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A Profound Little Movie

Flight From Death: The Quest for Immortality

Here is the Wiki article.

I saw this movie a couple of months back. I have been mulling over it ever since. Before I go into all that, let me give you some spoilers.

Basically, the film is about human life. Contrary to the title, which is on death, the film focuses on all the things people do to affirm their life. You see, humans are unique in the animal kingdom. We have the capacity for imagination. We can imagine ourselves walking along the Great Wall of China while we are somewhere else and further, we can envision the steps it would take to get us from our present location to the Great Wall (an example actually used in the film). As a consequence of imagination, we can imagine our own death. Humans are capable of imagining a world without themselves. We can plan our funerals.

As a consequence we have a psychological need to engage in activities which affirm our existance. It can be having children, building great monuments, farming, playing poker, or whatever. Becker (whose work the movie is based on) calls these activities culture. I'm not so sure I buy his definition of culture, but I really can't argue with it. It is reasonable to place cultural activities in light of life affirmation.

In my own culture, that is, Western Culture, I know that I think, explore, learn, labor, achieve, master, celebrate, and therefore I am. So, in a sense, I have been programmed to behave in a way which I associate with affirming my existance. Personally, I think the culture is evolving to a stage where everyone gets to pick their own affirmations and no one is really programmed, so to speak, anymore, but that is another discussion.

The film goes further. It goes into what happens when divergent cultures meet. Some cultures will seek to make converts out of the new culture. We see this with Christian missionaries. Other cultures will seek to incorporate the new culture into their own. Still other cultures will seek to eliminate the new culture through violence. There are a number of responses. Basically, the more threatening a new culture is when encountered, the more likely violence is to result. A prime example of this is when Cortes saw human sacrifice on the part of the Aztecs and decided he was God's instrument in destroying them.

There are a number of interesting experiments in the film concerning symbology and the reluctance of people to desecrate the symbols which affirm their life. Such an experiment is one in which a Christian college student is tasked with hanging a crucifix on a wall, but the only implement he has which can successfully drive the nail is the cross itself (it's the last thing he tries after a long time of trying to engineer another way). Further, experimentation has been undertaken to show the level of aggression exhibited against people who somehow are a threat to life affirmation (a Christian having the opportunity to put hot sauce in a meal for an evolutionist was the experiment, I believe).

Specifically, the stages of reaction to a cultural threat are covered. 9/11 and the aftermath are extensively reviewed and the reactions, on a whole, are very much in line with theory.

The movie promises to be a profound and life altering experience. I wouldn't go that far, but it is illuminating. I now have a basis for putting events in context that I did not have before. I also have come to an understanding of my own reactions to certain life experiences which have challenged my perception.

This is a movie which has the ExSubmariner stamp of approval. Well worth it to watch this movie more than once and read more about the work on which it was based.