The ‘Captain’ is Ben Cash
living deep in the American North West forest, well off the grid, teaching his
six children the skills of hunting, first aid, climbing, armed and unarmed
combat along with vigorous daily exercises. It this Captain a rightwing
Survivalist or Evangelical? No, he teaches his children to celebrate Naom
Chomsky’s birth rather than Christ’s and provides a deep home-education in
philosophy, literature, science, civil rights and left wing politics. He
encourages his children to argue their opinions and to hear each other’s
arguments.
Ben, played by Viggo
Mortensen, thinks he is saving their lives from the disaster of modern society,
and it seems that their mother agreed, at least before her hospitalization.
But when she dies the family suddenly have to
deal with her parent’s more conventional ideas and those of society in general.
So first of all we see the
utopian self-sustaining ‘alternative’ lifestyle in an extreme form, with the
family almost totally separated from society, entire unto themselves for food,
education and entertainment, living out a clear, if rigorous,
vision. But then they have to deal with the children’s grieving
maternal grandparents, Jack and Abigail (played by Frank Langella and Ann
Dowd). They are rich retirees, living in a huge house on a golf-course,
and Jack is severely critical of Ben’s life choices, seeing them as physically
dangerous and emotionally abusive. After the funeral Ben and Jack
clash furiously. The family’s response to this precipitates another
crisis, one that forces Ben to reconsider his stance. Will he now
will retire alone, leaving all six children with their
grandparents? Or what?
Despite his mainstream
success in the Lord of the Rings and lead roles in Hildalgo, A History of Violence, Easter Promise, A Dangerous Method, and The Road
Viggo Mortensen is, I think, unappreciated by the Hollywood establishment (how
he could not even be nominated for his role in The Road is beyond me) but maybe that’s because he does not fit the
Hollywood convention of a Star. Here he is as persuasive as ever,
tough enough and intelligent enough to make the Captain credible. I
will also add, for those interested, that he appears full frontal naked in one
scene. And for those easily offended by language; you will be.
He is wonderfully
supported by Frank Langella and the younger cast members playing the children;
George MacKay, the English/Australian actor (who I last saw in How I Live Now) plays Bo, the eldest boy, working his way
though the various dimensions of Marxism (he was a Trotskyite, now a Maoist) but
seeking to escape the Arcadian forest for Academia.
Rebellious 12 year old Rellian (Nicolas Hamilton), Samantha
Isler (Keilyr) and Annalise Basso (Vespyr) as convincing teenage twins,
alongside the younger Shree Crooks (Zaja) and Charlie Shotwell (Nai).
All the children have been given unique names, reflecting their uniqueness as
human beings.
The children are taught
the value of dialectics, and this movie is certainly dialectic. The clash
between a hypo-thesis and its anti-thesis leads to a new thesis, in this case a
new way of being. By the end of the movie the dialectic is
resolved. Not hypo-thesis A or anti-thesis C but, we presume, an
acceptable B (or maybe D?) We are not shown or told how the grandparents
– or children – come to agree with this resolution, or define the essentials of
living it out, and that is a shame, but I can see how detailed negotiation in
the last reel would defuse the dramatic tension.
The film may end with a
rather conventional solution, and not everyone will find it satisfying, but at
the very least it comes about after an engaging, often amusing and sometimes
rather moving argument and narrative, one that visits the horrors of modern
American (and increasingly the Western) lifestyle, with its waste, obesity,
rampant consumerism and alienation from both the natural and philosophical
realms, but also points out the isolationism, desocialisation, and ultimately
dysfunctional nature of the extreme survivalist/back to nature
impulse. We do need to find a way to live ‘in this world’, even if we do not want to be ‘of this world’, being properly dismayed by many aspects of
it.
I was, however,
disappointed by the way Ben teaches his children to utterly dismiss
Christianity. I think there are many informed reasons to criticize
the Church, but Ben’s does not seem to be informed, chucking the essential
Christian baby out with the polluted waters of the
Church. Ben’s children have been taught, however, that
we should be defined by our actions rather than our words, and no matter how comforting it would be for
Christians (such as myself) to separate the body of the Church into distinct
parts and claim that we have nothing to do with the actions of the parts we see
as deluded, ignorant, un-biblical, populist, right-wing, abusive, greedy for
riches and power, theologically and intellectually corrupt, or even blasphemous
(do add your own ecclesiastical bêtes noir)
it is still hard to find a theology to support this consoling
tactic. At the end of the day I think The Church is The Church is
The Church, no matter how much I dislike so much of it.
The photography is
sumptuous. Stéphane Fontaine previously shot A Prophet
(2009) and the amazing Rust and Bone
(2012). The soundtrack includes an original score is by Alex Somer, and music
by Sigur Ros, Bob Dylan, Bach and Chopin and provides an intelligent and
sometimes satirical commentary. El Hilo de Ariada was written by Viggo Mortensen and George
MacKay, and the whole family join together to sing throughout the film.
The good Doctor Kermode
has also pointed out the relevance of the lyrics of Bernie Taupin and Elton
John’s song Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy and even though the writer says he made no
such connection they really do fit (read them again when you have seen the
film).
Captain Fantastic, raised and regimented, hardly a hero
Just someone his mother might know…
Are there chances in life for little dirt cowboys
Should I make my way out of my home in the woods
For there’s weak winged young sparrows that starve in the
winter
Broken young children on the wheels of the winners
And the sixty-eight summer festival wallflowers are thinning…
For cheap easy meals, hardly a home on the range
Too hot for the band with a desperate desire for change
We’ve thrown in the towel too many times…
I do encourage you to see
this movie. It certainly made me think and that is enough to give thanks for,
even without the engaging performances in this film. The Captain may not be truly fantastic, but it is, I think, individual, thoughtful, moving and
amusing.
