And one by one the brave men volunteer for the perilous task of absolving the forgotten lands from an ancient terror. The old King is dead, yet it is their new King Buliwyf who is the first of the men to volunteer. “The thirteenth warrior”, shrieks the oracle, “can not be one of us!” Good friend Eben freezes and realizes he has entered the wrong camp.

The next morning, the Vikings present him with a water bowl in which he is to wash himself, after they have all washed themselves with the same water. He is disgusted. He is a dainty man and does not appreciate the snot of his fellow brother. We discussed this scene in a film club I run on another community and I reminded them how important it is that a man gets to know his inner Wild Man. This man is not finicky about hygiene, but is more grounded in the earth and the getting it done. I remember in my previous relationship that I would often do things that were disgusting by her standards, though I felt that they empowered me. Men and women are different that way. Eben is a bit effeminate. Yet I too would refuse washing my face in water where another bloke just emptied his nostrils.

Eaters of the Dead

After having made a name for himself by riding his horse like a warrior and learning the North Men language, Eben is somewhat more accustomed to the company of the savage men by the time they arrive at their destination. Already, a bond has started forming between him and Buliwyf. The land which meets them is a gray and desolate place, bereft of most its men of fighting prowess. They are already dead, taken by the Eaters of the dead. We are reminded of the “women and children” first mantra. In times of war and danger, men always die first. It is part of our gender role – we are the expendable sex – something which is hardly acknowledged in today’s world, where women are always described as getting the worst end of the stick.

When the Eaters strike the first time, Eben is terrified. He is not a Warrior. “You will be soon!,” laughs Herger the joyous. He does survive, but a scratch on his face, and even gets one of them. But they return in force. The North Men suspect there is some supernatural force at play. The dead bodies of the Eaters disappeared after battle and when fire appears up on the hill from whence they came first time around, they shout “they have roused the fire serpent”. These truly are mythical lands.

The Eaters return in force and Eben enters a battle frenzy, loses himself and his old ways to bloodlust in the moment. He is not a Warrior and so does not remain grounded and focused in the moment of battle, though he is an able arm in battle already, especially after he got his Arabian scimitar cut at the smithy. Herger laughs at him “You got one? Don’t worry. There’s more!”.

Taking the battle to them

The brave king Buliwyf rouses his men – those who remain – to a counter-attack. Eben has turned into an important part of the group, for he is the man with talents of his own – as well as a big brain. There is a nice scene in which Eben rides out of the Viking village and the beautiful lass that he has bonded with strokes her arm against his leg as he rides out. We know from earlier that Eben is fond of beautiful women, and we see his temptation to turn around and spend time with the fair-haired beauty. But he has discovered something new and perhaps even more important now: Brotherhood. He knows he cannot let his brothers down, leave them to their fates while he is frolicking with a woman. It’s simply not the way of a mature man.

They successfully raid the encampment of the enemy– who are a spooky and primitive sort of group – and Buliwyf slays their female spiritual leader. But he is poisoned by her before he gets her head. As his last hours are upon him, Buliwyf calls on Eben to write down the stories of his life, that it might be remembered. Eben is moved and recognizes, once and for all, the greatness of these fearless warriors. He agrees that such would be a worthy thing.

The final battle comes to pass – the male leader of the enemy must also be crushed for the enemy to be broken, and in the dark moments before battle, Eben kneels on the ground to pray: “God, Merciful Father, I have squandered my days with plans of many things . . . this was not among them . . . but at this moment, I beg only to live the next few minutes well”. Beautiful. He is asking his God for help in staying grounded and present in the moment. Male spirituality at its finest.

And so, with the calling on the forefathers and a homage to the Halls of Valhalla (which Eben beautifully partakes in), Buliwyf kills the general of the enemy with what remains of his waning life force. And so, more or less, it ends.

Conclusion

13th Warrior is a pretty light-hearted movie, but what strikes me about it is that it’s a good story for studying the Wild Man archetype, but perhaps more importantly the integration of the Lover and the Warrior archetypes in the KWML system.

Ahmad Ibn Fadlan was exiled because he lusted for the woman of another man. He is also a poet. Ergo, he is a Lover archetype. And then he teams up with a tribe of savage Warriors, who turn out to be noble at their core. What happens in Eben through this adventure is an integration of the Lover and the Warrior, particularly demonstrated through the relationship he shares with Buliwyf (a character who is a king, but whose archetypal function in the movie is of a Warrior King). It is a noteworthy theme and makes the movie a worthy watch.

Avatar brings together a range of familiar themes, common threads, topics, symbolic references and cultural backgrounds and binds them together into a tight immersive adventure. It challenges our perception of the boundaries of reality and fantasy, and can provide us with a reminder of our purpose right here on Earth. Although there are many themes that are worthy of discussion, this review will mainly focus on Avatar’s use of rites-of-passage, and explore how these rites allow us to connect with a purpose and broaden our relationship with the natural world. Chapters are dived into ’seasons’ and link various threads in Avatar with the natural cycle of birth, growth, decay, death and rebirth. Familiar themes on an unfamiliar world.

Birth – A new world, a fresh start

Avatar opens by introducing the possibility of new beginnings. Through Jake’s narrated introduction, we discover how he came to arrive on Pandora and are likewise introduced to how frustrating his reality of being stuck in a wheelchair is. We also get to know his dreams of being whole again, and this theme of dreams re-occurs throughout the movie, as the boundaries between dream and reality blur once he starts embodying his avatar.

With its oceans, continents, ice and clouds, Pandora looks more like Earth than a land of the terrors and nightmares those familiar with the Greek myth might have been expecting. Perhaps the corporate men were right, this could be Jakes second chance, humanities wet-dream: a fresh planet where we can start-over and this time get things right. Pandora offers Jake the chance to leave the past behind and become someone new, the same way that Spring overcomes Winter and offers the chance for renewal and re-birth. Jake is eager to prove that he is useful, so he enthusiastically takes on the Colonel’s mission of spying on the Na’vi, because, for now, he only sees the benefit to himself. His desire to be whole again overshadows whatever consequences his actions may have on others.

The beauty of Pandora revealed

As Jake tests out his new Na’vi body, we witness the glee on his face as he fully immerses himself in the experience of being free of his chair. Yet, it cannot last. Waking up back in his cocoon, Jake is confronted once again by his useless human legs. While Jake’s human body appears to represent repression and the past, his avatar body symbolizes liberation, the future and freedom. In other words, the past represents childhood and the future symbolizes manhood.

This is stated clearly in the scene when he first meets Neytiri, “You know nothing! You are like a baby…” she points out. Although Jake possesses the body of an adult Na’vi male, to Neytiri he has not yet proven himself worthy of wearing their skin. To do so, he must think and behave accordingly. Neytiri however is not willing to dismiss Jake immediately, as we see. She possesses a deep spiritual connection to the forest and after witnessing a sign from Eywa, she realizes that there is something special about Jake. This spiritual connection is something that we see lacking from most of the humans in the movie, which raises questions about what connections we have perhaps lost to our own world.

Growth –Learning to love and respect our new skin

When Jake is brought before the clan elder Eytukan, he mistrusts Jake and agrees with the feisty young warrior Tsu’tey that Jake should be destroyed. Moat however, takes a more diplomatic approach and although she claims that they have already tried, and failed, to open the minds of the humans to the Na’vi ways, she makes an exception with Jake. As the spiritual leader of the clan, Moat believes that there is something special about him. She gives him the chance to learn the Na’vi way, challenging Jake to immerse himself fully in their culture, and train with an initially reluctant Neytiri in order to assess whether or not he can earn his place as one of them. As Jake takes deeper and deeper sojourns into the Na’vi culture, rites-of-passage are shown to be an integral part of the development of his character. Neytiri gives Jake various challenges, or ‘rites-of-passage’, that demonstrate that he is improving, learning and maturing. Like a snake sheds its skin, their first rite in initiating Jake into their clan is to remove his human-styled clothes. Barefoot and practically naked, his body is exposed to the elements and eyes of others, meaning that the focus is moved to his actions.

It is through Neytiri that Jake is introduced to the various habits, practices, rituals and language of the Na’vi, and it is with her that we witness the initial steps in the evolution of Jake’s character which snowball into the giant strides that he later takes.

To draw parallels with another great movie reviewed here, Neytiri – like Katsumoto in ‘The Last Samurai‘ – takes the role of mentoring Jake in the ways of the heart as much as the ways of the warrior. She teaches him about the deep spiritual connection the Na’vi have with the forest and its other inhabitants. As Jake gradually climbs the ladder of her respect, we are given the chance to reflect on our own lost cultures and traditions and can be reminded of times when men would have provided for the community as hunters, and defended them as warriors if needed. Another example of a tradition we are familiar with can be found in the funeral, a scene in which Neytiri is seen placing one of the sacred seeds in the grave of the Na’vi elder as Jake repeats her words in his diary dialogue, “All energy is only borrowed, and one day you have to give it back…”. This brings us full circle by asking us to compare this funeral scene to the one that Jake’s twin brother received at the beginning of the movie. Once again we see that the Na’vi have a healthy respect for death, which perhaps brings them in closer contact with the life they choose to lead.

Jake meets an Ikran for the first time

The Na’vi rites-of-passages are those of a hunter. His first clean kill grants him access to the test of the warrior, and he must climb Mount Iknimaya to make the bond with a banshee (Ikran) – a dangerous exercise where he could either die – or become a true warrior. But the title of ‘warrior’ is not the final step in becoming a man. After passing through the rites of a hunter, then a warrior, Jake’s ultimate challenge is to stand before the Na’vi community and be accepted as one of them. This conclusive action, the ritual of ‘laying of hands’ to form a connection with each clan member proves to each one of the Na’vi present that Jake is being reborn, and that after that moment he is accepted as one of them. This transformation can be witnessed in nature right here on Earth in examples such as the caterpillar becoming a moth or butterfly, or when a juvenile bird gains its adult colours.

Jake is now fit to wear the skin that he has been given. Another way to interpret this scene would be to say that he is now no longer a child. He is a man. The Na’vi use of rites pose other questions: how do our own societies qualify us as men? Are we ‘men’ simply because of our deeper voices, our taller, broader, hairier bodies? How do we actually know that we are now men and not still boys? And how do others know? What types of rites do boys have to pass through to be considered men in contemporary society? Is it the keys to our car? Our shavers? Our 18^th birthday? Our ability to legally buy alcohol? Or is it something much deeper: the knowledge of our purpose in life? These questions are definitely worth taking a moment to think about.

While watching, I also notice that Neytiri is not surrounded by weak male role models. This is no fairy-tale in which the whimsical princess sings to her animal friends while waiting for a handsome prince to whisk her away from the boredom of her claustrophobic room high in the Palace’s Eastern Tower. Neytiri is positive, powerful and very feminine. So when it comes to the question of love and partnership, Jake is intimately aware that it is not just his own personal choice as a man that matters: a life with a partner must be decided together and he states to Neytiri “I have already chosen, but she must also chose me”, another confirmation that Jake has transformed into a wiser man.

Decay – Leaves and trees fall, bodies waste away

While his Na’vi self improves in leaps and bounds, we witness Jake’s human side (especially his body) waste away and he grows increasingly pale and thin and stalls his mission of relocating the Na’vi from Hometree. Jake states that the lines between his old self and his new self are blurred, he is not sure who he is any more. Despite all that he has learned and the commitment that he has made to Neytiri and the Na’vi people, he is still attached to his human body and past. When the yellow bulldozers suddenly arrive and destroy the sacred site that he and Neytiri have just made love in, Jake finally sees what his fellow humans are doing through the eyes of his newly attuned Na’vi self and his true sense of purpose, to defend his home, kicks in. His uncontrolled rage exposes his true allegiance and the following negotiations between Grace, Jake, the Colonel and Selfridge do not go in favour of the Na’vi. Grace puts up an especially well-reasoned fight. She and Jake both display aspects of the KWML ‘Lover (in their fullness)’ during this scene, deeply in tune with Pandora’s beauty and unafraid of protecting it at any cost to themselves. But instead of taking their pleas seriously, Selfridge deflates their arguments by exclaiming “What have you guys been smoking!?!”. He appears completely disconnected from himself by the greed, denial and destruction that his everyday life has become. In KWML terms, Selfridge displays many aspects of the ‘The Tyrant King’ here, blinded by his hunger for richness he is unable to associate with the situation he has created:

The immature Selfridge commands Dr Grace Augustine to produce results with the Na’vi

His degradation of others and all beauty is limitless, as everything good, true, and beautiful reminds him of his own shortcomings. He is extremely sensitive to criticism… responding with rage, when what he feels is fear and vulnerability.

The Colonel too plays a role, the Sadist Warrior who itches for battle, he prefers mass genocide in order to acquire military rule over Pandora. As the military destroy Hometree, he too appears entirely disconnected from the reality that he is creating for the Na’vi: while they die or watch their home being destroyed, he sips coffee and offers to buy everyone a beer. Back at the base, Selfridge and the others watch their television screens passively, somehow connecting and disconnecting them at once. Norm and Trudy are the only ones who feel the need to act: Norm flies into a rage and Trudy simply walks away, wanting no part in the massacre of the people she too connects with. Small, but powerful actions.

Death – Redemption. The making of the king

With Eytukan dead, Tsu’tey steps up to his responsibility as clan leader – but, overwhelmed by the situation that he has been thrust into, he can do nothing more than lead the Na’vi retreat to the Tree of Life. It is finally time for Jake to take the initiative: the people need a leader they can trust to fight back and win against unthinkable odds. Using his training, Jake pulls off the unthinkable – makes the bond with Last Shadow (Toruk) and arrives to the awe of the collected Na’vi. As we watch this scene, we are reminded of what it often takes to make a true leader: as human beings we must pass through many hoops in life – many rites and rituals – but in order to become a true leader, one must often surpass the confines of mere mortals. Jake appears when the Na’vi most need him and as such, represents the 6th incarnation of their messiah, something that was also hinted at earlier when Jake was ‘chosen’ by the sacred seeds.

Jake turns to Tsu’tey and, brother to brother, man to man, asks for the new chief’s permission to bring the clans together to form a larger force. The show of respect for Tsu’tey’s position here is a good example of how Jake connects with the Na’vi. The warrior Tsu’tey recognizes a power in Jake that he does not yet possess and agrees to let Jake lead. War follows, and the Na’vi pack a mighty hole in the human forces. Tsu’tey’s heroic fight on the aircraft ramp is particularly noteworthy. But against the bullets and rockets, their fortunes quickly turn and the humans and their machines one-by-one lay waste to the Na’vi forces. But Jake’s call to Eywa for help is answered and various creatures come to the planet’s aid, giving Jake the break he needs to destroy both the airship and the Colonel’s battleship. Although it may appear cliché and obvious to point it out, what this scene does is once again show us that one man can make a huge difference, one man can turn the tide and fight for what he loves despite the fact that he can lose everything.

“How does it feel to betray your own people?” the Colonel asks Jake during the final battle. He doesn’t perceive that Jake’s connection goes far deeper than A) human, or B) Na’vi. Throughout the whole film, the Na’vi have played a very important role in allowing us to connect to the planet Pandora emotionally. The Na’vi have shown us the spirit of Pandora: Eywa, not as dark feminine seduction, but as a positive feminine energy source. One to bathe in, admire and respect. The Colonel’s disconnected analysis is not an uncommon one at all: while the natural world on our own planet is continuously raped, divided up and turned into corporate commodity, humans inherently continue to focus on human-centric issues and conflicts. To Jake – who has fully embraced his Na’vi spiritual side – the connection goes much further than this. He doesn’t even bother to respond to the Colonel’s challenge. He just snarls like a cat and goes in for the kill.

Re-birth – The cycle of life comes full circle

As Neytiri enters the cabin hoping to save the suffocating Jake, she meets Jake in his human body for the first time. They finally ‘see’ one another as their true selves. There is something both strange and wonderful about this scene as the massive battle-painted warrior princess crouches in the tiny steel and plastic lab, cradling Jake’s body like a baby in her huge arms. These two scales, of small and large (child and adult) are also much clearer in the final scene as Jake’s two bodies lie in the fetal position, one symbolizing that of a child and the other that of a grown man. Reborn one final time, the boy becomes a man, permanently.

Conclusion

Avatar takes us half-way cross the galaxy, to the wondrous world of Pandora. But like always, when we transition out of make-believe worlds of great wonder, reality smacks us in the face.

The question to ask yourself is this: ‘What reality do I now see?’ Can Avatar show you how wonderful the world that surrounds you is – outside of your car, your house, your office and even your clothes? For me, Avatar is a call to action, it strikes deeply and asks us one essential question about our lives: what is our core purpose? It hints at the benefits of deepening our current personal connection to people, the natural world around us and the spiritual side of that connection we may have lost touch with. It tells a story that challenges us to analyse the consequences of action versus inaction when we see a cause that is worth fighting for.

It is a story that reminds us that we simply can’t sit around and wait for the future to solve the problems of the present. Deep down this is a story that shows us that we are capable of evolving from boys – through several rites of passage – to the final rite of being reborn as true men, of wearing this skin – this form of the adult male that we have so fortunately grown into – with pride. To take responsibility for our own actions, fight for what is right and protect our mother, ‘Earth’, from those that would harm her.

And most of all, it asks us to do something very simple: to see ourselves through the eyes of others and to stand confidently under their gaze without fear, because we understand who we are and our true purpose right here and now.

The macho jerk and the new age wimp that David Deida talks about are both under the control of feminine energy. Only the truly mature man, a 3rd stage man, has freed himself from it. This is the hero’s journey in KWML. Yes, true initiation into manhood IS the hero’s journey.

They talk about more topics in the podcast, but their discussion of what I outlined above is the best part of it. If it’s not enough that I’m saying these things, then please – for your own good – listen to Sarah and Tripp say them.

Ashley’s disrespect

Some of the greatest problems facing our society today are hinted at in Dorothy’s funeral, the movie’s opening scene. Walt’s wife was a devout catholic. Walt, on the other hand, is not too fond of the Church and its clergymen, but still demands that his family members respect the sacredness of the ritual. So when his grandchildren arrive to – while showing not a sign of mourning or respect – violate the sacred space with their childish antics and gadget addiction, he growls quietly.

In a later scene, Walt enters his garage and finds his granddaughter taking a smoke. The obnoxious and altogether unlikable Ashley asks Walt what he plans to do with his Gran Torino vintage car when he “…well, dies”. This scene is completely shocking, but so true to a pervasive mentality among today’s young that we may fail to bat an eyelid. Faced with the temptation of laying her hands on Walt’s nice car, she effectively wishes him dead as soon as possible – and takes it for granted that SHE will have the car, even though she appears to never have done anything nice for Walt. There is something profoundly wrong with this picture.

What is going on here? Is Ashley just one particularly spoilt brat or are there larger things at work here? To uncover the nature of the huge rift between Walt and Ashley in this scene, we must dig deeper into the developmental trends of Western culture. I will therefore now take you on a roundabout way towards the core of the story.

Postmodernism and the culture of entitlement

When Postmodernism arose in the 1960s, it was in reaction to the negative aspects of traditional and modern mindsets. Postmodernists saw that traditionalists depicted the world as black and white and filled with saints and sinners. The modernists, on the other hand, were seen to plunder the planet and divide the world into winners and losers. Figuring this was bad, postmodernists started deconstructing all truths and hierarchies in order to pull the rug under these two predominant worldviews. The core idea was that everything that separated people into groups or put one person above another was evil.

Since it can be argued that gender can be a way of grouping people, postmodernism has gone to the extreme of deconstructing the differences between men and women. Through some leap of the imagination, they have convinced themselves that men and women are one and the same, and that gender is a sociocultural construct. This is of course foolish beyond belief. The biological differences between men and women are so out in the open that making such arguments is akin to madness. No wonder these dolts end up divorcing each other en masse. Also, because of the postmodern aversion to hierarchies, parents have practically lost their position of authority, which can be seen in the way Ashley and her siblings pretty much control the family. Anyway, when we combine this understanding with the unobjectionable fact that feminism grows out of the very same cultural trend that gave rise to postmodernism, we see that in this worldview, there is no place for a positive image of men or boys. Boys are considered, as many writers have pointed out, “broken girls”.

The postmodern world is a place where fathers are ignored or devalued and boys and men are discriminated against for the supposed evils they cause in the world. Authority – a cornerstone of all good child rearing and life tutoring – is considered mere oppression and any attempts of fostering discipline is met with shouts of victimization. In the postmodern world, age is considered to have no inherent value, and the idea of life experience as something valuable is a totally lost concept. All that is left is “I have my truth and it is mine to have. I am worth everything that comes to me and I should not be expected to work for it. I will not accept criticism or feedback, for I clearly know the subjective truth about ME better than all others. I am a beautiful garden, God’s perfection made manifest on this Earth, and all people must venerate me by caring for my every desire.”

Girls do better than boys in this world, for reasons obvious for anyone who have studied how men and women grow, although far too many of them become intolerable, little cretins who think the world is a playground designed specifically to cater for all their wants. They are almost correct: The Western world has over the last several decades been carefully crafted into a world that cares for and empowers girls at the exclusion of boys. In fact, in schools and society at large, any signs of a boy acting true to his proactive and lively nature is met with great contempt and the desire to “cure” him of his masculinity. Somewhere along the way, his true masculine self is banished from him and the politically correct elite rejoices. Boys, now out of touch with themselves and without role models, suffer tremendously.

Sue, the Hmong girl next door to Walt, describes the result in one scene: “Actually, it’s really common. Hmong girls over here fit in better, we adjust. The girls go to college and the boys go to jail.”

A new family

Walt’s disillusionment with the world’s development has him fast at work isolating himself in his house. With only his golden retriever Daisy and his 1972 Gran Torino to keep him company, Walt is a lonely man.

But Walt isn’t the only lonely man on his street. Sue’s brother Thao is also a little man whose soul is lonely and troubled. He is a lost kid who lacks confidence and the ability to assert himself. His conservative family is concerned that he is not turning into the man that he should be at his age.

Walt and Thao’s neighborhood is a troubled one, plagued by restless gangs. Other movie reviews on Masculinity Movies (e.g. American History X) discuss how the presence of gangs is a sign of absent fathers and this is true here as well. Thao’s father is absent (perhaps dead) and there are no role models in his life. He becomes the target of his cousin’s gang, a small group of unfathered boys who try to teach each other how to be men. They talk the reluctant Thao into stealing Walt’s Gran Torino as a form of gang initiation – as a way of turning him into a man – but it goes wrong and Thao runs off into the night while Walt recovers from kissing the garage floor.

When Thao’s cousin later returns for him with the rest of his crew, Walt intervenes with a shotgun at the ready, showing them who is the biggest badass present. There is a certain potency about Walt here that is likable, even though he is rude and uncivilized. Even his absolutely horrid comment to one of the Hmong gang members “You’re nothing to me. In Korea, we stacked fucks like you five feet high and used you as sandbags,” is in danger of drawing a smile from my lips. Not because I appreciate that horrific image, but because these kids think they are badass motherfuckers, and here they meet Clint–frigging–Eastwood, whose character has seen a whole other realm of badass: The Korean war. The gang realize they are outmatched and retreat. Life experience still matters.

From near and far, members of the Hmong community arrive to offer blessings of food to Walt for the service he rendered in Thao’s protection. Of course Walt was only fending for his own property and wants nothing, but the ongoing kindness of these somewhat naive, but lovely people start getting to his heart. A couple of steps further down the road, and he is Sue’s invited visitor for a family party. He finds himself oddly at home there and mutters to himself in disbelief “Geez, I have more in common with these gooks than my own spoiled rotten family”.

Thao and Walt learn to serve

One day, Thao starts working for Walt to make amends for his attempt at the Gran Torino. This is where the core storyline boots up. Thao doesn’t know what he is good for, but as Walt’s increasingly willing student, he starts to discover that he is a capable young man with good hands to spare. As Walt gets over his initial resentment, he starts warming up to Thao and takes him under his wing.

One scene offers a clue to his change of heart. An old lady across the road from Walt loses her groceries on the tarmac as she unloads her car and one of the three boys that pass her as it happens pretends to violate her from behind. They laugh as they hop down the road, and Walt scowls and asks himself “what the heck is wrong with young people these days”. Then Thao shows up to help her, and Walt’s demeanour changes immediately. It’s as if Thao in this scene gives Walt a glimmer of hope that there are still young people in this world who are willing to offer their service to others out of mere kindness and a desire to help. His appreciation for that is a far more potent force in him than his racism towards the Hmong family.

Thao is neither rebellious, narcissistic nor needlessly aggressive. True, he is a boy “without balls”, but that is workable. Unlike Walt’s grandchildren, Thao has a good heart. As Walt slowly comes to recognize the nature of Thao’s character, he discovers something worth living for: Helping Thao become a man. Fascinatingly, the first job Thao is given by Walt has an almost zen–like quality to it. Thao is a good for nothing nobody at that point, so Walt tells him to “count the birds.” It’s like a meditation, a kind of purification practice. Here’s the secret: Counting birds for a day may teach you more about yourself than studying psychology for a month.

The most important thing that Thao learns during his time working for Walt is how to serve his local community. Walt’s property is neatly kept and has no real use for Thao’s services. Instead, Walt comes up with the idea to send Thao on repair jobs to his neighbors. Walt’s intentions initially seem quite self–serving; he just wants to get rid of the visual disturbance from his neighbours’ properties. But becoming the local handyman makes a world of difference to Thao. We should remember that true confidence for any man comes only when he starts living a life of true service, with no expectation of compensation. Seeing Thao’s growth and service, Walt knows he has done good. Something changes in Walt – he feels positive about life again. Walt too has learned to serve.

Becoming a man

As the mentoring relationship matures, Walt teaches Thao – in perhaps the movie’s funniest scene – to “speak like a man”. There’s much to learn from this. The masculine grows from challenge more than it does from praise. In today’s politically correct, sanitized society, you can’t really communicate in ways that inspire the masculine. Male friendships in today’s world are often too focused on offering understanding and support. This is of course important, but as far as ways to get a man to snap out of it and rise to the challenge are concerned, it just doesn’t work. The crass tone Walt has with the local Italian barber would offend many modern men, but as we see from this scene, there is a deep love in their verbal combat. And as the scene points out, there is a big difference between being rude and showing appreciation through masculine communication.

Walt gets Thao a job and even teaches him about women. In an unlikely turn of events, he goes to the outrageous step to lend him his Gran Torino (the one he tried earlier to steal!) to take his date to town in style. This is a telltale sign of Walt’s deepening appreciation for Thao. The Gran Torino is a symbol of this; cars are for many men a point of connection. Some cars are passed on to the next generation and become a kind of family heirloom, a symbol of male lineage. By offering Thao his Gran Torino, Walt practically suggests “you are family”. It is a testament to Walt’s recognition of Thao’s growth into manhood.

Letting go

The Hmong gang is still after Thao. And when Walt’s desire to intervene with their harassment of him goes too far, they brutally retaliate in the only way their immaturity lets them: a drive–by–shooting and the rape of Sue. In the shared desire to protect the Hmong family, Thao and Walt become even closer. Walt’s experience from the Korean war start showing and he tells Thao that this is the time not for rash retaliation, but for careful planning.

Before he sets his plan in motion, Walt fulfills Dorothy’s last wish and sits confession with Father Janovich. Something has changed in his mind. He knows what to do. And he is at peace with it. As he arrives at the den of the gang members, he lets go – and the Hmong gang is no more. I’m keeping this a little cryptic on purpose.

Conclusion

Gran Torino is a beautiful movie about the importance of role models. In evolutionary terms, Walt isn’t a very advanced human being (in Spiral Dynamics terms, he is largely Blue with spatters of Orange), but the values he holds are exactly the ones that Thao requires to move ahead in his life. Walt’s sons, on the other hand, appear to be Spiral Dynamics Green, which means that they are not too concerned with loyalty, structure, growth hierarchies, service and authority. The results of that can be seen in the disgusting behaviour of their children. Extreme Green so undermines the positive qualities of the Masculine that kids risk turning into degenerates. Ashley is a perfect example.

Men on Spiral Dynamics Green, we understand, are hopeless role models for young men and women. They tend to carry a host of negative attitudes towards everything masculine, which in some cases turns them into huge conspiracy theorists that idealize everything feminine while looking for signs that evil men are trying to destroy the world. And who knows, perhaps such men exist, but for the large part, they are merely mental fabrications of men whose masculinity has been banished from them by the politically correct liberal establishment.

Walt Kowalski is a conservative who reminds us of important masculine qualities. Taken as a whole, he is absolutely not someone to be modelled, but his qualities in teaching and caring for Thao are vital components in the “New Man”. We must maintain all good aspects of Green as we move on to 2nd tier consciousness by integrating those very values Walt exemplify. Men aren’t meant to be weak, apathetic and confused nobodies who waste away living meaningless lives. This statement is not machismo – it is a statement pointing to the true and enormous power of men. It’s time to reclaim that power. And for that to happen, you need someone to show you the ropes.

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow will be dying.

It is clear that this is no ordinary teaching and John Keating no ordinary teacher. For Keating then goes on to point out to the boys that they are food for worms, that their death marches imposingly and unstoppably towards them, that they must make the most of what remains before their path comes to an end. They all huddle up around the pictures, looking deeply into the eyes of those long-dead boys, and there is the sense that they are one and the same. They have something to tell you, Keating points out. Lean in closer! Hear it?

Carpe… Carpe Diem. Seize the day boys, make your lives extraordinary.

Carpe Diem

Carpe Diem, memorable words from a movie that has come to define the dreams of many people of its generation. Shown oftentimes in schools to students who at that naïve and immature time perhaps did not understand their significance. Their meaning was nevertheless impressed on the canvas of their subconscious. I still remember this movie.

Carpe Diem is the foundation stone of the initiation given these young men by Keating. Neil Perry, Todd Anderson, Knox Overstreet, Steven Meeks, Richard Cameron, and Gerard Pitts gather regularly in a cave hidden in the woods by the Academy, tapping into the wise minds and hearts of their elders, those Lovers of old – Thoreau, Whitman, Frost – whose words they read aloud in the flickering light of lanterns. They seem to jump right off the page, driven higher and higher by the passion and zest for life that gave them birth. The six young men discover joy there, brotherhood, and their hearts start ripening with the truth of the existential toils of life and death.

Neil is strong in the King archetype, and becomes a natural leader for the boys. Todd is the insecure new guy, whose huge gifts always seem just a hair’s breadth away. The two become good friends, and Neil becomes to Todd like an older brother. Neil and Keating form an invisible alliance as they work their magic on Todd. Neil’s capacity to serve has been strengthened in measure due to his own increasing level of initiation at the hands of Keating and those dead poets, but it is Keating himself who pulls Todd’s first liberating exhalation into freedom from him.

Keating is not after mere obedience, he is after growth, and to that end he challenges his students to write a poem of their own. Todd obediently gets to work. But he is terrified; he cannot speak in front of others – he is too afraid of his own voice. Keating makes it very clear to him that he knows his terror well and challenges him on it in front of everyone in the class as he hands out the assignment. This pointing out and challenging of Todd’s inner enemy is a gift particular to the Masculine. We men – those of us who haven’t been totally feminized – love to find the wound in our brother and put our finger in it. To women, this seems cruel. But to men, this is a gift. It is a challenge to own up to your responsibility as a man to take charge of your fear and wrestle it to the ground through tireless dedication. Keating has cast his glove. Todd cannot chicken out now. His masculine soul has been forced online. He must seize the day.

Todd discovers his voice

As the day comes for the delivery of the poems, Todd nevertheless chickens out and fabricates a way out: “I didn’t write a poem”. Keating calls him on his bullshit, knowing very well what is going on.

Mr. Anderson thinks that everything inside of him is worthless and embarrassing. Isn’t that right, Todd? Isn’t that your worst fear? Well, I think you’re wrong. I think you have something inside of you that is worth a great deal.

Again the finger in the wound, immediately followed by a bandage; the masculine gift at its finest (do not rob your friends of this!). But John Keating won’t tolerate that sort of nonsense, so he summons the power of his own elders, his own lineage of poets and introduces Walt Whitman’s barbaric Yawp (a shout) of existence. I want you to give us a demonstration of a barbaric “yawp”.

The appearance of the yawp is symbolic of the awakening of Todd’s inner warriors, his inner wild man. It is clear that Todd has suffered much psycho-emotional trauma at the hands of his parents, for they have made their love and admiration of him conditional, to be earned if is academic achievements make him deserving of it. This is not explicitly named in the movie, but the evidence is clear for all to see. Such a boy will have very weak inner warriors, because he has lived a life of trying to please, forever trying to achieve the holy grail of unconditional love.

Keating forces Todd to look at the picture of Whitman he has hung in reverence high up. What does he remind you of? Don’t think. Answer. Go on. He is summoning the wild man now, pushing him beyond thinking into the the dirt of primal emotion, of intuitive expression. And then – after a round of mentoring that in any modern school would be labelled abuse (because, in all earnesty, Western school systems have been pussywhipped into degenerate, anti-hierarchical nonsense at the hands of cultural creatives holding high ideals of feminism and postmodernism) – Todd appears. And his friends cheer at the marvel of it all.

Some time later, Todd’s birthday arrives and he receives from his parents the same crappy, unloving present he did last year. No thought, no emotion, no deep care from these parents for their lovely, intelligent child. Men’s worker Robert Moore has said that a boy who isn’t admired by an older man is being hurt. Todd has been hurt so very much. But Neil admires him, as does Keating and by extension also Whitman and the dead poets, and as Neil picks him up from his birthday sulk, he is empowered by lineage when he invites Todd to throw the crappy desk set off of the building (the words of William Wallace in Braveheart “Freeeeeedom” spring to mind).

Neil takes on himself the sins of the fathers

Thanks to the good works of Keating on the hearts and minds of the boys, Neil discovers he has a passion for acting. He applies for the role as Puck in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and gets it! But the word reaches the ear of his father – an afraid and emotionally shut down man – and as he happily enters his room at the Academy one day, his heart sinks; his father is waiting for him. What a tragedy, the mere sight of a boy’s father makes his dreams shatter! What has befallen the father-son-relationship? Where did we go wrong? There was supposed to be mentorship and love! But no, Neil must leave the play. Is that clear?! Yes, sir, Neil answers, feeling his life is over.

Yet the next day Neil stands on stage. Whether it is because he has been given permission as he suggests to Keating or if he defied his father, the film doesn’t tell. What it does tell is that Neil is good. Everybody is in unison agreement. His brothers in the Society cheer, and the theatre explodes with the enthusiastic clapping of hands. Neil has never felt more alive; he has found his passion, his calling. At the exit stands his father, waiting to drag him away. The protests of Knox Overstreet – who has by now seized the day and captured his true love – and a concerned Keating are to no avail.

We’re trying very hard to understand why it is that you insist on defying us. Whatever the reason, we’re not gonna let you ruin your life, Neil’s father insists as he confronts his son in his study, with his wife sitting idly by as silent witness. From the scene, we can see that Neil’s parents have agreed on the unholy alliance that many traditional couples do: Mrs. Perry doesn’t speak up when Mr. Perry speaks her name in vain by claiming “we”, when the feelings – the fears – are his alone; and in turn, some semblance of harmony can remain.

But when a man is so afraid as Mr. Perry, he can not love. Love and fear are mutually exclusive. Some people – indeed most in my experience – feel that fearing for others is a form of love. But there can not be love when there is fear. It is Law. A parent’s fear for his or her child is in reality more often an expression of their attachment to the beauty that was brought into the world than it is of love. It is natural, there is nothing wrong with it really, but do not think that fear is ever an expression of love. Shed that illusion once and for all, fathers! Fear can be replaced by trust and the occasional confrontation in love, with nothing being lost, and much being gained.

You don’t understand, Neil. You have opportunities that I never even dreamt of and I am not going to let you waste them. But it is Mr. Perry who doesn’t understand. He wasted his life because of fear and now he wants his son to make up for it.

In my mother tongue, the English concept called original sin is coined as inherited sin. I did a men’s workshop once when the facilitator explained that his take on this concept of inhe was that it is that baggage of fear and unlove that is passed from generation to generation, from father to son. It will forever remain the responsibility of the son to break that chain, as long as the father is too afraid to claim some responsibilities of his own. But Mr. Perry will not let Neil dispel that chain of sin by breaking free into a life of passion, love and honest enthusiasm. Refusing sin’s redemption is the greatest sin of all.

As Mr. and Mrs. Perry go to bed that night, Neil puts on the crown of sticks that he wore as Puck at the apex of his life, just hours previously. That life is now about to end. For that crown is now the crown of Christ, and Neil is the sacrifice made to make good with the gods for the sins of the fathers.

In the black of night, Mr. Perry wakes up. He feels the terror, knows that something awful has happened. In his study lies Neil, his son, dead. Beside him, his own smoking gun.

The breaking apart of the Society

Nobody accepts responsibility for the dead Neil. Not his father, and not the mouldy old men at the Academy. They know not the heart, how could they understand that they themselves are responsible. How could they understand it and go on living? Heads must roll.

All the boys of the Society are forced by their parents, afraid to be humiliated, to confess to lies about Keating. Keating is fired. As he leaves that classroom for the last time, a once-hallowed place of teaching, now sterilized by the arrival of headmaster Nolan, Todd stands up on his desk and lets out his YAWP! He has found his voice now. “Oh captain, my captain!” sounds his calling; it is Whitman’s calling – the poet has been brought back to life. It resonates in the hearts of those friends of his who have found in themselves new meaning in the Dead Poets that Keating brought to life inside of them, and one after the other, they stand up and sound that crescendo of love – “Oh captain, my captain!”.

Such is the gratitude of a young man who has been admired by an older, and who there has found, in that transmission of love, himself.

Conclusion

Dead Poets Society is a magnificent film about the power of initiation at the hands of an elder. It shows the immense value of lineage, and gives us an insight into the power of transmission that travels from generation to generation (lineage is the positive form of that, inherited sin the negative). This is a film about the power of men long gone to affect the inner lives of those of us who now walk the earth. It’s a movie about the immortal cries of life, sounded by brave men through time immemorial as they stand on the edge of oblivion, confronting their own inevitable death. They can still be heard today, but a mentor must be there to make you hear. MTV, Star Trek and computer games don’t make good mentors. There is no love there. No challenge.

Dead Poets Society is also a film about what happens when an entire generation gives in to fear and walks that wide path, the path that leads to hell with good intentions. But this movie is about the road less travelled, so let’s heed the words of Robert Frost as we end this investigation of Dead Poets Society:

Two roads diverged in the woods
and I took the one less travelled by
And that has made all the difference

Set in the latter part of the 12th century, the movie focuses on the main character Balian–a peasant blacksmith in the south of France. From a life of relative tranquility, his existence is turned upside down when his wife gives birth to a stillborn child, and then proceeds to take her own life, stricken by grief. Soon after these tragic events, a knight of Jerusalem visits Balian, claiming to be Godfrey of Ibelin and Balian’s father. He offers the blacksmith to come with him to Jerusalem, and fight in the Crusades, but Balian–still paralyzed by grief–turns down the offer.

However, as chance would have it, the village priest turns out to be a less than empathetic man, provoking Balian by stating that his wife will burn in hell for killing herself. Overcome by rage, Balian is unable to control his emotions and kills the priest on the spot. Well aware that he will be sentenced to death for this crime, he flees the village on his horse, and joins his father’s party.

Balian is now a man who has hit rock bottom. His wife and child are dead, and he’s a wanted criminal in his native village. Furthermore, he’s proven to be unable to control his emotions and unable to adhere to his own moral code. In this state of internal confusion and emptiness he travels to Jerusalem, in hope of redemption and forgiveness, and perhaps just as importantly: in search of a new purpose in life, a purpose that can also serve as his redemption.

The question of what maketh a man is perhaps just as old as humanity itself. I do not pretend to have anything that even approaches a complete answer, but I think Balian’s story can give us an important hint. What is it that he loses to become a broken man? His wife and his child may be what comes to mind at first, but as tragic as these losses are, they do not necessarily represent our hero losing touch with his manhood or masculinity. Instead, the telltale signs that Balian is out of touch with his own core, is that he acts impulsively (i.e. cannot control his emotions), and that he breaks his own basic moral code. How can he trust himself, or expect the world to trust him, when falling short in these regards?

But even the fact that Balian loses touch with a couple of core masculine qualities, is nothing but the end result of a deeper dynamic. Healthy masculinity is first and foremost associated with a clear direction in life, and the fact that our hero’s family has been wiped out, has likely led to an absence of purpose or direction in his life. This lack of direction can in itself be enough for a man to let go of the other values that he cherishes in his life, such as his moral code and his composure.

Moving on in the story, Godfrey (the father) is lethally wounded in a battle with a group of soldiers that want to capture Balian and have him punished for killing the priest. As sad as this event is, it also represents a much needed turning point for our main character. The impending death of his father, leads Balian to experience something that is rare in our modern times: an initiation from his father. The word-by-word oath goes like this:

Godfrey of Ibelin: Be without fear in the face of your enemies. Be brave and upright that God may love thee. Speak the truth always, even if it leads to your death. Safeguard the helpless and do no wrong. That is your oath. Godfrey of Ibelin: [strikes Balian with the back of his hand] And that’s so you remember it. Hopitalier: Arise a knight and Baron of Ibelin.

Now, not everyone can be turned into a knight in a modern society, but every man could be formally or informally initiated into manhood, as well as have his father pass on some crucial insights or words of inspiration to him. Spiritual traditions have lineages and transmissions, and in many ways I believe that healthy masculinity and manhood are variables that can and should be transmitted from father to son, if at all possible. Needless to say, some fathers are dead, drunk or absent, but in that case a mentor can fill the shoes of the father in this respect.

Once in place in Jerusalem, Balian travels to the Ibelin estate, which turns out to be a less than glamorous remote desert oasis. Instead of cursing his fate, the newly instated Baron starts irrigating and cultivating the lands, side by side with his people. This humility, and this obvious connection to the earth that we all spring from, inform us that Balian is reconnecting to his core, and to a very healthy masculinity. All too often in our modern times do we associate men and men’s projects with a disregard for mother earth and the interconnectedness of all things. However, as far as I’m concerned this is a pathological expression of masculinity, whereas a more constructive expression of manhood wants to serve as a steward of the earth, and as a servant and steward of the feminine principle.

Step by step we thus see Balian coming into his own, and paying off his karmic debt of being a murderer. This personal growth that he goes through, turns out to be crucial in the huge challenge that awaits him.

After the newly crowned King of Jerusalem makes a fatal tactical error and marches his whole army into the desert, only to be overcome by heat and dehydration, and then slaughtered by the muslims–Balian is left with the overwhelming task of defending Jerusalem with few troops and a large civilian population. The reasonable response may seem to be to immediatly surrender, however, that may lead to the slaughtering of every last man, woman and child. Furthermore, Balian has been initiated into manhood, and he now has the opportunity to transmit this initiation to a large group of people.

In one of the strongest scenes in the movie, Balian orders a large group of civilians to kneel before him. He then proceeds to initiate them in a similar fashion to how he was initiated, and then orders them to rise as Knights of Jerusalem. The change in body language and facial expression is palpable in these men, after someone they admire has seen the potential in them, and expressed a conviction that they can be bigger men than they have ever imagined.

Using nothing but intelligent warfare and a small army of civilians, Balian is able to defend Jerusalem until the attackers agree to give all of them safe passage out of Jerusalem, none of which could have been achieved had he not been initiated himself.

If you are interested in a movie about pain, redemption, masculinity, initiation and humility, then I highly recommend you check out Kingdom of Heaven.

In films the role of initiation and mentoring is still an important element. Many films portray initiation as a kind of clumsy and obvious process of a boy becoming a man. The 1996 film “The Ghost and the Darkness,” takes a more sophisticated approach. It shows us not an immature boy needing to become a man, but a self-assured and confident man who is capable and good at what he does who is presented with a challenge unlike anything he has had face before. The film reminds us that initiation is not a one-time affair, but something we will experience again and again as we grow and evolve from one level to the next.

The story, set in 1898 in British East Africa, begins with Col. John Henry Patterson (played by Val Kilmer) being hired to build a critical railroad bridge at Tsavo. Patterson is capable and confident. He is a good engineer, a clever and inventive thinker, a good manager and a decent man. What he faces shortly after arriving at Tsavo are a pair of man-eating, male lions who are hunting and killing the workers constructing the bridge. He tries to solve the lion problem with all the skills he has, but he is faced with something beyond his level of skill.

Enter the Mentor

Actually there are two mentors in this film. There is a shadow mentor in the form of the wealthy railroad owner who hires him to build the bridge, Robert Beaumont (played by Tom Wilkinson). Beaumont is a bully with a massive ego, but he does bring the initiation to Patterson and when Patterson is unable to deal with the lion problem because he is at the edge of his current level of skills, it is Beaumont who summons a real mentor for Patterson in the form of Charles Remington (played by Michael Douglas). Remington is an older man and veteran hunter. He mentors Patterson in a number of ways, but three specific moments in the film stand out. If one wanted to learn how to mentor younger men, the lessons that Remington brings would be highly useful.

The First Lesson

Remington first appears when Patterson’s ability to keep order and confidence among his workers is breaking down. He has tried reason and negotiation, but, in this setting of fear run rampant (the workers have come to believe the lions are supernatural beings or demons), reason is not enough. Remington wades into the conflict and puts a gun to the head of the leader among the workers who is threatening Patterson. He knows that in the world of real leadership, where lives are on the line, that sometimes fear can only be overcome by embodying a greater form of fear. He is willing to become that greater form of fear for the workers. His steely confidence and nerve, his willingness to kill, and his unpredictability become a more immediate and galvanizing source of fear among the workers. When the lead worker tries to tell him about the men’s fear of the lions by saying that the devil has come to Tsavo, he agrees: “You’re right. The Devil has come. Look at me. I am the Devil.”

And then, the moment after the lead worker backs down, Remington breaks the tension himself by extending his hand. He is willing to do what is necessary to resolve the situation, but he is also sensitive enough to know when, for the moment, the tension has shifted. He models for Patterson a component of leadership that is lacking in the younger man-that ability to get men to move when moving is more critical than the direction they choose.

The Second Lesson

The next lesson comes around the campfire, the night before the big lion hunt. Remington has brought a group of Masai warriors with him to hunt the lion. He has also asked Patterson to come with him. Patterson is not afraid to go and is not trying to avoid going but because of Remington’s prowess as a hunter, Patterson questions why the older man wants him to accompany him.

Patterson: “I have to ask, why do you need me?”

Remington: “I don’t really. But understand something- even though it may take me two or three days to sort this out, but when I’m gone, you’ll still have to build the bridge. And I don’t want the men to have lost respect for you.”

Remington is clearly conscious of more than accomplishing the task he has been hired to do and he isn’t pathologically attached to the image of himself as “leader.” He is mentoring Patterson with honesty and respect.

At the end of the evening around the fire, Remington stands and stretches. The Masai warriors have a separate fire and have begun dancing around it in a slow, strong procession. Remington informs Patterson and the other men around the fire that he is going to go join the Masai.

Remington: “I’m going to join those men and see if we can’t convince ourselves that we’re brave.”

Dr. Hawthorne: “I wouldn’t have thought that would be a problem for you.”

Remington: “Well, you always hope it won’t be, (pause) but you never really know.”

This admission is really aimed at Patterson. It is the reflection of an older man who knows that young men often do foolish things while trying to act brave. He is willing to admit that even he never knows for certain when fear is going to arise and what it’s affect might be. Remington does not want Patterson to ignore or repress his fear, but to own that fear and still choose to act decisively.

The third lesson

The next day, during the hunt itself. Remington and the Masai are driving the lion into a thicket. Patterson waits on the other side in case the lion breaks into the open and he can get a clear shot. Unbeknownst to Remington, Patterson has accepted Dr. Hawthorne’s offer to exchange rifles. Hawthorne’s rifle is more powerful and the offer seems both logical and respectful from Patterson’s perspective. When the lion breaks through, he ends up within yards of Patterson. He has the clear shot they were hoping for, but the rifle misfires. When Remington arrives he questions Patterson.

Remington: “What happened?”

Patterson: (a whisper) “…misfire… it jammed…”

Remington: “Has it ever done that before?”

Patterson: “…don’t know… It’s Hawthorne’s.”

Remington. (Trying to control his temper) “You exchanged weapons? You went into battle with an untried gun?” (Patterson nods)

The film cuts to Remington for a close-up. For a moment it’s impossible to tell what he’s going to do. It seems that a Homeric burst of fury is about to happen. The film cuts to Patterson. He is drained, he expects Remington’s rage. It’s very quiet. The film cuts back to Remington studying the younger man. When he finally speaks, his voice is surprisingly quiet.

Remington: “They have an expression in prizefighting: everyone has a plan until they’re hit. (pause). You’ve just been hit… (pause) …the getting up is up to you…”

Mentors and Shadow Mentors

As a leader and as a man, Remington stands in sharp counterpoint to the shadow mentor figure of Beaumont. Where Beaumont needs to be seen as the leader, Remington needs to be the leader in order to accomplish his mission.

Patterson: “We need to talk.”

Remington: “Let me save time. One, you are the Engineer. Two, you are in charge. Three, you’re sorry I’m here. Right so far? (Patterson nods) Good- because one, I am not an engineer, two, I don’t want to be in charge, and three, I’m sorrier than you are that I’m here- I hate Tsavo. So I will help you by killing the lions and leaving, and you will help me by doing what I tell you so I can leave. See any problems?”

Patterson: “Actually, no.”

Where Beaumont threatens Patterson with ruining his career if he doesn’t resolve the lion problem and finish the bridge on time, Remington respects the expertise that Patterson has and builds on it. He is able to see that Patterson is a good man with admirable qualities. He recognizes and honors that Patterson is a trustable man. He differentiates between mistakes and real weakness.

Where Beaumont can only really have subordinates around him, Remington actually values having good strong men around him. He even elicits those qualities in the men around them. As a mentor, Remington, picks character strengths in the men around him to praise and nurture.

The Initiation

By the end of the film, Patterson is forced to embody the lessons Remington has imparted as he hunts the final Lion alone. He has to get up on his own after being hit. When Remington is killed, Patterson is on his own. It is a huge blow to lose this man who has been his teacher and a friend, but still he gets up and goes after the lion. He lights the dry savannah on fire to drive the lion toward him. Patterson has to embrace his deep fear and choose to act. He walks straight at the lion. The ultimate lesson is his willingness to become the devil that has come to Tsavo, just as Remington was willing to take that on. He is not attached to it because he needs to be seen that way. He takes it on because it is the energy that is needed in that moment in order to live his destiny and accomplish his mission.

As young men, these lessons are important to learn if we are going to lead and serve effectively in the world. They are not values that are discussed much and sometimes they are even ridiculed by cultures that are steeped in the institutionalization of more feminine values. As older men, the model of how to mentor younger men, is also highly valuable. Remington’s initiation of Patterson, his guiding him into the acquisition or awakening of new skills is built on respect rather than bullying. It is not soft, but neither is it rigid and inflexible. He does not want to mold men in his image, but neither is he scared of men finding their own real power.

Remington’s last words to Patterson in the film refer to Patterson’s desire to see his newborn son. Remington tells him: “Hold your son high.” In this there is a kind of acknowledgement of not only the preciousness of life and of that moment, but also of how Patterson might raise his own son not to play it small and safe in life.

The Ghost and the Darkness was written by veteran screenwriter, William Goldman, based on a true story. Goldman is no stranger to men’s issues. His screenplays for films such as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the Presidents Men, Marathon Man, A Bridge Too Far, Heat, and The General’s Daughter have all explored how men cope with extreme situations. The themes of initiation and mentoring and how men pass the tests of fire in their lives run throughout his films.

Putting words to a film like this is almost sacrilegious. It is a work of rare beauty and silence is its language. Yet, there are aspects of this movie that will serve us well in the context of masculine evolution. And we find them best in “Fall”. But first, some context…

The seasons of our lives

The passing of the seasons in this film is a not so subtle metaphor to the cycles of life and death in nature and the universe. We’re born in Spring and die in Winter. In Spring, we’re completely at the mercy of our surroundings. We’re sensitive sponges that soak up everything that happens around us. Thus, we create an identity. Then Summer comes, and we blossom. Hormones shoot through our bodies and we discover the opposite sex. We rebel against the people and circumstances that were the cornerstones of Spring. Then aging and suffering have Fall sneak up on us. We mature and for the first time consider our own mortality. It is in Fall that wisdom arises. If you have seen Into the Wild, you can see how Chris has the Fall of his life start as he reaches Alaska. He’s young to discover Fall; an evolutionary revolutionary.

The novice monk leaves his master in “Summer” to chase a girl who comes to be healed from her ailments in the temple. Many years later, in “Fall”, he returns – as a murderer. “Have you had a nice life since we last saw each other?”, the master asks, already knowing he has killed his wife. “The world of Men has become troubling, has it not?”. The pain of existence is etched into the returned novice’s face.

The masculine’s role in exorcising our demons

The younger monk, in his total despair, makes a half-assed attempt to kill himself. The master, who has been a gentle man so far, attacks the young monk with fierceness in his eyes and firmness in his swings. This scene is important. It’s so so SO incredibly important! The severe beating the master gives his student is an act of love. It’s not violence, it is L-O-V-E. Masculine love at its finest. The novice is falling apart at the seams from the evils he has visited upon the world. He desires punishment so bad that he wants to kill himself; wipe the evil that is his sordid little self off the face of the earth! The demons that torment him cannot be banished by his own blood-stained hands. So his Master takes it on himself to beat him to a pulp.

The beauty of this scene, and the unexpected love present in the Master’s ass-whopping, act as a contrast to a great misfortune that have befallen us in society as we have made good-intentioned attempts at driving violence and aggression out of men. To a large extent, we have succeeded. Men are, I think, overall less violent than they used to be. But we threw our testicles out with the bathwater. We have become so focused on, so sensitive to, the downsides of masculine aggression and intensity, that we have failed to see that in eradicating these qualities in men, we have eradicated masculine love as well.

Masculine love is by definition penetrating. It’s confrontational. It’s not necessarily peaceful. If it must, it will go to battle with a sword in its hand, and an open warrior heart. But there are so many screwed up masculine people in the world, operating from DD1, that we have become blind to the fact that there is DD3 as well. (Read about David Deida’s three stages if you haven’t before reading further from this part. This information is soon to be featured on this site.) And by wrapping the violence and intensity of DD1 in thick layers of shame, men become trapped in DD2. And this is where it becomes so damned interesting and the vastness of our mistake reveals itself. When we take “bad men”, violent DD1 men, and shove them through a DD2 judicial system, from police to court to jail, there is not likely to be a single man on the side of law & order in that entire process that takes responsibility for the DD1 man, who feels with compassion, wisdom and piercing clarity into his heart, and punishes him out of love.

The unfortunate side-effects of postmodern niceness

In a DD2 society, a postmodern society, the worst DD1 men are free to cause havoc, because the demons that torment them generally just won’t leave them, no matter how many years they spend in prison. You can only beat demons out of someone with love, as shown so beautifully by the scene we just looked at. And when entire DD1-centric cultures arrive through immigration in DD2-centric societies, they will not want to adapt and integrate. They will look down on the pussywhipped men of DD2, and not until the DD2 culture starts evolving into DD3 will these DD1 men and women open up to growth. This view is coarse and painting with broad strokes. But I think you’ll find it’s accurate.

This, if accurate, has pretty big implications. It could very well mean that unless we develop into DD3 as soon as possible, or 2^nd tier in the Spiral Dynamics model, we could be screwed by all the demons that we didn’t dare beat out of people from the standpoint of our puny DD2 selves. I’m not campaigning for wanton violence with these statements. But I am campaigning for re-embracing the anger inherent in masculine love as a necessary step in healing the many fractured souls out there. Souls that are not capable of seeing that their ways are evil.

Purification on the other side of purgatory

For the novice monk, the mature masculine expression of loving punishment becomes his salvation. He goes to prison, and comes back in “Winter”, purged of his demons from the time behind bars, instructed as he was by his Master to accept the punishment that was coming to him. His Master is now dead, having shown transcendence over life by giving his own life as a sacrifice on a funeral pyre, as the karma of his life had been fulfilled. Sidenote: The pearls the returning monk picks out of the ice are relics that appear from the bodies of spiritually realized meditation practitioners.

In a beautiful and climactic scene, the now free monk ties a rope with a heavy grindstone around his waist, and goes into the cold winter woods carrying what I believe is a Kuan Yin statue, the Buddhist embodiment of compassion. This scene is loaded with meaning. There’s the sense that he’s not only carrying the sins of his own past with him. He’s carrying the sins of all humanity. And he takes those sins, and offers their purification as a gift to the world through the blessings of Kuan Yin.

We cannot change our past. And it bears little fruit dwelling on it. But we can surrender to the world, as it beats the demons out of us (be it through depression, chronic illness etc), and then offer that purification as a gift in service of humanity. Who knows if it makes a difference to the world. But it certainly has made a difference to me. Truth be told though, they are high goals – and I can do little but kneel at their feet. While keeping my heart open as another swing from the master of Life approaches.

Accepting our destiny

The beating goes on. And we can do little but inhale, center ourselves, and surrender in love to what is coming; trying to escape pain is the beginning of our weakness. And then, if we have it in us, we exhale into the world with an open heart, pressing through all pain and misery and obstructions and become a living sacrifice. Remember General Maximus. Remember Christopher. Many of the stories we love are like this. So maybe, to love our life, ours must be too?

Perhaps, though, we’ll postpone the dying part for another day.

I would like to preface this review by telling you that I haven’t read Jon Krakauer’s book and I haven’t done extensive research on Christopher McCandless’ life. But please understand that I approach this review with tremendous respect and humility, for the story that is told involves real people and real fates.

Director Sean Penn spent ten years of his life trying to make this film a reality. He did so with the blessings of Christopher’s family and with a tremendous team of actors and filmmakers working with him for eight months. They set out to treat the story with as much love and care as they could and it is because of this that I trust the film to be an accurate testament to the spirit of the man, his life, and of the character of the people he loved and who loved him. I will write this review in the present tense. I hope it doesn’t offend anyone.

The fears of the fathers

Chris grows up in a dysfunctional family home, where the parents are frequently violent towards each other, and the kids are used as players in a tug-of-war. He has little respect for them and considers them bankrupt human beings. Early on in the film, Chris receives his diploma from Emory university. He launches playfully and somewhat rebelliously onto stage to accept it to the cheers of his fellow students. A disapproving frown spreads on his parents faces.

This scene, together with the dinner scene that follows, holds the key to understanding why Chris sets out on his journey. Chris is extremely resourceful and intelligent, and can function brilliantly within the confines of a highly structured and controlled society. He can play with “the big boys” if he wishes; his grades are good enough to get into Harvard Law school! But he despises the false and fraudulent ways of society, where human beings are forced to deny their basic human nature, their playfulness and shared humanity to operate in “the system” – the collective – without causing a glitch to appear in its matrix.

Say if it were the truth that, like Chris believes, we live in a world that is almost stripped of real love and real truth. If so, we can see in these scenes how Chris itches to free himself from this way of being in the world, and how his parents clench on to it. They are terrified of letting go of structure, formalities, finding solace in money and things, and their own personal stories of pain. Chris’ relationship to his father represents the generation gap that many of us know well. We are the men with a deep need for an emotional and truthful connection with our fathers, but wehave fathers who are too afraid or shut down to open up and provide it. They grew up in a world where survival was the primary goal, and the joy of building emotional connections based on truth was an unnecessary distraction.

Chris is suffocating. He has only been given the chance to express the gifts that are approved by society and his parents. But he is deeper than that. More profound. And he is not free. He is imprisoned by the fear of his parents and society. He himself is afraid of becoming like them. Afraid to become complacent and sucked dry of life force, buying into the illusion of “things, all these things!”. He wants to be free, but lacks the capacity to tear down the walls he has built around his heart. In his mind, he has no choice. He must leave.

Lighting the path

In every man’s growth into maturity, there comes a time when he must break free from the influence of his parents, particularly his father, and go into the world to discover himself. We have to go on walkabout, in some form or another. In early tribal cultures, and still some places in the world today, there is a rite of passage for the boy who is to become a man. This is always a very sacred ritual where the boy plunges the depths of himself as he is faced with ultimate challenge and fear. Through conquering these trials, he comes to realize the nature of his heart and why he is here. This tradition has been lost in our modern world, to our great detriment. Going to college or the army is simply not very powerful compared to facing the vast open abyss of our darkest fears, alone out in the wilderness, with only the protection of the ancestors – those who went before – to light the way.

The lack of such initiation rites is part of the reason why so many men today don’t really grow up. This is described beautifully in the excellent book King, Warrior, Magician, Lover by Roger Moore and Douglas Gillette. But Chris hungers to grow, to be mature and free. He devours books to discover the wisdom of the elders that are non-existent in his immediate surroundings. “He liked Tolstoy, Jack London and Thoreau,” his sister Carine shares with us. “He could summon their words to suit any occasion, and he often would.”

Any man needs men of greater maturity to guide the way for his own emotional, spiritual and psychological growth. It’s extremely unlikely that a man who is unwilling to learn about life from an elder will ever become a powerful force of love in the world. I cannot emphasize this enough, and it’s taken me a long time to really get this myself. So there is definitively an evolutionary path that we men must travel. This masculine evolution is so important that it’s symbolized by five chapters in the movie: Birth, adolescence, manhood, family, and The getting of wisdom. This is a beautiful model of masculine evolution, as true as any other I’ve seen. The problem today is that for most men, the model looks like this: Birth, adolescence, family.

Manhood and wisdom has been all but lost on us. What terrible things to sacrifice for the sake of fitting in and being hip with the times. So what do young men of the next generation do when there are no elders to turn to? Where the men around them are simply older, but not elders?

Into the fire

The masculine’s primary motivation is to be free. The work of David Deida goes into great detail about this. And the degree to which the masculine feels limited is the degree to which it suffers. Christopher is a masculine man, but has not been able to express it with the loving fierceness and freedom he longs for, as his surroundings have been too fragile and confused to receive his full capacity. In my own life, I’ve come to see that, when the rebellion comes, there is often a relationship of intensity between the rebellion and the suffering that triggered it. And the suffering is proportional to the amount to which a genuine capacity for love and truth has been supressed. Which means that a lot of our worst criminals and psychotics are saints in shackles, one initiation away from being servants of humanity.

The rebellion, like an overdue adolescent liberation, is always a strong and often misguided attempt to discover this love and truth. It is expressed in many ways – as abuse of a spouse (Chris’ parents), as infidelity or a life of crime, as becoming part of a subculture (the hippies he meets in Slab City), or withdrawing from society (Chris himself). Hopefully, the rebellion is only temporary, but for many, the rebellion becomes the identity. I’m not sure that’s healthy – identifying with the very thing that separates you from others. Ultimately, the rebelling man is looking for truth, but he may not have found a way that leads to it. What way does work? Christopher alludes to that with words I love:

“…and I also know how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong, but to be feel strong, to measure yourself at least once, to find yourself in the most ancient of human conditions, facing the blind deaf stone alone, with nothing to help you but your hands and your own head.”

Thus, a man finds his own inner truth. In my own life, I spend ten days in the woods every year, all by myself, with only my own mind, fears and desires as company. It’s hardly life-threatening, but it is a challenge. And it has brought up resources I never thought I had. I think a man needs to retreat into solitude regularly to rediscover his direction with only his soul’s longing for truth and freedom to keep him company. The primordial man staring into the fire under the starry sky. It’s a powerful symbol, waiting to be discovered in the midst of modern civilization.

Our shared humanity

When Christopher McCandless goes on his walkabout, and becomes his alter ego Alexander Supertramp, resources sprout in him like crops out of fertile soil. Free from limitations, he meets and befriends a number of people, who become incredibly important in his own growth. Remember, Chris – is quite the cynic, with only limited faith in the goodness of human beings. He sees mainly their folly and weakness. The friends he makes as he travels the country for two years are formative for the growing understanding in him that in every person there is a soft spot, a feeling of shared humanity, and in there – everyone is family. Even his own parents.

When Chris finally arrives in Alaska and settles in his abandoned bus, two years of intense human sharing lies behind him. There is the hippie couple Jan and Rainer – who have a sort of parent quality to him, but on completely the opposite end of the spectrum from Chris’ biological parents. They are very healing for him. There is Tracy, the young girl that adores him and would give anything to be with him. But Chris has a calling. There is Ron, that dear old man who hides away in his garage working on leather to escape the pain life has caused him. He teaches Chris about love and the power of forgiveness. In return, Chris teaches Ron to take risks and start living. There is Wayne, the man’s man with the experience of life that Chris does not yet have, who sees his own youthful idealism in him and warns him not to get too intense, not to “juggle blood and fire all the time”! Chris finds in Wayne a masculine role model that he has never had.

All these people enrich Chris’ heart immeasurably, but his mind and heart are set on other things.

The Wild

It is in the great Wilderness of Alaska that everything comes together for Chris. In the wild, he finds the peace and quiet to process his life’s experiences, and to find the seed of wisdom within. He finds the unspoilt splendour of nature and it touches and opens his heart. There is a wonderful scene in which he happens upon a flock of reindeer. The beauty of the moment is completely unspoilt by human folly. Chris’ face shows elation, and a tear wells up in his wide open eye. The moment is an expression of nature’s perfection. No words can even come close to conveying his heart-opening awe. His ego temporarily gone, at one with all.

This scene is the cue for me to venture into the world of spirituality. The masculine penetrates and the feminine embraces (if this is an abstract notion to you at this point, consider how our genitalia are a manifestation of this energetic principle). Human civilization is largely an attempt to penetrate and control nature. It’s largely masculine in nature, save for specks of the feminine in parks and flower beds. Nature itself is feminine. Its shifting forms and emotions are not ruled by logic, but by the flow of love and life force. The idea that humanity can control nature is a masculine pathology. Similarly, a mature man will never attempt to control his woman. What he will do is channel her energy with his unending integrity and strength of direction. But he will never try to control her.

It is this childish masculine naivete of wanting to control things that so disgusts Chris. We see this theme repeated through the film: The idea that people can own a river (his kayaking experience), that we can slice and dice the land and say this part is yours and this is mine (crossing the Mexican border), that someone will put more emphasis on protecting their property and show muscle than to help another human being (the scene on the train), are all expressions of ideas that the masculine has about the world, that aren’t necessarily aligned with the truth and freedom for which the masculine truly longs. Actually, it represents boy psychology, the fear of not being quite enough. And Chris wants man psychology, which – paraphrasing “King, Warrior, Magician, Lover” – is always nurturing and generative, not wounding and destructive. It’s a completely different ballgame.

Coming home

Because of the masculine pathology that I suggest runs modernity, we have been completely removed from our essential relationship with nature. We think meat comes from the supermarket, and are oblivious to the misery that we cause other species just to perpetuate our own unbalanced lives. In another powerful scene, Chris shoots a moose to feed his growing hunger. He accepts this gift of nature with respect and gratutide. Life travels from life form to life form through natural nutritional chains all the time. There is a type of beauty in this. But when he is incapable of salvaging the meat before the carcass is infested by maggots, he breaks down and refers to it as “one of the greatest tragedies of my life”. How different would life be if we had this type of relationship with our food? How different would the world be?

In the manifest world, the feminine will always be more powerful than the masculine. Because the manifest world is the feminine. The mature man ceases his attempt to control nature, and instead finds his power in his surrender to it. He is but a speck of dust in the unending play of manifestation. Yet he is a vital part, a key piece in this evolution of creation that ripples through an ever-expanding universe. This understanding is all but gone for modern city-dwellers. We look up into the night sky and see nothing but light pollution. We go for a walk outside and see only street signs, ad posters, lamp posts, cars, traffic lights and goal oriented human beings. Severed from nature, we never realize deeply our own insignificance, lost as we are in the trance of getting anywhere but where we are. And without discovering our insignifance, we never discover our endless importance. This realization is a paradox, and the lack of it is what feeds our habitual destruction of the very soil that feeds us.

There is so much to learn here. So much humility. And in the end, Chris finds what he looks for. His cynicism fades, and his spiritual revolution reaches its conclusion as he reads Tolstoy, one of his elders, and understands that he too wanted nothing but the simple joy of living in harmony with nature and the people he loved:

“I have lived through much and now I think I have found what is needed for happiness. A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one’s neighbour – such is my idea of happiness. And then, on top of all that, you for a mate, and children, perhaps – what more can the heart of a man desire?”

Chris is ready to re-embrace society. He is ready to open his heart for real.

Free at last

But the river which he crossed on his way into the wilderness has reached summer flood levels, and return is impossible. Chris is afraid. Such begins the final chapter of the film.

And there is one scene here that has me break down in tears every time. The father, once so afraid and emotionally shut down, walks out on the street, as Chris is close to death in Alaska, and breaks down in endless grief, raining sorrow on the tarmac. Chris never contacted his family after he left them. It is one of the great mysteries from this story. One may wonder why. His sister wondered why. But whatever his reasons were, his parents changed because of it. They became real human beings. Sorrow forged them into good people.

In the end Chris dies, from eating a plant that is dangerous to his starved body. There is one climactic and very symbolic scene, in which Chris stands completely impoverished, close to death, as a bear approaches and smells him. Chris has no energy to even be afraid, and the bear walks on. The bear, representing the power of nature, of the feminine, lets him live. Nature lets men live. We are not the masters here. We are but humble servants of something we will never understand.

And as the father discovers that the love he has for his son is endless, the son realizes, as his final breath is leaving him, that he loves his father, and indeed his mother, in equal measure. As he looks with eyes of amazement into the sky that all of a sudden seems to stretch into eternity, he seems to be expected.

Conclusion

Into the Wild is an amazing movie. I love it intensely. And I think there is a danger here to think that Chris is somehow special. He is not unique. He tells the story of men everywhere. Of you and me. It is the story of the ages. It is just that some choose to live it, others do not. On what side of history will you be?