by Guest blogger Renzo Millones
(Disclaimer: Of course, there is no reason to think these are Malvika Jain’s views.)
I found the movie ‘There will be Blood’ a dark comedy and social critic. The theme was greed and the sacrifices we have to make in order to pursue our dreams.
The main character, Daniel Day Lewis (from the film ‘My left foot’; I highly recommend it) was a greedy man, obsessed with the pursuit of his pleasures, total disbeliever in the good faith of people, saw people and himself just as merchandize and the maximum dream of anybody a generation ago. He wasn’t evil per se, only his disbelief in people made him a very lonely and bitter person. All his aggressiveness was a product of his insecurity. He needed more, since it was the only way to be free from society - trying to construct a perfect world for himself, his own world where nobody else was present, so that he didn’t have to share and trust anybody.
At the same time the priest, no better than Daniel, was trying to achieve power, not money. He would do anything in posing as the town saviour, the guardian. It was clever and just as dark and sombre as Daniel. I think both characters could not be chosen better since at the beginning you would think these two characters are diametrically opposite, yet at the very end the dialogue shows you that the contempt they had for each other was similar. They could both recognize something of themselves in the other one, and the constant struggle for power that left them both dead and alone. The priest is murdered and Daniel Plainview, old bitter and lonesome, had been a dead spirit since long ago.
It was uplifting that the boy and the sister end up together bonded by circumstances. It was almost the moral of the story, a little bit of sugar on the bitterness of it all. I guess it made the movie less sombre. The movie could be too dark otherwise. When you see the boy growing you almost see how the father-son history perpetuates itself, it makes you think that Daniel was raised like that and his values were pretty much inherited from his father. It almost seems a miracle that the boy’s deafness helps him by breaking the father son bond.
Once his son is deaf Daniel can see that he cannot replicate himself on his kid. Therefore it is almost as his kid was dead. I could see in generations before me and as I grew up how most boys in order to obtain acceptance and love try to imitate their parents. I think it has to do something with loving our self image in other. Once Daniel could not communicate with his son, why bother? At least he treated him and considered him his son when he was sick.
You can observe this in society, how we pursue the things we believe we lack of. I think that’s why black people in America pursuit guns, gold and a white girlfriend. Sometimes they are with the ugliest fattest white chick, when there’s millions of pretty black women.
I think for them the guns replace and make up for the sense of powerlessness they feel at being rejected, the gold makes up for the lack of self value. ‘If you have no value on the inside, just add it outside’. It seems like a pretty simple and absurd logic, the type of logic by which most of the society handles itself. And the white girlfriend is the ultimate level of conquest, because since the women choose the leader of the pack, I think a black man must feel that he overcomes the white man by doing this. Its his way of saying fuck you , I have your most valuable thing….your women.
I always wonder how some smart women hang around boyfriends that are not that smart. It is almost a reversed situation I find home (LATAM). Most married guys back home, feel happy with a woman they consider inferior. They feel insecure with a smarter or taller woman and I think the root of this evil is need. People seem to be just as happy with somebody that needs them as with somebody who loves them. I think most of the so called love out there is just Need in disguise. Maybe there is no love.
The other day I was reflecting that the only way to really love is not to expect anything from your partner, come into a relation with no expectations and just enjoy the whole of the person you decide to be with- the good and the bad, without need. I think people fall in love not with the person, but with one’s unfulfilled needs that are satisfied by someone else. As they approach the satisfaction of their needs inside the other person they form bonds and call it love.
In this sick relationship, ‘love’ will prevail as long as the person that loves you does not reach his goals. In such couples insecurities and therefore their need of each other is enhanced. Instead of learning and empowering each other, these enhance the other person’s insecurities. The need is increased and by consequence so is ‘love’.
What happens when suddenly one of these persons reaches fulfilment? Or finds a much richer source to patch their insecurities better?
I believe people don’t need anything or anybody. I think people are afraid to analyze themselves since it lowers their self esteem. But this is, at the same time, liberating. It allows you to understand that there’s no better or worse. How we all fail and how we are all are just a deaf man making fun of the blind one who is making fun of the crippled who is laughing at the deaf who cannot hear and so on, entangled in our individual little self-justified worlds.
If all people were conscious of this, then nobody would judge someone, or anyone. It would level the ground and maybe, then maybe we could reach unity.
