Freedom is Always New

I am still thinking about The Village, which I watched Friday night with my older children. CS Lewis said that one ought to have read a poem at least three times before making a judgment, and I would think that applies somewhat to cinema as well, so I don't want to make an evaluation too soon. Besides, you probably have read a lot of those already. Many critics don't seem to have liked it, and I can see why. One, their own slightly pagan literary sensibilities tell them that anyone who has been touted fervently needs some kind of "fall" to balance out the picture. Being in the position of obligation to churn out movie reviews constantly, the "fall" of Shyamalan provides them with a glib readymade template. Two, the movie depicts an 18th century style village hidden from the 20th century world, which offends their sense of realism. Three, it doesn't tie up very neatly, so you can't say "the theme is...." or pull an allegorical message from it. There are a lot of unresolved notes; for that reason, it seemed to evoke meaning rather than encapsulate it.

The dialogue that seems to be a key part to the theme is frustrating because it has a slightly trite ring to it (there, I am evaluating even when I said I would not). The actual scenes, the colors and details, and the positioning of the characters and how they are filmed, even the musical score and sound effects, seem to have more poetic depth to them than the words. But here are the words that seem to sum up the way the movie seems to change direction (whether it actually changes course or just adds new light that retrospects towards the beginning -- a recurrent device in Shyamalan's movies --- I haven't figured out yet).

Anyway, here is the dialogue that seems to be the pivot:

---Who do you think will continue this place, this life? Do you plan to live forever? It is in them that our future lies, it is in Ivy and Lucius that this way of life will continue. Yes I have risked, I hope I am always able to risk everything for the just and right cause. If we did not make this decision, we could never again call ourselves innocent, and that in the end is what we have protected here, innocence! That I'm not ready to give up.
---Let her go. If it ends, it ends. We can move towards hope, that's what's beautiful about this place. We cannot run from heartache. My brother was slain in the towns, the rest of my family died here. Heartache is a part of life, we know that now. Ivy is running toward hope, let her run. If this place is worthy, she'll be successful in her quest.
---How could you have sent her. She is blind.
---She is more capable than most in this village. And she is led by love. The world moves for love. It kneels before it in awe.

This evoked for me the Pope's words in Spe Salvi:

Let us ask once again: what may we hope? And what may we not hope? First of all, we must acknowledge that incremental progress is possible only in the material sphere. Here, amid our growing knowledge of the structure of matter and in the light of ever more advanced inventions, we clearly see continuous progress towards an ever greater mastery of nature.

Yet in the field of ethical awareness and moral decision-making, there is no similar possibility of accumulation for the simple reason that man's freedom is always new and he must always make his decisions anew. These decisions can never simply be made for us in advance by others—if that were the case, we would no longer be free. Freedom presupposes that in fundamental decisions, every person and every generation is a new beginning.

Naturally, new generations can build on the knowledge and experience of those who went before, and they can draw upon the moral treasury of the whole of humanity. But they can also reject it, because it can never be self-evident in the same way as material inventions. The moral treasury of humanity is not readily at hand like tools that we use; it is present as an appeal to freedom and a possibility for it.

If the theme in The Village ties together in some way, it seems to me it would be something along these lines. Before the time frame of the movie, the elders have made a radical decision to withdraw from the world, in light of their horrific experiences with human evil. The "monsters" are their device for making this horror both vivid and vague, to protect their children and provide them a haven.

At this turning point in the movie, where they allow Ivy to go on her quest, to leave the haven, they are deciding to turn towards the future in a new way; to hand over the active role to the next generation. In order to preserve what is valuable to them -- the essence of its value -- they must be willing to accept the possibility of change, even disruption, of its outward form. In some real way, otherwise, they will "become the monsters" themselves.

Cardinal Newman said (quoted here by then-Cardinal Ratzinger) that "to live is to change". In the context of the essay he wrote, it goes like this:

But whatever be the risk of corruption from intercourse with the world around, such a risk must be encountered if a great idea is duly to be understood, and much more if it is to be fully exhibited. It is elicited and expanded by trial, and battles into perfection and supremacy. .... It seems in suspense which way to go; it wavers, and at length strikes out in one definite direction. .... old principles reappear under new forms. It changes with them in order to remain the same. In a higher world it is otherwise, but here below to live is to change....

So something like that would be my reading. I still haven't figured out if it coheres throughout The Village, which certainly has several puzzling and thought-provoking elements that aren't quite contained in this idea. My kids and I had fun discussing these yesterday, and will probably continue to ponder more upon it in the future.