2011. 91 Minutes. Not Rated.
Quote “I think the answer to your question is that the dialectic of the homily always presupposes a ground of evil.”
Note from the writer: If you are religious, and you are easily offended, then skip this post. I am not a believer, and I talk about it a bunch in this review. This is your disclaimer.
Two men in a room. Just two men. Just one room. No names. One black, one white. Both old. One looking towards the light with a dark past. One with a bright history, staring into the darkness.
The Sunset Limited – HBO Films
This short film FLOORED me. Sometimes things are complicated. They have many moving parts, like an engine. Belts, hoses, electrics, mechanics, fluids… lots of moving and complicated parts to its general success. Other times things are simple, like chips and salsa. Get some chips, get some salsa. Boom, done. Perfect.
This might be one of those times that things are simple. Or maybe it’s more complicated. Could it be both?
Cormac McCarthy (awesome author of No Country For Old Men and The Road) wrote this as a play, and two men were cast: Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L. Jackson. Tommy Lee Jones directed it, and they stayed in one room. Sounds like one of those simple things, right? Maybe it is, and maybe it isn’t.
Alright… the movie, the movie. Two men in their 50s, 60s…doesn’t really matter. One man says to the other, what am I going to do with you? Thus we are off. We learn fairly quickly the rudimentary facts about these men and their backgrounds.
First, the black man. The black man, has lived his life chasing trouble. Violent crime, among other things, forced large portions of his life to be spent in prison, where, he found God. That faith has carried him through this later portion of his life. On his way to work during the morning, he saw a man attempting to kill himself. He stopped him. He saved him. He brought him back to his apartment and locked the door. This is the white man.
The white man is a former professor. An academic, a man with a life based in truth and intellect. A black and white world. A world with questions and answers. A world based in itself, in the reality that we live in every day. This man spent the majority of his life chasing a certain set of ideas, perhaps an attempt at happiness, perhaps other things. In this world he lives in, there is no God. There never was, there never will be. God is an invention followed by people who are lacking something. Lacking or not though, it’s he who has decided that this world… is doomed. He attempts to jump in front of a train, but a man stops him. The black man. He is stopped by him. He is saved by him. The man brings him back to the apartment and locks the door.
I’ll stop telling you everything that happens, you learn all of this in like the first 15 minutes. So now I’ll talk about something else, one of my favorite subjects in fact. ME.
The List
- Religion and Life
I know what you are thinking: These are heavy topics. I’m going to do my best not to get over involved, we’ll see how I do. I spent 10 years of my life a very religious person. It was who I was. The more years went by, the more religious I was, or thought I was. I had faith like a child. It was blind, untested. I trusted what I was being told, the way a child trusts everything the television tells them. Sometimes I acted terribly, chalked it up to my humanity and on I went. I honestly can say the worst offenses I could ever credit myself with were while I was a man of God, or a teen of God more appropriately. Some of the worst people I ever knew in my life were people I met that followed the path of the righteous, or at least attested to it. Now in fairness, I will also say, they weren’t all bad. Some of them were the finest people I’ve ever met, and are to this day. Honestly, that number is fairly small though.
The black man lives his life the way I was headed: he is a follower of the faith. He admits that religion isn’t perfect, and that he certainly isn’t the perfect religious person. We see this man for all his faults, attempting to do what he believes is right: to be his brother’s keeper. The Lord tells him what to do (from time to time) and he does everything he can to follow orders. Religion is what it is. It’s something that’s meant to give people hope, and bring people together.
It’s my opinion that the worst horrors in the history of mankind have all been directly attributed to the greed, desire for power, and inherent hostility that exists as a product of religion. That’s just me though, I happily encourage everyone to enjoy their own beliefs. This movie brought it out of me, and really spoke to me. I’ve had some very HEAVY conversations in my time on the subject, and this movie just truly represented how powerful these meetings can be.
- Atheism and Death
Slowly but surely, religious guilt faded from my life, as literature, philosophy and comedy crept in more. As my twenties moved along, I distanced myself a little bit everyday from what I had been taught, and the truth I had come to believe. One day I woke up with happiness in my heart, without as many fears, and without a belief in a deity. I have many questions, and I’m looking for lots of answers. I’m in a place now where honestly, I hope I never find them. I feel now that if the day comes that I feel like I’ve “got it all figured out” then something will probably be wrong. I plan on seeking out truth, educating myself, pondering, and discussing, all the days of my life. I have no plan, and am open to everything life might offer me. Except for baloney, that shit is disgusting and if you like it then you have no idea what it’s actually made from, hot dogs too.
The white man lives his life in the way that I’ve set myself up for (hopefully with a little more joy, though). He reads, he writes, he studies, he ponders, he searches, and he’s content, well he was content. He knows there is no higher power, no heaven, no angels, no Jesus, no such sort of an afterlife. He discredits the notion that happiness is something he could obtain through either a life or an afterlife. What he wants… is death. Life has sent him through the processes, and he feels dis-serviced. He is sad, he is alone, he has nothing, he wants nothing, and he no longer even cares to attempt to make any sort of positive change. He wants it over, he wants peace, he wants dark, quiet, silence. He has come to a realization that the world he lives in is full of horrid people, with horrid intentions. The only thing that could be worse than staying alive for one more minute is the idea of an afterlife where he would be forced to deal with these atrocities all over again. Even worse, that they’d last forever.
- The Movie
The Sunset Limited – HBO Films
The Sunset Limited does several things that I love. It represents the best arguments that religion has. I’ve had discussions with many religious people over the years. More often than not, the conversation ends when I tell them that I don’t think the Bible is a true story. Not for nothing, but if that’s the end of the discussion, then they don’t really know all that much about religion (or yes, they would rather not engage). Religion has the potential to argue many great points. Trust me. They just need to move past religious writings as the only basis for discussion. Then they might have longer talks with people when the occasion calls for it.
Once in awhile, I play devil’s advocate and argue on the side of religion, just to make sure I will do well when the next religious person comes along and wants to tell me why I’m wrong. Religion has many places to stand in order to be successful in an argument or a discussion. This movie brings A LOT of them to light. I enjoyed seeing the back and forth without being in it myself. It was enlightening. It reminds me that these sort of discussions happen everyday. I’ve had many of them, but I’ve never seen them represented so well in film. Not ever. These men have an amazingly intellectual discussion, representing different paths, histories, views, and conclusions. It just worked.
The preacher preaches, and he does it the right way, and with respect. He stands on what he believes to be true. The point of his purpose is genuine. He isn’t trying to make the professor a religious person, he’s trying to save his life, and stop his desires for suicide. It’s not about a God, it’s about men.
The professor isn’t out to prove that there is no God. He isn’t trying to change the life of the preacher or disrespect him either, he is simply trying to stand his ground and argue what he believes to be true. He explains endlessly that he gave it a go, and his time has passed. He wants to die and that’s as simple as it is. To go on is just too painful.(end of THE LIST)
This review is all over the place, I understand. My interest (and maybe yours) is represented right here in a nutshell.
We can have differences. It’s all right. We don’t have to believe the same things. When it’s time to talk it over, then let’s talk it over. More often than not, people don’t realize they can do it respectfully. With respect, we can enjoy the diversity among people. Some think this, and some think that. It’s ok. Some things are complicated, like fixing car engines. Some are simple, like chips and salsa. It doesn’t have to be a fight. And, life means something different to all of us, and so does what happens afterwards.
I leave you with this. If you are religious, if you are an atheist, if you aren’t sure… it doesn’t matter. All of you should watch this film, it knocked me out of my chair.
