Siftings
Two Critiques: ‘Avatar’ vis-à-vis ‘Cinema Paradiso’
(Second of 3 parts)
Why is the planet named Pandora? In Roman mythology, Pandora is the woman who, curious about a box’s contents, releases a host of plagues and ills upon the world, clamping down the lid at the last minute on the one creature remaining inside which could save the World–Hope. In other words, Hope remains inside Pandora’s Box; by analogy, Hope in the guise of the Unobtanium still awaits human kind on Pandora.
But not, the film insists, by destroying the planet, its vegetation and resources and people and their culture. But by a different, more people-friendly method of real, honest-to-goodness “Benevolent Assimilation”, not the one that history has condemned. Remember that slogan of the Taft colonial administration, which radical thoughtful Filipinos look back to with distrust/disgust? That recalls another uncomfortable revelation courtesy of Joseph Conrad’s incomparable novella of anti-colonialism, “The Heart of Darkness”, in which the anti-hero Kurtz, after sundry unspeakable savagery and brutalities perpetuated on the African population of his company’s commercial enterprise in the Congo, writes in very fine print at the bottom of his Report, “Exterminate the brutes!” This, after he had made himself lord and master of the natives’ lives and fortunes as they supply him with the elephant tasks they bring to his camp, for the enrichment of his commercial bosses in Europe. Conrad suggests there is darkness unfathomable,indeed, in the heart of Western civilization that exploits and destroys alien cultures for material wealth, no matter how messianic the commercial enterprise may be at the start.
The commercial enterprise in the film is obviously private since the uniforms and hardware are not identified as any government’s issue; but a military leader, the latest update of the White Ugly American, now significantly robotized, is in command as he carries out his agenda of colonization and destruction on a helpless people while ensconced in his seemingly invincible robot-armor. Thus, military presence has been not only commercialized (mercenary armies have been around for a long time) but also robotized, completely rendered heartless, without mind and soul, completely controlled by heartless, soulless man. So how do you counter such a foe which is not a state or government entity but a military force in the employ of a rich, private commercial enterprise, in relentless pursuit of that old 18th century policy of “laissez-faire”?
The Navis have a counter force and they use it. Pure unseen spirit manifesting itself in the nurturing power of the forest and its magical creatures great and small, which enables them to communicate with each other–creatures all of the air, lands and waters of their world. And when they win the battle, one feels a veritable gust of triumph: Here is Eden regained, indeed.
Leave it to Cameron to make one last jab at the White Man’s conquest of the North American continent. In the Navi’s rituals, body painting and manner of non-clothing, they bring to mind the American Indians who were the victims of the White Man’s civilization–no matter how many countless apologies Hollywood movies have made! In the hero’s final capitulation to the call of his love and ecologically-friendly nature, he becomes a Navi, to pursue a life lived according to the rhythms and seasons of the world he will now inhabit. The White Man-Messiah turns indigenous to save the world!
Thus is what the film is really all about. It is a call for the preservation of this world–our world and the only one we will have in our lifetimes–through immersion in and unification with the spiritual, non-material forces that operate in this very universe of which Earth is but a negligible part. (To be continued tomorrow)
