James Cameron’s film Avatar is proving to be a kind of global Rorschach test. Here are two articles that show the way people see a reflection of their own circumstances in the film, which is being lauded as a revolution in cinema.
From Belgium, De Standaard columnist Oscar van den Boogaard writes about his extraordinary experience seeing Avatar, and why the film is a landmark in modern history:
The world is swept up in this three-dimensional science fiction story. In Belgium, 600,000 people in two weeks went to see the blockbuster. I’ve never had the experience of having to reserve a movie ticket three days in advance. For the first time in my life, I’m sitting in a packed cinema. And never have I seen such a mixed audience in a move theater. Grandmothers, body builders, adolescents and intellectuals, all with 3D glasses on. It’s quite an event. It’s as if at the start of the second decade of the 21st century, we’re really arriving in a new world. I feel like a Neanderthal who has seen his first aircraft.
It’s about the brutality of man, who shamelessly takes what isn’t his. He destroys what’s foreign to him. He cannot see the sensitivity of others because he lacks it in himself. The parallel between the invasion of Iraq and Pandora is abundantly clear, and makes the comparison no less striking. … And then there’s the phenomenon of the Avatar. The virtual alter ego isn’t just a product of science fiction or Hinduism, but a psychological reality. Every human being has a secret inner world invisible to others. The Avatar is part of the human story. Which side of ourselves do we show?
Then for the state-run China Daily, columnist Raymond Zhou ponders whether the movie might strike a chord with people in China being denied their property rights by greedy developers – and therefore, whether the authorities will shut the film down.
For the China Daily, Raymond Zhou writes in part:
For example, when the Na’vi shoot arrows at heavy machinery that is crushing everything in its path, the scene that instantly came to mind was the Shanghai woman surnamed Pan, who used a homemade Molotov cocktail to thwart approaching bulldozers – albeit in vain. When the Na’vi hold a vigil reminiscent of the Olympic Opening Ceremony directed by Zhang Yimou, the sense of foreboding was so pervasive that I couldn’t help but think of Tang Fuzhen, the Chengdu woman who resorted to self-immolation to protest her “forced eviction.”
I wouldn’t be surprised if the authorities put a stop to the screening of this massive blockbuster when too many people, as I do, read into it a connection to a reality that’s too close for comfort. But they can’t blame Cameron for “inciting unrest” among a restive populace unable to hold on to their rights of abode. …. Most educated Chinese get the message that Cameron embedded in his fantasy tale; but that doesn’t resonate with us as much as the angle of developers vs. landowners.
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