500 Days of Summer, did you like it? I don't know.
The simplest description of this movie is that it is true. Yes there is great cinematography and it is very artsy and entertaining, but more importantly it is true. It tells us about us, me about me. I love it for its truth: Love is messy. Its confusing and frustrating and exhausting. It is life's greatest joy and greatest pain. It is directly linked to the soul. It goes beyond something merely physical and emotional and touches our immaterial. This is where it gets difficult. Pascal says, “Nothing presented to the soul is simple, and the soul never applies itself simply to anything. That is why the same things make us laugh and cry.”
Our souls are not simple, they are broken. The closer we move to another soul, the clearer this becomes. What should be two puzzle pieces finding their fit becomes two jagged crystals tying to touch centers. There are strange protrusions and bizarre indentations which make it impossible for joining to be simple. The only way these two distorted souls can fit together is through breaking and changing. Both souls will make compromises in the pieces it will have to change in order to fit. It is a slow, painful process with the souls continually asking if all this pain is really worth it. They question whether souls can really fit together at all.
In this movie, there are two souls trying to fit together. One believes the broken pieces just fit perfectly with another broken soul, while the other thinks it impossible and stops moving closer at the first sign of trouble. It becomes an awkward dance. The optimistic soul simple moves forward with blind belief in their innate compatibility. He continually initiates contact and embrace, while the other continues to back away with the first touch. One is blind to the reality of the brokenness, the other to the need for true embrace.
This is love. An awkward dance of broken souls. There are moments of happiness and laughter, and others of sadness and tears. Peter Kreeft says,”Life is a tragic comedy”. Life is full of great happiness and sadness. 500 Days of Summer is a tragic comedy. 500 Days of Summer is true.
Not only is it true on a general level, it was true on personal level for me. I have been both partners in this dance. I've pursued and been rejected, but I have also felt the discomfort and walked away. The majority of my relationships have been the latter. I have had too high of standard and decided it just wasn't worth it. However, in some relationships the roles are traded back and forth. Today I'm sure of the future while she is hesitant, the next next day she wants to get married while I wrestle with my doubts. Watching 500 Days of Summer was like watching people go through all the pain I've experienced at different points in my relationships in two hours. Not the most enjoyable experience let me assure you. But I know I am not alone. If I were, a movie made by people who have never met me would not resonate so deeply. The path is well worn with new travelers everyday.
All that being said, I still don't know whether I liked the movie. A simple analysis of our situation is not enough to make me happy. I would not jump for joy when a doctor tells me I have an illness, “Cancer? Really? Thank you so much for telling me! Hooray! I have cancer!”. The mere diagnosis is not cause for joy. It brings relief by answer questions, but it does not give hope or bring lasting happiness. Hope only comes with a possible cure, and true joy only comes with an actual healing. 500 Days of Summer does not give the answer. It just kinda ends with a, "That's love. Sucks, huh?"
I can't dislike this movie because it is true, but I don't like the truth it tells. The truth is love is messy only because of sin. Yes, the morality of the relationship in 500 Days of Summer was not Christian by any means, but that is not what I"m getting at. The reason love is hard and painful is because sin has ruined everything. I'll say that again, sin has ruined everything. It has marred something God originally called "very good". The reason our souls look like a Picasso painting in a blender is because sin has made us the most selfish and sinful creatures imaginable. As a result, all of our interactions have traces of our souls in them. We get glimpses of how messed up we really are and this makes me sad. It makes me mourn over the state of our existence and wish all could find the hope that is in Jesus. God never meant for men and women to go through so much pain. His beautiful creation has been broken. That's why I left feeling depressed and not encouraged.
500 Days of Summer tells us how it is. But more importantly, it tells us how it shouldn't be.
dude couldn't agree more, but the beauty of love is its ability to hold value through moral, geographical and ethnic settings. Even with the movies screwed up understanding of love. Love is still the center of the movie? I always look at the positives and sometimes that gets me in trouble but lots of time it allows me to see the good in every situation. In 500 days of summer Love is messy and miss understood, but in the end desired and longed for by all the characters. They are searching for love, for the missing piece to give life meaning and depth. To bad finding a girl or guy is not going to be the love they are ultimately looking for, that love is only in Christ. Overall Good entry i understand and felt very similar after the movie Katrina and i talked for a couple hours afterward at dinner. I was drained and needed to process just like you. Thanks for your thoughts later bro
ReplyDeleteThanks for you comment. And if you ever disagree I want to hear about too. I have been known to be a little (I'll use the word) "cold" at times, so I like to hear your feedback. I think you are totally right. Everyone is looking for love. I believe it is Pascal who is first popularized the idea of a "Christ shaped hole" everyone is trying to fill with everything else. "500 days of summer" is a very good example of the simple truth, Love is messy. But there is something in us that tells us it shouldn't be, that it should come easy and be perfect. Nothing in our experience gives us a reason to hold to this fantasy of perfect and easy love, but we do nonetheless.
ReplyDeleteChristians or not, we all can see the world is broken.
We look at the world and sing together, "One of these things just doesn't belong here..."
I wrote this blog off and on for like 4 days. Drained is exactly what I felt when I left the theater and when I worked on it.
Tyler,
ReplyDeleteOverall I think this is a really good post. You analysis of the soul is very thought-provoking. But I do think the story ends on a happy note opposite of what you express. The whole movie and the tension in the story is the presentation and analysis of fate and how that plays in our lives. Yes, everything went to garbage at the end with Tom believing fate is a lie. However, Summer did just the opposite and believed her recent marriage was subject to fate. The movie ended not with a depressing look at love, but an abrupt reconsideration of the concept of fate. Maybe it was fate that Tom's heart was broken so that he would go out and pursue a new job (and in doing so he met Autumn). Thus fate somehow is in play once again.
Like I said great post, I just think the story was more focused on fate than anything else.
Tell me your thoughts.