Short Take: A film of conviction and faith whose statements about religion are rife with controversy

Directors: Albert and Allen Hughes (From Hell, Dead Presidents)

Screenwriter: Gary Whitta (Debut)

Cast: Denzel Washington (Training Day), Gary Oldman (The Dark Knight), Mila Kunis (Extract)

Length: 1h 58m

Synopsis: In post-apocalyptic America, decades after a natural disaster involving the sun and a subsequent war destroyed almost all life on earth, a man treks west in search of a civilization that will put what he has to good use in order to save mankind. What he has there is only one of anymore, and that is a copy of the King James Holy Bible. On his way west he finds a town that’s run by a very dangerous man who seeks to find his own copy of the bible and use it to control the minds of the ignorant and desperate. When the two men meet it ignites a struggle between good and evil that could alter the face of human civilization forever.

Analysis: If only one thing can be said with certainty about this film, it is that it is not shy about making explicit arguments and commentary. With regards to this, its main approach to said argumentation, it would appear, is to be direct and unambiguous. For example, the reason for there being such great value attached to the last Holy Bible is made clear when the man with it, Eli (Washington), explains that after the great war which helped bring on the apocalypse, people sought after and destroyed every bible they could find; blaming its man-given predominance for causing the war in the first place. Such a backstory involving the entire planet (or at least the United States) can be seen as a straight and unsympathetic jab at organized religion itself, however other messages in the film conflict with this accusation.

Much like Christianity itself (with a constant and raging battle between good and evil) The Book of Eli demonstrates how something that’s inherently innocent, like a book, can be used to help or destroy. It does this through explicit symbolization involving the two main characters: Eli and Carnegie (Oldman). Eli’s hope and mission is to give the last known bible to a group of people that will embrace it for the right reasons, and spread its teachings to others in an effort to create a better world. Carnegie, conversely, wishes to use the powerful words within the bible to build influence with the hearts and minds of people, and with such influence control them for his benefit. Not only are these conflicting motivations an embodiment of the battle of good versus evil, but also representative of each side of the pro/con debate over the existence of organized religion period. When the power of influence that religion provides is in the right hands it can be used for incredible benediction, and when it’s in the wrong hands it can be used for untold evil (Christianity may arguably provide the best example of this fragility. The religion has supposedly touched over a third of the world’s current population, but horrible events such as the Crusades have occurred in representation of it as well).

The landscape of the film, so similar to other post-apocalyptic stories (scarcity of water and food, lack of electricity, absence of conventional currency, etc.), seems to withhold a different significance due to its pairing with the aforementioned religion-based narrative. In and of itself, a post-apocalyptic world often resembles (as this one does) a medieval one, where basic essentials are valued the most and frivolous goods the least – if at all. With this in mind one question presents itself in the case of this film: Is a medieval-like world the optimum place for religion to flourish? Those who would argue against religion altogether might be against it because people who grow up in such a state typically lack essential education and are therefore easily influenced and manipulated, inadvertently offering themselves up to those who would take advantage of them. On the flip side, however, one could argue that it is only when people are stripped of their privileges that they truly appreciate them, and so people of a medieval state then would better appreciate something as fundamental as life because they are forced to work much harder to sustain it. This sense of appreciation and its accompanying humility, then, could be said to be a most favorable soil from which the seeds of faith in a higher power can grow. The character of Eli himself can be said to embody this viewpoint, but for reasons that I cannot articulate here for fear of spoiling surprising details. One more subject worth giving thought to, after seeing the film and identifying all of its arguments on the topic of religion, is whether A) the movie bothers to sufficiently attest for the essentiality of religion, and B) if it even attempts to make such an assertion. These questions are not as easy to answer as you might think.

Rating: 8.5