The AVATAR: Religion and culture

[Mist]

I was just reading the reviews and commentaries on the movie Avatar and I am still excited about this movie and cannot wait till it is released on DVD/blue-ray! I saw it once but wouldn’t hurt to see it again and well again.

 

Being my typical over obsessive self I couldn’t help having a connection to the natives and over analyzing the film’s overtly religious and cultural element. Who can deny the fact that almost all films from Hollywood mock and demean religion and culture to a great extend. They have in recent years become rather ‘self-critical’ of their ‘colonization’ years but they always find away to inject their ‘heroic’ self to saving the ‘other’ from themselves. This movie was not much different in that respect but the spirituality and religious element was fascinating. I’ve never been one to argue secularization exists but we are fast becoming ‘materialistic’ people and the ‘West’ is the forerunner.

Now in the avatar something strange has occurred which I think is a first; At the beginning you see the Na’vi religious life, and its connection to nature, receives some level of respect from the scientific researchers as might be expected with a film that provides a duality and contrast between the evil corporation and paramilitary and the more benign group of scientists. Much like secular anthropologists who have studied Earth’s indigenous tribes and respected their beliefs even while viewing them as unenlightened and unscientific, the researchers in AVATAR do much the same with the spirituality of the Na’vi, even as they come to reassess the “validity” of these beliefs through their own experiences with the Na’vi and the land. But then Sully steps up playing the same duality, with two identities, he seems to be in pain and hunted, RELIGION and CULTURE comes forth as the knight in the shinning arm, and the whole sympathetic observer who still holds himself as superior is shattered. Sully’s transformation as a Na’vi is intense and beautiful, I was literally sitting there thinking I want to be in that world and experience that. The religion was not too much it was perfect; people seem to have the illusion that it is all about control, authority and being stuck on one state of mind, when in reality it is an evolutionary experience, the discovery of the ‘self’ as not alone. A religious/cultural/spiritual meaningful identity is not as materialistic and ritualistic as many might view it, for some it is an awakening and deeper appreciation for life and for others it is a state of belonging.

I think any person with a deeply spiritual awareness will understand this film as more than save the planet. Using Africans as the ‘other’ natives was interesting also, and may I add Jake in avatar form was HOT.

 

What was your reaction to it?

[5]

My reaction was: I bet the several specialized computers used to 3-D render the the film for all those months, didn't run on green electricity!

 

I hated the whole tree-worshiping element of the film. There's a new pagan religion called Gaia worship. It was clearly trying to force-feed us that. I felt offended.

 

But then I looked at how gorgeous the whole thing was, and there I was, happy & smiling & enjoying the film again!

 

At the end of the day it's just a film. A blockbuster made to entertain for a couple of hours (in this case nearly 3 hours). Don't go and create morals for yourself out of this film. Not saying you were. Oh look, cheesecake waiting to be finished off...

[5]

BTW don't wait for the release of DVD! This movie is going to flop EPICLY in Blueray/DVD sales, as it's a 3-D film with its selling point being 'a great cinematic experience'. It won't look as great in 2-D, and frankly there is no story to carry it in 2-D.

[rudy-Diiriye]

i bought the cd for 3 dollars couple of days ago.

hated it...James Cameron must be on crack! these days.

[5]

PPS I second Avatar Jake! Lol.