterprises only use half of our brain, or rather, one of our brain’s two hemispheres. Our left hemisphere offers us explanations, and we like explanations. Our left-brain capacities for logic and rationality are essential, but they are not, McGilchrist argues, the roots of wisdom. Wisdom pays attention to the emotional, spiritual, intuitive and relational capacities of the right-hemisphere. Art is an expression of our right-brain’s capacities. Art is not logical, or explanatory, but it is meaningful. As Robert Ornstein wrote back in the 1970’s, ‘the left brain is as brilliant as the sun, but unless the sun sets we never see the stars.’ ⁽⁷⁾ Malick has produced an essay in light, not words. He has not only used left brain rationality and logic (for making a film is huge logistical problem), but also right brain emotional intelligence and eloquent images.

Some may find The Tree of Life confusing, even shocking. But it is a visually poetic work of art that addresses a complex philosophical and theological question. It is also, in my view, a thing of beauty and grace. We may have devalued the word adult in art and entertainment, but this may truly be the most adult film I have ever seen.

Bob Vernon. 2^nd August 2011

1 Joel Primack and Nancy Ellen Abrams. 2005. The View from the Centre of the UniverseFourth Estate. London

2 Sallie McFague 1993. The Body of God; An Ecological Theology. Fortress press. Minneapolis

3 John Hapgood. 1998. Being a Person; where faith and science meet.

Hodder and Stoughton.London

4 Sara Maitland. 1995 A Big-enough God; artful theology.Mowbray. London

5 Jurgen Moltmann 1991 The Trinity and the Kingdom of Heaven SCM. London

6 Iain McGilchrist 2009 The Master and his Emissary, the Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World Yale. New Haven & London

7 Robert E Ornstein. 1975 The Psychology of Consciousness.Jonathan Cape. London

Some further thoughts;

Watching the closing sequence of the Russian Director Andrei Tarkovsky's film Nostalghia on More 4's The Story of film - an Odyssey, where the camera pulls back from the cottage in the background and the pond in the foreground to reveal that we are in the ruins of a Cathedral, the disparity between the landscape and the building in which it is contained, and the dominant themes of the movie connected me with Malick's The Tree of Life.

In Malick's film the mundane is set in the realm of the spiritual, the domestic in the context of the cosmic. Some say the cosmic renders the domestic meaningless, but the opposite is surely what Malick and Tarkovsky are saying.
 The evolution of the Universe, and of life on earth is our context. The death of star in a galaxy a million light years ago is absolutely connected with the birth of a child on earth. Hydrogen, helium and light have evolved into matter that can both grasp (and gasp) at the scale of the Universe, and learn (failing, failing again, failing better) to love.

Both film makers invite us to travel on journeys in which the images show more than the words can say, and the emotional import and juxtaposition of images is more important than their literal meaning. They are not 'easy', and do not try to be. Tarkovsky's films Nostalghia, The Mirror, Solaris and Makick's The Tree of Life all meditate on themes of memory, love, loss and growing to maturity, and do so in ways that confront our normal modes of viewing and reading films.

Unravelling the rainbow of Hero

Background.

Zhang Yimou's 2002 film Hero is set 2000 years ago in China and presents itself as a martial arts movie, building on the world-wide success of Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000). This is no homage to the genre, however, but profoundly subverts it in a complex essay in light, love and morality.

Zhang Yimou trained in Beijing's Film Academy as a cinematographer, and formed part of the '5th Generation' of Chinese film makers, along with Chen Kaige, for whom he was camera man on Yellow Earth (84). He also shot Wu Tiangming's Lao Jing (87) before going on to direct eight of his own films in China during the late 1980's and through the 1990's. His star and muse then was Gong Li, and the films they made together range from the noir gangster genre of Shanghai Triad, to the domestic melodrama of Raise the Red Lantern and the social critique of Qiu Ju. These films won international acclaim for their star and director. His recent films have followed Qui Ju in their focus on modern China's social concerns. Zhang Yimou has always used colour with bravura, from his camera work on Yellow Earth through Red Sorgum, Raise the Red Lantern and Shanghai Triad, and now he has brought this to powerful effect in Hero. When making this film Zhang Yimou worked with the Hong Kong based director of photography Christopher Doyle and Hong Kong stars Maggie Cheung, Tony Leung and Donnie Yen plus Zhang Ziyi, Jet Li and the musician Tan Dun. Christopher Doyle, Zhang Ziyi and Tam Dun were all applauded for their work on Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Much as I enjoyed Ang Lee's film, Hero impresses me and moves me more profoundly. This is perhaps the most beautiful film I have ever seen. The bravura use of colour to separate the different plot lines and provide a useful visual mnemonic is given deeper meaning because it is illustrates the character not only of the individuals but of the view of humanity implicit in each segment. This film is concerned with what it means to be human, so part of my deep enjoyment comes from finding within it values and themes close to my Christian heart.

The Plot in four stories - Red, Blue, White and Green.

The provincial king of Qui plans to conquer and unite the other six provinces of China. For ten years he has lived in fear of three assassins; two men, Sky and Broken Sword, and a woman; Snow.

Three years previously Snow and Broken Sword had stormed his palace and Broken Sword nearly killed him. Since then the King has allowed no-one but his council and servants within 100 yards and worn his armour constantly.

Nameless, a lowly local prefect, has killed Sky in single combat. For this he is generously rewarded and allowed into the Kings presence - at a distance of twenty yards. He and presents the King with the swords of Snow and Broken Sword. As it is well known that these swords would never be parted this is proof that their owners are also dead.

The King therefore rewards Nameless ten fold and allows him within ten yards. The King asks Nameless how he managed this feat and is told the Red Story - Red because in this section of the film the two assassins and their servant girl Moon's costumes and the set's palette are predominantly red. Nameless tells the king that three years ago Snow slept with Sky for one night, and Snow and Broken Sword have not spoken since, communicating only through the servant girl Moon. This Red story is about Broken Sword's feelings of betrayal, jealously and revenge and Snow's feelings of rejection and murderous rage, all deliberately exacerbated by Nameless. Reminded of Snow's betrayal Broken Sword has sex with his servant girl Moon, using and abusing her devotion in order to punish Snow. He tells Snow that she is 'longer in his heart'. Snow kills Broken Sword. Moon attacks Snow, who treats her with distain, and impatiently kills her too. This scene becomes suffused with blood red.

The King's army is at hand and Nameless arrests Snow and duels with her, surrounded by the Army, killing her easily, so undone and remorseful is she by killing her lover in such foolish anger.

The Red story introduces the art of calligraphy and its links with sword fighting skills. Broken Sword has been studying calligraphy - and become a master. Nameless found him in a calligraphy school and asked him to draw the character for Sword on an eight-foot canvas. This ideogram, painted in red, is presented to the King by Nameless. In it, says Nameless, lies the secret of both arts, calligraphy and sword-fighting. There are nineteen different ways to draw the ideogram for sword - and this is the twentieth. The king cannot decipher it, and Nameless says that he can only partially do so. The King tells Nameless that when he has conquered all of the provinces there will be only one language, a simple calligraphy for all to understand, so that people can communicate easily and live in peace.

But the King does not believe Nameless's Red story. He has encountered Snow and Broken Arrow, and seen in them too much courage and strength, honour and integrity to believe that they were so 'emotionally frail'.

The King believes that Nameless and Sky had become allies, and that Nameless himself seeks revenge on him. He believes that after ten years of trying and failing to assassinate the King Sky had joined in Nameless's plot, deliberately given his life and thereby earning Nameless the kudos to enter the king's presence, and the possibility of killing him. 'What gallantry and courage,' the King muses, 'to give his life so that I might die.' But Nameless then had to kill Snow or Broken Sword to get within 10 paces of the king.

In this, the King's Blue story, Nameless persuades Snow and Broken Sword that he does have the skill to kill the King from 10 paces. But his skill with the sword is so fine that he can also deliver what appears to be a fatal blow, but which, by avoiding all major organs, wound rather than kill. The Army, witnessing this blow delivered by Nameless to either Broken Sword of Snow, would believe it was fatal. Nameless asks if one of them will appear to die, even thought risking death, to gain Nameless so close an audience with the King? They agree. As they approach the army Snow stabs Broken Arrow so that he cannot duel with Nameless and risk being killed. She strikes an instant before he can stab her for the same reason. Each is willing to sacrifice themselves for the sake of the other, and the emotions in this story centre on their calm, serene, selfless loving and sacrificial. This Blue story fits with the King's perceptions of the lover's characters. Snow is not distracted during her duel, but calmly urges Nameless to strike the necessary blow, 'Make your move now' she whispers to Nameless, while still giving a convincing display of her fighting skills. But Snow does die, and although Broken Sword must fight Nameless to fulfil the demands of honour, neither will kill the other. Broken Sword kills himself, gifting his sword to Nameless, so that the swords and the souls of the two lovers will be united in death as in life. This Blue story is based on the Kings admiration for his adversaries.

The King had told Nameless that the Red story underestimated the Kings perception. Nameless now tells the King that his Blue story underestimates Broken Sword. He now tells the White Story. When Nameless tries to recruit Broken Sword and Snow into his plan Broken Sword tells him that as long as he is alive he will not allow anyone to kill the King. Snow knows that three years ago Broken Sword was in a position to do so and refused; she still resents this, and says that she will help Nameless if he will help her attack Broken Sword. He does so and Broken Sword is wounded, freeing Snow to go to the duel, and receive the cunning blow from Nameless.

Broken Sword tells Nameless the Green story. In this he meets and falls in love with Snow, the daughter of a general slain by the King of Qui. She is sworn to avenge him. Broken Sword learns the twin arts of sword play and calligraphy, and through then a truthful simplicity of heart. Snow tells him that when the King is dead she will take him home, to a place where there are no swords or swordsmen. For Snow's sake storms the palace with her, cutting their way through three thousand guards until Snow can hold the door to the palace and Broken Sword can confront the King. The Palace is swathed in green silk, and the two men fight in the billowing confusion. As they fight the silk curtains begin to fall, until the two of them stand with a clear view. The King rushes Broken Sword, who parries him and draws blood from the Kings neck. The King knows that Broken Sword held back from what could have been a fatal blow. We were told early on in the film that Snow had slept with Sky three years previously. I wonder if that was in response to Broken Sword's reneging on his promise? In a well crafted narrative the logic of ths tory bleeds our beyond what we see and hear.

Why did you not kill him? asks Nameless. 'Have you given the last ten years of your life to hatred and the desire for revenge?' asks Broken Sword. 'Completely' answers Nameless. 'Here is what calligraphy has taught me' says Broken Sword 'what is in my heart is in these two words.' He draws them in the sand with his sword. They are 'Our Land.' He rides off, leaving his sword for Nameless. The servant girl Moon tells him that in all the time she has been with Broken Sword he had never been wrong. 'Consider his words' she says. According to Broken Sword 'Only the King has the power to end the killing and bring peace by uniting the land. Compared to the greater good one man's pain in nothing.'

'No one has ever grasped what I am trying to do' says the King, when he hears this story. 'Even my court regards me as a tyrant.' He turns to the ideogram. 'To have been understood by such a man as Broken Sword allows me to face death without fear.' Now the King understands the ideogram for the first time; how the swordsman unites with his sword until he no longer needs it to kill; a blade of grass is deadly in his hands. But then the true warrior moves beyond violence and seeks only to embrace all people and live together in peace. The ultimate ideal is when the warrior lays down his sword. The King gives his sword to Nameless and turns his back. Nameless does not kill him. He drops the sword.

Snow learns from her servant that the king lives and confronts Broken Sword.

'Is Our Land all that you have in your heart' she demands.

That; and you.' he replies.

How can I believe you? She asks.

'Is the sword the only answer' says Broken Sword as Snow attacks him. Broken Sword does not parry her lethal blow, dropping his sword as she strikes. Appalled, Snow cries 'Why did you not defend yourself?'

'So that you would finally believe me' says Broken Sword, and dies.

Snow screams with grief and the realisation that she was wrong. They are transported to a high point on the rocks and Snow gathers Broken Sword in her arms and tells him she will take him home, to a place without borders. She thrusts the sword further, through his body and into her own, killing herself.

In the Palace the army gathers and the courtiers scream at the King for permission to execute Nameless. 'This is the sacred law they' cry in unison. 'If you are to unite the land then we must execute him.' The King sadly gestures his agreement and a storm of arrows flies at Nameless as he calmly waits for his own death. He dies an assassin, but saluted by the warriors who carry his bier and buried as a hero.

We are told that Qui united the provinces, and that even now, two thousand years later, the Chinese still speak of their country as Our Land.

Means, Motifs and Motives.

The colours speak clearly to me.

The passionate Red is of betrayal, jealously and revenge, rejection, murderous rage, and abuse. Even Moon is abused by her master and killed by her mistress. But this story is not the truth.

Blue is used here to signal courage and strength, honour and gallantry, calmness and serenity, selfless love and sacrificial. These are admirable; but this story is not true either.

White may be the truth. The colour White contains all colours, including red, and it is true that Broken Sword betrays Snow's desire for revenge. Snow does attack him in rage and kills him. But all the blue virtues are also here. And something else. The Green story is about something new, about spiritual growth as Broken Sword turns from murderous revenge, gives up not only the sword, but also the way of violence- even if it costs him his life.

The green shoots of hope take root in Nameless too, and he does not kill the vulnerable king. The King has seen the living green in the blood red ideogram, and through it understands and values himself better than before, accepting the possibility of death and making himself vulnerable to his assassin.

And Nameless, always clothed in black, gives up his ten-year quest, and his life, to let the King live in the hope that green peace will flourish. He knows this is a costly decision; it will cost many lives; and his own will be the first.

Nameless's corpse is not seen. We do not see the arrows pierce him. We see the space where he stood against the Palace Wall, a space that is surrounded by hundreds of arrows, but is empty. His body is covered in red silk for his funeral, a hero's funeral. The soldiers salute him as they carry his bier, but who would declare him a hero, if not the King?

Is there another colour? Yes. The first fight scene, between Nameless and Sky, is largely grey. Does this have meaning?

Is there another Hero? Consider Moon. In Ang Lee's 'Crouching Tiger...' Zhang Ziyi played an arrogant princess. In this film she plays a humble servant girl. Only in the Red sequence do we see her being violent, as she attacks snow, but we may not believe the Red story to be true. No-where else does she allow her obvious love for Broken Sword come between her master and Snow. It is Moon, speaking to Nameless, with great humility and conviction and telling him that in all her time serving Broken Sword he has never been wrong, who perhaps tips the balance in Nameless mind to accept Broken Sword's final words to him. I hope that she finds a home in the school of calligraphy!

Motives

There have been suggestions that the film is an apologia for totalitarianism and authoritarianism, and a paean to the present Chinese Government. But is the King a totalitarian? His courtiers have certainly seen him as a tyrant - he tells us so. But surely totalitarians do not hand their swords to would-be assassins? And it was the King who told the Blue story, surely a reflection of his own idealistic aspirations. Broken Sword understood the King's higher ambition of peace through unity. That is why he did not execute him. And the King comes to understand the highest virtue of the warrior - to seek peace above all and to lay down his sword. The question is, when?

The film is clear that there is a high cost to pay for this ultimate peace; and most of those who pay it will not do so voluntarily. That could be said of the historical formation of any united kingdom, including our own, and of many contemporary foreign policies, including our own. The question of ends and means hangs over any polity and there are no simple answers between the poles of pacifism at one end - taking no violent action either in aggression or defence - and at the other a totalitarian certainty that our ends do justify whatever means are necessary. The ethics of Just War provide a matrix that is used between these poles by those who seek some moral justification for causing suffering to others, including the innocent, intentionally or unintentionally - but inevitably.

Motivation is important. Hero is clear about motives. It is not so explicit about who the hero or heroes are. The Chinese ideogram for Hero does not differentiate between the singular and plural. Could the King be one of them? If so it would not be because he was a totalitarian, but because under his armour beat the heart of an idealist, but one who accepted the cost of his decisions, accepted responsibility for his actions, and was willing to stand under the judgement of others, including the assassins. Totalitarians accept no judgement but their own. I am reminded of the last lingering shot of The Mission where the Papal Nuncio, played by Ray McAnally, meets our gaze and silently challenges us to judge him for taking responsibility for his effective action as opposed to the pure but ineffectual brother Gabriel. We have to choose between purity and responsibility, as Alistair MacIntyre once said.

Motifs

As someone brought up in the Christian culture I see rich Christian images and themes here. The willing sacrifices of Sky and Snow as they trust themselves to Nameless's sword strike; Snow and Broken Sword doing what they can to spare their beloved the risk of dying in combat with Nameless; Broken Sword dropping his Sword and dying to save Snow from the hatred and revenge that rule her heart. All of these have Christian echoes, and I am also reminded of the pieta as Snow cradles her saviour's body in her arms. The courtiers demand the death of one man for the sake of the people, as the Pharisees and crowd demand the death of Jesus in the gospels under another sacred law. The empty space where Nameless died can be seen as an empty tomb, and his fate, to be executed as a criminal but then revered as a hero, can be compared to that of Jesus. Above all is the vision of the costly peace, a vision embraced at last by the heroes, a peace that can only be made real in a new Kingdom. This is a peace worth dying for. If the Kingdom of God can be seen as a Kingdom of values, then it is worth asking what values these heroes are pursuing. I also warm to a film in which the plot is driven by character. It maybe that there is something profoundly incarnational here, an honouring of motive and autonomy, a determination that our lives and spiritual identity should not be shaped by the stars, accident or intervention, and should not be reactive, but proactive. This is so rare in the movies that it may confuse those who are accustomed to looking for plot rather than character driven action and denouement.

There are a few moments in the film when the protagonists appear to find serenity and peace, and are beatified by them. When Sky rushes Nameless in the opening duel; when Snow wounds Broken Sword to prevent him duelling Nameless and looks back at him for what may be the last time; when Broken Sword drops his sword during their final confrontation, knowing that Snow's blow will kill him; and possibly when the King turns his back on Nameless to contemplate the calligraphy - and possibly his death; and when Nameless faces the massed arrows of the King's guard in the moment before he dies. Each of them has come to terms with their own death, offered up for the sake of what they believe, or a person they love.

This self-emptying is identified as a characteristic action of Christ by Paul and named kenosis in Philippians 2:7 '(Christ) emptied himself, taking the form of a slave,' stripping himself, even to his death on the cross. If we want to stay with New Testament Greek words, choosing them because of the added layers of meaning provided by their scriptural use and context, we could say that each of these heroes became Kalos, (beautiful/good) undergoing metanoia, (transformation or turning to a new path) in a moment of Krisis (judgement). Their aphesis (radical letting go) led to their anastasis (rising up, standing up, resurrection).

Hero is profoundly subversive of the kung fu, wuxia martial arts and Western cowboy genres, in-so-far as they are all driven by the search for honourable vengeance. Broken Sword's enlightenment, presented as his ultimate spiritual maturity as a swordsman, calligrapher and human being, is manifested by his renunciation of vengeance, no matter what that implies about his loss of honour, or life. Nameless also accepts this renunciation of vengeance and violence; and does so by listening not only to his ally, Broken Sword, but also to his enemy, the King of Qui. This is shocking and counter-cultural in the East, so it may not be surprising that Hero has not received a warm reception in China itself. But even Western critics have warmed to the cinematography and performances rather than to the theme. Zhang Yimou may have lost some audiences by pursuing this line. Broken Sword has to lose his own life in order to convince his beloved that he is serious.

Christian and human Virtues

Hero is not a thesis, it is a film about people, about love and responsibly, jealousy and betrayal, about truthfulness and integrity, human failure and human triumph. It is also very beautiful. I am happy to apply Keat's judgment that beauty is truth, truth beauty. This film is often suffused with beauty, sometimes a terrible tragic beauty. And so is life. St Paul called on believers to look for, recognise and celebrate the things of God in the world, wherever we find them. As St Paul said (in Eugene Peterson's translation of the passage known as the virtues in Philippians Chapter 4) we will 'do best by filling our minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious - the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse.'

The more I see Hero the more I am moved by its virtues and inspired to praise it.