The Empire Strikes Out: "Catching Fire: The Hunger Games" Movie Review

I walked away from The Hunger Games, the first part of the dystopian trilogy based on the popular teen novels, with mixed feelings.  While I admired it as a movie, I thought it was a dark story, and questioned its appropriateness for the middle school and high school audience it was obviously aimed at.  I went to see the second installment, Catching Fire, mainly out of sense of obligation; since I did write about the first film I might as well see this thing through.  I left Catching Fire, again with mixed feelings: It was an emotionally engaging film that that offers the sense of hope that the first movie lacked, but it's cliff hanger ending misses it's mark.

Our story takes up several months after the 74th Hunger Games ended:  Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) is back in District 12, living in relative comfort after she and Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson) broke precedent by becoming the first duel winners in the game's history.  President Snow (Donald Sotherland), not happy with the trick they pulled, and nervous that this act of defiance is fueling the fire of discontent in the other Districts, wants to find a way to either discredit Katniss, or else destroy her.  On a victory tour of the Districts she sees hints of the oppression of the people and their increasing defiance.  The whole point of the games is to keep the populous fearful and pacified, and the entire balance that has kept the Capital in control is at risk.  The plot is hatched by a new game master (Philip Seymour Hoffman) to pick the participants of the upcoming 75th games from the pool of surviving victors.  Since Katniss is the only female winner from her district we know that she will go.  The only question is if Peeta or Haymitch Abernathy (Woody Harrelson), their mentor from the last time, will represent the men.

All and all I found the violence less intense than the first movie, and the depth of the characters more profound.  Yes we get the star crossed love angle that you might expect from a teen adventure, but not everything is fun and romance.  Katniss suffers from post traumatic shock, and the thought of having to go back out into the arena nearly drivers her over the edge.  While more than a few of the returning participants seem to be all in, others are obviously leery, discontented and in one case down right bitter with the prospect of having to engage in a kill or be killed competition yet again.

More than the first film, I saw definite borrowing from other movies, including the Star Wars series, The Matrix,  and of course The Running Man.  But the entire experience is original enough, and they avoided simply redoing the first move, which is always a danger with sequels, that I could forgive the cribbing.  The ending most reminded me of the Empire Strikes Back (with a touch of Matrix) but instead of our heroes being up against the wall they clearly have the momentum on their side, even if our heroine is a tad confused.  It seemed to me to go against the spirit of a cliff hanger, until I saw that they are going to pull the most popular cinematic trick of the twenty-first century; the final installment if being made into two movies.  My guess is that the really perilous ending with come around next time.

So, a mixed but positive review from me.  It was engrossing on many levels, and the performances, especially by Ms. Lawrence, are better than we usually see in these kinds of movies.  The themes of economic and governmental oppression, media manipulation, self sacrifice and hope are strong.  On the negative side I guess at a certain point when it becomes clear that the sides are being drawn and system is being challenged I was wondering what took these people 75 years to figure out a strategy.  The ending also seemed a bit bland.  I understand that there wasn't supposed to be a real pay off at the end, but I wish they left me with a greater sense of suspense.  We are left with questions, but I was left wondering how the bad guys will be defeated, not if they will be, which seems to defeat at lest some of the purpose of a cliff hanger.

Beyond JFK: November 22, 1963 and What Else it Means

Today we remember the fiftieth anniversary of the JFK assassination, as if I need to remind you.  This event, and what it meant then as well as it's significance for us now now has been analyzed, not simply over the last several months, but for years.  I approach the observance with more than a touch of ambivalence.  This was obviously a great tragedy, and even though I wasn't around for the assassination, it still seemed to cast a shadow over my childhood.  It was a key experience in the lives of all the adults in my life growing up, and of two of my older brothers, one of whom, as a five year old saw Lee Harvey Oswald shot on national television.  It was a key reference point for my priests, teachers, and in the media.  For many their lives seemed almost subliminally divided between Pre-Assassination and Post-Assassination.  On the other hand this was still not my experience.  I didn't lose my innocence (heck, I wasn't even born), and I'm sure the country didn't either.  Remember, the Civil Rights leader Medgar Evers was murdered in June and four little girls, Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson and Denise McNair, were killed when their church was bombed by racists in Birmingham, Alabama in September. There were already 16,000 U.S. troops in Vietnam, up from 900 three years earlier, and we had gone eyeball to eyeball with the Soviet Union over missiles in Cuba, barley avoiding a nuclear confrontation, in October 1962.  I'm sure the historians out there can think of other things to mention, but I think you get my point; anyone who thought that the United States lost it's collective innocence on November 22, 1963 wasn't paying attention.

What gets lost in all the JFK anniversary talk is that two other people, less powerful, less famous to be sure but just as consequential, died the same day.  The Christian apologist C.S. Lewis died in England, and visionary British author Aldous Huxley died in Los Angeles.  There is no doubt that the murder of a sitting president would be the number one news story on any given day, and be the event most remembered in following years.  But I am not the first to note that the other two gentlemen who met their Maker that day fifty yeas ago have had as much, if not a greater influence over society over the decades since their deaths.



Aldous Huxley is best known for his 1932 novel Brave New World.  In it he tells the story of a future, dystopian society with a difference.  Most stories about future societies depict a great regression or disintegration of the social order (think of the H.G. Welles film Things to Come, from the same era), or else a society ruled by a harsh dictatorship (like in George Orwell's 1984).  In Huxley's story we have the perfect society: population levels strictly controlled by the state; there are no live births anymore, all people are conceived and incubated in a "hatchery."  The family has been abolished.  Sexual promiscuity is the norm and monogamy a perversion.  Pills are dispensed, what we would call today anti-depressants, served up like candy.  People are genetically engineered to fit into strict social classes and conditioned to accept their lot without questioning.  Medical technology has stopped the aging process as we understand it.  People live to about sixty in state of suspended young adulthood, and then die alone and unmourned.  Society is organized around consumption of goods and pleasure, conformity and class stability.  Only a few at the very top of social pyramid understand how contrived and unnatural the whole social order is and crush who ever disrupts the balance, no matter how slight.

Later in life Huxley warned about the dangers of governmental over organization.  These highly  centralized governments could use technology like television for propaganda purposes.  The use of mood or mind altering drugs could become prevalent that relieve short term ills but eventually kill the person physically and morally.  Overpopulation could cause social instability that leads to an overly powerful central state as a remedy.  I don't agree with this last point, but his other "prophesies" have been frighteningly accurate, as far as I can see.



C.S. Lewis was an Oxford Don who spent his early adulthood as a atheist, converting to Christianity after  experiencing what Fulton Sheen might have called a Divine invasion.  But Lewis didn't give in to Grace quickly.  By his own admission his was a reluctant conversion, but once he did turn to Christ he put his energies and talents at the service of Christian apologetics.  Like his friend J.R.R. Tolkien he used story and legend as a vehicle to evangelize the culture.  He also wrote essays and made radio presentations, using logic and persuasion to show the reasonableness of faith.  His, in a way, was a perfect standpoint to start from since he knew the atheist position intimately and could answer it from the inside.

While his non fiction essays like Mere Christianity and Surprised by Joy still enjoy a loyal if relatively small readership, his fictional series The Chronicles of Narnia continue to capture the popular imagination.  What Lewis and Tolkien show is that story, myth, and the arts in general are powerful ways of evangelizing the culture and bringing the message of Christ to those who might not read theological essays or attend lectures.

Yes, we lost three important people fifty years ago today.  I have not said much about the third and most well known of them, John Fitzgerald Kennedy.  This is because I believe that in spite of his fame JFK is the most mysterious of the three.  His life and death have been shrouded over the last half century in its own peculiar myth; well crafted and fiercely protected by his family, colleagues and large parts of the news and entertainment media.  He has become a blank screen on which both friends and critics project their own hopes, fears and aspirations.  Undeniably photogenic and charismatic, he was the first TV ready president.  His murder was the moment when television came of age as the conduit of a common experience for the American people.  In spite of all the film and photos we have of him getting a handle on the man is elusive.  There are so many contrary images of him fighting to emerge from the official Camelot Legend that endures, even if few people really believe in it anymore.

Personally, I'm not sure that his thousand days in office were as consequential as the effects of the violent way his life ended.  It seems people speak more of what he might have done if he had lived as opposed to what he accomplished in office.  Would the Civil Rights Act of 1964 have passed?  Some in the civil rights movement before the assassination were unsure, and Malcolm X, who was highly skeptical of the Kennedy record to that point wasn't holding his breath.  That August's March on Washington was in large part a response to what was seen as inactivity by the administration on civil rights issues.  If Kennedy had lived would the Great Society programs have been enacted?  One of his great fights with the Congress was over his plan to cut income tax rates, an issue still unresolved at the time of his murder.  There were even questions about whether JFK would be renominated by his party for a second term.  And lest we forget the question that usually dominates the "what if JFK had lived" conversation: would the U.S. role in Vietnam have escalated the way it did under Lyndon Johnson?  All these questions are unanswerable, as are the ones surrounding a possible assassination plot.  What we are left with is an image, a memory and a legend.  I write this not as a reflection on JFK the man, but on the media that helped create the Camelot myth and the culture that continues to foster it.

We mourn JFK because he was a symbol of youth and vitality in the service of a greater good, cut down unjustly, before he could fulfill his promise.  Huxley gives us a warning about putting our faith in well concocted images and trading our freedom for a bit of passing comfort and security.  Lewis teaches us the power of myth as a conveyer of a deeper truth.

Eternal Rest Grant unto Them, O Lord, And Let Perpetual Light Shine Upon Them.  May Their Souls and all the Souls of the Faithful Departed Through the Mercy of God, Rest In Peace. AMEN

Fr. Barron on the 50th Anniversary of C.S. Lewis' Death

The Catholic (Re) Marriage Dilemma

 

November is flying by, and I've hardly had time to generate new material for The Ax.  In some ways I'm still getting my bearings straight in my new assignment in Chicago.  Some people here figure that this should be easy since I was stationed here once before.  But while much is the same, there is still much that is different.  This parish has always been busy, but it's even busier now, with many new faces to learn, along with different or greatly expanded initiatives on the schedule.  As the month began I was working on a post about marriage and so pick it up again now.  

I ran across an article from a Catholic site that, to my best estimation, emanates from Australia about the whole issue of divorced and remarried Catholics' eligibility to receive Holy Communion.  This among many hot button issues effecting the Church have been featured prominently on both Catholic and secular news services of late.  The practice is for persons married in the Church who divorce and remarry without getting the first union annulled, or Catholics who marry civilly but never have the union con-validated by the Church to refrain from receiving Communion.  If they wish to participate actively in the Sacraments then they are asked to live as friends or brother and sister with their spouse.

I am not arguing perpetual abstinence from sexual relations is the easy or practical solution for these people. The plain fact is that most people in this position either leave the Catholic Church for what they perceive to be a more understanding Christian community, attend Mass without receiving Communion or simply stop practicing any religion.  None of the choices left open to a person who finds themselves in a difficult marital situation is easy, and I know that people truly suffer having to make the perceived choice between their faith and their marriage.

Of all the difficult teachings associated with Catholicism this is the one that effects me as a priest most directly on a day to day basis.  We hear a lot of confessions here at St. John Bosco Parish when compared to other parishes I've served in, and I don't go many days between having a person in what we call an "irregular" situation visit me in the confessional.  Many times these are people with children in our religious education program who have come back to Church because of their children.  Some times the solution to their problem is easy; either the couple is married civilly, or not at all, or if they are divorced their fist marriage was civil and so they can either begin their preparation for marriage in the Church right away or after a brief investigation to make sure the first marriage wasn't contracted during a religious ceremony.  If the first was a Church marriage then an annulment is required.  This can be a long, painful experience for people, and most who approach me about it don't proceed.  This often leads to years either alienated from the Church completely, or else separated from the Sacraments.  A painful situation, indeed.

Pope Francis has called a special Synod of Bishops for next year to look at this and other issued surrounding the present state of married people and the family.  The regularly scheduled Synod takes place the year after, reportedly continuing the theme.   High on the list of priorities is the examination of how divorced and remarried Catholics are to be tended to by their shepherds.  Is there a way to admit these people once again into full communion with the community by way of the Sacraments?   Pope Benedict XVI established a committee to examine the issue, but they came back to him saying, in essence, that there was no way around the status quo.

In dealing with this issue with honesty and integrity we must first face Jesus' revolutionary teaching on marriage, which prohibits divorce.  The Church's teachings are not a set arbitrary rules, but are the result of a reflection on Jesus' teachings and actions.  Jesus was merciful, but his words could also be strikingly stern.  And even his acts of mercy were always followed up by the admonition to "go and sin no more."  As Archbishop Gerhard Muller, Prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith pointed out recently:

"The entire sacramental economy is a work of divine mercy and it cannot simply be swept aside by an appeal to the same.  An objectively false appeal to mercy also runs the risk of trivializing the image of God, by implying that God cannot do other than forgive.  The mystery of God includes not only his mercy but also his holiness and his justice.  If one were to suppress these characteristics of God and refuse to take sin seriously, ultimately it would not even be possible to bring God’s mercy to man.  Jesus encountered the adulteress with great compassion, but he said to her “Go and do not sin again” (Jn 8:11).  God’s mercy does not dispense us from following his commandments or the rules of the Church.  Rather it supplies us with the grace and strength needed to fulfill them, to pick ourselves up after a fall, and to live life in its fullness according to the image of our heavenly Father."

Pope Francis has hinted that maybe a simplifying of the annulment process is in order.  I'm not a canonist, and won't venture to guess what a proposed simplification would look like.  The Holy Father recently told a group of top canon lawyers that their work should be seen as a pastoral ministry designed to heal broken souls and not simply a bureaucratic or legalistic process.  Again, what this means moving ahead I can't say.

All I can say is that considering the present state of marriage in the West, and the cultural shift away from the traditional Catholic - Christian understanding of the Sacrament by most people, I wouldn't be surprised if more couples than we want to admit approach the altar with a deficient understanding of the commitment that they are making, or in their hearts and minds are not making the same commitment at all.  This in spite of all the best efforts of pastors and diocesan offices of family life to prepare our newlyweds well.  I'm the first to say that we shouldn't use an appeal to mercy, no matter how sincere, to nullify the words of Jesus Christ.  At the same time we are dealing with people who are more influenced by the culture than by Christ, and so need a way back into the Church after a failed attempt at marriage, not more roadblocks. 

"Gravity" and the Rebirth of Faith at the Multiplex

The conventional wisdom on the new Sandra Bullock, George Clooney film Gravity is that it is a rousing, action packed, technically stunning masterpiece of special effects film making, that reminds some people of 2001: A Space Odyssey, while lacking that iconic movie's depth.  I made the mistake of reading some reviews and viewing a discussion by a round table of critics on You Tube before seeing the film, that backed up this impression.  In truth I was skeptical about Gravity from the first commercial for it on TV, feeling that it could never live up to the hype.  Plus, with even it's supporters claiming that it was a bit superficial in the message department, I figured this would be all WOW with nothing else there to support all the special effects, something very typical of contemporary Hollywood.  Not to be overly gratuitous in the pun department; Gravity has a lot more gravitas than most of the critics out there want to admit, or maybe have the ability to see.  Many mainstream critics function out of a secular humanist world view that either renders them indifferent or hostile to themes involving faith and religion in movies.  In the case of Gravity I think we can add a third category; blindness.  It is the only way that I can explain how this major theme has gone seemingly unnoticed by the major critics and taste makers.

Briefly; Bullock plays a scientist aboard the space shuttle who learned just enough about being an astronaut to get her on this mission to fix the Hubble Telescope.  George Clooney is a hot shot veteran shuttle pilot on his last mission (so you just know something is going to go wrong).  This is about the only cliche I can think of in the movie, though.  Soon the shuttle and the telescope are bombarded by space debris from a disabled and destroyed satellite, with little warning.  Bullock and Clooney are the only survivors of the disaster and have to find their way to a Russian space station in hopes that its escape pod is functioning.

As for similarities to 2001, it's been years since I've seen Stanley Kubrick's 1968 classic, so I'm ill prepared to make a full blown comparison of the two films.  But I can't see that the two movies have much in common other than that they take place, for the most part, in outer space, and are both groundbreaking technically in relation to their respective generations.  2001 is a sweeping film, following human evolution from the caveman, questioning the role of technology, the roots of violence in society and what it means to be human.  For all it's spectacle, Gravity is a very intimate story about one person's journey from spiritual and emotional death to rebirth.  2001 questions the reality of the transcendent, but leaves you wondering.  Gravity affirms that we are not alone, and that there are no atheists in escape pods burning their way through the atmosphere. 

What hit me from watching it, and talking with others who have, is how rich the film is in religious symbols, and where some of the more tangible symbols show up, and where they don't.  I'd noticed that the Russian station features a small icon of St. Christopher and a Chinese rig contains a Buddha, but it was pointed out to me that no such religious image can be seen among the debris floating from the U.S. wreckage.  The most prominent symbol that emerges from the gaping hole in the shuttle's fuselage is a statuette of Marvin the Martian of Bugs Bunny fame.  The two cultures that have experienced religious persecution and state sanctioned atheism in the last century still maintains the religious sense, while the one that has religious freedom codified in its constitution seems oblivious, exchanging centuries old touchstones for a trivial piece of pop culture nostalgia.

Gravity could have easily devolved into a "triumph of technology and human know how over adversity" story like Apollo 13, but as Fr. Barron points out in his analysis (which contains spoilers) the movie shows the fragility of technology and the need to be grounded in a deeper reality if true meaning in life is to found.  In her darkest hour Bullock's character begins to speak to no one in particular, coming to grips with the fact that her death is near. She expresses a desire to pray but feels lost because no one has ever taught her how.  I don't want to give anything away, but she has an unlikely encounter that can be variously interpreted as an apparition, a hallucination caused by a lack of oxygen or some mystical combination of the two.  The mysterious visitor, along with assuring her that she'll get home, reminds her of her training, and repeats to her, "you know this," as the protocols are reviewed.  I think she knew how to fix the problems that she faced all along, but had given up, essentially committing a form of passive suicide.  She was diverted from this course as soon as she was tuned into a reality beyond herself.  In coming to an understanding that she isn't alone she is renewed, and in her determination to get home alive begins to speak with purpose to someone in particular who has obviously passed on to another realm.

I could go on about Gravity's religious symbolism and themes, and maybe will in a later post, but for now I want to end off by saying that I very much see Gravity as falling in line with a couple of films that have come out over the last few years.  I'm thinking particularly of last year's Life of Pi, 2011's The Tree of Life and 2010's Hereafter: major Hollywood movies that take religion, God and the afterlife seriously.  Since the New Hollywood era of the late sixties and 1970's irony and iconoclasm have been the bywords in Hollywood.  All things related to tradition and authority were (and still are) fair game for ridicule and rejection, with religion held up for scorn in a particular way.  One could understand the movement to a point considering how subject matter and points of view that could be presented in films were so rigidly regulated by the old Production Code. Nonetheless the pendulum has swung so far the other way it's been rare to ever see faith or religious people treated in anything other than negative stereo types.   In these four films in particular I see a small trend that I pray grows, of Hollywood once again taking faith and God seriously.

Without a doubt I can say that I have never seen anything quite like Gravity on a movie screen anywhere ever.  I held on stubbornly to my snarky skepticism through about the first quarter, but it eventually melted away and I had to simply sit there, nodding my head and say "WOW," to the visual spectacle before me.  But this movie is much more than just visual wizardry.  The themes may not be as complex as 2001: A Space Odyssey, but they are no less profound.  Not only does Spanish director Alfonso Cuarón engage the mind, he touches the heart, something Kubrick was never able to accomplish in any of his films, as truly great as they are.  Keep in mind, I knew exactly what was going to happen walking in and I found myself getting choked up then, and still feel affected four days later.

So see Gravity:  a film that engages the imagination, the intellect and the heart.  A rare feat in any age.