On Across the Universe

Janelle and I watched Across the Universe last night. It was really good; one thing that I really liked about it was that it didn't preach. It didn't have a big political message that was right at the forefront. It just had a handful of relevant themes.

One of these themes was war. And it depicted the anti-war and the peace movements in contrast to the Vietnam war. What becomes very evident, though, is that the anti-war protesters are in fact waging a war against war--an exercise that is eventually showed to be self-defeating. Other characters, though, while not waging a public and physical war, are nevertheless engaged in a real battle. What the film shows is that all the characters are deeply tangled in battles of their own.

I think this is true of every human being. We all have wars. Whether they are public and physical wars that we participate in--perhaps by going to Afghanistan as a member of the Canadian Armed Forces--or private, personal wars that we engage in every day. I believe in war. I believe that this planet--and that life itself--is a battlefield. Refusing to fight or denying that there is a war is denying the nature of humanity. I like the line from that film on WW1: "We do this because we're good at it."