The Last Samurai
I finally got a chance to see the The Last Samurai. Reviews of the film have been outside my radar, so I wasn't really sure what to expect other than a solid performance by Tom Cruise. (Which he delivers.) The opening of the film reminded me of Hidalgo, which was a film I didn't mind, though not particularaly memorable, so I wondered if this film would top it. Thankfully, it did.
What an interesting idea: to look at the US/Native American experience through a romantic depiction of the Samurai, the warrior elite that watched over Japan for centuries. The film offers an unflattering critique of the modern world, with its mechanistic disregard for the spiritual nature of humanity, the cold Gatlin Gun mowing down the last Samurai a final metaphor for the industrial society's penchant for destroying folk cultures in the name of progress and greed. How strange that beauty and blood can mingle so freely.
Of course, I'm not a real reviewer, so I can just go off and leave the synopsis for the other guys. Nor am I trying to be terribly linear, so off the cuff, here are some thoughts.
Stories like this interest me: men waking up to life. Profound transformation is enigmatic at best, and such transformation is one of our deepest longings. The problem is that deep, paradigmatic change requires a kind of death. Dallas Willard refers to such processes as a kind of mental breakdown, and I agree. What else can it be when all your inner life is in tectonic shift?
Nathan Algren (Tom Cruise) is a nightmare ridden U.S. Army Captain haunted by travesties visited on Native American women and children, travesties of which he's taken part. (Can anybody say Vietnam?) It is 1876, and Algren is hired by the Japanese to root out a rebellion warring against the Emperor, a rebellion bent on protecting an ancient way of life. The elite Samurai pit themselves against Western Industrialists seeking to transform Japan into a modern technological nation. I don't really know my Japanese history here, so I'm not qualified to speak to the film's accuracy either in tone or in fact, but given the circumstances offered by the filmmakers, it seems--from the Samurai point of view--a worthy battle.
And as it plays out, so it is.
Algren, addicted to both depair and alcohol, is captured by the Samurai, and spends a long winter in their high mountain camp, where he learns that there is a beauty in the lives of these "savages" that far outstrips that of the more "civilized." (It's now a half-century old, this postmodernist critique of the technological West, but as directed by Edward Zwick, it's hard not to leave the film agreeing with Algren. I'd rather live with the Samurai any day than with the bumbling, pompous Americans.) Algren goes through his "death," roundly beaten by the Samurai and by his withdrawals from alcohol. He emerges clear-headed, and over time, comes to regard the discipline and beauty of the Samurai way of life with curiosity, then respect, and finally--having seen the truth of Zen's "no mind" and the enchanting Taka (the woman who's kindness in spite of her anger at Algren's having killed her husband)--Algren comes to love this strange, "barbaric" culture.
So now we the audience are firmly in the camp of the Samurai. Down with the Western infidels!
What we know is that it's not that simple. Cultures change, and that change is rarely peaceful. Civilized and barbaric alike fight for what is and has been, for it is their heritage and blood, and to ferret out the difference between lasting truth (that must be fought for) and cultural preferences (most of which will and must fade into history) is not easy. But films that nuance such things are few and far between, and in the end, The Last Samurai> struck me as a terribly elegant Cowboy and Indian movie, right down to the horsemen warriors getting mowed down with rotating fire sticks.
But I do not doubt that there are many cultures in the world that a man could spend a winter immersed in and come out changed forever, with a clearer vision of what is real, true, and honorable. For the image of God resides in every person on the planet, and even with scripture to guide them, and even though they are bowing down to gold and wood, there is still much more goodness and dignity and honor among the peoples of the world
than we sometimes like to admit.
I am no anti-Western apologist, but neither does it bother me to see technology and the cruel heart of humanity held up to critique.
What is the Christian take? I would imagine some are ranting about false notions of Zen "no mind," and the conservatives are no doubt ragging on the multiculturalists.
Here are a couple of things I walk away with: cruelty and greed and war and death are no respecter of cultures...we are all fodder for the Malevolent One. That discipline and self-control and the seeking of perfection in form in the smallest of things is beautiful, and that idea is a God idea we Christians would do well to foster--especially that grace is there to make up the gap. And that the path to life, to enlightenment, to salvation (I'm not being syncrenistic here, just acknowleding that generally speaking, the entire human race knows it's in trouble) is through less thought of self, more love of truth...
...to live, you have to die...
8:14:25 AM
