I loved sharing the last few films (see the previous six posts) with my Religion and Film class. These films are dangerous. I mean that in the sense that they challenge the viewer; they upset preconcieved notions. When you watch them, you are not in control. You will end up in a place you did not anticipate at the beginning of the film, not through some clever plot twist because your worldview has been changed. Maybe this idea of danger is a useful one in deciding whether a film is any good.
Take, for example, the bit in Secret Sunshine when Shin-ae goes to the prison to forgive her son's murderer, only to have the man tell her, essentially, "Thank you very much, but God has already forgiven me." This moment is test of faith, both for Shin-ae and for us. It forces us to think about what it means to believe, and to think about whether such belief is possible. It is a stunning sequence.
In Prometheus, Ridley Scott's new film about man journeying to the stars in search of his maker, there is an analogous moment. One of the ancient race of aliens that created life on earth remains alive, in a kind of suspended animation on his ship. When he awakens from his sleep, there is a moment when the space men wonder, Could this be God? But then the creature starts kicking major butt, and the viewer is back in the comfy security of knowing that this is just another movie monster that must be killed. No God here.
No doubt most people would prefer the sequence from Prometheus, but it is fundamentally less dangerous than the one the Secret Sunshine. And this points to the central problem of Prometheus, which is that doesn't have much to say. Or rather, that whatever religious or philosophical point Scott was trying to make became so compromised by the mechanics of three-act story telling, that they simply don't register.
The movie has been getting pretty good press. But sometimes when I read reviews, I wonder if the reviewers have seen the same movie. Take, for instance, Tim Robey, writing for the Telegraph:
Rediscovering his once-restless ingenuity as a stylist, Scott still finds ways to push a seemingly played-out genre into queasy new places here, which isn't something you can say for any of his recent movies. While we already know that rooting around on an unfamiliar planet is the absolute pinnacle of Bad Ideas in blockbuster cinema, this rolls back the form and uncovers fresh terror, particularly in a cracking, centrally-positioned sequence when a robotically-administered medical operation spawns the unholiest shock since John Hurt started spluttering at the dinner table in the first Alien.
What is "new" about this sequence? Everyone knows, when Noomi Rapace crawls into the robotic surgery booth for an emergency ceasarean, what that baby is going to look like. As my son Will pointed out, you always know what's going to happen. It's not that scary.
Part of the problem are the characters, which are entirely stock. There's the crusty captain, the heartless corporate honcho, the quirky robot who just might be in charge of everything. Even Rapace's character, the best of the lot, is not very distinct. Her thing is that she's religious -- see, she's wearing a cross! Her religious feelings, her desire to come face to face with God -- this could have been epic stuff, if handled right. Instead, Scott chose to play it safe.
