Avatar

James Cameron’s latest theatrical creation, “Avatar,” is by far his shiniest gem. I found the dazzling display of ethereal plants, curious animals, robust machines, and floating mountains to be entirely convincing and majestic. The addition of the 3-D glasses uncovered a new dimension to the visionary experience. The visual augmentation of three-dimensional space via the droll glasses of optical illusion fully pulled me into the fantastical narrative. The usual gap between picture and spectator disappeared. I felt my self to be inextricably linked to the filmmaking process and Cameron’s cinematic vision. I felt innately connected to the mythology he was expounding and weaving before my eyes. Like the paraplegic soldier who transported his consciousness into the half-human/half-alien hybrid in the movie, my consciousness felt like it was transported onto the blue planet of Pandora. A part of me has never returned since. A part of me doesn’t want to return.

In addition to having astounding special effects and cinematic charm, this movie also had an important message for us: the sacrality of life must be preserved and venerated. In the end, the indigenous denizens of Pandora defeated the “people from the sky” (ie: us) with help from the paraplegic outsider who transported his consciousness into the hybrid form. The victory was highly symbolic of the need to return to indigenous wisdom in times of ecological catastrophe, rampant warfare, and the destructive science behind the both of them. If we resolutely fly straight on the road of technological progress, and if we keep on trampling over territories and plundering lands for the advancement and refinement of our money-driven ideologies, all the knowledge acquired by indigenous people will eventually be lost. With the loss of indigenous wisdom comes the loss of our roots, animism, and the sacrality of the land. Is this something we can really afford to lose? No. It isn’t.

The ending also symbolized our return to the “World Tree” or the “Axis Mundi”. The “Tree of Souls” in Avatar was something the blue-skinned and slender indigenous people used as an oracle or guiding force. They used it to tap into the mind of the “Eywa,” or the ancestral spirit of Pandora (something embedded in all life forms on the planet). In shamanism, a wisdom-bequeathing tree—such as the one seen cinematically on the mythical planet of Pandora—is the veritable axis of the world, or the axis that links the different planes of existence together in a seamless unity. In the words of Mircea Eliade:

“Several religious ideas are implied in the symbolism of the World Tree. On the one hand, it represents the universe in continual regeneration, the inexhaustible spring of cosmic life, the paramount reservoir of the sacred (because it is the “center” for the reception of the celestial sacred, etc.); on the other, it symbolizes the sky or the planetary heavens.”

Thanks James Cameron for creating something endearing, vital, inspiring, fantastical, mind-boggling, and prophetic.