A Serious Man
Nov. 12th, 2009 06:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
progSaw and enjoyed A Serious Man today. It's a puzzling film that I recommend. Spoilery, thoughts below cut.
Larry spends the movie as Schrodinger's Cat, the same creature we watch him teach his students about. He climbs into his box via his medical examination at the top of the picture, which includes X-rays that require further analysis. God himself then steps in and proceeds to let Larry earn his life by punishing him with a relentless series of ordeals. But unlike Job's tests of faith, Larry's tests are of action.
Larry, it turns out, is a nebbish. When one misfortune after another befalls him, he reacts not as a leaf on the wind (as advised by the film's opening epigram), but as a gum wrapper on a busy street. Rather than standing up to counter the rain of blows, all he can do is wail "But I haven't done anything!" to whomever throws the next punch, whether it's his wife or the Columbia Record House. In so doing, he completely fails to see that that's the problem.
After a dream where the ghost of the man who cuckolded him tries to beat some sense into him, he has further dreams that suggest some ways he can actually shove the universe back, for once in his life, even it all he chooses to do is go next door to bang his hottie neighbor. But he lets every dream turn into a nightmare, and proceeds to pay them no heed.
In the end, Larry finally does make an action, and it's the wrong one. By changing the student's grade to lighten his burdens, rather than confront anything directly, he has chosen to smash open the vial of poison. God collapses his waveform, and lets him die, that very moment, with the ensuing phone call.
What happens next is shocking and mysterious: In the final shot of the film, God physically manifests to the Larry's son as none other than the whirlwind from the Book of Job. As they gaze at one another, the movie cuts to black: the end. The ambiguity, while troubling, is still the opposite of what finally befell his father. I still haven't quite worked out the son's role in all this, especially since he seems to be the film's secondary protagonist. Will let it roll around over the next few days.
I have less idea about what to make of the film's prologue, other than it being another iteration - well, the first one that we see - of the Shroedinger's Cat motif. I'm curious to know if it's based on an actual Jewish folktale, or if only the one element of the (maybe, maybe-not) dybbuk is.
Larry spends the movie as Schrodinger's Cat, the same creature we watch him teach his students about. He climbs into his box via his medical examination at the top of the picture, which includes X-rays that require further analysis. God himself then steps in and proceeds to let Larry earn his life by punishing him with a relentless series of ordeals. But unlike Job's tests of faith, Larry's tests are of action.
Larry, it turns out, is a nebbish. When one misfortune after another befalls him, he reacts not as a leaf on the wind (as advised by the film's opening epigram), but as a gum wrapper on a busy street. Rather than standing up to counter the rain of blows, all he can do is wail "But I haven't done anything!" to whomever throws the next punch, whether it's his wife or the Columbia Record House. In so doing, he completely fails to see that that's the problem.
After a dream where the ghost of the man who cuckolded him tries to beat some sense into him, he has further dreams that suggest some ways he can actually shove the universe back, for once in his life, even it all he chooses to do is go next door to bang his hottie neighbor. But he lets every dream turn into a nightmare, and proceeds to pay them no heed.
In the end, Larry finally does make an action, and it's the wrong one. By changing the student's grade to lighten his burdens, rather than confront anything directly, he has chosen to smash open the vial of poison. God collapses his waveform, and lets him die, that very moment, with the ensuing phone call.
What happens next is shocking and mysterious: In the final shot of the film, God physically manifests to the Larry's son as none other than the whirlwind from the Book of Job. As they gaze at one another, the movie cuts to black: the end. The ambiguity, while troubling, is still the opposite of what finally befell his father. I still haven't quite worked out the son's role in all this, especially since he seems to be the film's secondary protagonist. Will let it roll around over the next few days.
I have less idea about what to make of the film's prologue, other than it being another iteration - well, the first one that we see - of the Shroedinger's Cat motif. I'm curious to know if it's based on an actual Jewish folktale, or if only the one element of the (maybe, maybe-not) dybbuk is.