Yesterday, I introduced a few more of my friends to Kieslowski's Decalogue series. I typically begin by showing the first one, "Thou shall have no other gods before Me." As a result, I've seen the first of the Decalogue series at least ten times. Each time there's been something new I had not previously noticed, often by others in their first viewing.
This time someone noticed not just one, but two people being pulled out of the water. Sure enough, after rewinding it a number of times, we determined that indeed there were two. This to re-enforces my theory that the breaking of the ice was not only a judgment against his father's unbelief, but a means for redemption for the father and his son. The "homeless guy" left his fire in order to *be with Pavel* during the impossible accident. This multiplies the irony of the situation. If the breaking of the ice is a divine judgment, then it's a judgment that God also brings upon himself. One is tempted, therefore, to conclude that God must have failed in trying to save the boy from his own judgment. But that would forget the more important matter: the boy's soul.
From the beginning, the soul of the boy is being polluted by his father's humanistic naturalism. Milk is meant for nurishment of children, but the children in the movie are being forced to consume sour milk by the school authorities. Likewise, his father's naturalism is a spoiling of the nurishing use of knowledge which could make his son both wise and God-fearing. Pavel receives sour milk from his father; in contrast, he receives hardy meals from his aunt who is trying to provide spiritual nurshment for the boy's soul. Whose instruction will win over Pavel's soul? Pavel seems innocent from the beginning, healthily open to religious training and resistent to his father's naturalism. He is perceptive to the pointlessness of life apart from the soul, and recognizes the limitations of human strength and reason. At the same time, he does put great faith in his father's computer. Curiously, we never see Pavel's father bringing him to the priest like he promised. Doesn't this suggest that his father's confidence in his computer is trajected to become a dominating and oppressive force in his son's life?
After being shaken by the death of the poor homeless dog who must have starved and froze to death, Pavel is driven to conclude "perhaps he is better off now." So also, the break in the ice, represents both a divine judgment against his father's idolatry, but also a merciful tragedy for the redemption of souls. In the end, the father finally bows in the church, reaching into the bucket and breaking out a piece of ice which he brings to his forehead. In doing so, the father remembers his son, in sacramental fashion. For the first time in his life, he embraces life after death.
The last time I watched Magnolia, I noticed something else I had not previously noticed: the furniture store Solomon & Solomon represents riches and wisdom. At the beginning of the movie, it's money from his employer that the "stupid" Donnie Smith feels he needs most of all to win the object of his misdirected love. At the end, it's outside Solomon & Solomon that the Quiz Kid adult confesses he lacks wisdom in love: "I have lots of love to give, I just just don't know where to put it."
It's outside Solomon & Solomon that Jim the Cop demonstrates the wisdom of forgiveness in helping Donnie return his stolen money. For the first time in the movie, Jim sits and fully listens to a someone without judging them. "Some people you need to forgive. Some people you need to put in jail. That's the tough part of the job. Who can we forgive?" Governing and executing the Law with wisdom, is not simply a matter of putting people in prison or shooting them.
The movie begins with a kind of angelic merciless justice. The narrated series of "coincidences" at the beginning involve divine judgments all ending in death or imprisonment. The cop's monologue at the beginning of the movie focuses upon man's need to "be good to each other" setting the standard by which the rest of the character's lives are judged or being judged. The cop represents God's Law. But the movie ends, not with simply fatal judgments, but with a dying wish fulfilled, second chances, reconciliation. Redemption. Thus, Jim's character moves from "strict justice" to the wisdom of forgiveness. If Jim can learn the wisdom of forgiveness and not being too quick to judge, than his budding relationship with Claudia (the sinner drug-addict) has hope. And if their relationship can work, the whole world has hope.
Wisdom is one of the main themes of the movie. This becomes most overt when all the characters join in the movie's climatic music video "It's not going to stop, till you wise up". The game show "What do kids know?" play upon the competing relationship between knowledge of adults vs. kids in the context of authority structures. Kids and their knowledge are held hostage to the abuse of adult authorities. Authority asks questions and makes imperatives, kids answer trivia for the sake of cheap adult entertainment (or, in the case of parents, exploiting children for lucrative gain). In the end, Stanley wises-up and realizes that there is an authority that is higher than the oppressive uses of adult authority and education. He begins to ask adults questions. "It's not a dangerous thing to confuse children with angels." After "getting" the divine revelation at the end, Stanley functions as an angelic messenger to warn his father against abusing his authority: "Father, you need to be good to me." Will his father wise-up and see that it is wrong to use his child for fame and fortune? Will he realize that he is not the ultimate authority in his and his son's life? In the end, divine judgment remains penal, but this serves to "Let my people go."
"Everywhere I go, I'm surrounded by things that remind me of her." A friend recounted to me the impact of his recent break up. So it is also with those of our loved ones who have died. Why is it that the sudden absence through the death of a relationship in one form or another often impresses upon us an abiding sense of their presence in all things. Even for those whom we admit we did not think enough of, now we find ourselves unable to not think about them, at least in the present.
I can't help but think that there is in this cycle evidence of being programmed to expect our relationships not simply to survive death, but to obtain some higher and final significance through it. Perhaps this is a mere fraction of what it means for Christ to be "all in all". "I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away..."