A film that goes straight to the heart of philosophy by asking and sort of answering the most basic questions we all encounter during our lifetimes. Is there meaning to life? Just climb out the window across the roof half naked and see if there is. Is there a God? Just go to an abandoned Synagogue and tick on the zinc of the altar and see what happens. What happens is that you cut off the tip of the finger yourself that you used to tick on the zinc. Is there life after death? The professor you sent tapes to, to tell him the questions you had, who has now died, go to his grave and ask him this last question in person, to send a signal if there is life after death. Snow slides down from the roof of the Maria statue next to the grave. All is in black and white but at the end, it is mid winter and the trees are all bare and black, between them there is blue like you had not seen it before. His hand bandaged, we feel things are mending again. But all is not what it seems and he tells his girlfriend "perhaps the truck that will run us over, is now tanking 100 meters from here". Has he lost his mind? No he had to become hyper realistic to regain his mental health, I think is what the film is saying. But the raven at the end makes you think twice. Zanussi is Polish and Poland still has some very hard questions to answer, after furnishing the Shoah during WWII, from a Christian view. No film has made such a deep impression on me, describing it now 30 years later.
Review of Imperative
Imperative
(1982)
Looking for a way out of disturbing philosophical questions.
23 April 2011
Warning: Spoilers