In no way carrying the philosophical or theological weight of "Magnolia" or "The Matrix", I was still surprised that frogs did not fall from the sky in the final scenes. It was almost like Spiderman was going to tell Sandman about this "Thich Naht Hanh" book he has been reading lately, and how understanding and love are one...meditation this, and mindfulness that.
If you do see this film, do not have high expectations, as if Lauryn Hill wrote the screenplay or something...but it does deal with accepting and confronting the "darkness" or "dark side" of ourselves...and the potential role of forgiveness (or not) in destroying the darkness, or being destroyed by the darkness.
Interesting.
One last note...Tobey Maguire looked so similar to Conor Oberst when he "darkened his character". Maybe I am just a geek for symbolism...probably so.
1 comment:
I feel you on the symbolism in Spiderman 3. I saw the movie with a couple of friends yesterday and when they asked me what I thought of it, I talked about competing notions of justice.
I recently wrote a paper on Shakespeare's Hamlet and the commentary on justice within the play. The same themes dominated Spiderman 3, although less poignantly, and with less insight. Basically, the point in both the play and movie, I feel, is that true justice comes with reconciliation and understanding, whereas violence only begets violence, and revenge leads to one's own demise. Spiderman really fucked things up when he dawned the black suit and gave into retributive justice. Things were set straight only after Peter reached out to Harry, Spiderman pulled Brock out of Venom, and the Sandman became vulnerable with Spiderman.
The crazy thing is that these ideals are so prevalent in our society that they're easily folded into entertainment films...but they're not really believed in. People admire reconciliatory justice but largely restrict it to the the screens and books.
It absolutely kills me. Why do people continue to insist on violence?
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