A confession: I have long since relegated film and television to the level of occasional or accidental interest. There is some truth to the fact that I have never been specifically gifted in the visual aesthetic department, and it was always easier to leave it to my wife, who was far more gifted than me. But I think the main reason for my disinterest lies in my absolute abhorrence of advertising, marketing and hype. I really have moral qualms with it. It is invasive, pervasive and structurally incapable of honesty. I cannot understand how we have come to accept being constantly shouted at and lied to as normal. Hollywood adds another level to the deception: hidden inside the marketing and hype we find a product that often consists of little more than a poisonous pill of propaganda wrapped in an abundance of flashy thrills that make you go wow. Don’t get me wrong – I enjoy going wow as much as the next person, I just can’t be bothered to suffer through the lies that surround it. After all, gratuitous anonymous sex is cheaper, quicker and more honest.
However, Jon Stewart’s recent interview with Sigourney Weaver convinced me that maybe just perhaps it is possible that Avatar is really new and improved and the next big thing. Ms Weaver is a truly charming and intelligent woman (and if my wife was around we would now have argued about why I put ‘charming’ before ‘intelligent’. What can I say? Mea culpa.) So I gave it the benefit of the doubt and went to see it in the beautiful Tuschinski theater, the first theater ever to be build specifically, though not yet exclusively, for the movies, anywhere. Talk about going wow.
My verdict? Well, truth is that Avatar both exceeded and confirmed my expectations. OK, I wouldn't be me if I did not have a few more points to raise, would I? Here are some of them:
- Re the 3-D, CGI and the rest of the technical innovations: Agree, totally worth it. After a few minutes the 3-D was completely unobtrusive and almost unnoticeable. It became a seamlessly integrated part of the overall experience, and where it was specifically noticeable, it often made dramatic or aesthetic sense, rather than just wowing. It just could be a quantum leap in immersive entertainment. The rendition of Pandora is amazing. But …
- It has always infuriated me that Hollywood’s CGI humanoid creations are always so unnaturally thin. I doubt that nature could ever invent the fashion catwalk look without the perverse intervention of human culture, and regarding the Pandorans - really, if such a long elongated shape would ever evolve naturally, the most obvious method of transportation would be slithering, rather than walking. And …
- I doubt if the immersive experience is enough for me to overcome my manic dislike of the rustling and muted conversation in the audience – not to mention the uncomfortable seats - and improve my cinema attendance stats. I do not think this will necessarily save the movie theater from extinction, but I do see the technology heading for the home cinema system soon. (I am particularly manic about noises in the audience during a performance, and I do mean manic in the most unhealthy sense. I once again had to suppress the irrational urge to throttle the innocent person seated next to me. She could not help she was obese and breathing too loud, but her partner rattling his popcorn and candy wrappers brought me to the edge a few times).
- Most annoying about the so-called intellectual or liberal Hollywood movie is that it would often replace the poisonous propaganda core with a small snippet, just a hint or morsel of critical understanding, before wowing your socks off again so that you are incapable of nurturing that morsel into anything providing real nourishment. Avatar is a prime example. The film hints at dealing with the horrors of exploitation, and the moral ambiguity facing anthropologists and social scientists in a war situation, but before the audience could realize that it is a reference to current counterinsurgency strategies, we descend into the most exhilarating ride of chases and battles and explosions. From a commentary on current affairs, the film quickly retreats into common Indians vs Settlers trope, albeit sympathetic to the Indians.
- I might be missing the mark here, but I was uncomfortable with the africanization of the Pandorans. This could unintentionally suggest that the association between ‘primitive’ and ‘African’ is natural and eternal. I have seen the race issue in Avatar debated elsewhere, but the focus there was more on the white-guy-saves-natives theme, which I agree with Ta-Nehisi Coates is a minor matter. But then, they do also resemble Indians a lot as well. I can’t remember any Arab features, I suppose that would have been too close for comfort. God forbid we get too explicit about Afghanistan being a colonial war.
- Finally, re the only subject I expect to be a bit more knowledgeable on than most – Avatar’s place in science fiction. The debt to Ursula K. Le Guin’s 1976 novel The Word for World is Forrest is obvious through the depiction of a planet-wide networked sentient ecosystem. I was however also reminded of Harry Harrison’s 1960’s novel Deathworld where the ecosystem fights back vigorously, and specifically Michael Bishop’s 1979 work Transfigurations, where the anthropological treatment of the natives is equally pronounced. It is nevertheless refreshing to see Hollywood opting for a New Wave approach to science fiction rather than the usual cliché space opera or dysfunctional capitalism-on-steroids cyberpunk again.
So, yeah, if Avatar becomes the Star Wars of this generation I’m fine with it. By all means, go and see it.