We must have been the last New Zealanders to see Avatar. One afternoon last week we dropped the kids off to Grannie, drove over the bridge, parked outside a non-descript movie theatre and went inside. We walked into the dark theatre and settled in.
Avatar is set on the moon Pandora, home of the Na’vi. These people inhabit a wild, lush and verdant habitat filled with all manner of strange and beautiful creatures. Pandora is a rich source of unobtainium, a super-conductor of energy which humans are mining to save the earth. Platoons of humans have arrived en masse to pillage Pandora of its unobtainium stores, even if it means destroying what is most valuable to the Na’vi.
I loved it. There aren’t many movies I’d watch twice and this is one of them. A fantastical adventure in a world more enchanting than I could dream. Action, adventure, suspense, love…we get it all. It’s an easy escape. No brain strain here, there’s nothing to decipher or deconstruct. Simply beautiful.
The movie finished and we walked out. We picked up the kids, came home. An afternoon’s light entertainment had been consumed. Great movie, we could have said, and then got on with our lives. Then as the days went by the memory of it would have faded. We might have remembered the ending, or the scary bits, or the M&M’s, or the grubby cinema seat viewed in half-light as we sat down. But would we really remember the movie?
It all depends on what we think we saw. Did we see a blockbuster, a crowd-pleasing blend of technical wizardy and old-fashioned story-telling? Or did we see something as close as we get to a morality tale? Something like sitting around a campfire and listening to ancient stories. You scoff, ofcourse. But the story is ancient. Indigenous peoples as guardians of the land’s sacred treasures. Outsiders who come only to take and to destroy. Two world views clash, each with completely opposing understandings of what is truly valuable. One man experiences a life-transforming paradigm shift and a hero is re-born.
How many times have we heard this story? How many times have we witnessed it from the safety of our couches? How many movies, books, newspaper articles and news clips have we seen that tell us this very same thing: we are in danger of losing what is most valuable to us. And yet we walk out of the movie theatre, go home, clean up the day’s mess, and sleep. Another day gone and nothing changed.
But couldn’t we change?
Couldn’t we watch a movie like this and let it alter us, somehow? Couldn't we take the story and make it our own? Couldn't we re-tell it to our families and our friends, write it onto our hearts and let it filter through to our thoughts, our intentions and our actions?
Or do we just want to be entertained?
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