Something Between Black and White

I imagine this will start to sound like a movie review and to some extent it is but to some extent it isn't. So where to start? If it were possible, I wish I could see a movie and have one reaction to it and then see it again in a different place and at a different time and my feelings towards the movie would be completely  different. This is a hard experiment to create because our memories can be so vivid that re-watching the same movie has the power to transport us back to the time we first watched it and therefore not really see the same movie but in a different way, rather we are seeing the same movie in the same way we saw it the first time even if physically we are in a different spot. Sometimes, however, there are naturally born opportunities that create such an experiment.

For instance, the movie "Flight of the Phoenix", a 2004 movie about how survivors of a plane crash in the Mongolian desert work together to build a new plane. It is a movie that examines human reaction in the face of certain death. It examines issues of hope and it examines questioning leadership, but in truth I didn't really have much of a reaction to the movie when I saw it except to feel really hot and sweaty which is normal for me because I live in a desert; although I would like to think I am not stranded here.

Now we jump a few years into the future to the 2012 Liam Neeson starred, "The Grey" about survivors of a plane crash in the Alaskan outback being chased by wolves and, without reveling any spoilers, fight the wolves and the elements until the wind bitten end.

This time however, the movie for me at least was empirically metaphorical. In truth, at the beginning of the movie I was thinking that this was a remake of "Flight of the Phoenix" but just made on the snow and snarling CGI wolves, but then something changed. I think my opinion changed when the Liam Neeson character referred to a poem that was written by his father (in the movie):

Once more into the fray
into the last good fight I will ever know
Live and die on this day
Live and die on this day

Now on the surface...the two aforementioned movies should have affected me the same, but the later emotional took me places the first did not. I attribute this to two main reasons. The first reason is the slight differences in the production of the movies. The first being the nature of a the movie. "Grey" is cold and calculated, "Phoenix" is hot and slow paced. In "Phoenix" the build up is to a one possible escape scenario. "Grey" is about staring down the ultimate possibility and continuing anyway. "Phoenix" is a movie. "Grey" is a visual metaphor. "Phoenix" is to be watched with popcorn and lots of cold beverage. "Grey" to be watched while you are huddling beneath a warm blanket shared with only your sacred trust (and perhaps hot chocolate). The second reason has nothing to do with the movie but with where I am at (mentally, physically, emotionally) right now. In truth I don't like scary movies I never have, but with "The Grey" I was able to see beyond the celluloid (digital or otherwise) and construct an understanding of the art that is beneficial to me. I am looking for art that will not only relate to me but will help me process.

"Time wounds all heals" or so we learn. Sometimes, the passage of time is a mysterious curtain that allows you to try and peek beyond it, beyond into the past and if we are lucky to contemplate our lives from two different points on the curve of time.

When the lights come on after "Phoenix" the dangers of the expansive desert are behind you, but with "Grey" you leave the theatre and enter the cold world filled with unexpected realities and dangers with white sharp teeth and yet you, as the voyeur, are armed with a renewed strength to jump "once more into the fray".