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:::Movie Review:::
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Film: 21 Grams
By Michael Moore
May 2005
Michael A. Moore, aka Quess?, is a poet/writer/spoken word artist and recent graduate of FAMU.
He hails from New Orleans, LA by way of Brooklyn, NY and is former editor of the Creative Mindz
section of the FAMUAN Newspaper. He may be seen performing at Mt. Zion Calypso Cafe and can be
reached at mmoore@tallahasseeblackpages.com
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Pain is a deal breaker. No being emerges from her depths
unmarred—unchanged.
Entry into her chambers may serve as a karmic reconfiguration of sorts. The
mirror of the mind’s eye containing the visage that is one’s self image may find
itself shrouded in vapors of confusion if not completely disintegrated into
shards, after being accosted by the explosive force that is pain. Ironically,
the value of its confrontational nature lies herein. An encounter with pain
brings about a necessary amount of destruction. If the deconstruction process
serves its purpose, then from the residual rubble may emerge a new life form
altogether, apparently unscathed. But more often than not, the case is not so
picturesque. The norm is usually more similar, in some way or another, to the
lives led by the characters in 21 grams.
Director Alejandro Inaritu must have been looking for an aesthetic to match the
conceptual nature of this film. Because the beginning of the movie introduces us
to scattered scenes whose presentation reflects the disbanded lives of three
people’s chaos laden realities. The movie continues on in this way, presenting
a disordered series of vignette-like scenes in a fashion that pledges no
allegiance to words like chronology or linear. I’m a firm believer in my own
theory that the artistic trends of a particular era (whether funneled thru the
conduit of musical style, fashion, or as in this case, storytelling and
cinematography) are always reflective of, and even dictated by the zeitgeist.
In other words, at the risk of sounding yet again like the cosmic conspiracy
theorist; the aesthetic employed by Inaritu, while groundbreaking in its
innovation, is somewhat beyond his control as it comes from beyond the
parameters of his individual being.
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It can be traced back to the same well of frenetic energy that births the awkward mesh
of chaos and candor that we witness in a host of Seth Green-esque cartoons on Adult Swim.
The same vats of violently alive undercurrents of an unleashed collective consciousness
that wire in TV shows like "The Wire", or magazines like FADER [positing today’s poet
laureates (Saul Williams), nihilistic barbaric thug rappers (think: Camron and Li’l John)
and psychedelic Japanese rock bands (who knew they even existed?) closely together like
one big happy family minus the requisite division of categorization and nomenclature] or
for that matter the same uncaged madness that sponsors the "War on Terror" (read: the
attack on the resistance to global white supremacy—ahem, globalization) is also responsible
for steering Alejandro Inaritu’s director’s hand toward splashing random visceral visions
across the screen that somehow all connect in the end. In other words, it’s the Kali Yuga
Age kiddies and damn near anything goes. So in the words of the original King of New York
Frank White, "You’re welcome! You’re all f***in’ welcome!" (Somehow, the aforementioned
allusions will all connect in the end of this review if this writer can only manage to
aptly direct his pen and thoughts. But that, along with your assessment of this film,
will be left for you to decide…)
Equal doses of esoteric allusion and haphazard aesthetic confusion make for a film whose
attempted sculpture of meaning out of madness conveys its message about as confusingly as
any early 90’s Wu-Tang song featuring the philosophical rants of the RZA and the late great
Old Dirty Bastard. You know it’s all coming from an inspired place and hopefully it will
successfully take you full circle to wherever that inspiration comes from and clear things
up for you. But in the end, the vessel doesn’t quite make it to shore in one piece. In
21 grams, we’re left with the broken planks of a story that splinters our perception
with the unconventionality of its style. Yet the confusing nature of the method used
tiptoes the fine line between that "next shit" and its proverbial ugly duckling cousin,
"some ole’ other shit". The movie’s redeeming force however lies in the performance of
its actors. Sean Penn plays the apostolic college professor Paul
(my-name-is-a-totem-that-you’ll-probably-overlook) Rivers opposite Naomi Watts’
melodramatic sufferer Cristina Peck, to a ripened perfection. Both of them have
clearly mastered the art of portraying tortured characters. Benico Del Toro, another
veteran at playing the enigmatic sufferer (think: Traffic), winds the bow onto the
box with his delivery of the gruesomely tortured Jack Jordan. Also worthy of head
nod is Melissa Leo, who plays Jordan’s wife with a pungent sense of sincerity and
quiet intensity that leaps from her troubled countenance and explodes off the screen.
The movie begins with flashes of several soon-to-be intertwined storylines. First, we
behold Cristina and Paul lying in bed together. Then we flash to Cristina’s husband
and kids eating at a restaurant. Now flash to Cristina in what appears to be an AA
meeting where she is telling about a near death experience she had and how she is so
grateful to her husband Michael (think: guardian angel) for standing by her thru the
rehab process and her two daughters who offered her new hope. Then we flash to Jack
Jordan at a local religious center proselytizing and browbeating a teenage "punk"
about the goodness of Jesus. Where are the logical connections? After about 2 hours
of being assaulted by a barrage of intense scenes that sometimes scream and other
times whisper at you with urgency, you’ll still be asking yourself that question.
Somewhere in there it does become clear that there has been a horrific car accident,
that Jordan is involved, and that ultimately his fate is directly connected to the lives
of Cristina Peck and Paul Rivers. There are also some major plot twists woven in there
that may have been less confusing (or, by the same token, enchanting) had not the story
been told like it was. Ultimately, I have my own suspicions about the allusions inherent
in the names of the characters, how they play off their personas and how they draw together
the links that connect their lives. But I won’t say too much lest I give away the plot.
Just know that the juxtaposition of Jordan and Rivers calls to mind a certain biblical
allegory involving a character named Cristina—I mean Christ, who found redemption (errr… baptism)
there… in the Jordan River I mean. And speaking of Christ and redemption, the movie ends with
Paul (whose name made me think of the wayward biblical sojourner) on his death bed offering
intriguing existential queries as he feels himself departing.
"How many lives do we live?" This question floats in the backdrop as we peruse through
hidden excerpts from scenes past and suddenly we see the connection between the stylistic
approach (lives and scenes and fates intertwining and bombarding each other) and the question
he poses. As the play list of the daily lives of Paul, Jack and Cristina scroll thru the
scenes leading up to the fateful accident that bound their lives to one another, its as though
the director is answering the main character’s question. "How many times do we die?" Paul asks
this in regard to not only the physical deaths, of which there were at least a few in the movie,
but the marred relationships and interpersonal deaths and rebirths throughout the story. Then
he finally delves into the that mysterious title. "They say we all lose 21 grams at the exact
moment of our death. How much fits into 21 grams? How much is lost? How much is gained? …21 grams…
the weight of a hummingbird… how much does 21 grams weigh?"
I’ll leave it to you to theorize on Sean Penn’s last question. But for one last esoteric kick,
take this to ponder. There are 300 species of hummingbird—leaving a direct numerological
correspondence between the title’s namesake (2+1=3) and the numerology associated with hummingbirds.
Three is said to be the number of progeny, the beginning of all things. ("How much is gained?").
In the Hebrew alphabet, the numerical value of 300 is given to the letter "shin" which has
associations with fire and relationships, the past and the future. The hummingbird’s wing movement
is the only among the bird species that can move in a figure 8 pattern—the symbol for infinity and
the laws of cause and effect. Indeed. 21 grams is an intricate tapestry of interwoven karmic
threads—stories within stories—metaphors like mirrors reflecting each other, gleaming in the eyes
of one another, some messages diffracting off the prism of perception before they even reach
fruition; a convergence of lives and allegories that collide with each other in the attempt to be
reborn.
Penn’s character Paul offers the movie’s most lucid gem in a conversation with Cristina. "There’s a
number hidden in every aspect of life… fractals, matter… screaming to tell us something… there’s a poem
by a Venezuelan writer that begins, ‘The earth turned on itself to bring us closer. It turned on itself
and in us until it finally brought us together in this dream’". Alas, such is life; the burning
friction of interaction, the inevitable pain and death that accompanies birth and resurrection, the
broken mirror of a perceptive lens once whole… the scattered shards of memory. I saw the movie’s
depiction, especially given its timing (it dropped in 2003 around the time of the US occupation of
Iraq) as a microcosmic representation of the strained human relations on the planet right now in our
age of impendent death and rebirth. But that’s just my little cosmic conspiracy theory, if you will.
If nothing else, you’ll be jolted awake by the taunting enigmas of a movie that baits and pulls with
intensity yet refuses to directly relay its meaning. Don’t expect to get this in one sitting. I’ve
found myself watching it over and over again just to discover new meaning latent in its cryptic nuances.
With double entendres and metaphors abundant, I excavate something new every time. 21 grams… hmmm…
much is gained indeed.
Michael A. Moore Copyright 2005. all rights reserved
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