#boy 2010

I'm fine really. The last half hour didn't leave me like this.

Almost every one of his films is about the power of love to heal. What makes his work more profound is that this is not a naive "love conquers all/love saves the day" narrative. People die. People are hurt. Generational trauma warps. Homes and nations can be broken by their past and their people's unwillingness to face it. Fascism can't be overcome by love alone. Parents can't protect their children from darkness. Children can't escape from what the adult world forces on them. Love is not going to fix all the problems and make all the bad shit go away.

But love can make the world better and survivable. The past can't be undone and the future can be uncertain, but loving others, and yourself, can make life worth living even in the midst of deep sorrow. Some of it is in forgiveness—forgiving previous generations for the harm they've caused (Boy, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, Thor: Ragnarok, and Jojo Rabbit all deal with this)—but it is also forgiveness without excuses. It's never "it's not that bad," but "yeah, it is that bad, but we have to survive beyond it and maybe laugh about it if we can."

Boy in particular is a fucking primal scream of a movie that still manages to be very funny and very forgiving. Jojo Rabbit is similar but on a broader scale, encompassing an entire nation. The nuance of it lies in the films absolutely believing simultaneously that love can make things better and that love will not fix everything.

I think it's really valuable to have that kind of work in the world.