Theology and Survival Movies: An Orthodox Christian Perspective [1 ed.] 9781003356912, 9781032387208, 9781032412276

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Introduction
1 Research Methodologies. The Fundaments of Anthropology and Film Studies from Christian Perspectives
2 Survival Movies Defined through Genre Elements
3 A Historical Overview
4 The Survival Genre as a Mixed Genre
5 Survival and Biology (Physical Survival)
6 Survival and Communion (Surviving together, as a Community)
7 Survival and Morality
8 Survival and Transformation (Spiritual Survival)
Conclusions. How the Image of God is seen in those who passed through Limit Situations?
Bibliography
Filmography
Index

Citation preview

Theology and Survival Movies

This book provides an innovative analysis of the survival movie genre from an Orthodox Christian anthropological perspective. Grounded in the Orthodox tradition, the approach builds from the first chapter of Genesis where man is described as made in the ‘image’ and after the ‘likeness’ of God. It offers a nuanced theological exploration of the concept of the survival movie and examines a number of significant cinematic creations, illustrating how issues of survival intersect romantic, Western, science fiction and war films. The author reflects on how survival movies offer a path for the study of human nature given the fact they depict people in crisis situations where they may reveal their true characters. As well as discussing the role of a ‘limit situation’ as a narrative element, the book highlights the spiritual aspect of survival and points to the common hope in survival movies for something more than biological survival. It is valuable reading for scholars working in the field of religion and film. Ioan Buteanu received a PhD from Babeș-Bolyai University in C ­ luj-Napoca, Romania. He teaches Orthodox Christianity and has written poetry, prose and screenplays.

Routledge Studies in Religion and Film

Series editors: Robert K. Johnston and Jolyon Mitchell

Noah as Antihero Darren Aronofsky’s Cinematic Deluge Edited by Rhonda Burnette-Bletsch and Jon Morgan Transcendence and Spirituality in Chinese Cinema A Theological Exploration Kris H.K. Chong New Approaches to Islam in Film Edited by Kristian Petersen Lars von Trier’s Cinema Excess, Evil, and the Prophetic Voice Rebecca Ver Straten-McSparran Film and Redemption From Brokenness to Wholeness David Rankin The Dardenne Brothers’ Cinematic Parables Integrating Theology, Philosophy, and Film Joel Mayward Transcendence and Spirituality in Japanese Cinema Framing Sacred Spaces Melissa Croteau Theology and Survival Movies An Orthodox Christian Perspective Ioan Buteanu For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge. com/religion/series/RSIRAF

Theology and Survival Movies An Orthodox Christian Perspective Ioan Buteanu

First published 2023 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2023 Ioan Buteanu The right of Ioan Buteanu to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-032-38720-8 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-41227-6 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-35691-2 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003356912 Typeset in Sabon by codeMantra

To Luca, Teodora, Lavinia-Alina, and our whole family. Thoughts full of gratitude and thanks for the two Professors who coordinated my doctoral work, and also for Professors Dana Duma, Florin T¸ olas¸, Vlad T¸ oca, Dan Curean, Gabriel Gherasim, Andrei Simut¸, Horea Poenar and Father Deacon Stelian Pas¸ca-Tus¸a.

Contents

Introduction

1

1 Research methodologies. The fundaments of anthropology and film studies from Christian perspectives

7

2 Survival movies defined through genre elements

25

3 A historical overview

58

4 The survival genre as a mixed genre

78

5 Survival and biology (physical survival)

100

6 Survival and communion (surviving together, as a community)

126

7 Survival and morality

148

8 Survival and transformation (spiritual survival)

169

Conclusions. How the image of God is seen in those who passed through limit situations?

186

Bibliography Filmography Index

211 217 231

Introduction

This book is designed to be a monographic description of survival movies analyzed from the perspective of Christian anthropology as preserved by the tradition of the Orthodox Church. I think that survival movies in contemporary society may offer a direct path for the study of human nature because they describe people in crisis situations when they often show their true character. The essence of Christian anthropology is encapsulated within the well-known verses 26 and 27 from the first chapter of Genesis which describe human nature as made in the “image” and in the “likeness” of God. This way of approaching movies can be framed in the field of theology and film, research that has expanded in the last decades. The first chapter offers a perspective on this field of cinematic studies as well as of the fundaments of the Orthodox Christian anthropology, as developed by St. Athanasius the Great, St. Basil the Great, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. John Chrysostom and St. Maximus the Confessor, and also by contemporary theologians as Fathers Dumitru Stăniloae, Marin Ciulei, Nicolae Răzvan Stan or Professor Panayotis Nellas. My method of study is mainly focused on the film characters and the way they appear and act during what I call “limit situation”. A term with a similar name was used by the German philosopher Karl Jaspers. While in Jaspers the limit situation is referential to a functional pattern of human existence, my approach of the topic is related to the narrative structure of films which unveil elements of God’s image in human beings. Karl Jaspers’ concept of Grenzsituation (Jaspers 229) is an ontological and psychological one while the term I propose is used rather as a narratological “tool”. Speaking about the “core” of these two homonymous concepts, although they may start from the defining of the same inner realities and mechanisms of the human beings, at a certain point it becomes obvious that the two terms belong to different perspectives about life. For the German philosopher, “Diese Grenzsituationen (…) sind fur das Leben unerträglich” (“These limit situations are unbearable for life”) (Jaspers 229). In his work Psychologie der Weltanschauungen (The Psychology of Worldviews), he considers as “Einzelne Grenzsituationen” (individual examples of limit situations) the conflict (Kampf), the death (Tod), the accident

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2 Introduction (Zufall) and the guilt (Schuld) (Jaspers 256–279). For him the limit situation is a concept that refers to human existence (Dasein) and to its knowledge. The limit situations are inevitable; they are part of the existence in general and of the life of any person in particular. They are “supra-individual challenges intrinsic to existence, thus unavoidable” (Mundt 169). Related to the concept of limit situation is that of “basic situation” (Grundsituation) explained by Thomas Fuchs in the following way: Basic situations denote the limits that are common for all persons; the limits against which the supposed wholeness and unity of Dasein crashes. To these belong especially the following situations: having to die, having to suffer, having to fight, being at the mercy of chance, and facing the inevitability of guilt. These basic situations become limit situations if they transform from simple generalities into distressing experiences for the individual. (Fuchs 2) In Jaspers’ conception, until the limit situation arrives, the human being builds up a system of ideas to hide the antinomies of existence (see these five mentioned in the quote above) which “offers in the end false feelings of stability, safety, or self-esteem” (Fuchs 3). The fundamental characteristic “of a limit situation is simply the crumbling of this system” (Fuchs 3). In that moment everyone has to have a “personal solution,” and this “implies change or development” (Mundt 169). As a common area of both Jaspers’ concept and mine, I hold this idea of development or change that (might) follow to the experiencing of a limit situation. It is, subtextually, one of my work hypotheses. For the German philosopher and psychologist, the concept of limit situation belongs to his model of understanding humans as beings caught in the dynamics of transformation of Grundsituationen into Grenzsituationen. Jaspers speaks rather about a self-regulatory system of the human being, but this system is also meant to put humans in deep states of crisis. The Orthodox Christian anthropology, whose perspective on humans I follow, understands persons as having a different functioning law. That’s why in the study that follows I regard the substance of the limit situation as a chance offered to the human beings to discover, even fragmentarily at first, their true nature which stands in close relation to God. In this system of thinking, as I have shown above, human beings are understood as images of God whose existential path, fulfillment and vocation are given by the conscious effort of likeness to God, to deification (Stăniloae c 272). Speaking about likeness, Father Dumitru Stăniloae said that it “is not only the final state of deification, but the whole path of development of the image (of God in people, my note), through the will of the person stimulated and helped by the grace of God” (Stăniloae c 272). I consider to be somehow on this path even the film characters who do not directly declare their faith in God, but “by nature do what the law requires” (Romans 2:14).

Introduction  3 From a formal point of view, as I have already said, in the sense used in my study, the “limit situation” is the narrative element that introduces great tension, a radical change in character’s life. It can act as a change of the action space, as does a plane crash, a kidnapping, a confinement in huge remote areas in nature or in smaller places like chambers, houses, cars, submarines, ships, planes, tunnels, mines etc. Limit situations threaten the physical or spiritual lives of the main characters, and sometime tend to change their way of understanding the world. I consider that, without naming it as such, Thomas Sobchack defines the “limit situation” in his own way, by saying that “most of the time in a survival film is spent depicting whereby the group, cut off from the securities and the certainties of the ordinary support networks of civilized life, forms itself into a functioning, effective unit” (Sobchack 15). This period when groups are “cut off from the securities” of their familiar universe is actually the “limit situation”. Thomas Sobchack treats these extreme situations more as external threats and accidents that endanger mainly people’s physical safety. From the perspective offered by Christian anthropology, the human being is made up of soul and body, which “come to life simultaneously” (Stăniloae c 259). Therefore, human life and survival cannot be treated in the same way as animal survival because what is different about us – from animals and for any other creature, my note - is not so much our nature, but our calling, our vocation to share the very life of God. This process of deification (…) is what defines and shapes an authentically human life. That is what theology is about. (Plested 7) As the Catholic author John Randall Sachs says, “human persons are spiritual, embodied creatures (…) who, above all are blessed with freedom, which guided by conscience (…), comes to its fulfilment in love for God and neighbor” (Sachs 9). I understand the term “embodied” as “having a body”. Seen this way, the fight to stay alive for humans may be approached at the level of complexity it deserves, touching at the same time both the physical and spiritual aspects of existence. The way in which Christian anthropology dissociates certain elements of God’s image (Stan 167) provides the film studies domain with a tool of sharp and sensitive analysis of both the qualities involved in the struggle for survival and of those that characters acquire as a result of this struggle. The method of analysis used by the study aims to offer suggestions for complete portraits (inner and exterior) of the characters before, during and after the limit situations. It tries to trace the presence of God’s image in the characters presented when they, more often unconsciously, try to practice “God’s likeness”. The second chapter is designed to approach survival movies from a very different perspective: that of the cinematic genre theory. Thomas Sobchack

4 Introduction defined in 1988, for the first time, survival movies as a category of the adventure genre (Sobchack 12). He approaches them from a social perspective, focusing his entire attention on how groups of people manage their survival efforts (Sobchack 12, 15). I consider that from his attempt to define the “genre,” things evolved in a very significant manner and that researchers have to take into account these changes and provide a more appropriate and complete description of the phenomenon. At the intersection of the Christian anthropology, genre theory, narratology and historical approach, survival films are beginning to show their complexity and treasure value of crucial human experiences. The historical perspective has the capacity to present the development of the mode in which life and fight for it were understood over the years. The narratological perspective offers an insight into several ways in which this idea of struggle for life was expressed and structured in particular films, providing at the same time the benchmarks of a model able to gather together all the movies on this topic. The use of genre theory in the analysis of these films gives the possibility to both organize them according to their common elements and also understand the situations in which these creations use elements of other well defined cinematic genres. The study of these films according to the Orthodox Christian anthropology means the acceptance and the understanding of “the union between soul and body in the unity of the human person” as a “complete” one (Stăniloae c 261). This understanding redefines survival as a phenomenon that must refer to both, soul and body, and also to their unity. The human person is defined as image of God called to His likeness, to be Christ-like (that means to be loving, free, wise, faithful, capable of self-sacrifice, etc.). This perspective on humans provides an opportunity to understand why many characters from survival films act in apparently paradoxical ways, exposing themselves to pain, huge risks and even accepting self-sacrifice for their moral values, for other persons or for God. This is why the Orthodox Christian anthropological analysis of survival films is able to offer interesting and complex insights into the lives of their characters. The third chapter offers the historical perspective by chronologically ordering significant titles of this class of films. Besides providing a good opportunity to describe the films, this chapter suggests some constants and metamorphoses of the idea of survival in cinema. The fourth section of the study describes the survival genre as a mixed one. It will illustrate with examples how issues of survival intersect romantic films, Westerns, science-fiction or war movies. This chapter concludes the part of my study dedicated to historical, theoretical and formal questions. The succeeding chapters, organized as concentric circles, aim to define the struggle for life as it appears in films. The presentation starts from the biological aspects and advances more and more toward the spiritual horizons as they are revealed in the characters. Starting with Claude

Introduction  5 Piantadosi’s definition of survival which is expressed “in terms of interactions between an individual and its natural surroundings” (Piantadosi 1), Chapter 5 presents the biological aspects of life preservation as they are rendered in films. These ranges from death, considered as failure, to success at all costs. It is partially a study of how survival instinct works and looks in films, about what happens to people when biology dictates their deeds and the moral consequences of the strict and selfish use of the (biological) survival instinct. The survival instinct should be governed by love and care for other people to be spiritually useful for humans (Carnell 15). The Christian anthropology goes even further in defining humans as spiritual beings by emphasizing the unity between soul and body and especially by considering the body as placed “in a particular way inside the spirit” (Stăniloae c 251). Seen this way, the body becomes a part of the spiritual world. Chapter 6 represents an important step forward in describing the complex nature of what life and survival means to human beings by introducing in the “equation” of survival the idea of community and communion. Several films presented in this chapter promote care and responsibility for others as a spiritual survival solution instead of the brute, biological and selfish life preserving instinct. The seventh chapter relates survival with morality, and presents, as they appear in movies, some moral elements that define human beings in their struggle for survival, which is often a struggle for the preservation and development of his/her own humanity, namely of God’s image inside them. This image is accomplished by practicing the “likeness” with Him (Stăniloae c 272). Starting from the films described in this chapter several moral issues as self-sacrifice, remorse and freedom are brought into debate. Chapter 8, the next concentric circle as we approach the mystery of the survival films characters, presents the transforming potential of the limit situations. The text deals here with physical and spiritual transformations, providing several examples from the superhero genre films to profound dramas. The conclusions of the study are designed to be the nucleus of the concentric circles described above. They are focused on defining several ways in which the image of God may be seen inside some film characters who are passing/have passed through survival limit situations. Unfortunately there are several characters that degrade from the moral point of view during the limit situations. They cover the image of God inside them with hate and abominable deeds. Other survival film characters, who behave consciously or unconsciously according to the Lord’s commandments, reveal the image of God inside them through some of its elements as reason, will or sentiment (Stan 167). This revealing of God’s image in characters is presented in several hypostases. The conclusions enumerate them as: the rising from sins, the struggle to preserve humanity, perseverance, the family bonds, friendship, communion, remorse, forgiveness, the power to continue to live, the vocation of

6 Introduction freedom, the work of conscience, the power to tell the truth whatever the risk, the spirit of self-sacrifice and the faith in God. The image of God is also revealed in some film characters during some essential encounters. These encounters provide special relations between protagonists and extraordinary glimpses of truth. These relations put the characters’ souls in special dispositions, close to the states of grace, and function as snapshots of God’s image inside them. My approach intends to offer different perspectives, able to capture both the diversity of survival films and to reveal, in terms of the Christian anthropology, the treasure of portraits and human experiences they contain. By adding the spiritual component to the understanding of these films, my study redefines and expands the survival movies genre and invests these films with the capacity to compose, as in a huge puzzle, a possible cinematic portrait of contemporary people.

1 Research methodologies. The fundaments of anthropology and film studies from Christian perspectives

1.1 Overview. The relation between theology and film studies In the contemporary research of cinema, the interdisciplinary field of dialogue between religion and film has already developed a certain history and achieved a certain tradition. From “Herbert Jump’s 1910 pamphlet The Religious Possibilities of the Motion Picture” (R. Johnston a 15) till today, the dialogue between religion and cinema managed to configure itself as a distinct field of study. According to Robert K. Johnston, it has become more and more complex and “sustained” especially after the “1980s” (R. Johnston a 15), but even in the 1970s, several important books were published (Lyden 15, 16, 23). There are today some “celebrities” in the field, such as William L. Blizek, John Lyden, Melanie J. Wright, Robert K. Johnston, Clive Marsh, Christian Wessely and Terry Lindvall, to name just a few of the researchers in this area. There are also scientific journals in the field, such as the Journal of Religion and Film, which appears at the University of Nebraska in Omaha, and the Journal for Religion, Film and Media, which appears as a joint project of the Universities of Graz, Hull, Lausanne, Marburg, Munich and Villanova. One of the most important issues is to present how this dialogue between religion and film takes place, and what the benefits and achievements are. Professor William L. Blizek emphasizes that religion can be used to interpret films (Blizek b 29), but also that films can be used as a “critique” of religion (Blizek c 39). Sometimes films are used to re-tell religious stories (Blizek and Fielding 70). From this perspective, movies can be classified into two broad categories: the first includes “secular” films (whose action does not contain religious events at a first glance, but will reveal, in a deeper analysis, the connections with this area) and the second represented by creations with obvious reference to religious themes: “there are some blockbuster hits that would count as religious films” (Blizek a 21). Among the films in the first category, Blizek mentions the Matrix series, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s

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8  Research methodologies Nest and films such as Superman (1978), Apocalypse Now (1979), Star Wars (1977), Platoon (1986) or Amadeus (1984) (Blizek a 20–21). In the second category, he includes Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments (with its 1923 and 1956 versions), The King of Kings (1927), The Sign of the Cross (1932) and Sampson and Delilah (1949) along with Going My Way (1944), The Bells of St. Mary’s (1945), Ben-Hur (1959) and Spartacus (1960) (Blizek a 21). Robert K. Johnston considers that the “theological responses that the church has made to film” “fall into one of five types: avoidance, caution, dialogue, appropriation, and divine encounter” (R. Johnston b 55). I consider the last two “responses” as able to provide the most profound and interesting insights into the human nature. For the author, “appropriation” means recognizing the quality of (some) films to provide people with a certain knowledge about their nature: “Those theologians who would seek to appropriate a movie’s vision of life recognize that movies can offer insight to the viewer about the nature of the human” (R. Johnston b 73). The “divine encounter” perspective sees films as having “at times, a sacramental capacity to provide the viewer the experience of transcendence” (R. Johnston b 74). Close to these two ways of approaching films are, in Romanian culture, the works of Elena Dulgheru, Dionis Bodiu and Daniel Cornea. A well-organized and detailed description of the “religion and film domain” is that proposed by John Lyden in his 2003 book entitled Film as Religion: Myths, Morals, and Rituals (even if I do not share his view that the film can be seen as a religion). In the beginning of his book, Professor Lyden presents the three theoretical directions in which this field can be organized: the theological, the ideological and the one in which he sees the most appropriate alternative, namely of the film seen as a new religion. The theological direction (especially of Protestant origins, although to the end of this category the author also mentions some Catholic authors) has its theoretical origin for the contemporary period in the studies of H. Richard Niebuhr (Christ and Culture) and of Paul Tillich (On the Idea of a Theology of Culture) (Lyden 13, 15). Niebuhr argues that there are five ways in which Christians can engage in culture. These are “Christ Rejecting Culture”, “Christ of Culture”, “Christ above Culture”, “Christ and Culture in Paradox” and “Christ Transforming Culture” (13). These five attitudes are set between the two extremes expressed by “Christ rejecting Culture” and “the Christ of Culture”. The first refers to the rejection of culture (in the general sense) by believers (in the name of their faith) and the second to acceptance of society in general and of the entire culture as being Christian (the rules of secular culture and society are somehow accepted as prevailing upon the faith that should accommodate to them) (13–14). “Christ above Culture” direction understands culture as valuable, but incomplete (the perspective of Thomas Aquinas) (14). The attitude called “Christ and Culture in Paradox” considers that moral and secular culture should not interfere with moral and religious culture, although they have to

Research methodologies  9 live together (Martin Luther’s perspective) (14). The theoretical perspective presented as “Christ Transforming Culture” considers that morality and religious culture must interact with moral and secular culture in such a way that the laic world will be brought closer to Christian values (Calvin’s perspective) (15). According to Paul Tillich’s study, culture cannot be “autonomous” to religion (then religion could not intervene and “correct” the ideas of culture), nor “heteronomous” (i.e., willing to accept a “foreign law” – an “alien law” – i.e., unconditional control, censorship of the “Church”). Tillich believes that great art is actually “theonomous”, meaning that “the content of great art is the same as the one of religion” (“the content of the great art is the same as the content of religion, here defined as directness towards the Unconditional”) (15). This “Unconditional” is defined as “the ultimate and the deepest meaning that shakes the foundation of all things and builds them up anew” (15–16). Among the first theology and film studies mentioned here are Celluloid and Symbols (1970), with John Cooper and Carl Skrade as editors, and the book of James Wall Church and Cinema (1971). Both books support the status of culture – and, of course, of the film as part of it – and religion as two independent domains that must be in dialogue (18–19). Among the Catholic writings of the 1970s, John Lyden mentions Neil P. Hurley’s Theology through Film (1970) and The Reel Revolution: A Film Primer on Liberation (1978), works considered to belong to the “Christ above Culture” direction (23). The ideological direction in studying the relationship between film and religion tries to detect “when and how religious themes are used to serve ideological purposes” (27). The book Seeing and Believing: Religion and Values in the Films, published by Margaret Miles in 1996, is considered to be “the most significant effort of a researcher in the field of religion to develop an ideological method” (28). Margaret Miles’s analysis, as John Lyden considers, is particularly focused on the fact that what a viewer perceives in a movie is conditioned by his social condition (28). The third theoretical alternative has its roots in Screening the Sacred: Religion, Myth and Ideology in Popular American Film, the 1995 book of Joel Martin and Conrad Ostwalt Jr (32). According to Martin, theological and ideological interpretations have their limitations: that the theological approach cannot operate outside the Western paradigm, and the ideological one could describe religion only as the “opiate of the peoples”/“the opiate for the people” (33). When John Lyden portrays film as a religion, he starts from the definition of the anthropologist Clifford Geertz. His concern is not for the theological content of religion, but for its social function (41). Geertz’s definition, from his 1966 essay entitled Religion as a Cultural System, is summarized by John Lyden in five aspects: 1) a set of symbols that acts to 2) establish powerful, pervasive and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by 3) formulating concepts

10  Research methodologies of general order of existence and 4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that 5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic. (Qtd Lyden 42) Melanie Wright considers this approach by John Lyden, along with Christopher Deacy’s study of the Christian interpretation of the noir film, as part of a functionalistic direction in the study of religion and film, a direction with connections in religion theory of Emile Durkheim (M. Wright 14). This first direction regards religion as a formal reality with certain functions within society. The representatives of this direction are “looking not just as film texts but also noting the structural parallels between cinema-going and religious rituals” (14). The second category of religious interpreters of film contains those who emphasize the specific content of each religion, of each confession. The purpose of these commentators is to reveal the presence of ideas derived from faith in cultural works (and specifically in films): The task then is to explore film as an example of God presence in everything, including the products of human culture – to look at how films raise and handle questions of meaning, and in doing so prompt particular religious adherents to think about the spirit of the age…. (14) Robert K. Johnston states that the field of cinematography has come to the attention of theological analysis because the film tells a number of stories of the contemporary world: “Film has become our Western culture’s major storyteller and myth-producing medium. As such it has begun to invite the best (and worst!) of our theological reflection” (R. Johnston a 16). This author claims that there are a few challenges ahead of the domain of religion and film. The first refers to overcoming the literary paradigm in the interpretation of films (Moving Beyond a Literary Paradigm) (19). The second is to increase the number of films that fall under this field (Broadening Our Film Selection) (20). Third, Johnston believes that in the analysis of films, theology should take into account both exegetical experiences in other artistic fields and the interpretations from social sciences (Extending Our Conversation Partners) (21). The fourth suggestion that Johnston makes for the development of the field is to be more careful in understanding the messages of the movies and the way they are understood by viewers (Engaging the Experience of the Viewer) (22). The fifth direction of maturing the domain would be to overcome didacticism and the fear of theologians to enter into dialogue with popular culture (Reconsidering the Normative) (23). The sixth and last improvement Johnston calls for this field of study is to “better use theological traditions”,

Research methodologies  11 Protestant, Orthodox and Catholic (Making Better Use of Our Theological Traditions) (24). A representative of the younger generation, such as Christopher Deacy, believes that the main task of his research is to discover in the movies ideas with religious significance, that is, in fact, live interpretations of these ideas: “My aim of this book is to build up the premise (…) that is possible to read a film as a viable and fertile repository of religious significance in contemporary, western culture” (Deacy 4). He does not see a confrontation between secular society and religion, but rather considers them to be communicating vessels. In this sense, he quotes Conrad Ostwalt saying: We are uncomfortable with religion, yet we are faced with it at every turn. It is not the case that religion is fading with secularization of society; rather, religion is being popularized, scattered, and secularized through extra-ecclesiastical institutions. We find ourselves in a contradictory age in which secularity and religious images coexist. (Qtd Deacy 12) Speaking about the interpretation of films, Christopher Jacobs lists several ways we can critically approach them. These are grouped in the traditional ones (“textual-linguistic”, “historical and biographical”, “moral-philosophical” and those that “paraphrase” the content of films) and other approaches: psychological, archetypal-mythical, exponential (i.e., symbolic), sociological, linguistic, “appreciative” (i.e., those that record reactions and impressions), those concerning the creation of a certain genre and the “genetic” approach (that analyzes the “birth process of a movie”) (Jacobs 5). This subchapter emphasizes that the religious approach of a film deserves (at least) a place in this list of interpretative possibilities. This statement is also supported by Christopher Deacy’s assertion: “There is no reason, therefore, why a religious reading of a film need to be less valid than any other reading, especially as audiences are found to be reading films in a whole variety of different ways, to the point, even, that there is no fixed, objective or singular reading to be discerned” (Deacy 19).

1.2 The Orthodox Christian anthropological approach to film studies 1.2.1 Conceptual delineations Robert K. Johnston’s last suggestion on the development of religion and film domain concerned the better use of theological traditions (Making Better Use of Our Theological Traditions) (R. Johnston a 24). By proposing the interpretation of survival films from the perspective of Orthodox Christian anthropology, I believe that (without premeditation) I go in the

12  Research methodologies same direction. The basis of Christian anthropology is in verses 26 and 27 of the first chapter of Genesis: (26) Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” (27) So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created him. These verses have long been commented throughout centuries by the Holy Fathers and Orthodox theologians up to contemporary times. Among them, I mention St. Athanasius the Great, Saint Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, St. John Chrysostom and St. Maximus the Confessor, Father Dumitru Stăniloae and the Greek theologian Panayotis Nellas. St. Basil the Great is concerned at the end of the Homilies at Hexaemeron by the so-called intratrinitarian counsel from verse 26. In his interpretation, man is made after the image of God, that is, after “the One who is the glory of glory and the image of the hypostasis, Who is the image of the unseen God”, Jesus Christ (St. Basil the Great 179). In the same sense go the affirmations of the Orthodox theologian Olivier Clement, who states that: “The fact that man is created after the image of God therefore means that he is created after the image of Christ. Only in Christ does man truly find himself” (Clement 50). After he had gone through unimaginable horrors, Ioan Ianolide, a former Romanian political prisoner, testified about the retrieval of God’s image as the only living reality of his soul: At the end of this dreadful experience, only Christ remains alive, complete and forever lasting inside of me. My happiness is complete: Christ. I deliver myself to Him, and He made me man. I cannot define Him, He is Everything in everything. Glory to Christ, God and Man! (Ianolide 18) This image received as gift of God is accompanied by a mission: that man should try from his whole being to be like his Creator (Vâşeslavţev qtd Stăniloae c 270, Stan 153). Alexander Schmemann completes this mission of man with that of priesthood: All rational, spiritual and other qualities of man, distinguishing him from other creatures, have their focus and ultimate fulfillment in this capacity to bless God (…) He stands in the center of the world and unifies it in his act of blessing God, of both receiving the world from God and offering it to God (...) he transforms his life, the one that he receives from the world, into life in God, into communion with Him. (Schmemann 15)

Research methodologies  13 In the followings, I will highlight the meanings of “image” and “likeness” in the writings of the interpreters of the Scripture. In his eighth homily to Genesis, St. John Chrysostom, relying on the second half of verse 26, considers that by the word image must be understood dominion and nothing else, that God created man to be the master/ruler of all that is on the earth, and there is nothing on earth greater than him, but all are under his command. (St. John Chrysostom 102) I believe that this mastery should not be understood in an abusive and discretionary sense, but, on the contrary, it is part of the mission with which man is invested. He has to bring himself and the whole world to God. He has to master the world in the name of God and be like Him in love and goodness. For St. John of Damascus, “the words” after the image “indicate reason and free will, and the words after likeness show the likeness of God in virtue, as far as possible” (St. John of Damascus 59). Father Dumitru Stăniloae defines somewhat circularly the “image” as a kinship of the soul with God. Because of this kinship, man “tends” toward Him, or “is in a living relation” with Him. And precisely this living relation “keeps the kinship with God not weakened” (Stăniloae c 267), namely it maintains the image of God in man. The permanent maintenance of this living relation is exactly the work of being alike God (God’s likeness). The image and the likeness are more two elements being in a one-way relation that goes from the image to the likeness, the second being conditioned by the presence of the first. It is rather a relationship of interdependence between them. The image is not a static element, because although it is never completely erased from man, it can be profoundly affected by sin, by the lack of likeness. It can “weaken” and “darken”. “The image of God in humans has an ontological meaning; it means his/her humanity” (Stăniloae qtd Stan 231). A mandatory part of the “image” is the aspiration for God, which is the work of the likeness. It was defined as the “zeal for moral perfection”. In this way, I understand the statement that “between the image and the likeness a clear delineation cannot be established” (Stan 231). “Likeliness” is actually the deepest vocation man has as “God’s image”, it is the unfolding of the life of “the image of God” in man. The path of likeness to God is actually the path that every man is called to follow, the path that every Christian should aspire to walk through faith and enlightened by the grace of the Holy Spirit. This is the way preached by the Orthodox Church. We can consider the whole human being (of course, without sin, which is a destructive element, alien to human nature) “as image, and the likeness is worked by lifting all the psycho-physical elements to God” (Stan 166).

14  Research methodologies The purpose of likeness is the deification of man, which does not mean replacing the human nature with the divine, but, as Lars Thunberg presents the conception of St. Maximus the Confessor, “it is accomplished right in the conditions in which the hypostatic union of Christ takes place, that is, in perfect harmony, but without changing or distorting the natures” (Thunberg 473). Deification will bring to man “immortality of the body and the soul’s immutability” along with “simplicity”. “The fact that this is given to man will be revealed in the final and will be accomplished only after death – in the later life that is bestowed to man by Christ as everlasting happy life” (Thunberg 475). Perhaps another name for deification or at least a pretty close term might be perfection. Speaking of it, St. John Chrysostom sustains the idea that it “encompasses the totality of virtues in general, attained to the highest degree”. Some of the most important virtues, seen as necessary, are “the detachment from all the ephemeral things of the world, self-control and love…” (M. Ciulei 258). Interpreting Father Stăniloae, Ivana Noble adds to the mission that people have related to themselves the one they have to the world: The world filled by the Spirit is not only a gift, but also a task. Orthodox theologians speak about this double-sidedness by means of the two doctrines, salvation and deification, while both the gift of salvation and the task of deification are needed for a full spiritual growth towards the fullness of life in God. (Noble 61–62) According to St. Maximus the Confessor: Christ would have come to complete the sanctification of the world even if humanity had not fallen into sin (…) by completing the unification of humanity and all creation with its creator. (…) The human and the divine natures of Christ are model for cooperation or synergy between God and humanity for the salvation of the whole world. (St. Maximus the Confessor paraphrased in Morris 95) Therefore, the fulfillment of the image of God in people in the form of a continuous likeness with Him means the total and free cooperation of people with God, their total communion with Him, with their peers and with the entire creation, in love. 1.2.2 Presentation of the image of God in man through some elements that compose it The three great functions of the soul in the Old Testament were considered “reason, will, and sentiment” (M. Ciulei 19). These three will be considered also by Father Nicolae Răzvan Stan to which he adds “the conscience

Research methodologies  15 and apophatism of the human person” (Stan 167). He goes even further by expanding the list of these functions with “immortality of the soul, goodness, righteousness, purity, beauty, happiness” (Stan 167). Speaking of these elements as powers the soul possesses, Father Marin Ciulei points out that St. Athanasius the Great mentioned rationality, freedom of will (free will), will, sovereignty, purity, love (M. Ciulei 91). I will present the first five functions as mentioned in the short list of Father Nicolae Răzvan Stan. 1.2.2.1 Intellectual, rational human faculty Saint Gregory of Nyssa urges the one who wants to know himself: “Look in yourself and you will find there the word and the power of judgment, both imitations of the true understanding of the Word” (Saint Gregory of Nyssa 24). The intellectual ability of self-expression in words is considered by this Holy Father as an inheritance that man has from God, an inheritance that “imitates” and functions somehow similar to the knowledge God has. In the Orthodox theology, there are two terms that refer to the “rational part of man”: “rationality”, a term originating in the Greek “logos”, and “mind”, called “nous”. The distinction between the two concepts would be that “reason operates with the created realities, while the mind operates at the level of divine grace” (Stan 167). The intellect with which the human being is endowed from the moment of creation becomes reason when dealing with the truth, and this “attains the dignity of the mind” when it remains “in the contemplation of God” (Stan 168). Unlike some Rationalist interpretations as William Lecky’s (“Rationalism” in Encyclopaedia Britannica 315) which understand the intellectual faculties of man as completely separate and even in an antagonic relation to the emotional and spiritual ones and to the Christian dogmas, the Orthodox theology sees them in their tendency toward harmony, in their cooperative vocation with which they were “seeded” in humans by God. The mind is understood as an integrated element of the soul. Father Stăniloae called it “the finest part” of the soul, which “has its natural location in the most intimate place of the heart” (Stăniloae qtd Stan 168). When the contemporary human beings will understand to live according to the commandments of God, they will discover that this is the true place of the mind. As long as they will ignore God, as long as they do not live within the frame of Christian morality, their intellect will be in fact irrational, will be always divided from the soul, will always try to justify itself, will invent various ontological theories, but finally these theories will prove to be insufficient in the face of Life represented by Christ. 1.2.2.2 The will The will of man, also known as “the free will”, can be understood as a “practical” element of the constitution of man. It makes the thoughts, the

16  Research methodologies desirable things happen: “As an element of the image, the will has the purpose of translating the work of reason into practical work, as well as encouraging it in the progress of sound thinking” (Stan 173). God created man by an act of will and created him as a free being, able to have his own will, that is, his own freedom. Through this freedom he can come closer to God, he can become freer, or, on the contrary, he can shrink his freedom by joining passions/sins (Stăniloae qtd Stan 174). The same idea was expressed by St. John of Damascus long time ago: Man had the power to remain and to progress in the spirit of goodness helped by divine grace, just as he had the power to return from good and reach the evil, which God allowed, for the reason that man was endowed with free will. (St. John of Damascus 59–60) 1.2.2.3 The feeling The feeling is defined as an “ontological struggle” that “urges the search for others, the search of God”. The feeling is the “reason of reason”, the “will of will”, “as the engine that puts them in motion” (Stan 177–179). The mind correctly illuminates the senses of the world and of the soul, the will makes decisions to happen and the feeling is a search, a call of the divine love. The infinite measure of this quest is a sign of the image of God in man. It is the divine beauty of the Model (Jesus Christ) toward which man’s soul tends, the image of man recovers His (original divine) Image: “man is distinguished by a true emperor’s worth as one who resembles the beauty of his Model” (St. Gregory of Nyssa 23). God’s beauty in man is recognized as “the indescribable happiness of peace and of inner perfection” (St. Gregory of Nyssa 23). The bond of this reunion is love. It is the very life that nourishes and maintains the image of God in man: “If this love does not exist, then all the traces of the image change” (St. Gregory of Nyssa 24). 1.2.2.4 The conscience It is an instrument of self-reliance on the soul, a “counselor”, “witness” and “judge” (Stan 183), “a landmark set by God in man” (Stan 185). St. John Chrysostom said that God, since he had made man, put into him conscience, this “accuser” “who cannot be wrong or cannot be deceived” (St. John Chrysostom 189). The taking care of conscience is akin to that of a doctor who does not stop giving the medicine to the patient until he is not recovered. His work is “to constantly remember our evil deeds and not allow us to give up forgetting what we have done, but to put them in our eyes, so that, at least, we do not repeat what we have done” (St. John Chrysostom 189). Conscience belongs to both God and man, it is a “thought of

Research methodologies  17 God” “sown in man” (Stan 182). Before the fall “man’s conscience was as pure as it was able to stand instead the whole Law and Scripture. Obeying it and following it ensured the deification of the image (in fact the work of likeness, my note)” (Stan 185). 1.2.2.5 The apophatism of the human person The human being cannot be given a cataphatic and exhaustive definition. All the positive and “classical” definitions of man prove to be one-dimensional or reductionist. Man is not just matter (alive or dead), not only physiology, not only psychology or an economic factor (Stan 186), not only a zoon politikon, not only a poetic mystery… The Orthodox Christian anthropological approach manages to emphasize the mystery of the human being and, at the same time, to put him/ her in a true relationship with God, with himself/herself, with other people and with the world. From this point of view, because the human person is created after the image of God, man represents, like the Creator, a mystery that cannot be exhausted (Stan 187–188). One of the theologians who speak about the anthropological apophatism is Boris Vâşeslavţev (qtd Stăniloae c 275). When seeking the likeness of God, the human being discovers the real meaning of personal life, of others’ lives and can understand deep significances of the world. By repenting and living according to the teachings of the Church, the person “and other mysteries-people with whom he/her is in communion invite each other to transcend towards the Supreme Mystery” (Stan 190). The Orthodox theology considers that the image of God in people has not disappeared because of the fall – as the Protestant theologian Karl Barth says (Stan 221) – “but only darkened, and this darkness has spread over all its elements” (Isidor Todoran qtd Stan 225). St. Athanasius the Great believes that by falling and breaking from God, humans fell prey to lust and fear of death, and began to pervert their souls: Because separating from the thinking at That One, Who truly is, namely to God, and from the search for Him, they fell into the various and limited passions of the body. Then, as is usually the case, they started to need many things (separately and together); they began to get attached to these things and to fear death and the separation of the body. And having desires and failing to fulfil this lust, they learned to kill and to act unjustly. (St. Athanasius the Great 33) We see that, following St. Athanasius the Great, “the first step of the fall was the separation of the mind from God. Instead of divine contemplation, man chose the thought of his own self” (Stan 225). Through this, the mind,

18  Research methodologies which is made to think divine thoughts, has become enslaved by the contingent and overwhelmed by an egotism and a seemingly without escape loneliness. Disoriented and used this way, “man’s reason has become ignorant and feeble” (Stan 225). Father Stăniloae describes the post-fall condition as a particular weakening of the faculties of the soul, especially of reason and will. This weakening is followed by the loss of the soul’s freedom. Under these conditions, the human nature seems to be in such a degree under the rule of the matter so it looks more like the perishing things of the world than like the eternal ones it truly belongs to. The Orthodox Church finds here the solution to asceticism that has its foundation in the death and the resurrection of Christ: Its will and righteous judgment, two essential elements of the (human) nature, lose all power. Fear is like a ball in the hand of passions, carried here and there by all circumstances, by all impressions. It is no longer strong in its freedom, it shows a spiritual weakness bearing all the signs of decay; it does not show in any way that sort of incorruptibility able to ensure its eternity. But the death of this deadly weakness which entered in the human nature, the fortification of this nature through asceticism, has become possible through the life-giving mortification and death of Jesus. (Stăniloae b 10) Here we have the image of the weakened will, which “puts pleasure in the first place” (Stan 225), so it is disoriented, being separated from the mind (reason), which also no longer fulfills its original purpose, that to stay in touch with God, to help His image to become like Him. The feeling “changed the direction toward God to one oriented to the things of the world” (Man began to “be attracted to the inferior things he did not use to be attracted before the fall”) (Stan 226). He is trying to invest his infinite capacity for love into finite things that will never be able to quench his endless thirst. Only God (in His own way) and the fellow/ neighbor (in his own way) can respond to this love. God is to be loved “with all your heart”, “with all your soul”, “with all your mind” and “with all your strength” (Mark 12:30), and the neighbor must be loved “as yourself” (Mark 12:31). By reminding/giving to man all these commandments, Christ shows him the way of restoring his divine image from the point of view of the sentiment. After the fall, the image of God in man was not destroyed, what was lost was the likeness, but not definitively; it kept the chance of restoration. As St. Gregory of Nyssa said, “the resemblance was once, and it is hope to be again in the future, but now it does not exist!” (St. Gregory of Nyssa 206). “In the primordial state, the resemblance was at its beginning, and after the fall it was completely lost” (Stan 229). Elsewhere, St. Gregory showed that “the beauty of God’s image is hidden by the passions of the flesh as with a

Research methodologies  19 mask” (St. Gregory of Nyssa 55). Hence, the “image” has not disappeared, but in some people, it is so overwhelmed by sins that it cannot be seen at all. Similarly, St. Athanasius tells the one who worships idols that only when he takes away the dirt of sin placed over him and restores the pure after the image, may think and contemplate in his brilliant state, as in a mirror, the Father’s Image or the Word, and in him the Father, whose Image is the Savior. (St. Athanasius the Great 69) The “garments of skins” A particularly interesting part of the Orthodox Christian anthropology refers to the theology of the “garments of skins” with which God put on our forefathers before the banishment from Eden. The Scripture says just that: the Lord God made garments of skins for Adam and his wife and clothed them (Genesis 3:21). These “garments” are not the body (which he had received in the same way as the soul), but another “reality”: “the mortality” (Stan 233), “the corruption caused by the recklessness” (according to Methodius of Olympus qtd Stan 233). Man has to react to the main elements of his post-fall condition. These are the separation from the direct view of God and the death of the body. Hence, much of his time and his earthly preoccupations are related to survival: “the core content of the garments of skins is mortality, the transformation of life into survival” (Nellas 36). Garments of skins are understood to be “a second blessing”, as “a second nature” (which does not change or replace the former, the primordial one, our note) (57). In general, the “central functions” of human earthly life are understood by Panayotis Nellas as the “thickening” of the original natural attributes that man had as “the image of God”. Thus, “learning (culture) and work” are “thickenings” of “wisdom and sovereignty”, “politics” is a “thickened” reflex of “the profound natural communion of prefall people” (56–57). After the fall, the human being was not “totally private”, neither of reason nor of “little” capacity of ruling over the world (57–58). “The garments of skins” is what we might call a “breakdown solution” caused by the fall of humans; but, at the same time, they are “means on his/her new path to God” (57), through which the Creator wants to bring the human being back to Him, namely, at Home. Note One issue related to the interpretation of “garments of skins” is that of the effect that the fall of human beings had on the world. As a consequence of this, the matter itself and the whole “cosmos” entered in a state of disagreement and disintegration (Nellas and Dumitru Radu paraphrased in Stan

20  Research methodologies 246). By this collapse, the world (“the nature”) was “lowered to the status of a simple means of satisfying the bodily needs of man”, and therefore, “it opposes him/her all kinds of difficulties”. It “no longer recognizes in man the image of the Creator and thus becomes the enemy of this unrecognized creature”, refuses to “discover its mysteries” and to feed him/her (Nellas paraphrased in Stăniloae c 332). In many survival films, the characters encounter this nature which acts as a hostile environment. This dangerous encounter, which functions as a trap for the people, represents in most of these cases the substance of the limit situation. 1.2.3 Conclusions. Christian anthropology and survival movies In my research, I present the way in which the elements of the “God’s image” in humans appear before, during the limit situation and after (where appropriate). I consider among these elements the reason, the will, the sentiment (love), the conscience, the mystery of the human person, immortality of the soul, goodness, righteousness, purity, beauty, happiness, sovereignty (through which I understand as the vocation of freedom and cooperation with God), combining the lists given by Fathers Nicolae Răzvan Stan and Marin Ciulei. The latter synthesizes a list of St. Athanasius the Great (Stan 167, M. Ciulei 91). It is possible for me to add more items to this list as I will encounter specific situations in the films analyzed. I allow myself to do so because I understand these “elements” as many rays originating in this Sun called “the image of God” in humans. Father Nicolae Răzvan Stan also leaves the list opened (Stan 167). As the most well-known elements, I will keep the five ones presented in detail by Father Nicolae Răzvan Stan: reason, will, sentiment (love), conscience and the mystery of the human person (see their presentations earlier in this chapter). I will study what are the elements of God’s image that help film protagonists in their limit situations and which are the weaknesses, affections and sufferings they overcome (if they overcome them) in the struggle for survival. In the analysis of films, I am interested “chronologically” in certain narrative elements and details related to them. First of all, it is the description of characters’ lives before entering the limit situation. What “does not work properly” in their lives? How do they get out of the routine and enter in the limit situation? There are two such general types: on the one hand, the willful, conscious, sought out, planned “exits”, and, on the other, those that take characters by surprise, being consequences of accidents or catastrophes. The study describes the limit situation, how the characters enter into it and what particular events represent these situations. Against whom/what the characters fight? Against nature, against enemies (people or something else), against disease, against animals, against themselves… What helps them to overcome the limit situation? Here appear elements of the “God’s image” (sometimes combined with certain contents of “garments of skins”)

Research methodologies  21 such as the mind (both in its transcendent valence and in the practical one), love (between a he and a she, for the others), the will, expressed sometimes in the love of freedom, of life (the will combined with the preservation instinct), the conscience (i.e., the conscience of sin and the desire to straighten personal life or the mere intuition that their life does not have a good direction), but also the stubborn cry or search for God – as in the end of The Grey (Carnahan 2011). Sometimes the main characters are helped by other people, who are outside the limit situation, but who are in solidarity with those in trouble. Sometimes the protagonists are helped by technology and their ability and/or outsiders’ to maneuver it. In the concluding section of the book, some questions should be asked, such as: how the protagonists are changed at the end the limit situation? Are they transformed? Some characters do not seem to be changed inside. It may be the case of the films that focus strictly on action, suspense, on the epic. Other characters change, and we need to see how. A related question would be if the protagonists still want to go back to other people. The final conclusive interrogation of the book is if God’s image becomes more visible inside the protagonists of these films at the end of their adventures, better than at the beginning. If the answer is affirmative, it needs to be detailed and argued, accompanied by examples. Survival movies are defined in their classic formula by the presence of a space of the limit situation encompassed by two “cover” spaces (see the subchapter on space). The “exits” from the first “cover” space can be divided into two categories: desired or accidental (as mentioned above). In the case of voyages, it is very interesting to study the reasons behind these “exits”. These causes are often about dissatisfaction, boredom, generated by the fact that the soul of the protagonist is either hurt by something in the world or it finds no personal fulfillment in the “regular” world (Nellas 57). Even if God is not consciously sought (and named in words), I still notice a spiritual and moral state of crisis inside these characters that are looking for something that they cannot name. This search may sometime become visible as a departure from the daily routine. Eloquent examples of this situation are Chris MacCandless, the hero of Sean Penn’s Into the Wild, and Cheryl, the protagonist of Jean Marc Vallee’s Wild. According to the definition given by Robert Jay Lifton, the survivor is the “one who has come into contact with death in some bodily or psychic fashion and has himself remained alive” (Lifton qtd Slade 168). Human survival is therefore a complex notion that needs to be nuanced. It refers life in its bodily and spiritual aspects. From the perspective of the elements of Christian anthropology presented above, the struggle for survival can be considered as a remnant, a “garment of skins”, a “thickening” of what should actually have been obedience to God. This “thickening” became, after the fall, the struggle of the soul against sin. This is the struggle for the survival of the soul. Sin caused to humans the entrance in mortality. Because of this, human beings are actually in a paradoxical, tragic and

22  Research methodologies unacceptable situation: that they, as “images of God” and immortal beings, have become subjects of mortality of the body, bound to the material world. Among the human preoccupations representing “garments of skins”, Panayotis Nellas also counts art (Nellas 57). He sees in all these earthly preoccupations of people a “consequence of sin” and “a degradation of the dimensions of the image of God in man”, but also “effects of God’s wise and merciful intervention” (Nellas 57). I agree with this definition in the sense that I understand art, at its highest level of honesty, talent and morality, as an expression of a certain beauty and of brief moments of revelation. The message of these revelations must also be carefully investigated to see if they help the unveiling “God’s image” in people or not. The rest of the messages are sometimes clichés, moments of selfishness, narcissism, unnecessary fantasies or things against nature. Paraphrasing St. John of Damascus, Father Nicolae Răzvan Stan says that “specific to the soul, hence to the divine image in human beings, is the power to desire what is in conformity with the nature and to reject what opposes it” (Stan 172). And the nature of the humans is good and divine. The capacity of human beings called the “faculty of imagination” is considered to be “a power of the irrational soul” (St. John of Damascus 64). From my point of view, films are mostly an expression of imagination, and that is why I consider the intervention of reason and morality in their ordering and analysis to be welcome.

1.3 The method All the elements of “God’s image” in humans together with the “garments of skins” participate to the struggle for survival when people want this. The image of God in humans has been dissociated by theologians in several elements (reason, will, sentiment, conscience, mystery of the human person, immortality of the soul, goodness, righteousness, purity, beauty, happiness, sovereignty…, as mentioned above) in order to facilitate its description and analysis, but this “image” is, of course, a whole, as the human being is a whole. The whole man participates to the struggle for survival here on earth, and this struggle would ideally be a part of a “new path to God” (Nellas 57). The elements of God’s image can be understood as functions of the soul that act in interdependence one with another (the sentiment offers the motivation, the reason illuminates and drives the soul, the will puts thoughts into action and it transforms them into deeds…). While analyzing movies from this perspective, a specific question raises: is the struggle for survival one that leads to the salvation of the soul? The answer is sometimes affirmative (when the soul opens to God, to the life in Christ and to the love of others) and sometimes negative (when it remains prisoner of selfishness, violence and sin). The method I propose is centered on the character and his/her transformation or lack of transformation during and after a limit situation. I

Research methodologies  23 organize this method by splitting the analysis into three stages that actually occur as the three series of questions mentioned below: 1 How does the character look before entering the limit situation? What are his/her existential problems? Can we estimate some moral problems the character has? If the answer is affirmative, what are they? 2 How does the character look while he/she is in the limit situation? What are the elements he/she uses to get out of this situation? • Interior elements, those belonging to the God’s image in humans: reason, will, sentiment, conscience, mystery of the human person, immortality of the soul, goodness, righteousness, purity, beauty, happiness, sovereignty, “garments of skins” • External elements: other people, technology 3 How does the character look like when he/she is out of the limit situation? Is he/she transformed at the end? Has he/she gained certain qualities? Which are they? What elements of the image of God inside him/her have developed, have become more visible? How is the image of God now seen inside him/her? Through what facts and gestures can it be seen? Theology speaks about people as God has made them and as He sees them. Movies talk about these people as they are understood by other people, by people who tell cinematic stories and build up characters. That’s why I try to understand with the instruments of the Christian anthropology these people presented as film characters. This three-step approach to films and especially to their characters actually forms a general framework. The three steps speak about the possible effects of an event or of a series of events, most often external, on the entire human being. These events can generate an inner change in the characters. The direction of this change, positive or negative, depends on the freedom of each individual. The perspective offered by the Christian anthropology allows observing the sense in which this freedom is manifested, because this perspective always contains the testimony of the God’s commandments. These commandments (the ten from the Old Testament and that of love given by Jesus Christ) define humans as images of God working or not according to His likeness. Survival films, because they usually contain powerful external crisis situations, provide a good study material on how their characters understand themselves, others and even God (when they accept a dialogue with Him). The Orthodox Christian anthropology is part of the dogmatic theology. By defining humans as images of God which are fulfilling their vocation only by behaving more and more like Him (Stăniloae c 272), this anthropology shows them as beings truly called for an essential transformation. The Orthodox Church understands this transformation as deification (Greek: theosis). A concise presentation of this concept states that “in Jesus Christ

24  Research methodologies and because of Him, believing in Him, following Him, human beings can now walk that path of development originally set before ours first parents, to change and grow to attain likeness of God – to theosis” (Payton Jr. 118). People who do not openly declare that their behavior is based on God’s commandments, but still behave unconsciously according to these commandments, fit into the category described by the words Saint Apostle Paul in the Epistle for Romans. They “by nature do what the law requires” and “show that the work of the law is written on their hearts” (excerpts from Romans 2:14–15). These statements allow me to consider that my Christian anthropological method can have a universal applicability, one that goes beyond the sphere of Christian believers. Some of the characters in survival movies do not explicitly speak of themselves as Christian believers, but the image of God is present inside them, and it becomes more visible through its elements that help them to overcome the limit situations and to live after them. For the characters who act in a positive way, the image of God takes the path of accomplishment through likeness with the Creator, while for those who act in a negative way, this image is betrayed, but still remains present inside them, perhaps as a reprimand. Throughout the book, my method is developed by detailing various relationships essential to define the human nature of the characters from the films analyzed. It is about relating the characters to several realities that strongly impose their presence during limit situations. The first such presence is that of their own body, whose survival is threatened during the crisis situation. Often in these conjunctures the body becomes a painful presence. This pain needs to be overcome in order to survive. Another quite common presence in movies is that of technology, of man-made things, of the artificial universe created by human beings for themselves. Technology can have positive or negative effects on humans. Sometimes it fails or gets out of human control and rises against people, constituting itself as a cause of limit situations. Another definitory relation for the characters is that with other persons, because the ways people relate to others define in a profound way the human being and the values according to which he/she is orientated. Often the getting out of limit situation depends on the collaboration between those exposed to the same dangers. These extreme conjunctures that appear in survival movies often provide good opportunities to reveal several moral issues. To survive as a whole, a human being should respect the moral laws embodied in his/her soul even when he/she is in extreme danger. Doing other way, it would damage the soul because humans are both material and spiritual beings. The last and the deepest encounter described in this study is that of human beings with themselves and with God, according to Whose image they were made. The most profound transformations triggered by the limit situations occur at this level, and to observe them is the deepest goal of my method and of my book.

2 Survival movies defined through genre elements

2.1 Theoretical approaches to the concept of cinematic genre There are many ways of understanding and defining films and cinematic genres. Some consider film not as an individual art, but as a “literary genre as any other, as the novel, the sonnet or the epopee” (Suchianu 19). This radical and rather reductionist position, even if it sounds unacceptable today, has its partial justification given the fact that both narrative films and epic literature are based on stories as representations “of a possible world in a linguistic and/or visual medium” (Fludernik 6). This fact justifies the narratological approach to films and the possibility of grouping them into genres, according to the literary approach of genres. Andrew Tudor surprisingly speaks about “genre notions” as “a set of cultural conventions”. So, he concludes with a very broad definition that states that “genre is what we collectively believe it to be” (Tudor 7). In a similar way, David Bordwell calls genre “a fuzzy category constructed by the people” (Bordwell a 148). Rick Altman disagrees with these broad definitions and states that genre “is not your average descriptive term, but a complex concept with multiple meanings”. It is regarded as “a blueprint” that “precedes the production”, as “a structure”, “a formal framework” “on which individual films are founded”, “a label” for film distributors and a “contract” between the film and its audience. Therefore, it is considered “a useful category, because it bridges multiple concerns” (Altman b 17). In another research, Rick Altman defines cinematic genre through its particular syntax that is able, by repetition, to change everyday meanings of events into conventional meanings: “Just as individual texts establish new meanings for familiar terms only by subjecting well-known semantic units to a syntactic redetermination, so generic meaning comes into being only through the repeated deployment of substantially the same strategies” (Altman a 39). For example, usually beautiful sceneries used in other films as serene settings become menacing places for the protagonists in survival movies. Francesco Cassetti views genre as “a collection of shared rules that allows the filmmaker to use established communicative

DOI: 10.4324/9781003356912-3

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26  Survival movies defined through genre elements formulas and the viewer to organize his own system of expectations” (Cassetti qtd Moine 27). Piotrovski regards cinema genre in a pretty similar way, calling it “a group of procedures regarding composition, style and subject” (Piotrovski qtd Moine 30). For Verstraten, it is a “label” that “serves a categorizing function” activated by a “set of conventions” (Verstraten 175). David Bordwell finds difficult to define genre “as opposed to mode, cycle, formula, or whatever”, asking if experimental film is “a style, a genre, or a mode” (Bordwell a 147). While Steve Neale describes genres as “processes” “dominated by repetition”, but “marked by difference” (Neale 171), Bordwell is concerned with the birth of this concept as a process in the mind of the audience, related with “a set of (…) expectations” (Bordwell a 148). Raphaelle Moine distinguishes two main approaches to cinematic genre theory. The first is called “structural and textual”, and its goal is to “establish the characteristic feature of genre conceived in terms of textual structures, and as collections of film texts”. The second, called “functional”, defines genres in terms of their function (social, cultural, economic, communicative) (Moine 29). Paul Watson sees three ways of understanding cinematic genres: the first is the “taxonomic” one, “which attempts to map the boundaries between generic classes”, the second is “the view of the genre as an economic strategy for organizing film production schedules”, and the third defines “the view of genre as cognition, as a contact between producers and consumers which renders films intelligible on some level” (Watson 154). I am interested in the taxonomic approach of the genre insofar as to see which the limits that configure the survival movies genre are. In 1984, Alan Williams considered that there are just three main film genres: “narrative film, experimental or avant-garde film, and documentary” (Williams qtd Watson 154). While explaining this very general taxonomy, Paul Watson states that: “on this account, the labels we ordinarily use to distinguish film of various kinds – thriller, horror, comedy, romance, and so forth – actually refer to sub-genre of the narrative film” (Watson 154). I believe that Williams’ taxonomy is far too general, and this makes it pretty much useless as it is. I consider that films belonging to these so-called subgenres become so numerous and diverse that these subgenres should be named genres. Paul Watson offers a scheme of describing what genres are through some “defining criteria” as “historical subject”, “intended effect”, “formal criteria”, “subject matter” and “style” (Watson 156). Closer to my understanding of genre is Watson’s idea of “rethinking genre as a metaphor”. He pleas for “describing film genre as a web of metaphorical expressions”, “for metaphors in themselves do not tell us anything, but rather draw attention to a relationship between things and prompt us to start looking for ways of making meaning” (Watson 162). Two processes are considered important in understanding this redefining of genre through metaphor. These are resemblance and transference:

Survival movies defined through genre elements  27 (…) the basis of metaphor is a process of transference: the transference of aspects of one object to another object so that the second object has an implied resemblance to the first object, yet is an original expression. It is precisely the ideas of transference and implied resemblance that help us describe genre as a metaphorical process. (Watson 162) This understanding opens interesting perspectives for both cinematic genres and particular films inside and outside the genre: (…) film genre becomes understood as a metaphorical redescription, reworking or redeployment of cinematic and cultural vocabularies. Individual films, likewise, become original in precisely the ways they interfere with those vocabularies, that is in the way they deviate from the implied intertexts which form the reservoir of cognitive resemblance that make comprehension possible. (Watson 162) It also provides film critics with a dynamic and suggestive understanding of film tradition in relation with the present because “equally crucial here is the idea that metaphors are constantly being renewed, with old ones dying of and forming part of the memory bank which itself serves as the foil for the creation of new ones” (Watson 163). All of these approaches are interesting and some of them provocative for researchers, proving that this way of organizing and studying films have had a solid tradition and a certain future because it is simple and intuitive. This intuition that is pretty common to all approaches refers to the fact that some movies (intended or not by their authors) share common features that can make them a group defined by common elements (that will become “genre elements”). I will explain them in the following subchapter. Altman and Neale call this common area “repetition”, while Watson names it “resemblance”. The most challenging seems to me Watson’s definition of genre as a metaphorical process. It grasps the openness of the concept of genre to the historical changes, and it is able to reveal deep and unexpected similarities between particular movies. Provisionally, I accept Steve Neale’s approach to film genre theory. His definition of genre is simpler, but goes in the same direction as Watson’s. It presents genres as “processes” “dominated by repetition”, but “marked by difference” (Neale 171). This definition renders very concisely the dynamic and historical aspect of this concept. From a diachronic point of view, I think that cinematic genre is a process, and, from the synchronic point of view, it is a “label”, as Paul Verstraten names it, a “label” that “serves a categorizing function” activated by a “set of conventions” (Verstraten 175). In this chapter, I will explain this “set of conventions” that formally defines survival movies, i.e., the “elements of genre”.

28  Survival movies defined through genre elements

2.2 The “elements of genre films” Among the “elements of genre films” Barry Keith Grant names “conventions”, “iconography”, “setting”, “stories and themes” and “characters, actors and stars” (Grant 10–16). But not all these elements have the same importance and functions in all cinematic genres: “if attention to iconography worked well for western and gangster films, it proved difficult to translate such a visually specific methodology to other kinds of films” (Watson 157). Talking about iconography, one needs to say, along with Paul Watson, that the same element has different meanings in different genre films. For example: guns are common to westerns, thrillers, gangster films, action films, film noirs, war films and science-fiction, but their significance, function and consequences differ depending on a host of other contextualizing factors established in the narrative and thematic structures of genre films. (Watson 157) Barry Keith Grant describes the “narratives” through “themes and stories” (Grant 15) while Peter Brophy considers as “key” elements in “understanding a narrative structure” the setting, the causality, the plot, the style, the point of view, the character, the narrative presence and the hermeneutic and proairetic codes (Brophy 44–47). Peter Verstraten sees “time, space and causality as the main principles of the narrative cinema” (Verstraten 16). Genre should be regarded as a “flexible structure” (Kitses qtd Tudor 4), and the film critic should avoid to underline “genre fixity” (Altman qtd Grant 10) because “genetic patterns” are considered to belong to a “historical period” (Grant 10). Boris Tomashevsky states about genres that “their demarcation is always historical (…), it is correct only for a specific moment of history” (Tomashevsky qtd Bordwell a 147). Therefore, a movie can be situated in different genres in different epochs (Tudor qtd Watson 158). This perspective on genres, along with their approach as metaphors, as Watson proposed it, may offer the theoretical angle for the beginning of a debate about the status of survival movies as a subgenre of the adventure films genre or as an emerging independent cinematic genre.

2.3 A genre approach to survival movies The survival of people and humanity is an increasingly important theme of meditation in the contemporary period. In an increasingly technologydependent society, it seems to be justified for humans to ask themselves who they are, what is left of them, with or without technology. The human person left alone, without the help of technology, has already become a common character in the films of the last decades. This posture provides an opportunity to study human nature via the cinematographic arts.

Survival movies defined through genre elements  29 The group of survival movies is defined as a “film genre in which one or more characters make an effort for physical survival” (Sobchack 12). The spiritual survival should be also taken into account as fundamental in these films, mainly in the most recent ones. Thomas Sobchack, comparing this film genre with romances, concluded that “both emphasize the heroic triumph over obstacles”, but noted especially the social aspect, showing that triumph in the end would be one “over the obstacles that threaten the social order” and that victory would reaffirm notions as “fair play”, “respect for true values and cooperation” (Sobchack 14). He prefers to study how a group can survive as a “microcosm” isolated from society. The examples he uses are The Flight of the Phoenix (Aldrich 1965) and The Poseidon Adventure (Neame 1972). Thomas Sobchack points out that “most of the time in a survival film is spent depicting the process whereby the group, cut off from the securities and certainties of the ordinary support networks of civilized life, forms itself into a functioning, effective unit” (Sobchack 15). My work aims to define this cinematic (sub)genre – as widely and nuanced as possible. Although I agree that the social approach has its own justification, I do not consider it as the ultimate key of these films, nor as their last truth. I will try to get people’s portraits out of these stories. The “survival film” was defined as “the second large category” of adventure films genre (Sobchack 12). Doru Pop considers “survival films” as a “subcategory” of a unified action and adventure genre (Pop 320). For Thomas Sobchack, “the adventure genre is really a grouping of several more-well-defined genres – the swashbuckler, the war film, the safari film and the survival film” (Sobchack 12). He calls these four types of movies “genres”, even if some may prefer today to consider them as subgenres of this mega-genre of adventure films. A subgenre is defined as “a subset of a larger genre” (Benshoff 84) or as “a part of an existing genre but with a distinctive twist” (King no page). Initially, for the scope of simplifying my analysis, I will consider survival movies as a subgenre of adventure films, but, due to the contemporary tendency of “mixing and hybridization of genres” (Moine 155), certain cinematic stories of survival may be seen as subgenres or hybrids related to other genres (Pop 320). For example, The Martian (Scott 2015) may be considered a survival Sci-Fi, A Walk into the Woods (Kwapis 2015) may be labeled as a comedy and drama with at least one chapter of survival, Meek’s Cutoff (Reichardt 2011) is a survival Western and Wild (Vallee 2014) is a biographical drama with episodes of survival. A very important narrative element (Chandler 2) of survival movies is the limit situation. Survival films necessarily include at least one limit situation. I will try to study some films in light of the changes that limit situations bring into the characters’ lives. To be considered as an item of this subgenre, the episodes of struggle for survival must occupy a significant part in the film, if not the most important of its duration. From this perspective, in my opinion, the action of the films belonging to the survival

30  Survival movies defined through genre elements (sub)genre mostly takes place inside the limit situation and within the space generated by this situation. The simplest limit situations are triggered by the isolation in the middle of nature (often dangerous), in a narrow space or in the midst of a hostile population. The films containing these exceptional circumstances are the most illuminating and, starting from them, one can discover other types of events that play the same narrative role. A unique type of survival movies can be considered utopias and cinematographic dystopias, along with meditations on mankind survival. As an observation, I consider the so-called disaster movies as particular cases of the survival (sub)genre. Their distinctive feature is that the limit situation is unwilling and not just upon an individual, but on an entire community. Tim Dirks, on the contrary, looks at survival films as a category of “disaster movies” (Dirks no page). I consider the apocalyptic films to be a subcategory of disaster movies. They are actually disaster movies related to the idea of the end of the world. My analysis will obviously pay special attention to the quality films of the genre. Many of them I consider as true masterpieces, and such masterpieces often overlap the margin of a single genre, are “combinative in practice” (Grant 23). The genre itself cannot be considered as a static concept, but an entity that transforms itself, that gets new substance during the years (Neale 171). And if we accept to understand cinematic genres as processes, we have to accept the fact that they are in constant change. Some genres develop, others suffer an involution or they may even disappear. Some subgenres can develop to such extent that they become genres of themselves, if that ex-subgenre becomes (very) popular or if they contain many masterpieces. Will this be the case of survival movies?

2.4 Survival movies defined through their “genre elements” I will start my approach to “genre elements” from themes and stories whom Barry Keith sees fundamental for “narratives” (Grant 15). He considers that the stories of genre movies respect the pattern of the “narrative cinema”, as given by David Bordwell, and “they feature a common dramatic construction, focusing on an individual hero who must overcome obstacles to achieve a goal” (Grant 15–16). I find this pattern rather reductionist, as there are many movies presenting not just one character, but, a group. Characters of genre movies are defined as being mostly “flat” (“types” or “caricatures”) (Forester qtd Grant 17) and “actors and stars” are regarded as having a significant contribution “to the look of particular genres (…), becoming a part of their iconography” (Grant 19). David Bordwell said that usually a genre is “primarily” defined by a single element: “A Western seems identified primarily by its setting, a science-fiction film by its technology, a musical by its manner of presentation (song and dance)” (Bordwell a 147). I consider that the “primary” element of the survival movie is the theme. According to this, I define a

Survival movies defined through genre elements  31 survival movie as a cinematic story whose action takes place most of the time inside of the limit situation that jeopardizes the lives of the protagonists. The theme is the fight against bodily and spiritual death and the study of human nature under these circumstances. Once, in a famous study, Andre Bazin said: “The Western must be something else (…) than its form. Galloping horses, fights, strong and brave men in a widely austere landscape could not add up to a definition of the genre nor encompass its charm” (Bazin 142). With a similar understanding of things, I will try to define survival movies through some narrative and formal elements as they were enunciated by Barry Keith Grant, but, in the end, I will still keep in mind that the attraction the public has for this type of movies lies somewhere beyond these constituents, perhaps in the mystery of their stories and characters. Therefore, I will try to reveal this mystery using also the instruments of Christian anthropology. 2.4.1 The theme The theme “is the understanding that the author seeks to communicate through his work. It is the central and unifying idea about which the story is structured” (Milhorn 1). To me, the theme is the main idea, the deepest piece of human intuition that each artistic work should bring in the world. For the “commercial” works that are part of the so-called mass culture, this idea is rather a boring commonplace, for masterpieces it is a real deep piece of intuition, a concert of impressive and beautiful nuances that can change lives (Bodiu 169). For Thomas Sobchack, the theme of these films should be related to the survival of a group of people isolated from the rest of the society and trapped in a dangerous situation, to the comeback into the safety of civilization and to the moral values and qualities that were activated in people during this crisis (Sobchack 16). For me, the general theme of a movie to be included in the survival genre should refer to the depicting of the human nature while facing bodily and spiritual deadly menaces. In the following paragraph, I will draw this main idea from several movies of the genre. 127 Hours (Boyle 2010) asserts that you never know when you meet the rock that forces you to change your life for better. All Is Lost (Chandor 2013) tells us that when you think that everything is over, the help may come. Buried (Cortes 2010) testifies that, sometimes, no matter how hard you fight, you cannot avoid death. The Return (Russian: Vozvrashchenie) (Andrey Zvyagintsev 2003) tells us that we need to know how to behave one with another and how to show our love in the right moment and in the right way, before it is too late. Stalker (Tarkovsky 1979) says that it is difficult to get out of the comfort given by our preconceived conceptions in order to meet our true nature and the mysterious beauty of the world. The Grey (Carnahan 2011) claims that there will come a day when you have to live and die, that means to truly live, to be yourself, unspoiled, fearless,

32  Survival movies defined through genre elements unstoppable. Into the Wild (Penn 2007) teaches us that sometimes it is good to run away from the commonplaces, from the sufferings and from the compromises that the world forces us to accept. It teaches also that, when you meet the splendor of life and learn to forgive, you may not have the chance to come back and enjoy with others. Wild (Vallee 2014) affirms that life is a force, and sometimes you need to have the courage to gather all your power in a scream to get rid of the past, to understand that then you have a chance, the chance of a new beginning. 2.4.2 The story and the plot Barry Keith Grant considers that the stories of genre movies respect the pattern of the “narrative cinema”, as given by David Bordwell, and “they feature a common dramatic construction, focusing on an individual hero who must overcome obstacles to achieve a goal” (Grant 15–16). I find this pattern rather reductionist, as there are many movies presenting not just one character, but a group and the relations inside this group (Sobchack 12). Compared with the plot, the story renders the events in the order they actually occur. Story and plot may differ because writers use devices like flashbacks, recollections, introspections, and flashforwards so the plot does not always proceed in a chronological order. A story persists as long as there are problems to be resolved. (Milhorn 4–5) For Louis Giannetti, the story is “the general subject matter, the raw materials of dramatic action in chronological sequence” (Giannetti 338). The plot “is the sequence of events in a story as the author chooses to arrange them (…) Its purpose is to get readers (for us, viewers, my note) involved by creating tension so they feel a need to know what happens next” (Milhorn 4). Louis Giannetti states that the plot “involves the storyteller’s method of superimposing a structural pattern over the story” (Giannetti 338). It “involves the implied author’s point of view as well as the structuring of the scenes into an aesthetic pattern” (Giannetti 339). Thomas Sobchack considers that: the underlying structures of the survival film are similar to those of romance. They both emphasize the heroic triumph over obstacles which threaten social order and the reaffirmation of predominant social values such as fair play and respect for merit and cooperation. (Sobchack 16) I do not intend to discuss too many perspectives upon the concept of time, but only to present the way it is expressed and used in some survival movies

Survival movies defined through genre elements  33 to build up the plot. I will accept the concept of time, basically, in the definition that Gideon Yaffe gives to it: “By I mean temporal properties of, and relations among, events” (Yaffe 115). Yaffe stops on three ways of representing time in film: The three concepts of temporal representation to be analyzed are familiar to savvy filmgoers: (1) anachrony, in which the representations of the events are in a different temporal order from the events represented, of which the typical examples are flashbacks and flashforwards; (2) ellipsis, in which a film leaps over a period of time without representing anything that happens during that time; the couple embraces, for instance, and we cut to the two of them adoring their new baby; and, (3) slow- and fast-motion. (Yaffe 116) In 127 Hours, mainly the story respects the chronological order of the events, but flashbacks are used to render Aron’s scenes from the past that pop in his mind while he is blocked by that rock. Ellipsis is used to cover a 127-hour experience in approximately 1 hour and a half (the length of the movie). Fast motion effects help also to compress the events. Other times fast motion simply gives a more alert rhythm to the movie (along with the music), as it happens in the very beginning (see the generic). Fast motions are here combined with slow motions. Here the slow motions function like a sort of props, mysteriously anticipating the “something” that will happen in the canyon. Other time, the mysterious raven that passed above him while he is stuck in the ravine is render in slow motion, too. A sort of slow motion is used to show the dilatation of time caused by his physical exhaustion, just before his rescue. The rescue scene has also a slow rhythm. It combines the idea of physical exhaustion with that of relief and happiness (it is mostly render by sound. The intradiegetical sound little by little disappears, being replaced by music suggesting that the character cannot hear, that he is on the verge of passing out). The last fragment without sound renders a certain peace. At the end of the film, the character is regaining a sort of child gaze, and he rediscovers his family and friends after a painful journey. In the beginning of the film, we meet Cheryl, the main character from Wild, in some point of herself-imposed journey, in a very painful moment. She loses a boot in the abyss, and she has to pull her badly wounded nail from one leg. In a gesture of anger, despair and release, she throws the other boot into the abyss. When she tosses the boot, she delivers (unchains) a cry. In the rest of the film, we will find out how was the existence that gathered and occasioned this cry. From this point, the action of the movie comes back in time at the beginning of her trip along the Pacific Crest Trail, and it will go mainly in chronological order. This order of events is interrupted by several flashbacks that present her life, the relations with her brother, ex-husband, violent father and recently passed away mother. The movie is

34  Survival movies defined through genre elements organized as a puzzle of past events put in the frame of this journey. When the cry occurs again in the movie, slow motion is used to decipher and illustrate its motivations. This cry that appears here in its extended version needs to be shown in slow motion because it is needed to be seen in its full progress. It has force and consistency, a force that can trigger and explain the entire movie. “There is no second that goes by when I am not thinking at you in a way or another”, declares John Ottway about his deceased wife. This is one link between present and past in The Grey, whose action takes place mostly in the present. The other link to the past our hero has is the memory of his father expressed especially in the form of a poem his parent wrote. The events of the movie go in chronological order; short flashbacks are especially in the begging and in the end. A brief flashback, a journey to the recent past, can be considered the moment (close to the end) when John looks at the photos found in the wallets of his lost companions. The past will exert such a powerful influence on the present that his wife’s love and his father’s profoundly heroic poem will give John Ottway the reason and the power to fight the wolves to the end. Into the Wild begins in a moment, after the disappearance of Chris, with a scene in which his mom (being alone in the bedroom with Chris’ father) claims she has heard him, and that it truly was him and not an illusion. We do not know when exactly this moment happens, but we can assume that it serves as a moment to wake up the interest of the viewers about the reason that causes such pain to his mother. Perhaps it happens sometimes during these more than two years when Chris was wandering away from his previously known world. The movie goes from here as a puzzle of events (with some flashbacks) from which we can recompose the adventures of this rebel graduate of Emory University. The story from The Return is told chronologically. The insertions of the past into the present of the narration are made especially through photos. The ellipsis is used frequently. Slow or fast motions are rarities (I remember only one slow motion with the water in the very beginning and one with a rope that sinks when the dead body of the father sinks). Slow or fast motions are not used in the tensest moments. The images are filmed very in a very “natural” manner. In some scenes, time goes rather slow because of the silence kept by some characters (the old lady, the mother) and because of the focus on the scenography, on details. In Stalker, the story follows the chronology of the events. The rhythm is sometimes very slow (the fixed frames or the slow “travellings” are some means to express this). Other times the movie goes at a normal pace, realistic. Entering the Zone and crossing the security guard lines provide the film a little bit of action. Even several shotguns are heard. In rest, the film is very descriptive, insisting on the details of this quasi-abandoned and weird territory. The moments without any word are very long (see the beginning), as well the monologues (see that of the writer’s from the beginning) and the

Survival movies defined through genre elements  35 dialogues (e.g., the one that took place in front of the Room). The characters are few. The atmosphere is full of mud, fog and moisture. When they reach the Zone, green grass and trees appear among rusty piles of metal. Here flowers blossom, but “without scent”. Everything goes slowly, extremely slowly, until time seems to stop, and it stops somehow (because the action stops while the three characters sit down and in the Room it rains). We are now in the deepest center of the limit situation of the movie. It is marked by this peaceful rain. Of course, the movie has symbolic meanings. After that, there is an ellipsis and we find again the three characters in the bar (symmetrical as in the beginning). Silence again. Stalker’s wife comes in and takes him home. Out the daughter is waiting. The dog found in the Zone goes with them. The stalker suffers because of these people with “empty gazes” who “do not believe in anything”. He is extremely tired and falls asleep. Does his daughter receive an unexpected gift? In survival movies, the most important task of the plot is to build the limit situation. 2.4.3 The limit situation Below I will enumerate some concrete types of events that constitute themselves as limit situations, supporting them with examples, with the proper films titles. I consider that the most defining and “classical” limit situation for films of this genre is isolation in the middle of nature (often hostile). This appears in movies like The Grey, 127 Hours (Boyle 2010), All Is Lost (Chandor 2013), Wild, Into the Wild, Abandon Ship! (Sale 1957), Alive (Marshall 1993), Cast Away (Zemeckis 2000), Robinson Crusoe (Bunuel 1954), The Revenant (Inarritu 2015), the Open Water series or In the Heart of the Sea (Howard 2015). Sometimes, the spaces of the limit situation may be “artificial”, created by man, as the coffin in Buried (Cortes 2010); the cube prison (the Cube series); the mine in The 33 (Riggen 2015); the spaceship in 2001: Space Odyssey (Kubrick 1968), Gravity (Cuaron 2013), The Martian (Scott 2015); the car in Detour (W. Dickerson 2013) or Wrecked (Greenspan 2010); the submarine in The Chamber (Parker 2017) or Pressure (Scapello 2015); the upside down ship in The Poseidon Adventure (Neame and Allen 1972); the burning skyscraper in The Towering Inferno (Guillermin 1974) or Skyscraper (Thurber 2018); the empty condominium in Trapped (Motwane 2016), and the super-technologized house in Breaking In (McTeigue 2018), the cage surrounded by sharks in Open Water 3: Cage Dive (Rascionato 2017) or 47 Meters Down (Roberts 2017), or the train in Runaway Train (Konchalovsky 1985). Perhaps there could be at least two additional subdivisions relating to the “natural” spaces where the limit situations occur. The first is about survival films that happen on the seas and oceans. Of these, we only mention Lifeboat (Hitchcock 1944), All Is Lost, Abandon Ship!, Open Water series, In the Heart of the Sea, The Disappeared (Mitchell 2012) and The

36  Survival movies defined through genre elements Deep (Kormakur 2012). Shipwreck and life on deserted islands are motifs related to this theme of the sea (Cast Away, Robinson Crusoe). This second possible subdivision we are talking about contains survival dramas that happen on the desert and wild lands. Some characters of these films travel through the mountains or through the woods (The Grey, Wild, Into the Wild, Alive, The Revenant). Some struggle to protect their lives through deserts: Desierto (Cuaron 2015), Sands of the Kalahari (Endfield 1965), 127 Hours, Walkabout (Roeg 1971), and some through the jungle: Miracles Still Happen (Scotese 1974) and End of the Spear, Jungle (McLean 2017). Isolation in cosmic space may itself be a particular case of the limit situation as it happens in 2001: Space Odyssey, Gravity, Robinson Crusoe on Mars (Haskin 1964) or in The Martian. The presence of life-threatening animals may also represent a particular type of limit situation, as it happens in Birds (Hitchcock 1963), Open Water 1 and 3, the Jaws series, Into the Grizzly Maze (Hackl 2015), Grizzly (Girdler 1976), Damnation Alley (Smight 1977), The Grey, The Shallows (Collet-Serra 2016), 47 Meters Down, The Reef (Traucki 2010) or In the Heart of the Sea. Isolation in the midst of an enemy population is an opportunity for the characters to fight for their lives and freedom, as it happens in The Naked Prey (Wilde 1966), Apocalypto (Gibson 2006), ‘71 (Demage 2014), Behind Enemy Lines (Moore 2001), Jeremiah Johnson (Pollack 1972), Argo (Affleck 2012), Planet of the Apes (Schaffner 1968), River (Dagg 2015), No Escape (Dowdle 2015) or Lone Survivor (Berg 2013). The attraction that such situations have for the spectators resides in their simplicity. All the masks fall down from the faces of the characters and they fight far beyond their powers. In some of these movies, moments of surprising beauty and unexpected gestures of human solidarity from locals occur, as it happens in Lone Survivor or in ‘71. Sometimes these gestures are lacking. Then the whole limit situation has the appearance of a continuous hell, as it happens in The Naked Prey or in Apocalypto. The so-called trapped movies are a particular case of survival films. In these films, the characters want to come out of a space where they are confined and held against their will. Relevant titles for this category are The Towering Inferno, Skyscraper, The Chamber, Room (Abrahamson 2015), Sanctum (Grierson 2011), 127 Hours, Buried, The 33, The Poseidon Adventure, Pressure or Detour. The characters can reach an enclosed space accidentally or through a certain constraint. That’s why an additional theme in these “trapped movies” is that of an abduct or of a terrorist act. It is the case of Airport (Seaton and Hataway 1970), Buried, Captain Philips, Skyscraper, A Hijacking (Danish: Kapringen) (Lindholm 2012) or 7 Days in Entebbe (Padihla 2018). A special case – and one we have to underline because it is illustrated by quality films – is the theme of bandits or killers who struggle to save their own lives, but they cannot stop the approach of their death. Some of these films are Salvo (Grassadonia and Piazza 2013), Reservoir Dogs (Tarantino

Survival movies defined through genre elements  37 1992), Killing Time (Florin Piersic Jr) or Ghost Dog. Movies such as Salvo, Killing Time or Ghost Dog, in which the protagonists begin to regain their humanity and come out of the circle of violence, even with the cost of their lives, are the most interesting and suitable for moral discussions. Sometimes the limit situation consists in a disaster caused by the technology failure, as in The Towering Inferno (Guilermin 1974), Metropolis (Lang 1927), Soylent Green (Fleischer 1973), Gog (Strock 1954), Colossus: the Forbin Project (Sargent 1970), Fahrenheit 451 (Truffaut 1966), 2001 Space Odyssey or Tron (Lisberger 1982). In some cases, the loss of control over technology is related to the theme of the end of the world. Several films that can be identified at the intersection of these two themes are: Transcendence (Pfister 2014), Matrix (Wachowski brothers 1999), The Road (Hillcoat 2009) or The Omega Man (Sagal 1971), with its remake I am a Legend (Lawrence 2007). Another case of limit situation related to science and technology is that of people who are subjected to tests (psychological and not only) or to more or less credible experiments, as in Twelve Monkeys (Gilliam 1995), The Killing Room (Liebesman 2009) or Transcendence (Pfister 2014). The limit situation generated by natural cataclysms has been encountered in cinematography since the beginning, from The Last Days of Pompeii (Italian: Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei) (Caserini and Rodolfi 1913) and The End of the World (Danish: Verdens undergang) (Blom 1916). Among the many movies on this theme, the so-called disaster movies, I mention only a few: Deluge (Feist 1933), Tabu: A story of the South Seas (Murnau 1931), The Hurricane (Ford and Heisler 1937), Earthquake (Robson 1974), The Impossible (Spanish: Lo imposible), (Bayona 2012), Volcano (Jackson 1997), Deep Impact (Leder 1998), 2012 (Emmerich 2009) and San Andreas (Peyton 2015). In The Poseidon Explosion (Romanian: Explozia) (Drăgan 1973), most of the action happens before the disaster. The action is set on the Danube and it presents the interventions aiming to diminish the consequences that the imminent explosion of a ship carrying a dangerous load will have on the nearby city of Galați. A proper name for The Poseidon Explosion would be that of “defense film against a close disaster”. The prison or the asylum of fools, the deprivation of liberty (and the attempt to become free) are the themes of films such as Cool Hand Luke (Rosenberg 1967), Fly over Cuckoo’s Nest (Forman 1975), Escape from Alcatraz (Siegel 1979), Rescue Dawn (Herzog 2007), Papillon (Schaffner 1973), Bless You, Prison! (Romanian: Binecuvântată fii, închisoare!) (Mărgineanu 2002), Between Pain and Amen (Romanian: Între chin și amin) (Enache 2019), The Shawshank Redemption (Darabont 1994), Way Back, As Far as My Feet Will Carry Me (German: So weit die Fusse tragen) (Martins 2001) and A Twelve-Year Night (Spanish: La noche de 12 anos) (Brechner 2018). I treat the lack of freedom as a limit situation that generates several struggles for survival. It is about both the survival of the body

38  Survival movies defined through genre elements and of the soul, because the soul cannot live without freedom. Everyone (truly) normal and self-conscious must fight for his/her freedom and for that of the others. Death penalty is a big problem of the judicial systems that still accept it. It doesn’t matter how some people would try its legal justification, the condemnation to death remains unacceptable by human conscience. I consider the films on this theme as some of the fruits of this conscience that does not accept the crime, as pleas for life which is given by God and not by men, and therefore, it cannot be taken by men. It seems that the 1990s represented a very dense period in cinematographic masterpieces on this theme, such as The Chamber (Foley 1996), Dead Man Walking (Robbins 1995), The Green Mile (Darabont 1999) or Last Dance (Beresford 1996). The incurable disease, the imminence of death due to it, is the limit situation in films such as Life as a House (Winkler 2001), The Birch Wood (Polish: Brzezina) (Wajda 1970) or The Death of Mister Lăzărescu (Romanian: Moartea domnului Lăzărescu) (Puiu 2005). The way in which the characters react facing the possibility of inescapable death offers one of the most profound sights of deep suffering, but also of the human soul that can express itself freed from all the commonplaces. I regard bureaucracy as an expression of the constraints of the “civilized” world. Charles “Sully” Sullenberg, the character of Clint Eastwood’s film, and the protagonist of The Deep, the 2012 film of Balthasar Kormakur, will encounter it. It can be said that, because of the bureaucracy, both characters go through a sort of secondary limit situation, provided by the long official procedures and by the distrust of their peers. After saving the lives of all the people from the plane by landing on the Hudson River, Captain Charles “Sully” Sullenberg has to go through a long and exhausting investigation, which actually takes most of the film’s action. Gulli from The Deep, after miraculously saving his life from the frozen waters, has to endure the obtuse perception of those around him, along with countless tests and medical investigations that fail to clear anything. Viktor Navorski, the protagonist of The Terminal (Spielberg 2004), is stuck “between the worlds” in an airport for many days until his legal situation gets clarified. In fact, he is held prisoner by bureaucracy. The motif of the pariah, of the one who does not find his/her place in any society and that of the society/societies that exclude (and even kill) individuals because of their rigid rules, has constantly appeared since the beginning of the cinema. Murnau’s Tabu, a movie from 1931, provides an excellent example. Communism, Nazism and other criminal political regimes, because they attack people’s freedom and life, are sources of limit situations in a considerable number of films. For this reason, titles like Fox-Hunter (Romanian: Vulpe-vânător) (Gulea 1993), Bitter Harvest (Mendeluk 2017), Black Pimpernel (Swedish: Svarta nejikan) (Faringer and Hultberg 2007), Portrait of the Fighter as a Young Man (Romanian: Portet al luptătorului la tinereţe) (Popescu 2010), 1984 (Radford 1984), Fahrenheit 451, Equilibrium

Survival movies defined through genre elements  39 (Wimmer 2002), The 25th Hour (Verneuil 1967), Before the Fall (German: Napola – Elite fur den Fuhrer) (Gansel 2004), Under the Volcano (Huston 1984), The Inner Circle (Konchalowsky 1991), Katyn (Wajda 2007) and A Twelve Years Night can be interpreted as survival films. Sometimes, in survival movies, we can encounter a combination of threats, such as that of hostile nature and dangerous wild animals, like in The Grey, Backcountry (MacDonald 2014), or that of criminal political regimes (or of destructive attitudes) enforced by technology, as in Equillibrium, The Island (Bay 2005), Metropolis (Lang 1927), Matrix, Transcendence or Ex Machina (Garland 2014). Other times, the threat of “unfavorable” natural conditions (snow, cold, burn) appears together with that of some hostile people, as in The Flight of Phoenix, The Revenant, The Naked Prey, Black Robe (Beresford 1991) or in Desierto. Regarded from the point of view of the limit situation, a very interesting case is represented by Force Majeure (Swedish: Turist) (Ostlund 2014). What seems to be the limit situation is the fact that, while sitting on a restaurant terrace on the Alps, Thomas, his family and other people around them are caught on the icy dust of a controlled avalanche that rose higher than expected. It looked like the avalanche got out of control. During these events, Thomas got scared and, instead of helping his wife and two children, he ran quickly in a safe place while filming the scene. The event was a very quick one and passed very quickly. After the icy mist vanished, people took their seats again on the terrace, and the limit situation seemed to be over. But this is only the (what I call) external limit situation. It will trigger an “avalanche” of consequences for Thomas and his family, the inner or spiritual limit situation for them. The inner limit situation is represented by the fact that several times, when asked, Thomas denies that he ran away and left his family alone, exposed to a possible danger. His wife, Ebba, insists several times that he should admit he acted like this, but Thomas did not find the inner power to admit his cowardice. He won’t admit this even when the video of the event is shown in front of two of their friends, Mats and Fanny. He also won’t agree with the salvatory scenario proposed by Mats, who says that maybe Thomas ran away so he could come back later to rescue his family. He has at least the power not to accept a more complicated lie. His attitude of not accepting the truth and not acknowledging a moment of embarrassing cowardice creates a crisis in his family. Ebba does not accept that he continues to support a lie and the gap widens among them. The children notice the crisis the family is going through and suffer in silence. Finally Thomas has an outbreak of tears triggered by his conscience and tells Ebba that he is very unhappy because of his spiritual weakness. He cries and cries, and his family embraces him with love. During the next day, when Ebba gets lost, Thomas finds the courage to rescue her. It is a sign that he is healed of cowardice and that his family has now a strong leader. The inner limit situation, the case of “force majeure”, is overcome. At the end of the film another external limit situation occurs: while leaving

40  Survival movies defined through genre elements the skiing resort, the driver seems to not control the bus properly, and they decide to get down and walk the rest of the way. Thomas carries Harry, Mats helps Ebba by carrying Vera, Fanny goes with them, the whole group acts in communion. This way of solving another external limit situation is another proof that the inner limit situation was overcome. From the theological point of view, the limit situations may be considered as intermediate stations on the path to discover or rediscover characters’ humanity, namely the image of God inside them. But this image is a dynamic element which “tends towards likeness to God or to deification” (Stăniloae c 272). The image of God in people gives them “the aspiration towards its absolute model” (Stăniloae c 272). This model is Jesus Christ. For Father Dumitru Stăniloae, “an accomplished image is one that actualizes this movement of being God-like. An image that does not activate itself is one somehow weakened, but never completely lost” (Stăniloae c 273). This weakness makes the image of God less visible or almost invisible in people who do not live according to God’s will. Paul Evdokimov calls this state an “ontological silence” (qtd Stăniloae c 273). For some characters of survival films, the limit situations can break this “ontological silence” by revealing inside them very Christ-like behaviors. I will especially follow these limit situation cases. 2.4.4 The conflict Ross Hockrow defines conflict as “the dramatic struggle between two forces in the story” (Hockrow 39). He divides conflicts into six types, specifying at the same time that “multiple conflicts can happen simultaneously. All six types, in fact, can be present in the right story” (Hockrow 40). In this chapter, I will retain only four of types that I will cite with the names given by Ross Hockrow: (1) Relational Conflict (Human vs. Human); (2) Social Conflict (Human vs. Group); (3) Situational Conflict (Human vs. Environment); and (4) Inner Conflict (Human vs. Self) (Hockrow 41–48). I consider that what the author calls the “Paranormal Conflict (Human vs. Technology)” (Hockrow 54) can be seen as a particular case of situational conflicts. The so-called Cosmic Conflict (Human vs. Destiny or Fate) (Hockrow 51), beyond the fact that is rarely encountered in the contemporary films, can be situated at the intersection of the inner and the situational types of conflicts.

Survival movies defined through genre elements  41 the “David and Goliath” model (Bodiu 96). In films like Salvo (Grassadonia and Piazza 2013), Killing Time (Piersic Jr. 2011) or Ghost Dog (Jarmusch 1999), the total winning of the audience’s sympathy for the protagonists may be more difficult because they are not innocent; they are (formerly) paid killers (trying to become “good” guys). Beyond the Reach (J. B. Leonetti 2014) shows the brutal struggle for survival in the desert of a young man pursued by a rich man with a high performance car and gun. This is another instantiation of “David and Goliath” narrative type (Bodiu 96). The confrontation in The Edge is at first between two men and a bear, and then it becomes one between the two men that defeat the bear. It is a story about betrayal and its consequences, about survival and forgiveness. So, here is a mix of conflict types 1 and 3. Sands of the Kalahari (Endfield 1965) shows a case of survival of a group that remains isolated, because of an airplane crash, on some rocks in Namibia. The character that attracts the most attention is the anti-hero Brian O’Brian, who became the leader of the group by killing other people. Here appears the struggle of a person against his fellow-men. When the rest of the group is rescued, Brian chooses not to return to the “civilized” world. He does not want to respect any rules. He will remain in the wilderness and will be attacked by the baboons living on those rocks. He had provoked them before. Into the White (Naess 2012) combines the lack of confidence, the confrontation between two English aviators and other three German ones with the need to fight together, as a group against the circumstances. These five men have to decide either to kill one another or to try to survive together, isolated in a winter cottage in Norway during World War II. 2 Social Conflict (Human vs. Group). One of the most typical exemplifications of this type of conflict is provided by The Naked Prey (Wilde 1965). The action of the film is triggered when a group of white hunters, while being somewhere in Africa, ignore the fulfillment of a traditional custom. Their attitude will set off the rage of a local tribe. But, as typical as it is, even this film contains a combination of conflict type 3 and type 1. The films about authoritarian and criminal societies already mentioned in the chapter can be placed in this category of conflict. We talk about Equilibrium, Fahrenheit 451, The Island, Napola, Portrait of the Fighter as a Young Man, Somewhere in the East, The Killing Fields (Joffe 1984), Black Pimpernel, Bitter Harvest and Schindler’s List (Spielberg 1993). Films about madhouses and prisons, as Cool Hand Luke, Fly over Cuckoo’s Nest, Escape from Alcatraz, Papillon, The Shawshank Redemption (Darabont 1994), A Twelve-Year Night, Bless You, Prison! (Romanian: Binecuvântată fii, închisoare!) (Mărgineanu 2002), Poarta Albă (Mărgineanu 2014) or Between Pain and Amen (Romanian: Între chin și amin) (Enache 2019), obviously

42  Survival movies defined through genre elements pose a social problem and fall into this kind of conflict. Obviously, the films about the death sentence are also connected with social issues. Of course, here we have (at least) a combination of conflict types 2 and 4. 3 Situational Conflict (Human vs. Environment). This type of conflict refers to the “physical” external conditions that the protagonist/protagonists has/have to overcome. In this category, I place human struggle to survive in dangerous external conditions, but also against animals and other living things that endanger their lives. It is the case of some movies like Against the Sun (Falk 2014), Alive, Lifeboat, Abandon Ship!, Into the Wild, Everest (Kormakur 2015) or The Grey. Most survival films contain this type of conflict, but most often we find it combined with the other three types listed here. 4 Inner Conflict (Human vs. Self). It would be also right to name it a “spiritual” or “moral” conflict. In some movies, it does not appear alone, but in combination with type 1, 2 or 3. In Wild, the heroine makes a difficult journey to learn about her life, so we encounter at least types 3 and 4. Chris, the character from Into the Wild, runs away from the sufferings of the past and from the prefabricated destiny of an obedient high middle-class nerd. He struggles with his own weaknesses, with the painful memories caused by his parents and his own way of understanding life. Probably, in this case, we have all four types of conflicts. Aron Ralston from 127 Hours struggles with the rock that caught his hand, with the technology society he lives in, with his own physical pain and with the memories that illuminate his superficial and selfish way of life. Another case of man’s struggle against himself is that of movies where characters are struggling to regain their memory and identity, such as Wrecked, Memento (Nolan 2000), Detour (W. Dickerson 2013) or Unknown (Band 2006). Another situation, where a person struggles against himself, but also against a “circumstance” (which this time “works” inside his/her own body) is that of an incurable disease and of the imminence of death as in Life as a House, The Birch Wood or The Death of Mister Lăzărescu, films already mentioned above. Can we consider that we have here a combination of types 3 and 4 here? An interesting case that I also include in the survival film genre is that of a man who has done many murders and atrocities and who is trying to survive/to live with his conscience. His name is Franț Țandură, and the title of film is The Afternoon of a Torturer (Romanian: După-amiaza unui torționar), directed by Lucian Pintilie in 2001. The character feels the need to be judged correctly, to pay in order to be released. This film contains a large proportion of conflict type 4, though not only. I underline here the observation that the split of the conflict in these four types is done only to help us understanding more clearly how the opposing forces in films are organized. It is very possible that we will always encounter conflicts that combine at least two of these types (at least types 3 and 4).

Survival movies defined through genre elements  43 2.4.5 The characters Characters are “imaginary people (…) who appear to be real and believable to the readers” (Milhorn 7). Monica Fludernik calls them “protagonists of an anthropomorphic nature” (Fludernik 6), while Jens Eder, Fotis Jannidis and Ralf Schneider name them “fictive persons or fictional analoga to human beings” (Eder et al. 7). They are the “agents” of the action, parts of “the story world” (Bordwell b 6). Thomas Sobchack defines what he considers to be the typical character of survival movies: In these the hero is a part of a small group, relatively inconspicuous at first, who works with that group to ensure the survival against great odds and then returns to virtual anonymity after the danger is past and the group’s safety is secured. (Sobchack 14) I think that this characterization may be true only in Thomas Sobchack’s understanding of survival as referring just to groups of people and not to individual experiences. Regarded only from this external and mostly social point of view, characters in survival movies appear from a wide range of human types, with different ages, professions, with different interests, with different ways of understanding life. Thomas Sobchack has the same opinion in this matter: “We will recognize (…) a range of ethnic, religious, and economic types (the Jew, Catholic, black, Native American, Hispanic, rich snob, redneck populist and so forth)” (Sobchack 15). In other cinematic genres, there are specific characters (mandatory and defining for them). In Westerns should appear cowboys, in detective stories, detectives, in musicals there are singers, in war movies should be soldiers… (Eder et al., 42–43). All of these and many other categories of people could pass through a life-threatening situation, and fight for their spiritual and physical life, and thus become survival movie characters. Thomas Sobchack states that “the group in survival movies is usually made up of very distinct characters, almost caricatures” (Sobchack 15). This is not totally true, not even for group survival movies. For example, I consider Reverend Frank Scott from The Poseidon Adventure (Neame 1972) rather a complex and surprising character, more than a typical one. For the lone survival movies, Thomas Sobchack’s statement is not true at all. These movies depict characters in many details. It is the case of 127 Hours, Buried, 6 Below: Miracle on the Mountain (Waugh 2017), Solo (Stuven 2018) or Wrecked. As I have already said, the characters in these films exhibit a quite diverse social condition. Often, in limit situations appear soldiers – American Guerrilla in Philippines (Lang 1950), ‘71, Lone Survivor, Rescue Dawn, The Way Back, Katyn, Behind Enemy Lines, astronauts – 2001: A Space Odyssey,

44  Survival movies defined through genre elements Marooned (Sturges 1969), Apollo 13 (Howard 1995), The Martian, Robinson Crusoe on Mars, excursionists – White Water Summer (Bleckner 1987), 127 Hours, Backcountry, Jungle, No Escape, River, The River Wild (Hanson 1994), A Walk into the Woods (Kwapis 2015), alpinists – North Face, Everest, Vertical Limit (Campbell 2000), cave explorers – Sanctum, The Last Descent (Halasima 2016), prisoners – The Defiant Ones (Kramer 1958), Papillon, Cool Hand Luke, As Far as My Feet Will Carry Me, Escape from Alcatraz, miners – Iacob (Daneliuc 1988), The 33, fishermen – The Deep, The Disappeared, anti-communist fighters – Somewhere in the East, Bitter Harvest, The Portrait of a Fighter as a Young Man, and Christian missionaries – The End of the Spear, Black Robe, Silence. There are many movies about kids: Dirkie (Uys 1969), Walkabout (Roeg 1971), The Enchanted Grove (Romanian: Dumbrava minunată) (Naghi 1981), Rabbit-Proof Fence (Noyce 2002) and Alabama Moon (McCanlies 2009), to mention just some of them. Most solitary survival films are about men (127 Hours, All Is Lost, Cast Away, Robinson Crusoe, Buried, Detour), but there is at least one masterpiece about the quasi-solitary journey of a woman. It is Wild (Vallee 2014). Impressive is also the struggle to save her life for the heroine from The Reef, who faces alone a huge shark. The films that belong to the survival movie genre in which the protagonists are women have appeared since the beginning of the cinema. Two significant examples can be considered: City Girl (Murnau 1930) and The Wind (Sjostrom 1928). In Tracks (Curran 2013), the protagonist, Robyn Davidson, is not quite alone. She crosses the Australian desert with four camels and her dog. During her way, she meets from time to time photographer Rick Smolan who does the photos to cover her journey for “National Geographic”. During a part of the road, she travels with an aboriginal “elder” as her guide. Another hypostasis of woman in survival films is that of a mother struggling to protect the life of her child/children. I am thinking especially of three titles that belong to the “trapped movies” category: Panic Room (Fincher 2002), Room and Breaking In (McTeigue 2018). There is another woman, Emily Tetherow, who is the unforgettable protagonist of 2010 Kelly Reichardt’s movie Meek’s Cutoff. Thomas Sobchack states that women have a special place in the structure of group survival movies: It is interesting to note that even though the stereotypes abound – the self-sacrificing mother, the good-hearted prostitute, the loyal nurse, the frail creature reduced to hysterics – women often play a decisive role in the success or failure of the group in survival films. (Sobchack 15) Through her complexity, power and delicacy, Emily Tetherow goes beyond the stereotypes mentioned above.

Survival movies defined through genre elements  45 The rich – The Edge, The Towering Inferno, Avalanche (Allen 1978) and middle-class people – The Impossible (Spanish: Lo imposible) (Bayona 2012), Sully (Eastwood 2016), 127 Hours and the poor – The Grey, The Road, The Pianist (Polanski 2002), Wild – can become protagonists of this kind of films. Peasants can also be caught in survival situations – 25th Hour (French: La vingt-cinquieme heure) (Verneuil 1967), Bitter Harvest, Someplace in the East (Romanian: Undeva în Est) (Mărgineanu 1991) The same thing is true also for amateur or professional sailors – In the Heart of the Sea, Captain Philips, postmen – Cast Away, The Postman (Costner 1997), aviators – Sully, The Snowalker (Smith 2003), athletes – Alive, Unbroken (Jolie 2014), scientists – Colossus: The Forbin Project (Sargent 1970), Gog (Strock 1954), The Omega Man, and for intellectuals or artists – The Pianist, Into the Wild, Far from Men (French: Loin des Hommes) (Oelhoffen 2015). Talking about plot and characters, Thomas Sobchack says that, in adventure movies in general, “two major plot structures are clearly discernible. One focuses on the lone hero (…) and the other focuses on the hero interacting with a microcosmic group” (Sobchack 12). In my opinion, from the point of view of the number of protagonists, survival movies cover different situations, ranging from solitary survival to those in groups of two, three and even larger (all the crew and the passengers from a ship or a plane, all the people who are in a skyscraper, in a city, an important group of a people, a community, e.g., the Jews from Schindler’s List, the Japanese Christians as they appear in Silence), the whole mankind (as in apocalyptic films). Of particular interest are the films in which the characters are lonely in the struggle for survival, and thus is presented the ability of man to fight for his life (soul and body). What are the limits of this human capacity? Impressive are the experiences the characters from The Naked Prey (alone from a point), All Is Lost, Buried, Detour, 127 Hours, Into the Wild, Wrecked, River, The Martian, The Reef, The Revenant, Wild or The Grey (at the end) go through. Sometimes these solitary characters are helped by their peers who are outside the limit situation. This human solidarity is the one that adds beauty and emotion to films like The 33 (where miners trapped underground are saved by an entire community) and The Martian (where Mark Watney’s colleagues choose to come back, making a long and dangerous detour to guide and save him). In The Grey, the spiritual help, the motivation comes for the hero through some of characters from the past (the wife and the father) whom John Ottway carries in his memory. The power of words over time and over death suggests something about the spiritual and immortal character of the human being. Sometimes the help given by those outside to those in trouble fails and then tragedies happen, as in Buried. In movies where there are two protagonists, they can be a he and she (lovers) like in Open Water (Kentis 2003), Adrift (Kormakur 2018) or

46  Survival movies defined through genre elements Backcountry, mother and child, as in Panic Room or Room, father and son as in Life is Beautiful (Italian: La vita e bella) (Benigni 1997) or The Road (Hillcoat 2009). In other cases, we meet two children that become friends – Lost in the Barrens (Scott 1990), or two lifetime friends, as are Bill Bryson and Stephen Katz from A Walk into the Woods. Other times between the two protagonists of a survival story a complicated relationship develops: they can be almost enemies, and finally almost brothers (through forgiveness), as happens to the white army officer and the old Indian warrior in Hostiles, Pasha and Sergei from How I Ended This Summer. John “Joker” Jackson and Noah Cullen, the protagonists from Stanley Kramer’s The Defiant Ones, a famous pair of characters – a white and a black guy – are obliged to wear the same chain in their run for freedom and, finally, will become brothers, too. Groups of three persons appear in movies like The Return (a father and his two sons), Breaking In (a mother and her two kids), Walkabout (an aboriginal boy and two white brothers, a boy and a teenage girl), Rabbit-Proof Fence (three aboriginal girls), Marooned and Apollo 13 (three astronauts) or Open Water 3: Cage Dive (Rascionato 2017) (three young American tourists). Other films tell the survival stories of larger groups, some of them occurring after a naval catastrophe, as in Lifeboat, Abandon Ship!, The Poseidon Adventure, Titanic (Cameron 1997), or after some aviation accidents, as in The Flight of Phoenix, Alive, Sands of the Kalahari or The Grey. The 33 presents the story of a group caught in a mining accident in South America. A Hijacking, Airport, Captain Philips or 7 Days in Entebbe (Padiha 2018) show groups of people taken prisoners during attacks. Images of families that pass through limit situations appear in older and newer movies, of which we mention Swiss Family Robinson (Anakin 1960), Panic in Year Zero! (Miland 1962), Breaking In or Skyscraper. Families that appear in No Escape and The Impossible have to fight for their own survival, but this is happening in a background of a wider tragedy, such as the change of political regime somewhere in Asia in the first film, or the devastating tsunami that hit Thailand, in the second. Other times, films reveal catastrophes through which an entire people go. It happens in Somewhere in the East, The Killing Fields, Black Pimpernel, Bitter Harvest or Schindler’s List. Atomic disasters become subjects especially for the films of the 1950s and 1960s, such as Panic in year Zero! and On the Beach or Five. They, like other movies that talk about community catastrophes, national catastrophes or the end of the world, describe a universal event and, within it, isolate a character, a group or more. An additional question related to that of characters it that of the actors. So, is it the star system important for survival movies? Are there any emblematic actors for this type of movies, as are John Wayne, Clint Eastwood and Gary Cooper for Westerns or Peter Falk, Telly Savalas and Humphrey Bogart for detective movies? It seems the answer is negative! Although

Survival movies defined through genre elements  47 Reese Witherspoon (Wild), Ryan Reynolds (Buried), Emile Hirsch (Into the Wild), James Franco (127 Hours) and Liam Neeson (The Grey) provide extraordinary performances in these roles, they do not play series of survival movies to become the stars of this type of films. Survival stories usually render extraordinary, unrepeatable events, so they cannot be played by the same actor. An exception may be considered Liam Neeson who also played in Schindler’s List (Spielberg 1993) and Silence. 2.4.6 The setting The “setting” is seen as “the physical space and time – where and when a film’s story takes place” (Grant 14). Therefore, I will consider both the spatial and temporal settings. Considering the setting as “physical space”, Thomas Sobchack notices that survival movies are “located primarily in a contemporary context” (Sobchack 14) and considers that their “settings, costumes, and situations tend to be less exotic and more immediately familiar to the audience” (Sobchack 14). In my understanding, this provides the opportunity to move the accent from the description of the setting to the study of characters’ inner life and struggle. From the spatial standpoint in survival movies, I notice a narrative scheme according to which the main space of the action is placed between two so-called cover spaces, representing the settings for the beginning and for the end. Often, the cover spaces, initial and final, are identical. It is, in fact, the same space, A, a space where other people are present, a space governed by social rules, where (usually) threats to characters’ lives do not occur. The existence of these two cover spaces at the beginning and at the end of the movies are implicitly accepted by Thomas Sobchack. He notices that “at the beginning of the survival film, the various characters are shown in everyday situations without life-threatening stress” (Sobchack 15). The end of the movie means “the closure of the adventure”, and it “always returns the viewer to position of social conformity” (Sobchack 16), as it was before the crisis. The initial space, A, is changing (sometimes very suddenly) in the moment when the limit situation is established. “Then the characters are separated from the society as a whole and confronted with the problem of survival” (Sobchack 15). The new setting (B) is in fact the real space of the action, the main “narrative space” (De Valt and Arnold 86). A and B are, at the same time, radically different and communicant, in the sense that there are objects that “flow” from one to another. For the movies of this genre, the space B is often represented by nature. The exit from this “new setting” is equivalent with the desired end of the limit situation. When this escape is successful the character/s reenter/s in the “old setting”, A, that now proves itself as cover space. Therefore, a general narrative scheme for survival movies, written in terms of spaces and their changes, will look like this:

48  Survival movies defined through genre elements A-B-A How is space B, the space of the action, established in some movies of this genre? In 127 Hours, the rock is blocking Aron’s arm, making him prisoner in a Blue John Canyon ravine. Cheryl, the main character from Wild, is imposing herself to travel the entire Pacific Crest Trail, the 2,659 miles (4,279 kilometers) trail that goes from California to British Columbia, Canada. The group of oilmen from The Grey crashes with the plane and falls in Alaska wilderness. It is winter, and they will be fiercely hunted by a pack of killer wolves. Chris, alias Alexander Supertramp, the protagonist from Into the Wild, flees from the world he was living in and travels through the United States. In the second part of his adventure, up to a certain point, he tries to isolate himself in a wild area of Alaska. In The Return, the recently comeback father is taking his two sons, Andrei and Ivan, on a trip to an isolated island. In Stalker, the main character is leading a writer and a man of science through the Zone and to the Room. In Buried, at the beginning of the movie we find space B already established. It is represented by the coffin in which Paul Conroy is kept prisoner by his kidnapers. In survival movies the space, especially space B, is also more than a “physical terrain” (Fowler and Helfield 6). In movies as The Grey, Stalker, 127 Hours and even in Into the Wild, it is a mysterious presence, I dare to say that it is a sort of a mega-character. It often represents, entirely or through some of its elements, the opposite force, the main challenge that the characters have to face. This space B is represented many times by nature, sometimes hostile, some other times calm and calming source of revelations. In 127 Hours, the so-much desired space of the weekend trip turns itself into a (more than a weekend) trap, a challenge that Aron needs to overcome. He wins by understanding the vivid revelatory message that this situation opens in his mind. Aaron also dares to overcome the pain in order to release himself. The rock that is blocking his arm takes him away from his rapid, superficial and selfish life. It pins Aaron and “forces” him to meditate about all his past attitude and behavior. The exit from space B “costs” him a part of one arm, a lot of pain, but it provokes the beginning of his inner change. In Wild, the space B is represented by the Pacific Crest Trail. Nature is seen as a space of adventure, as a pause in Cheryl’s “old life”, as a challenge for her perseverance, as pain, as an occasion for meditation and relieving. It is the beginning of the healing. She, like Chris from Into the Wild, seeks in nature an escape, a space of beauty, normality and of purity. In another context, Kenneth Clark dares to name this purity “the inherent holiness of nature” (Clark 132). Nature is a gift offered by God to humans, that is why we may feel such a great affinity to it. And going further, in nature as God’s creation, we may feel a “trace” of the Creator, as it is said in one of the “Psalms”: “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handwork” (Psalm 19:1). From this “trace” of our common Creator may come the healing power of nature.

Survival movies defined through genre elements  49 The immense, huge spaces that in Wild (perhaps in contrast with the narrow ones from the city) bring with them a flavor of deliverance, of freedom (this idea is supported by the song El Condor Pasa from the soundtrack that appears as a refrain of the movie). Cheryl gets out from this immense space changed. She is taking control over her own life, as a new life. For the humans from The Grey, the space B (as an external space) is one exclusively hostile. This hostility is compensated by the mildness, by the softness and the warmth of the inner space. This is represented by the loving image of his dead wife who is encouraging him (“Don’t be afraid!”) and by one childhood memory of him and his father (this memory will provide the superb poem that will trigger in his soul the courage to keep fighting). The hostile space is expressed by the extreme cold, the snow, the blizzard and especially by the killer wolves that relentlessly pursue them. The space B looks here like a huge and unbreakable trap. From it, John Ottway is ready to exit heroically. In Into the Wild, space B is represented by the places Chris travels, and especially by the zone around the bus that is his home in Alaska wilderness. The spaces through which he travels and the nature offer him moments of knowledge and revelations. Nature appears also as a danger and as trap, from which he cannot get out when he decides to return among people. Writing about the book of Jon Krakauer, Hannes Krehan remarked the same idea about the events related to the death of Chris: “By an ironic twist of fate it is now nature which confines whereas civilization could be his rescue” (Krehan 6). The space B is here a trap, a place of death, of regret, as well as one of deliverance and splendor. The space of the action (B) is represented in The Return by the places father and sons are traveling together. In the center of this trip, there is the space of the climax: the island, place of confrontation between Ivan and his father. It is a space of tragedy, of a too late disclosure of the barely guessed, stormy love between father and sons, between sons and his father. It is the space of their brief encounter. After father’s death, the boys come back to the “world” alone. Are they destroyed? More mature? Both? In Stalker, the space of the action (B) includes the entire “setting” of the journey. There is here, as in The Return, a secret space, the most intimate space toward which the whole action is led: The Room. I also understand this movie as an inverted survival movie where the real space of the limit situation is the entire world outside the Zone, while the Zone and the Chamber are the only secure and desired spaces. Here the stalker wants to escape and to bring more and more people. He, as he once says, feels at home in the Zone. The space outside it, meaning by this the rest of the world, is muddy, and ugly, and dull, and full of “heavy” silences, of unfulfilled dreams, of unhealed sicknesses. Perhaps this is why time goes here so slowly. In Buried, there is only the space B, a trap-space, the coffin in which the main character finds himself buried alive, forced by his kidnapper to make phone calls asking several persons for ransom. He is also asking authorities

50  Survival movies defined through genre elements for help. The lack of space is used for torture and blackmail. The tragedy of Paul Conroy is expressed through the impossibility of leaving the place where he is prisoner, as in The Grey and Into the Wild. Paul is closer to the status of a victim. He is a victim, but not a coward. He has fought, he has tried, he has hoped. His situation is desperate. He has no proper means to act for his release. He dies suffocated, crushed. David Bordwell observes that “the symmetries between openings and closings suggest that narration is a system that’s put into motion across the whole film” (Bordwell b 11). The initial space (A) contains significant, sometimes symbolic, sometimes premonitory images that will discover their meaning and importance along the movie. I will try to focus my attention especially on the symmetrical relation between cover spaces (initial and final), as it appears in some movies, and I will discuss the composition of these images. For Peter Ward, composition means “arranging all the visual elements in the frame in a way that makes the image a satisfactory and a complete whole” (Ward 10). He is talking about “mass, color and light” as elements of the composition (Ward 10). I will discuss the images especially as static frames, so I prefer to understand them as a “complete whole” made of “mass, color, and light”. Therefore, let’s see how these elements work together in order to compose some cover spaces/images. I will try to analyze them for some particular survival movies. In the beginning of the movie, director Danny Boyle uses the multiscreen effect split into three, with the main character in the middle in order to present the world as a mob from which Aron is getting out. In the first picture, we see all the characters from the back, everybody minding his own individual goal in a world full with technology. The people from the left and from the right images use moving stairways to go. The light is medium, artificial; the colors are vivid and also artificial. The frames from the left and right are overcrowded. Aron is leaving this crowded world that is moving in a very rapid rhythm. He is also very rapid. At the end of the movie, we see people from their faces. The world remains overcrowded, but now it is a familiar and warm place. In the middle frame, Aron is swimming (under water) toward it. Swimming looks like flying, the blue color of water may suggest the blue color of the sky. It suggests mobility and freedom. When he gets out, he will see his beloved people, family and friends. He is symbolically living and breathing their love. In Wild (Valle 2014), Cheryl, the main character, appears standing in front of immense landscapes in the beginning and the end of the movie. In one of the frames from the beginning, we discover a place (a landscape) that is to become a space while “practiced” (de Certeau 117), populated by a hand and a boot. These are Cheryl’s hand and Cheryl’s boot. The boot that broke her nail and caused her a lot of pain. The boot that will fall down in the valley by accident. The other boot will follow it thrown by the angry Cheryl. This will trigger her wild and powerful cry against all her life:

Survival movies defined through genre elements  51 “F--k you, bitch!” In the image, we have a small hand of a woman placed in front of a huge landscape. The camera is placed close to the ground level. There are stones almost everywhere in the plan close to us, stones, trees and steep valleys in the remote plan up to the horizon. The nature is now somehow arid. It is now a source of pain. A huge challenge. But, this woman with a very tormented life can face it. At the end of the film and at the end of the Pacific Crest Trail, we see her as a winner. Nature does not look as arid and dangerous as it was in the beginning. There is a forest and a lake. The huge landscape means now victory, achievement, revival, purification, freedom. In the same left part of the frame, where, in the beginning of the film, we had the hand with the boot, now we have Cheryl’s face looking to her future across the immense lake and forest. In The Grey (Carnahan 2011), the immensity of nature and the immense force of man mark the beginning, and respectively the end of the film. The very first image of the movie is an extreme wide shot with a mysterious and menacing nature. Everything is dark gray: the sky, the clouds, the mountains and the forest. The sound we hear is indistinct: maybe the wind, maybe the howl of a wolf, maybe both, maybe none. The camera is slowly moving to the right around its axis enlarging the space and reinforcing the idea of the immensity of nature. The action of the movie builds up the perception of nature as a huge trap. The vengeful wolves are the symbols and the agents of it. In the last frame of the film, we see the only being that is more immense than nature: the man when he gathers all his forces to fight. The symmetry between the beginning and the end of the movie lies here in the contrasting way of shooting. The extreme wide shot from the beginning has its contrasting correspondent in the extreme close up one from the end, with the face of the character. His blue gray eyes can face the blue dark gray of the whole nature, with wolves included. In Into the Wild (Penn 2007), Chris’ face is the leitmotif of the human figure in the beginning and the end of the film. The very first image of the movie represents the photo from the bedside table of Christopher’s mother. It is a sort of extreme close up image of his son. In the bedroom is rather dark, and mother suddenly wakes up after she had a dream with Chris. The focus is on the human face. This photo can be the symbol of the guilt and love of his parents. It can be also very provocative in itself: what universe of thoughts and feelings lies under this face? The movie will try to reveal it, but not to exhaust it. The photo represents a still shot, but the life of Chris was still going on at that time. There is a picture near the end of the film that is, in my opinion, a sort of climax of the whole action. It represents a desired/imaginary, but also a symbolic situation. It is about forgiveness, reconciliation with parents, about death, splendor and revelation. This is an extreme close up shot about Chris’s wish to embrace his parents in the last moment of his life.

52  Survival movies defined through genre elements This image is somehow symmetrical with the first, but now he is looking straight up to the sky. He belongs forever to his parents, but, at the same time, he has to leave. The large scene from which the shot belongs presents Chris running toward his parents, and this run is syncopated (in the rhythm of the heart) by flashes of light, by the presence of the sky. The colors are now bright, warm and vivid. The true important view is offered by the face of the actor and by his eyes full of light. After the analysis of the images that serve for cover spaces in these four movies that I consider some masterpieces of the genre, I draw the conclusion that there is no simple pattern for images used in these films. Danny Boyle is using the multiscreen. Jean Marc Valee is using extreme wide shots of landscapes marked by the presence of the main character inside them. Joe Carnahan opposes the immensity of nature to the immensity and determination of human nature rendered in the details of an extreme close up shot. Sean Penn reveals also the details of the human face filmed in extreme close up manner, but he is also using, at the end, the movement of the camera that goes from Aron’s face up to extreme large aerial shots. Every director designs the images very flexibly according to the message and beauty he wants to convey. I conclude that there are no pattern images for all contemporary survival movies, since especially the masterpieces cover a wide range of stories, constructions and artistic manners. Of course, we need to notice the frequent presence of nature that dictates the essence and the composition of the images. I must say that time, along with what I called above “space B”, are often the main “enemies” of the protagonists in survival movies. Films such as The Poseidon Adventure (Neame and Allen 1972); The Towering Inferno (Guillermin 1974), 127 Hours (Boyle 2010), Buried (Cortes 2010), Sanctum (Grierson 2011), Detour (W. Dickerson 2013), All Is Lost (Chandor 2014), Pressure (Scapello 2015), Trapped (Motwane 2016), The Last Descent (Halasima 2016) or The Chamber (Parker 2017) confirm this statement. In Buried (Cortes 2010), we witness only the time of the limit situation. This time is the main enemy for Paul Conroy. His fight for survival while being kept prisoner in a torturous space of a coffin is a race against time. The passing of time is marked by several ellipses, at least some of them caused by Paul’s periods of sleep or fainting. After each ellipse, every new encounter with the character becomes more emotional and harder to be seen. One way of marking the passing of time is rendered through the discharge of the mobile battery. His phone is the last visible connection with other people and with the outside world. It is also a survival tool. He fails in finding a solution, time stops there for him, and he dies buried in the sand that pours into the coffin. The last scene shows him at the verge of being asphyxiated and crushed by the falling sand, like he was trapped in a huge deadly clepsydra. Observation According to the “quantity” of the survival story presented in the movies, one could distinguish two categories of films.

Survival movies defined through genre elements  53 Genuine (full) survival movies are designed to present their characters under a certain menace and to depict their struggle for life. At first, this may appear as a struggle for the survival of the body, but moral issues frequently occur, and these are manifestations of the soul. The characters should face the limit situations by taking into consideration both body and soul, and some of they do. One of the best examples in this respect is offered by the protagonist from Arctic. In many of these films, I notice the existence of false rescue salvation chances (for example, a plane or a ship that passes near the survival drama protagonist and does not stop). In Adrift (Kormakur 2018), a huge ship that could have saved the characters actually crushes the boat. In Alfred Hitchcock’s Lifeboat, people are not saved by a German ship because they are considered enemies of war. In Arctic, the supposed rescuers crush with their helicopter and die, except one woman. She is wounded and will receive the care of the stranded man she came to rescue. From a rescuer, she became a rescued person. They either respect the narrative scheme of the limit situation space framed by the two “cover” spaces (initial and final, see the ABA scheme presented in Chapter 2) or their entire (present) action happens inside the space of the limit situation. In the first group fits the great majority of genuine survival movies. Of those whose action takes place only within the limit situation, inside space B, I mention Arctic, Buried and All Is Lost. These films constitute the undeniable “core” of the survival movies category, the ones that certify its existence. Partial survival movies contain only some episodes, some events that can fit into a survival story. Dersu Uzala (Kurosawa 1975) takes place at the beginning of the 20th century and tells the story of the friendship between Russian captain and explorer Vladimir Arsenyev and Dersu Uzala, a Siberian native belonging to the Goldi population. Dersu is a true man of the wilderness and he met captain Arsenyev while he served as a guide for him and his soldiers while they were in a mission of mapping a remote Siberian area. This friendship is described in several episodes, but only one of these is actually a true survival story. It describes the moment when the captain and Dersu are surprised by a snowstorm in an open space and they are lost from the group. Dersu saves captain’s life. They make together a reed shelter in which they manage to survive the frozen night. In Sully (Eastwood 2016) and The Deep (Kormakur 2012), the events that occur after the end of the genuine limit situation represent an important part of the story. The events that happened during the limit situation are put under the magnifying glass of public opinion, mass media and authorities. From these perspectives, sometimes different variants of understanding the events are built up. These perspectives may question the credibility and veracity of the story told by the survivor. A historical movie like Shackleton (Sturrige 2002) contains plenty of events that are not genuine survival stories, but rather collateral and explanatory ones. In a movie like Jaws 2 (Szwarc 1978), only the climax of the movie presents the real menace and the fight for survival. I am talking about the episode when the group of teenagers is

54  Survival movies defined through genre elements stuck in the ocean, hunted by the huge shark. The story finds its resolution after this moment, with the death of the shark. Another partial survival movie may also be considered Roberto Begnini’s La vita e bella. Only the second half of the film (the labor camp episode) could be literally seen as a “genuine” survival story. Triple Frontier (Chandor 2019) is a story of a heist in which a survival episode is included, in the form of a run through the mountains. From the perspective of the “classic” definition that Thomas Sobchack gave to the genre (Sobchack 12), The Return (Russian: Vozvrashchenie) (Zvyagintsev 2003) can hardly be considered a survival movie. The film can be divided into three parts: the first, before the father arrives, the second, with the father, and the last, again without the father. Of these, only the middle one (and especially the episode on the island) can be considered to be close to a soft “classic” survival episode, until the tragedy is triggered. But the tragedy is exactly the climax of the film. We have here a change of attitude: the severe father is now revealing himself as a loving one just few moments before becoming the victim of his love and care for his too sensitive and stubborn child. The father is now revealing his true heart. It is the day he really succeeds to live and express himself. It is also the day he dies (see the poem from The Grey). This is why, for my perspective, this film is one about the survival of the spirit, and more precisely, about how a spirit finds, even for few moments, its appropriate way to live and to express itself. Into the Wild can be considered a biographical adventure film that reports several episodes of Christopher McCandless’ life, of which only the last one (that takes place in Alaska) can be considered a genuine survival story. Another way of interpreting this film is to be considered as an entire survival story of a person that cannot live obeying the social routine. Routine life is painful and unconceivable to him. He was also very deeply wounded by the behavior of his parents during his childhood. His soul cannot survive with these two pains, and he tried to cure them by the extreme act of giving up everything and wandering through the country. This last interpretation (about the spiritual survival) introduces the presentation of the next subgroup, that of the spiritual survival movies. Spiritual survival movies are a new category I propose and they refer especially to the survival of the soul. Spiritual survival movies cover a rather diverse and complex spectrum of stories. Some of them were not seen by previous researchers as survival movies because they mostly refer to the survival of the soul, to moral issues as sin, guilt, betrayal, repentance, searching for truth, love and real freedom. Without thinking of them, a human cannot live as a rational and moral being, as a complete being. That’s why I consider movies as 24: Redemption (Cassar 2008), Trade of Innocents (Bessette 2014), Carga, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (Jones 2005), Three Bilboards over Ebbings, Missouri (McDonagh 2017), The Return, Fox-Hunter (Romanian: Vulpe-Vânător) (Gulea 1993), Trahir (Mihăileanu

Survival movies defined through genre elements  55 1993), Q.E.D. (Quod erat demonstrandum) (Gruzsniczki 2014) and even Stalker as survival movies. Some of the best exemplifications of the idea of spiritual survival are the Romanian films about political prisoners of the communist period. Although the artistic realization of films as Bless You, Prison! (Romanian: Binecuvântată fii, închisoare!) (Mărgineanu 2002), Poarta Albă (Mărgineanu 2014) or Between Pain and Amen (Romanian: Între chin și amin) (Enache 2019) may be a subject for many discussions, they still can be considered as mandatory artistic reactions from an era that violently denied the importance of freedom and of understanding the human person as the image of Christ. According to Demostene Andronescu, for political detainees, often life in prison, namely the loss of the external freedom, meant the acquisition of an inner, spiritual liberty. Many of them gained, between the walls of prisons and in chains, the true freedom that gave them the strength to continue, to all levels, the fight for their life. This time, however, their struggle was carried on in spirit, and the spirit cannot be defeated by the brute force (Andronescu 275). The Red Tent (Russian: Krasnaya Palanka) (Kalatozov 1969) is a historical survival movie about the crash of the airship Italia in the Arctic area near the North Pole in 1928. The crew was led by the Italian general Umberto Nobile. Seventeen persons, members of the crew and rescuers among which was the famous explorer Roald Amundsen, died during those events. The film presents the survival situation and also discusses, in the form of a trial of “shadows”, the moral responsibility of the Italian general in managing the events after the fall of the aircraft. General Nobile chose to leave first the scene of the accident with a two seats rescue plane. He left (unintentionally) his subordinates to remain longer on the ice because the weather conditions became worse in the meanwhile and the plane could not come back for them. These people were saved after a while by a Russian ship. The film begins with the image of the general as an old person. He cannot sleep because of the remorse caused by those events, and therefore, he summons an imaginary trial with the key characters. The film analyzes the moral implications of general’s inappropriate gesture done during that exceptional conjuncture from 1928. The general physically survived those events, but his soul must also find a way to survive remorse. The imaginary Amundsen who appears in the trial gives him a solution by telling him to forgive himself. I think that this is an incomplete solution because it refers only to a psychological mechanism. The true forgiveness and the peace of the conscience must also include the relationship with God. Another film whose substance consists in debating a decision taken during the limit situation is Sully (Eastwood 2016). Wild (Vallee 2014) can be seen either as a travel movie through nature with some survival episodes or as a spiritual survival movie. This woman could not live her life as she did in the past, and traveling along the Pacific Crest Trail, she is looking for a spiritual cure and a new way of dealing with this “wild” energy called life. Cheryl is, as herself said, “lost and found on the Pacific Crest Trail”. Sometime people

56  Survival movies defined through genre elements tend to make moral compromises to keep their bodies alive. Surviving the body by accepting these compromises can severely damage the life of the soul. Both body and soul form a unity, and they are both “good”, but the soul (which includes the mind in the Christian conception) must lead the body. Because these creations reach this issue they are some of the most promising movies for theological analysis.

2.5 Conclusions In survival movies, the space of the action is one of the limit situations. This space can be exclusively hostile (as in The Grey, Buried), sometimes hostile, other times beneficial (as in 127 Hours, Into the Wild), beneficial (as in Wild), beneficial for some people, indifferent for others (Stalker), a space of tragedy (The Return)… Getting off this space (B) and coming back to the initial one (A) seems to be a pretty general narrative scheme for movies belonging to this genre. Survival stories are sometimes narrated as flashbacks – rather partial (see Into the Wild) – or as puzzles of events that combine the present with the past (it is the case of Wild). Some of them are told in the chronological order of the events, but few important moments of the past are placed in the action in order to explain the behaviors of the protagonists, as happens in The Grey, The Return or 127 Hours. Movies as Stalker or Buried follow the “real” chronology of events, and use long scenes interrupted by several temporal ellipses. Time seems to expand, especially during the most important moments of the limit situation. Sometimes this is rendered in slow motions as in 127 Hours or Wild, sometimes by the lack of action as in Stalker, sometimes simply through “realistic” filming as in Buried or in The Return. In survival films, space and time are, at the same time, “external” elements that constitute the frame of the action and “inner elements” that participate in the action. Characters fight against space when it represents a menace to their lives, and in these cases, time is one of pain and suffering. Time goes sometimes too slow (127 Hours, Into the Wild, Stalker), and in other cases too fast (toward death as in Buried, The Return). Time and space are impregnated and oriented by human experiences. This chapter describes several survival movies from the narrative perspective. I am aware of the fact that some of the observations I made are very concise, that I could have mentioned other films too, that this text can be considered only like a frame for further possible analysis. If we imagine the genre of survival movies as the inside of a diamond, we can regard these narrative elements, along with the setting, as some of its sides. Looking through each of these transparent sides, I hope that I have depicted (with every element of narration studied) a new image of the same diamond. I have done this to look at it, to enlighten it and understand it in a more

Survival movies defined through genre elements  57 diverse and more complete way, without the disappearance of mysterious areas, I hope. In conclusion, I will synthesize a description of survival movies according to their narrative/genre elements. The theme (with its variations) describes humans fighting death and trying to preserve their bodily and spiritual life. The plot generally follows (with some exceptions, such as Buried or All Is Lost) the narrative scheme of the action placed mainly in the space of the limit situation, with this space kept between two “cover spaces”, the initial and the final ones. The initial and the final space are pretty much the same (Sobchack 15–16). To be considered a survival movie, a film should have its action placed (entirely or partially) inside this life-threatening limit situation. The conflict usually shows one person or a group fighting against circumstances or other beings, or fighting against himself or herself. That is why these movies are suitable for a theological approach. The social status of the characters is very diverse. The focus of these movies is on the study of human nature while menaced by death and on the reactions/transformation of the heroes during and after the limit situation. Thomas Sobchack defined the typical character of these movies rather simplistic, considering the contemporary evolution of this sort of creations: “The hero of the survival film comes to the fore because his skills of perseverance, practicality, and leadership are needed by the group, but once the group reenters the large society, he is willing to disappear into the crowd” (Sobchack 16). Today survival movies take a different direction than that of a group of films supporting “the idea of stability and regularity in the workings of the social order” (Sobchack 16). I consider that today the most successful films of this kind contain stories of lone characters looking to escape from the corrupt/technologized society and to find solutions of problems that occur in their lives. Other types of characters are victims of accidents, kidnappings, severe diseases, etc. That is why in these new films there are so many close shots with the faces of the protagonists (All Is Lost, The Grey, Into the Wild). The spatial and temporal setting (Grant 14), space and time, act often as enemies of the protagonist while he/she is inside the limit situation. The space is a menacing one because it does not belong to the comfort zone of the character, it imposes him/her to find urgent solutions, to have the right attitude in order to survive. The objective time acts, too, often as an enemy (e.g., in some movies food become little by little insufficient, the breathable air disappears second by second). Often this objective time of the story is intermingled with flashbacks, and becomes a time of the conscience, a time that depicts the inner life of the characters.

3 A historical overview

This chapter is presenting a chronologically ordered description of many films considered to be important for outlining and detailing of the survival movies genre profile. There are even silent movies that can be considered survival movies or that contain elements that bring them closer to this group. Some of these titles include The Last Days of Pompeii (Italian: Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei) (Caserini and Rodolfi 1913), The End of the World (Danish: Verdens undergang) (Blom 1916), Metropolis (Murnau 1927), The Wind (Sjöström 1928) or Tabu: A Story of the South Seas (Murnau 1931). The Last Days of Pompeii (Italian: Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei) (Caserini and Rodolfi 1913) is mostly a story about love and intrigue, narrated in a very slow style and (for today’s spectator) superfluous. The protagonists of the film are the intrigue maker Egyptian High Priest Arbaces, Glaucus, his beloved Jone and the blind slave Nydia. The final part of the movie contains survival elements. One limit situation is generated by the eruption of the Vesuvius volcano that destroys the city of Pompeii. This cataclysm wipes out all the intrigues and the human ambitions. (To render this idea, the film shows the city and the landscapes during the eruption in reddish nuances.) Just love lasts and escapes from the catastrophe. Love is symbolized by Glaucus and Jone who, both, will escape at sea in a boat. Nydia starts walking into the sea. Does she commit suicide? If the answer is affirmative, for some it may be considered a heroic attitude according to some moral principles of the antiquity, but it is unacceptable for us, Christians. The End of the World (Danish: Verdens undergang) (Blom 1916) is a story about the relationship between a father, mine foreman West, and his daughters, Edith and Dina. Edith is the good one, and she’s in love with Reymers. Dina, against the will of his father, runs away with the mine co-owner Frank Stoll. The limit situation is triggered by the news of the comet’s coming. This information has at least two consequences: it is economically speculated by Stoll and it agitates the crowds against the rich people (Dina and Frank Stoll will be killed by this crowd). The announced comet hits the earth, all the people seem to have died, except the preacher, Edith and Reymers. Edith finds Reymers in the devastated landscape after the catastrophe. A man, a woman and their love can mean a new chance for

58

DOI: 10.4324/9781003356912-4

A historical overview  59 the rebirth of the world. The comet destroys the world, purifies it and gives the chance for a new beginning. The film is far too simple, predictable and moralistic. The bad girl is punished and the good one remains alive. The Wind (Sjöström 1928) tells the survival story of Letty Mason, a young woman who moves from Virginia to the Western Prairies. The wind is an overwhelming, frightful presence in this place that is called, perhaps, with ironic connotation “Sweet Water”. The wind is everywhere and blows sand everywhere. Letty, played by Lillian Gish, is delicate and extremely impressive. She feels lonely and helpless among these presumingly rough cowboys and lost in this huge space ravaged by the wind. This represents the limit situation. The wind is a symbol of this and a continuous menacing presence. The character, played very dramatically, with exaggerated gestures and attitudes by the feeble Lillian Gish, seems almost all the time on the verge of madness. I dare to put together to a certain degree this character with Carol from Repulsion (Polanski 1965), played by the young Catherine Deneuve, as portrayals of hypersensitive women. Each of these two characters bears the characteristics of the personal style of the actress who played it and of the epoch. Letty goes beyond the limit situation, and the movie has a happy ending. Although, in the beginning, she married the farmer Lige Hightower constrained and without loving him, she ends up saying that she loves him and wants to work together with him. This love makes her not afraid of the wind and of all the threats it symbolizes/ represents. A somehow similar story lives Kate, the female character from City Girl (Murnau 1930), but without the neurotic component of Sjöström’s film. Kate falls in love and marries quickly with young farmer Lem Tustine, who came to Chicago in order to sell the wheat harvest from the parents’ farm. They both leave Chicago. She arrives from town on the plains of Minnesota, where she has to face Lem’s father’s mistrust and the violence and the rude pressure of the hired reapers. Between Lem, who behaves most of the time as a shy and week person, and Kate mistrust appears. They are close to break up, but, in the end, will remain together. Old Tustine asks forgiveness from Kate and tells him that his farm is from now on her home. Kate and Lem win, the limit situation is overcome. Tabu: A Story of the South Seas (Murnau 1931) is a silent movie. It is a tragic love story, a sort of Romeo and Juliet played in the Southern seas. Matahi and Reri are put in a limit situation by the fact that Reri is chosen according to some pagan beliefs of their island and she becomes “tabu”. She cannot marry. The couple runs away in another, more westernized, island. Here they make a huge debt after they organize a big party. Matahi has to try to find a special pearl in order to pay their debts. In the end, Hitu, an elder of their tribe, discovers them and writes Reri that Matahi’s life is in danger unless she comes back to their native island. Reri “surrenders”, she goes with Hitu. Meanwhile, Matahi has found the expensive pearl he was looking for. It is of no use now. He follows the boat carrying Hitu and Reri,

60  A historical overview but he is not taken inside on it. He dies drowned. There are two limit situations here, defined by the two spaces, the two islands: one that occurs due to the traditions of their native island, and the other one provoked by the villain merchants of the modern society. The movie can be also analyzed as having one limit situation placed in two settings. Either way, it seems there is no place for their love. Noah’s Ark (Curtiz and Zanuck 1928) is a partially silent, partially sound film bringing together over time a very little biblical story of Noah and the Flood and a history of the First World War about friendship, love and, of course, war. The film contains quite unbelievable situations (for example, most people who are taken prisoners or threatened – see Miriam, Japhet or Marie – do not oppose or fight for their lives). It is a film that meditates on the punishments and power of God, about justice, about the survival of humanity through history, about greed and war, about peace. The final message is one of great hope and a pacifist one. Unfortunately, the history of the world after the First World War was no peaceful at all. Deluge (Feist 1933) is a sound movie and is probably the first plain survival film. The limit situation is caused by a series of earthquakes or a very long earthquake that destroys all cities and the entire American and European civilization at least. The struggle for the survival of the few people who did not perish in cataclysm occupies most of the film’s substance. This fact claims for this movie the status of the first modern survival film. In previous movies as The Last Days of Pompeii (Italian: Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei) (Caserini and Rodolfi 1913) or August Blom’s The End of the World (Danish: Verdens undergang), the survival stories were concentrated mainly in the second half. Felix Feist’s Deluge contains, as Panic in Year Zero! (Milland 1962), the idea that some people take advantage of the temporary disappearance of rules and institutions in order to act wildly and harm others. The community will unite against these people and eliminate them. The end of the film shows the world devastated by cataclysm at a new beginning. The community chooses a leader who has proven his qualities and life is recovering, ruled by better laws, it seems. How long will this normality last? It is mandatory that, after a certain period of time, things should go wrong? It is mandatory that, after a certain period of time, governments stop serving communities they are chosen by? King Kong (M. Cooper and Schoedsack 1933), interpreted as a survival film, is a history of the survival of the isolated Skull Island people as well as the survival of the enormous King Kong monkey in New York. Gone with a team to make a film in an exotic place, actress Ann Darrow is kidnapped by the locals and is given to King Kong. The giant gorilla protects her, leads her into an area populated by immense dinosaurs and reptiles. The sailor Jack Driscoll saves Ann. The scenes are of great violence: everyone is fighting with everyone: King Kong kills a dinosaur, a huge snake, a flying dinosaur; it kills people and destroys the village. In turn, people fight with Kong (the natives, with spears, the sailors, with modern weapons). The

A historical overview  61 sailors are trying to flee, King Kong follows them. It will be stopped by an explosion, captured and brought to New York. Here Kong will try to survive; it kidnaps Ann again, fights the whole city, derails a city train and kills at least one innocent woman. At the end, it will be shot down from the Empire State Building by machine guns mounted on planes. The New Yorkers look usually preoccupied with the sensational, but when King Kong escapes and “the show” becomes real, their lives are endangered. Because of violent scenes, survival is the concern of most characters from the film. Limit situations are generated by “mismatches”. People seem inappropriate in that wild area populated by dinosaurs where King Kong lives. Kong, in its turn, is a monkey that is inappropriate for the world of people; it attracts attention, interest and causes also fear. It’s too big and horrifying, so it seems it cannot be loved, although it needs peace and tenderness. Of course, the character’s construction, a monkey with human experiences, is questionable. The film contains at least an unbelievable, disturbing coincidence (when King Kong appears in a huge skyscraper right at the window where Ann and Jack are). Disturbing is also the victim attitude of Ann who does not make any gesture to defend herself. Her reaction related to the giant monkey is too simplistic: she is simply scared of it all the time, though she might look at it with a certain mercy. The “special effects” and the number of figurants need to be mentioned. San Francisco (Van Dyke 1936) is a movie about music and love. The last 20 minutes, those depicting the destruction of the city at the 1906 earthquake, introduce into the cinematic story elements of disaster/survival movie. Things to Come (Menzies 1936) is a science-fiction movie done after a work by H. G. Wells, a meditation on war and peace, a dystopia about the survival of mankind. Situations and characters do not have psychological profoundness. There is no emphasis on their complexity, perhaps because of the moralizing character of this dystopic fabula. The Hurricane (Ford and Heisler 1937) has Jon Hall starring Terangi and Dorothy Lamour as Marama. Terangi is a local guy and the first mate on a ship. He loves Marama and marries her. During a trip to Tahiti, he hits a white man who has offended him. He is sentenced to jail and tries to escape several times and eventually will be sentenced to 16 years in prison. He will escape and return home, on the island of Manukura. Governor of the island, DeLaage, is a law enforcement fanatic and wants to catch Terangi. When a hurricane kills almost all the inhabitants of the island, and his wife will be saved with Terangi’s help, the governor becomes more humane and leaves the ex-sailor to escape with Marama and their little girl. The limit situations are multiple: the incarceration, the prison escapes, the life as a fugitive – for Terengi, and the hurricane for all the people of Manukura. Terengi’s individual survival battle is the subject of the first half of the film, and the community struggle to save itself from the hurricane occupies part two. The hurricane is a catastrophic event that leaves the island deserted, but it is also an opportunity to test the character of

62  A historical overview the people. Father Paul acts as a true parent for all the inhabitants of the island offering them shelter in the church. When death seems imminent, he chooses to die in the church as a sign of his faith and devotion. Terengi demonstrates that he is a generous soul when, together with his family, he will fight to save the wife of the governor, his pursuer. Terengi, who has become, because of his many escape attempts, a legend of the uninhibited desire for freedom, now appears to be a kind man, too. The Hurricane is a film not only about the human vocation for freedom, but also about helping those who try to harm us. Like Terengi, doctor Samuel Madd, from The Prisoner of Shark Island (Ford 1936), who has been unjustly imprisoned, also helps those who harm him, the soldiers that hold him prisoner. A yellow fever epidemic broke out between the soldiers, and doctor Madd cures them. As a reward, he is released and returns home. The theme of homecoming has been also one of particular importance in The Hurricane. The classic Western Stagecoach (Ford 1939) is also a survival movie. The famous story of the nine characters traveling from Tonto to Lordsburg, under the threat, to a certain point unseen, of the Apache Geronimo’s warriors, has as the main theme and motivation the struggle for life. The limit situation takes most of the time of the film. The space of this limit situation is mainly the diligence that runs through dangerous waste lands. There are, of course, the points where the stagecoach stops. These are insecure spaces that carry the same threat. Throughout this dangerous journey, some characters remain what they seem to be from the very beginning. It is the case of Buck, the stagecoach driver, naive, talking about his Mexican wife and about family life troubles, of Peacock, the shy whiskey salesman, and of Lucy Mallory, a strong and introverted personality looking for her husband, a military. She will give birth on the way. For other characters, this journey will reveal a different essence from the one presumed according to their appearance. It is the case of Gatewood, who, under his respectful look, turns out to be a crook. The drunken doctor Josiah Boone proves that he is able to understand the real important moments (like the one when Lucy Mallory gives birth), and he shows himself to be a good doctor. He pulls himself together and both, the child and his mother, preserve their lives because of him. Sheriff Curley, who seemed a rigid law enforcer, turns out to be very humane and empathetic at the end, and he lets Rick and Dallas escape. Hatfield, the one labeled as “the gambler”, turns out to be a real gentleman (protecting Lucy). He dies in battle, as a hero. Dallas, banned from Tonto for being “a prostitute”, helps Lucy when she gives birth. She earns her respect and gratitude. Rick, who was labeled at the beginning of the movie as the outlaw, turns out to be a kind soul that does not mind Dallas’ previous life and insists to take her to his farm and have her as a wife. The limit situation is an occasion for the characters to meet each other and to reveal their true nature.

A historical overview  63 Lifeboat (Hitchcock 1944) is a complex survival movie. The limit situation is triggered by the sinking of a vessel and of a German submarine. These catastrophes bring together a highly eclectic group of characters. The film analyzes the way the cope to live together, trapped in the small space of a boat. American Guerrilla in Philippines (Lang 1950) is a highly propagandistic war movie about the resistance of Filipino people and some American soldiers against Japanese during World War II, while they are waiting for the return of General MacArthur and his troops. The movie is predictable and the end is bombastic. The limit situation points out the life of these soldiers behind enemy lines. This is a typical limit situation that occurs in this hybrid war and survival movie. This approach is plainly visible in contemporary movies such as Behind Enemy Lines (Moore 2001), Black Hawk Down (Scott 2001), Argo (Affleck 2012), Lone Survivor (Berg 2013) or Fury (Ayer 2014). Five (Oboler 1951) tells the possible story of the last five people (four men and a pregnant woman) who survived an atomic catastrophe. They find refuge on a top of a mountain. The movie intends to build up an atmosphere, to be meditative and symbolic, but ends being improbable and full of clichés. At the end, only the woman and one man, who is a poet, survive, and they start cultivating the fields. They represent the hope for the rebirth of mankind. When Worlds Collide (Mathe 1951) imagines the “coming” collision between Earth and planet Bellus. The only chance for people to survive is to build a spaceship and to move to planet Zyra. The moral issue is related to the decision about who is to be saved and taken on the ark-like spaceship, because the fuel seems not to be enough for all to get to Zyra. Day the World Ended (Corman 1956) builds up a plot that gathers together seven people who try to survive after an atomic catastrophe in the house. They are menaced by radiations, and also (perhaps) by an atomic “mutant” monster. This so-called “monster” is afraid of water and will stupidly die when the rain comes. The characters, the situations and the end are predictable and boring. In movies like Gog (Strock 1954), 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick 1968) or Colossus: The Forbin Project (Sargent 1970), a part or the entire limit situation is caused by computers that rise against men trying to destroy them. It opens the theme of technology that works against men that will be developed in Tron and Matrix series. I will deal with the topic in a separate chapter. Robinson Crusoe (Bunuel 1954) is the story of a man who learns to know himself and to appreciate simple things. He will sow and cultivate plants, and after harvesting he will say: “I worked for my bread”, but despite of this, he feels absolutely meaningless and without any goal to attain. Desperate, he screams to the sea “Help!”. On this island, which is a kind

64  A historical overview of prison, but also a school, he learns to master everything. He will master himself through prayer (he says Psalm 23: “The Lord is my Shepherd”). A  response from God will come by sending him a man to be his friend. After 18 years of isolation, he sees another man’s trail! This is an extraordinary moment of the movie! Friendship with Friday will make the ten years that will follow the most beautiful years spent on the island. He teaches Friday about Christianity, about God, devil and temptations. Robinson admits that after 28 years on the island, the desire to escape is still burning inside of him. Finally, he will leave the island. In his place, he leaves some pirates as prisoners on the island in order to change their lives. Before the departure, Robinson is asking Friday, but the question is rather to himself: “You are not a little afraid of coming back to civilization?” Abandon Ship! (Sale 1957) is a tough survival movie based on the true story of Alexander Holmes and his companions gathered around a lifeboat after the shipwreck of “William Brown” in 1841. The entire movie of Richard Sale takes place inside the limit situation, in the middle of the ocean. About 20 people try to escape on a lifeboat designed for only 9 people. The captain of the ship dies, and the executive officer, Holmes, remains in charge. After a certain period of time, he realizes that the boat and the supplies cannot keep all of them alive. The main issue of this film is what is right and what is wrong to do in an extreme situation like this. Officer Holmes has to take decisions, and he sends to death mostly the people he thinks they have less or no chance to survive. He decides to sacrifice some of the people to create the best chances for others to stay alive. It is an unbearable task, and, still, Holmes manages to bear it. Has he done the right thing? This remains an open question, and it gives quality and substance to the movie. The play of the actors, and especially that of Tyrone Power, in the role of Officer Holmes, is remarkable. The Last Survivors (Katzin 1975), another movie that deals with these events, tells the story in a different way, by alternating scenes from the trial of Captain Holmes with events from the sea. On the Beach (Kramer 1959) may be called “a requiem for a dying world”. It imagines how the world would look after the start of War World III and after the use of the atomic bomb during this war. The northern hemisphere already died, and the film shows how the effects of this catastrophe extend to the south. In Panic in Year Zero! (Milland 1962), the limit situation is also triggered by a nuclear explosion. The film follows how an American middle class manages to survive in the circumstances of civilization’s collapse generated by the explosion. By presenting their odyssey, Ray Milland actually intends to present a possible destiny of humanity confronted with such a catastrophe. The motif of the family in a post-atomic or in a futuristic world appears also in movies like The Road (Hillcoat 2009) or Just a Breath Away (French: Dans la brume) (Roby 2018). The classic Birds (Hitchcock 1963) is about the survival of humans, threatened by the aggressive behavior of animals. It inaugurates the fashion

A historical overview  65 of movies about hoards of animals raised against people. This tendency was present especially in the 1970s, in movies like The Swarm (Allen 1973), Kingdom of the Spiders (Cardos 1977), Day of Animals (Girdler 1977) or Terror out of the Sky (Katzin 1978). Damnation Alley (Smight 1977) brings also to the scene huge mobs of aggressive roaches. Starting from Jaws (Spielberg 1975), the motif of the killer sharks will inaugurate a long lasting fashion – to mention only movies like Cyclone (Cardona Jr. 1976), Jaws 2 (Szwarc 1978), Open Water (Kentis 2003), The Reef (Traucki 2010) or Bait (Rendall 2012). Robinson Crusoe on Mars (Haskins 1964) is, as the title says, the re-writing of Robinson’s story placed on Mars. This modern Robinson is Commander Draper (played by Paul Mantee). He has a monkey named Mona. On Mars, humans are kept slaves by so-called “aliens”, and Friday is one of these slaves. He is rescued by Draper, but, as all the slaves, he wears a collar, and because of it they can be traced by “aliens”. After many attempts, Draper manages to cut it off. Draper collects the debris of his destroyed spaceship. They are elements of human civilization, and he improvises starting from them. He searches the planet. In this movie, as in the contemporary Ridley Scott’s The Martian, the key for survival is the proper use of intelligence in order to find solutions for every challenge. Cornelius Wilde is the author of two extremely violent survival movies: Naked Prey (Wilde 1966) and No Blade of Grass (Wilde 1970). The first is a lonely survival movie about a white hunter in Africa who is caught, released and hunted to be killed by some young Bushmen because, previously, he and his fellows offended their tribe. No Blade of Grass is a disaster group survival movie. Mankind is at the verge of extinction because of pollution, of famine caused by the lack of crops and of an infection with a virus that brings madness and aggressive behavior on humans. In Sands of the Kalahari (Endfield 1965), the limit situation is installed when a small plane crushes and the survivors find themselves isolated in the desert. They find their temporary shelter on some rocks populated by a group of baboons. The Flight of the Phoenix (Aldrich 1965) is a classic survival movie about the crash of a cargo plane in the desert. The limit situation is determined by the aridity of this waste land, by the limited quantity of water they have and by the menace of some local people. The solution will come from a German engineer who plans to build a new plane from the scraps of the one that fell down. It is not an easy task, taking into consideration the fact that, besides the fact that some of them find difficult to trust a German, they will find out that Dorfmann, this German engineer, was a designer of model (not of real size) aircrafts. Finally, they manage to work together and they will escape flying this “rebirth” plane. We understand from this story that human civilization has the ability to renew itself when people put together their knowledge, intelligence and hard work, and when they have a common goal. A remake of the movie was done in 2004 by John Moore.

66  A historical overview The 25th Hour (Verneuil 1967) can be interpreted as a survival movie. It is the survival saga of Johan Moritz (played by Anthony Quinn), a peasant from Romania. History seems to play games with his life. During World War II, firstly he was sent to a labor camp, accused to be a Jew. After that, he is obliged to impersonate the “Aryan” prototype. After the war, he is persecuted by both, Russians and Americans, which consider him a war criminal. Finally, he reunites with his family. In the case of this film, the limit situation covers a long period, a part of somebody’s life. The Planet of the Apes (Schaffer 1968) can be interpreted as a fantastic survival film. The only idea I want to mention is the dystopic character of the film, its warning character about the survival of the human species: if people are evil and make mistakes in leading the world, several catastrophes may happen. Marooned (Sturges 1969) is a film adaptation of Martin Caidin’s homonymous novel (Pilato no page) about three astronauts who, after completing their mission in space, cannot come back to Earth because of the lack of fuel. This film belongs to a certain kind of survival movies, the “lost in space” type like Robinson Crusoe on Mars (Haskin 1964), Gravity (Cuaron 2013) or The Martian (Scott 2015). From The Omega Man (Sagal 1971), we find worth mentioning only the atmosphere of the cities without people, with boulevards without people and shops without people. It is a weird atmosphere of loneliness and melancholy that reminds me somehow of the ravaged San Francisco as it appears in On the Beach (Kramer 1959). Walkabout (Roeg 1971) tells the survival story of a teenage girl and her younger brother, who wander through the Australian wilderness after their father kills himself in the desert. From a certain point, they travel together with an aboriginal boy. The limit situation is, for the white youngsters, about survival in this wasteland. For the native boy, it is about how to survive the fact that he falls in love with the girl and he is ignored by her. He does not survive this. It is a movie about a tragic “brief encounter”, about the huge gaps between cultures and worlds. Jeremiah Johnson (Pollack 1972) could be considered by some more an adventure film that happens in nature than a true survival movie. It could also be said that the character is a very superficial one, that he does not make any gesture that deserves to be remembered, except that he walks a lot through nature and he tries to get along just like all mountain men do. But it is the way he traverses his family’s tragedy and the way he manages to stay alive so many years in such a tough world with Indians looking for him that earns him respect and makes him a legend, one of survival. It remains a feeling of freedom, watching the last image of this mountain man climbing the snowy slope. It is also a mixture of loneliness and desire for communion in the salute with which the film ends. Zachary Bass, the main character from Man in the Wilderness (Sarafian 1971), is also a survivor. But he, like Hugh Glass from The Revenant

A historical overview  67 (Inarritu 2015), is kept alive by his will of revenge. He seeks revenge against his ex-companions who left him to die after he was badly wounded by a bear. The story is rather boring and foreseeable. An image that could last in the memory of the viewers is that of the Captain Henry’s expedition that carries a ship on wheels. With its 137 minutes, and with its long introductory part, which lasts “almost the entire half of the film” (Keane 18), Airport (Seaton and Hathaway 1970) may be considered by some of today viewers rather outdated and boring. The limit situation is installed in the final part of the movie, when a desperate man provokes an explosion inside a Boeing 707 that flies from Chicago to Rome. The explosion damages the rear of the plane by puncturing a hole in the fuselage and causing a decompression in the plane. The plane is kept under control by the pilots, but it needs to come back and land in Lincoln Airport, near Chicago. Here, the “runaway 29”, which could have been proper for landing, was blocked by another plane. Finally, people from the airport manage to clear this runaway, and the damaged Boeing 707 lands safe. This limit situation changes lives of people. Mel Bakersfeld, the airport manager, decides to deal more with his personal life. He leaves with Tanya Livingston, a colleague from the airport. After these events, the relationship between Captain Vernon Demerest and the injured stewardess Gwen Meighen, who is pregnant with their child, looks like a real deep love. This movie opens a fashion about real or possible airplane catastrophes in the 1970s, called the “airport” genre. From this series, I mention Airport 1975 (Smight 1974) and The Concorde… Airport ’79 (Lowell Rich 1979). During these years appear also several plane crash survival films as Miracles Still Happen (Scotese 1974), Hey, I’m Alive! (Schiller 1975) or Survive! (Cardona Jr. 1976). With movies like The Big Bus (Frawley 1976) and Airplane! (Abrahams and Zuker 1980), we have the “disaster” theme treated in a comic way. The Poseidon Adventure (Neame and Allen 1972) is the second film mentioned by Thomas Sobchack to illustrate the existence of a survival movie genre (Sobchack 15). It presents the story of a group of people fighting for survival in a capsized ocean liner. Soylent Green (Fleischer 1973) is a dystopian survival movie built as a detective story. It is about a future world in which mankind suffering from starvation is controlled through alimentation. A policeman will discover a dark secret: that the authorities start feeding the population with Soylent Green, a product made out of other people driven to commit suicide in an organized and “pleasant” manner. In The Towering Inferno (Guillermin 1974), a huge fire bursts because the builders of “The Glass Tower” did not respect the indications for the project of the electrical system as made by architect Doug Roberts. People who attend the inauguration ceremony and the inhabitants of the “highest building in the world” find themselves trapped inside of it. Chief of the San Francisco firemen, Mike O’Halloran, along with Doug Roberts, are leading

68  A historical overview characters in the fight for survival. When city authorities have the idea to explode the water reservoirs from the upper floor in order to extinguish the fire, they are the two who put this into practice and save some (not all) people’s lives. Finally, the limit situation is over. Around 200 people died. The movie can serve as a meditation about how imperfect and even dangerous are the things that man builds up. Is man a builder by nature or is this only an act of pride? Doug has an ironic answer to this question, embracing his beloved Susan in front of the ruined building: “Maybe they just have to leave it the way it is: a kind of shrine of all the bullshits of the world”. The movie casting contains many stars from Steve McQueen and Paul Newman, to Fred Astaire, Richard Chamberlain, O.J. Simpson or Faye Dunaway. The Earthquake (Robson 1974) is built on the same formula of the two men that save lives during a catastrophe. Here, the limit situation is determined by a series of earthquakes that destroy Los Angeles and cause a flood by making Mulholand Dam to collapse. These two friends are Stewart Graff (played by Charlton Heston), an ex-football player, and Lou Slade (played by George Kennedy), a policeman. Movies like The Hurricane (Ford and Heisler 1937), The Defiant Ones (Kramer 1958), Cool Hand Luke (Rosenberg 1967), Papillon (Schaffner 1973) or Escape from Alcatraz (Siegel 1979) can be considered as a specific sub-category of survival movies that I name “prison survival movies”. “Cool Hand” Luke, “the defiant innocent” sent to prison (Detweiler 117), is one of the most interesting and powerful characters of this type of films. He “survives” even when he dies. “That Old Luke’s smile” remains in his friend’s Dragline memory. He is beaten, incarcerated, he escapes, he is shot and caught, but he never gives up. To survive means to never give up, to remain what you are. Luke’s smile conveys intelligence, humor and endless determination. And beyond all, love for freedom. Luke teaches us that this love for freedom is one way of expressing the essence of the human beings. In Avalanche (1978), the limit situation is created by the foolish projects of people, projects that do not take into account the natural environment data. The film may have a moral similar to The Towering Inferno (Guillermin 1974): that man must take care of how/where/what he is building. Vanity and rush for money have sometimes high costs, often the lives of others. But here, the main character seems not to give up building. Some survival movies from the 1980s and 1990s are building many of their limit situations around some characters who go out in nature deliberately to learn something or to rest. Here, they face the challenges of nature and of cohabitation with others as in White Water Summer (Bleckner 1987) or encounter hostile groups such as in Survival Quest (Coscarelli 1988) or The River Wild (Hanson 1994). These adventures in the wilderness develop friendship, strengthen families, fortify characters and make the protagonists more mature – e.g., TV movie Lost in the Barrens (Scott 1990). Sometimes the characters manage to survive alone, as is the case of

A historical overview  69 Dirkie, the child from Lost in the Desert (Uys 1969) (with its initial name Dirkie) or of Brian from A Cry in the Wild (Griffiths 1990). The well-known Dances with Wolves (Costner 1990) is a survival movie and a Western that tells the story of First Lieutenant John J. Dunbar, and especially his life in the remote Fort Sedgwick, an outpost in the western prairies. He deliberately enters in this limit situation, the situation of a stranger, a white man, a soldier living close to the Lakota Indians territories. But there is something “attractive” about this foreigner: he is a good man. This is why he becomes friend with a wolf, that he will call Two Socks because of his white front paws. Seeing him playing with this wolf, the Indians we will name him “Dances with Wolves”. He will earn the sympathy and friendship of the Sioux Indian Kicking Bird, and he will fall in love with Stands with a Fist, a white woman who lives with the Sioux. He will be taken prisoner by the white people and liberated by the Sioux. He and Stands with a Fist will go with the tribe, and after a while they will separate from them, because the ex-officer is searched by the army. This movie shows that you never know where you can find the personal accomplishment, where you can find your friends and your love. Surviving means here to make a step after another toward happiness. Lord of the Flies (Hook 1990) uses for the limit situation the pattern of a group of people (here students from a military school) that find themselves isolated on an island because their plane crashes into the ocean. Peter Brook directed before, in 1963, the first adaptation of this famous novel written by William Golding. Alive (Marshall 1993) is telling the same story as Survive! (Cardona Jr. 1976), the today well-known story of the 571 Flight, a Uruguayan plane that crushes in the Andes in 13 October 1972 with 45 people abroad (most of them were members of a rugby team). Only 16 of all the passengers survived up to December 23 to be rescued. In order to survive, they had to make extremely difficult decisions. The toughest one was to eat the flesh of the people that previously died on the plane. The group was rescued because two of them, Nando Parrado and Roberto Canessa, managed to go to the valley and tell the authorities where the plane crushed. During the 72 days they spend on the mountains, they understand the fact that if they want to survive, they need to behave correctly one with another. They behave like a community, they pray together. Here, on the mountains, wealth means nothing: they burn money, they burn also the guitar to have heat. This limit situation provides them with unique and deep experiences. Remembering those times, Carlitos Páez says: “I felt the presence of God. There is the God that is hidden by what surrounds us in the civilization. That’s the God I’ve met on the mountain”. The limit situation and its effects on the survivors remain shrouded in a certain mystery that is expressed by Carlitos Páez through the words: “We were brought together by a great experience”. The motif of the killer-bear appears in movies like Grizzly (Girdler and Sheldon 1976), The Edge (Tamahori 1997), Backcountry (MacDonald

70  A historical overview 2014) or Into the Grizzly Maze (Hackl 2015). A friendly polar bear cub named Chubby is one of the characters of Alaska (Heston 1996). It is a family survival movie about a pilot, Jake Barnes, whose small plane crashes on some steep cliffs. His wife died very long time ago, and he and their two children, Sean and Jessie, moved from Chicago to Alaska. Sean is very angry about his mother death and about their relocation to Alaska. He cannot find his place here, and he even tells his father that he would have preferred to die instead of his mother. Finding out about the accident of their father, the two children, after several adventures that include the rescue of an orphan polar bear cub from some poacher’s camp, manage to save their parent. Sean apologizes to him and finds again his place inside their family. Cast Away (Zemekis 2000) is one masterpiece of the genre. The film is based on the survival story of Fed Ex engineer Chuck Nolan (played by Tom Hanks) whose plane crushed somewhere in the Pacific. This first episode is a successful physical survival story. It, however, opens more delicate issues about feelings, decisions and the power to continue when the most fundamental hopes crash around us. In movies like As Far as My Feet Will Carry Me (German: So weit die Fusse tragen) (Martins 2001), Rabbit Proof Fence (Noyce 2002), Rescue Dawn (Herzog 2006) or The Way Back (Weir 2010), the limit situation is presented in the form of an attempt to escape from a prison, a concentration camp or any other form of penitentiary. In As Far as My Feet Will Carry Me, Clemens Forell, a German prisoner caught by Soviets in 1945, is sent in a labor camp in the Russian Gulag. He manages to escape from there, but he will be closely chased by the Soviet officer Kamenev. The movie has some really hard to believe scenes, like that in which Kamenev waits for Forell on the bridge to the Iranian border and lets him pass. How could a Soviet officer have time for such a personal challenge? Rabbit Proof Fence tells about three aboriginal girls taken by force to a (re-)education camp who escape by traveling a long way home following the Australian rabbit proof fence. Their chase is led by Mr. Neville, a clerk called “Protector of Western Australian Aborigines”. The girls earn very easily the viewer’s sympathy and compassion. This story is close somehow to that of Alabama Moon, the 11-year-old orphan boy who fights for his freedom, and, finally, finds for himself a family – Alabama Moon (McCanlies 2009). In Rescue Dawn, we have the run for freedom of Dieter Dengler (played by Christian Bale), an US pilot incarcerated in Laos. The Way Back tells the story of a Polish officer, Janusz Wieszczek (played by Jim Sturgess), denounced by his wife. He is sent for 20 years in Gulag, but he manages to escape with a group. He returns to Poland only after the fall of the communist regime, and he forgives his wife. It is not only a story about determination, physical effort, but also one about forgiveness. ’71 (Demange 2014) belongs to the same category of movies as Behind Enemy Lines (Moore 2001), Rescue Dawn (Herzog 2006) and Lone Survivor (Berg 2013). These stories about lone survivors behind enemy lines can be called “war survival movies”.

A historical overview  71 The main character from ’71, Gary Hook (played by Jack O’Connell), is a British soldier who gets lost from his platoon during a riot in Belfast. His presence reveals a complicated network of relations between different fractions of IRA, of Protestants and of the British army. His survival is a kind of miracle. He is saved two times by “his enemies”: first by a Catholic woman during the riot, and, secondly, by Eamon, an ex-doctor, and his daughter (at the time they rescue him, they did not know he was a British soldier). Anyway, these gestures of pure compassion in this extremely violent atmosphere are impressive. Films related with these mentioned above are also those about Americans who find that their lives are in danger in foreign countries, and they make efforts to get out of them. It is the case of the medical doctor John Lake from River (Dagg 2015) or that of the Dwyer family from No Escape (Dowdle 2015). Movies like Open Water (Kentis 2003), Open Water 2: Adrift (Horn 2006), The Reef (Trauki 2010), In the Deep (Roberts 2016), Bait (Rendall 2012) or Pressure (Scapello 2015) deal with the topic of survival in the middle of or inside the ocean (under water). Some of them are “based on real events stories”. While Open Water (Kentis 2003) is about a couple left accidentally in shark infested waters while scuba-diving, Open Water 2: Adrift (Horn 2006) is about six friends who cannot get back on their yacht and remain in the middle of the ocean. The Reef is about two couples whose yacht is damaged and turned upside down in waters full of sharks. In the Deep (aka 47 Meters Down) tells the story of two sisters who accidentally remain in a cage under water among, of course, sharks. Pressure is about a crew of workers that go under water in a sort of submarine or pod in order to repair a pipeline, and they are trapped there with short oxygen. Movies like The Deep (Kormakur 2012) and Disappeared (Mitchell 2012) are about fishermen who suffer an accident and remain far away in the waters. The storyline from The Deep is simple. The fishing ship “Breki” sinks. All the members of the crew (Palli, Jon, Larus and Hannes) die, except Gulli. He swims many hours in the cold water, and he manages to save his life. The authorities cannot understand how he could still be alive. Right at Your Door (Gorak 2006) is about a couple, Brad and Lexi, whose lives are caught in the middle of catastrophic events triggered in Los Angeles by some toxic explosions. The authorities affirm that these explosions cause dangerous viral infections and they act very brutally to stop this alleged menace. They kill people who do not obey their orders. First they say that it is mandatory to stay inside the houses and Brad does this, isolating Lexi outside his living area because she was allegedly infected. At the end of the film, the situation changes: Brad is considered infected with an extremely dangerous virus variety, locked in the house and killed in a so-called authorities’ attempt to destroy the virus. The film raises the issue that the authorities could claim the right to decide about the life and death of the citizens during some moments, on the basis of claimed “scientific arguments”.

72  A historical overview The Snow Walker (Smith 2003) is a survival movie that describes a relation between a white man, a pilot and an Eskimo girl. They are brought together by circumstances: their plane crashes in the middle of the vast Arctic territories. They try to work together for survival in the harsh conditions of the North and, little by little, they begin to know each other developing a very pure relation. It is a sad story because the girl, who was previously sick, will die. In The Grey (Carnahan 2011), eight oil workers survive a plane crash in Alaska, but they need to fight more for their lives, threatened by the winter weather and especially by a pack of wolves. How I Ended This Summer (Russian: Kak ya provyol etim letom) (Popogrebsky 2010) is a story of the confrontation of two characters, Serghei and Pasha, who work at a weather station in an Arctic island during one summer. It can be considered a study of complexity of the human nature. In The Return (Russian: Vozvrashchenie) (Zviagantsev 2003), the limit situation is instituted by the coming back of a father after 12 years of absence. The sons, Andrey and Ivan, are amazed and baffled by his presence. He has taken them on a trip to an island. He is treating them very severely, perhaps because he wants to make them tougher. But he crosses the bearable limits menacing Ivan with an axe for being late. At that moment, Andrey, who has opposed him several times before, runs from him and climbs up on a light house. Father follows him in order to protect him (Andrey is scared of heights, and he could fall down). Accidentally, the father falls and dies. The boys take him to the land. The boat with father’s corpse is sinking, and the father disappears as sudden as he had appeared. It is an excellent movie about human relations and about misunderstanding. Idiocracy (Judge 2006) is a really witty and sarcastic comedy about how dangerous human stupidity can be. It can grow to such a degree that it can affect even mankind chances to survive. It is a comic meditation about the future of the consumerist society. People of those ages will be interested only in food, sex and TV shows about food and sex, but mainly about sex. They put juice at the root of the plants. Two people from the past – Corporal Joe Bauers (played by Luke Wilson) and Rita (played by Maya Rudolph) – must come to save them. Joe tells them to put water on the soil in order to have crops and to survive. Into the wild (Penn 2007) is one of the masterpieces of the genre. It may be understood as a “partial” survival movie, a road movie whose last episode is a survival story. It is a complex movie about the search for real values and for freedom, about how to cure deep wounds of the soul. It tells the story of Christopher McCandless (played by Emile Hirsch), a graduate from Emory University, who decides to give up his social position and to travel through America. He finally reaches Alaska, where he lives in a house made out of an old bus. His childhood trauma is that his father had two wives at the same time. He tries to get rid of the past and of all things related to civilization. Chris tries to live in the wilderness of Alaska, putting himself this way in sort of a continuous limit situation. At the end, when

A historical overview  73 he finds the value of sharing experiences and of forgiveness, he cannot go back to his family, because he is not able to cross a big river. He eats by mistake a poisoning plant and will die. But Chris will die understanding the importance of living in truth and in God’s grace, of being able “to call everything with its right name”. In 127 Hours (Boyle 2010), the limit situation in which Aron Ralston (played by James Franco) is entering is caused by a rock that blocks his arm in a canyon from Utah. He escapes by cutting off a part of his arm. The five days he spent as a prisoner of the canyon would be unbelievably painful, but it would provide him an opportunity to meditate about his life. Aron will understand that he is guilty of being selfish, and he will have to change all of his relations: with his girlfriend, with his family, with the entire world. Buried (Cortes 2010) is a remarkable survival movie about Paul Conroy, an American truck driver who finds himself buried alive in a coffin. The kidnapper, who called himself Jabir, is asking for a 5 million ransom in order to release him. Jabir gives him instructions on the phone. The only character shown in the movie is Paul, played by Ryan Reynolds. He makes all efforts to survive; he even cuts off one of his fingers (when asked by Jabir) and records this with the mobile phone. Paul also hopes till the very end that he will be rescued by Dan Brenner and his people from the Hostage Working Group. Finally, he dies suffocated by the sand that rapidly pours into the coffin. It is actually a non-survival movie because the character does not pass the limit situation. It is a tragedy. Meek’s Cutoff (Reichardt 2010) is a 19th-century road movie, a Western and a survival movie about a group of settlers that travel through the waste lands of Oregon looking for their new home. They hire Stephen Meek as a guide, but it seems that he does not know the way. They spend more time that they planned on these dry hills, and water is scarce. The group meets an Indian and they take him prisoner. He may lead them to water, but Meek says that he may lead them to a snare. The movie has an open end: Emily Tetherow, the main feminine character, and the Indian look one to another. The scenes are long, descriptive; the rhythm of the movie is slow. It suggests a journey done with the carts drawn by oxen. It is a movie of atmosphere rather than one of action. The Impossible (Spanish: Los Imposible) (Bayona 2012) tells the dramatic story of Henry (played by Ewan McGregor) and Maria Bennett (played by Naomi Watts) and of their three sons. While spending their winter vacation in Thailand, they are separated by a tsunami. After many dramatic events, they manage to reunite. Sanctum (Grierson 2011) is a long saga of survival played in some flooded caves from the South Pacific area. From the 11 members of the group only the young Josh will survive at the end. A Hijacking (Lindholm 2012) is a movie about Rozen, a Danish ship taken by Somali pirates for a ransom. The main character is Mikkel Hartman, the cook from Rozen. During this limit situation, the atmosphere is

74  A historical overview very tense and humiliating for the Danish crew. The company decides to pay the money. When the crisis seems to come to an end, Mikkel starts to wear again his wedding ring (on a chain). A pirate tries to take it, Mikkel does not agree, the captain intervenes for him verbally, and he is deadly shot. Should Mikkel feel guilty in any degree for the death of the captain? Captain Philips (Greengrass 2013) is an American story about a ship hijacked by Somali pirates. The ship is MV Maersk Alabama. The substance of the movie lies in its action, suspense and, of course, in the behavior of the central figure, Richard Philips, the captain. This main character acts like a real captain of the ship, he takes responsibilities, he tries to find solutions, but he cannot avoid the taking over of the ship with the means he has. The question that rises is why such an immense ship has no armed security guards on it? Or why the naval authorities have such poor means to prevent this sort of hijackings? In Hours (Heisserer 2013), a father and his newborn baby whose life depends on the apparatuses are put in a limit situation when the power goes off during the hurricane Katrina. The father manages to keep the medical devices working, and the baby survives the hurricane. Dr. Ryan (played by Sandra Bullock), a medical engineer, and the astronaut Kowalski (played by George Clooney) are the main characters from Gravity (Cuaron 2013). The NASA Space Shuttle Explorer is hit by derbies from a Russian satellite and is severely damaged. The action has several episodes. What is impressive is the fact that Kowalski sacrifices his life to save Dr. Ryan’s life. Finally, she will manage to come back to the Earth alive. The topic of astronauts stranded in space was treated before, at least in movies like Marooned (Sturges 1969) or Apollo 13 (Howard 1995). All Is Lost (Chandor 2014) is a very tough movie about a lone sailor whose yacht is hit by a drifting container. It is a movie with very few words. The action is rendered mainly through gestures and deeds. The substance and the quality of the movie are given by the play of Robert Redford. The protagonist tries to find solutions for every challenge. He loses the ship and remains in a round inflatable lifeboat. When the lifeboat starts burning, he loses all hopes, and he lets himself going toward death under water. In that very moment, a boat appears as an unexpected solution. The underwater images taken for this moment are expressive and beautiful. The first two decades of this century seem to show a lot of interest in representing lonely people or groups that encounter limit situations in remote natural areas. It is the case of The Snow Walker (Smith 2003), Into the Wild (Penn 2007), North Face (German: Nordwand) (Stölzl 2008), 127 Hours (Boyle 2010), The Grey (Carnahan 2011), and also of Wild (Vallee 2014), Everest (Kormakur 2015), A Walk in the Woods (Kwapis 2015) or Arctic (Penna 2018). Cheryl Strayed, played by Reese Witherspoon, is the memorable protagonist from Wild. She is entering on her own will in the limit situation described by the movie. It is a “mild” sort of limit situation because it does not represent a danger for her life. During the 94 days, she

A historical overview  75 will go all the Pacific Crest Trail (from California to Oregon), trying to understand her life and to put order in it. The wild cry for the life of her soul, for healing, for self-accomplishment is the energy that moves the entire movie. North Face describes the attempt of Toni Kurz (played by Benno Fürmann) and Andi Hinterstoisser (played by Florian Lukas), two German alpinists to climb the north face of the Eiger in the Alps in 1936. They are closely watched by the press, for propagandistic reasons. The third important character of the movie is Louise (played by Johanna Wokalek), a friend from their childhood and a journalist. The German team is in competition with an Austrian team. Both the German and the Austrian teams will die on the mountain. Everest speaks also about tragic events in which eight people, who were part of some touristic expeditions, died on the mountain. Bill Bryson (played by Robert Redford) and Stephen Katz (played by Nick Nolte) take A Walk in the Woods. It is a “mild survival movie” that tells the journey of these two friends, a successful writer and an old rolling stone, along the Appalachian Trail. After three months and a series of adventures, they decide it is time to end this trip, and they go home. They achieved what they wanted. What? A journey. An adventure. The Revenant (Inarritu 2015) is a production with a budget of 165 million US dollars. It is a Western and a survival movie that tells the story of Hugh Glass. While retreating with some trappers from an Indian attack, the protagonist is almost killed by a grizzly bear. John Fitzgerald, Jim Bridger and Glass’s son Hawk are left behind by the group to bury the injured man when he dies. In a certain circumstance, John Fitzgerald kills Hawk, and the rest of the movie will describe Hugh’s efforts to survive and to find the killer. The 33 (Spanish: Los 33) (Riggen 2015) is a “reality-based” survival movie. Starting from 5 August 2010, 33 miners remained trapped for more than two months inside the Chillan mine of San Jose at 700 meters depth. In The Martian (Scott 2015), Mark Watney (played by Matt Damon), the astronaut considered dead by his team mates and left on Mars, needs to find how to survive in this environment. Secondly, he has to get in touch with people from Earth, and (together) to find a way to go back. Like in The 33, people from outside and the one(s) from inside the limit situation collaborate. Survival is a matter of working, to a certain degree, alone, and, to a certain degree, together. After 560 solar Martian days, Mark reunites with his people. On the contrary, in Interstellar (Nolan 2014) people need to leave Earth in order to survive. Far from Men (French: Loin des homes) (Oelhaffen 2015) is based on the short prose of Albert Camus entitled L’Hote (The Guest). The plot is simple: during the beginning of the Algerian Independence War, Daru (played by Viggo Mortensen), a French teacher from a remote school, has to deliver Mohamed (played by Reda Kateb), a murder suspect, to the French authorities. Little by little, these two quiet men will become friends. Daru will release Mohamed, and he will advise him not to surrender himself to

76  A historical overview the French police, but to try to find the nomads and live with them. It is a story about two men surviving through harsh times. Daru finds the right solution: he actually saves Mohamed’s life. Black Robe (Beresford 1991), End of the Spear (Hanon 2005) and Silence (Scorsese 2016) are “Christian survival movies”, about life of Christian missionaries. Black Robe is set in 17th-century Canada. Father LaForgue, a catholic priest called by the Indians “Black Robe”, manages to convert the Huron Indians to Christian belief. He settles a mission. The mission will be destroyed and the (now peaceful) Christian Hurons are killed by the Iroquois. Before they became Christian, Hurons were afraid that this would happen. A question is raised: is the Christian belief responsible for weaken people and for the Christian Huron death? Has death now a different meaning for them? In End of the Spear, when Waodani people embrace Christian belief, the chain of revenge, that could mean the extinction of this entire people, is broken. They learn and understand the faith from the missionary families whose men they killed. Silence debates how can faith survive in moments of awful persecution. Or if it can survive at all. The lives of Fathers Cristóvão Ferreira, Sebastião Rodrigues, Francisco Garupe and of other Japanese Christians from the 17th-century Japan raise the problem of apostasy and of how deep the faith can hide in tortured souls? This movie is about the survival of souls. Movies like The Killing Fields (Joffe 1984), Schindler’s List (Spielberg 1993), Life Is Beautiful (Italian: La vitta e bella) (Benigni 1997), The Pianist (Polanski 2002) or The Black Pimpernel (Hultberg 2007) can be considered “political survival movies” because the limit situation is about how people’s liberty and life is menaced by abusive political regimes. These limit situations sometime reveal surprisingly good persons as Oskar Schindler, Guido Orefice, the father from Life Is Beautiful, the German captain Wilm Hosenfeld who saves the pianist Władysław Szpilman, or the Swedish ambassador Harald Edelstam from The Black Pimpernel. Close to this category are films that I call “survival movies of resistance” as Someplace in the East (Romanian: Undeva în Est) (Mărgineanu 1991), Defiance (Zwick 2008), Portrait of the Fighter as a Young Man (Romanian: Portret al luptătorului la tinereţe) (Popescu 2010) or Bitter Harvest (Mendeluk 2017). In regard to the overall tendencies along the decades, some survival movies from the silent film era are “disaster movies” combined with love stories and fantasy tales. It is the case of The Last Days of Pompeii (Italian: Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei) (Caserini and Rodolfi 1913), The End of the World (Danish: Verdens undergang) (Blom 1916), Metropolis (Murnau 1927) or of partially silent Noah’s Ark (Curtiz 1928). Others are stories set in special natural environments, as The Wind (Sjöström 1928) or Tabu: A Story of the South Seas (Murnau 1931). After the emergence of sound, the fashion of “disaster movies” continued during the 1930s with Deluge (Feist 1933), San Francisco (Van Dyke 1936), Things to Come (Menzies 1936), The Hurricane (Ford and Heisler 1937) or with the fantastic story of King

A historical overview  77 Kong (M. Cooper and Schoedsack 1933). Perhaps, the first landmark of the genre, the first plain survival movie is Lifeboat (Hitchcock 1944). The 1950s and the 1960s brought to the screen the theme of atomic catastrophe in movies like Five (Oboler 1951), Day the World Ended (Corman 1956), On the Beach (Kramer 1959) or Panic in Year Zero! (Milland 1962). Robinson Crusoe (Bunuel 1954) and Abandon Ship! (Sale 1957) are, along with On the Beach (Kramer 1959), the most important survival movies of the 1950s. With Birds (Hitchcock 1963), the fashion of people threatened by swarms of aggressive animals is established. It will be at its climax during the 1970s in productions mentioned above in the chapter. “Cool Hand” Luke imposes himself as an unforgettable character of these years. The 1970s brought on the screen tough characters surviving in harsh natural conditions as Zachary Bass from Man in the Wilderness (Sarafian 1971) or as the famous Jeremiah Johnson, protagonist of the 1972 Sydney Pollack’s film. At the same time, movies as Airport (Seaton and Hathaway 1970), The Poseidon Adventure (Neame 1972) and The Towering Inferno (Guillermin 1974) showed the limits of the modern and sophisticated technology. The 1980s and the 1990s started bringing on the screen campers, alpinists and other people who had to survive in the nature, as in White Water Summer (Bleckner 1987), Survival Quest (Coscarelli 1988), Alive (Marshall 1993) or The River Wild (Hanson 1994). This tendency continues till today in movies like Cast Away (Zemekis 2000), The Snow Walker (Smith 2003), 127 Hours (Boyle 2010), The Grey (Carnahan 2011), All Is Lost (Chandor 2014) or Wild (Vallee 2014). These are movies with complex meanings, true masterpieces that can trigger profound meditations on the human condition, its limits and openings.

4 The survival genre as a mixed genre

Ritzer and Schulze point out the term of “hybridisation” defined in Mikhail Bakhtin’s linguistic work “as a blending of two social spheres within in a single utterance” (Ritzer and Schulze 21). As editors of the volume Genre Hybridisation. Global Cinematic Flow, they intend to regard “hybridisation” in film and the “genre configuration” in the context of cultural globalization (Ritzer and Schulze 22). Paraphrasing the upper definition, I see the cinematic hybrid as a blending of two or more genres in a “single utterance”, in a single film. For the scope of simplifying my analysis, I will consider survival movies, first and foremost, as a subgenre of adventure films genre, but, due to the contemporary tendency of “mixing and hybridization of genres” (Moine 155), certain cinematic stories of survival may be seen as subgenres or “hybrids” related with other genres. For example, The Martian (Scott 2015) may be considered a survival Sci-Fi, A Walk into the Woods (Kwapis 2015) may be labeled as a comedy and drama with at least one episode of survival, Meek’s Cutoff (Reichardt 2011) is a survival Western and Wild (Vallee 2014) is a biographical drama with a “flavor” of survival. In the following, I will present some possible categories and occurrences that may describe survival films as a mixed genre.

4.1  Romance and survival movies Catherine Preston gave a very general definition of romance as that film in which the development of love between two main characters is the primary narrative thread, the main story (Preston 227). I define the romantic survival film as a love story that takes place in conditions that menace the lives of protagonists. Therefore, a film from this category is a single cinematic utterance that contains both the efforts to stay alive and to live a love story. Romantic survival films may be considered as a separate category, as other more famous mixed genres. One of these very popular mixed genres is that of romantic comedy. About it, Leger Grindon said that: “An Ameri­ can film Institute 2008 poll defined romantic comedy as a genre in which the development of romance leads to comic situations” (Grindon 1). For romantic survival films, the development of the limit situations leads to new

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DOI: 10.4324/9781003356912-5

The survival genre as a mixed genre  79 love stories or to the development of the already existing ones. The story of survival and the love story develop together and both are, to an important extent, shaped by the setting of the action, by the social status of the characters and by the challenges they have to face. In films like Love Story (Hiller 1970), Dying Young (Schumacher 1991) or A Walk to Remember (Shankman 2002), the story of survival refers to fact that one protagonist suffers of a terminal disease. These stories combined with some powerful love stories provide unforgettable and impressive dramas that reveal a bit of the beauty of the human nature. Two of the early survival films, Tabu: A Story of the South Seas (Murnau 1931) and The Hurricane (Ford and Heisler 1937), are love stories that are related to the sea. The action of contemporary romantic survival films like Open Water (Kentis 2003) or Adrift (Kormakur 2018) happens also at sea, while in Submergence (Wenders 2017) some very important moments and symbols are connected with the maritime environment, too. Open Water (Kentis 2003) is a love story, a drama and shark survival movie based on true events. The action is set in an Australian resort and somewhere in the ocean waters of this area. The protagonists of the film are Daniel Kinter and Susan Watkins, an American couple. Before entering the limit situation, these two characters are presented as very busy career people who choose to take a vacation in order to spend more time together. In the first day of their vacation they relax. In the second day, they decide to go on a scuba diving trip on the ocean. Unfortunately, because of a misunderstanding, their boat leaves without them. This is how the limit situation begins. When they realize the seriousness of the situation, they have to decide what to do. Daniel decides to remain in the same place to be found easier by their boat that, he assumes, will soon come to rescue them. Unfortunately, although logic, this will prove to be a wrong decision because the crew of that boat will realize their disappearance only during the next day. Perhaps, it would have been better to try to swim to one of the boats around them as long as they were still there. After that, they try unsuccessfully to make their goggles shine to be seen by a boat that passes by. Both of them fall asleep and the stream split them apart. They get scared, but they manage to reunite. The first sharks appear. Daniel is really desperate and nervous and shouts. They begin to argue. She reproaches him that they must be different all the time and that he refused to swim when still other boats were around. He reproaches her that because of her job (which leaves them no time to spend together) they were forced to come here. They reconcile pretty soon and make love declaration each other. They eat some candies. Unfortunately, Daniel drops his knife. He is attacked by a shark and his leg bleeds really badly. In the next day, he is found dead by Susan. She lets him go into the ocean. After a while, seeing that she is surrounded by sharks and no rescuers are coming, she commits suicide by drowning herself. This is a wrong choice always, since a human being should hope and fight till the end. According to Christian teachings, we have no right to take our

80  The survival genre as a mixed genre life, since it belongs to God. They rediscover their love in this state of emergency. It is very important that they both are able to say to each other a simple “I love you!” in the middle of the huge menacing ocean. Love is still able to preserve an essential sense and comfort for the human beings even when they face the chilling absurdity of death. This is an imaginary and artistic reconstruction of the events, since neither Daniel nor Susan survived to tell the real version. In Adrift (Kormakur 2018) one of the two protagonists, the female, survives to testify about this extraordinary and tragic adventure. The film is a romance survival on the sea movie based on true events that happened in 1983. 24-year-old Tami Ashcraft and 33-year-old Richard Sharp were hired to bring the yacht Hazana from Tahiti to San Diego, California. During this trip, they were hit by the hurricane Raymond, Richard was killed and the yacht damaged, but still floating. Tami survived at sea for 41 days before (in the movie) she was rescued by a ship. The plot of the movie is structured as a puzzle of events mixing the events happened during the limit situation with flashbacks and hallucinations. Before the limit situation, Tami is just restless young girl traveling around the world, fond of the sea and marked by her unhappy childhood. In Tahiti, she falls in love with Richard, a yacht builder and a lonely sailor. He owns a yacht built by him and named Mayaluga. Tami and Rich live happy moments in Tahiti. Richard accepts the offer to bring Hazana to California for 10,000 dollars, only if Tami will be accepted by the yacht owners to go with him and only if they both receive fight tickets to return in Tahiti. The limit situation begins with the damages the hurricane inflicts to the boat and with the death of Richard. After that, Tami has to manage to survive alone in the middle of the ocean. The happy love story unfolded on the land gains more profound tones and tragic nuances on the sea. The love for Richard helps Tami to survive more than a month isolated in these waters. After she has reached safety, the real Tami once declares for a newspaper: “a voice told I have to survive”. I understand this as the voice of the conscience of a woman who found love. She is in a lot of pain, but to stay alive is a duty. It is a victory for both her and the deceased Richard who taught her to sail. She is in a paradoxical situation: she found love, but soon she loses her beloved Richard. Her life is under threat, too. She gets out of this extreme situation using her mind and her strong will. The rationality and the determination are two elements of God’s image inside her. The sentiment, another element of God’s image in people, plays also an important role in this survival story. She discovers that she is not condemned to be a wanderer anymore because she could be loved by Richard. Tami has found a place to rest: it is Richard’s heart. She has found this place for a glimpse, but this glimpse may last forever. “Richard kept me alive” has once declared the (real) Tami. Mind, will and sentiment are the elements that help Tami to survive and to become somehow more “human”. She seems to be transformed forever by this experience that unifies death, love and survival.

The survival genre as a mixed genre  81 The protagonists of Submergence (Wenders 2017) are James More, an engineer specialized in water resources and a British spy, and Danielle Flinders, a bio-mathematician. They briefly meet in an elegant resort somewhere on the French coast, fall in love and promise each other fidelity. The limit situation is split in two: one his and one hers. James goes in a mission in Kenya and is taken prisoner by the jihadist forces. He is kept in filthy location and humiliated. Even a fake execution is framed for him. After a while he receives a better treatment, but, when he refuses to convert to Islam, his life is again in peril. During all this time he wants to survive to meet her again. He is brought to a beach, and, during an American attack, he escapes. She is thinking all the time at him and is very nervous for not receiving any message from him. She is scheduled for a very dangerous diving mission in a deep sea near Greenland. While at the ocean floor, they have an incident that could have been fatal, but, due to the emergency battery, they get back to the surface. Presented in parallel, these two survival stories, although separated by an immense geographical distance, represent the two sides of the same one, one of survival through love. Love is so important for James and Danielle because it is the only environment in which human personality can be accomplished, and, when they find it, it provides them the fundamental reason to live. This vocation for love is written in the deepest structure of people as God’s image. Films such as Backcountry (MacDonald 2014), The Canyon (Harrah 2009) and The Snow Walker (Smith 2003) have their action set on remote and wild places on land. In Backcountry (MacDonald 2014) and The Canyon (Harrah 2009), the threat of the wild animals endangers the lives of the characters. Backcountry is a wilderness adventure survival movie based on a true story. Before entering the limit situation, the movie shows a couple in love (Alex and Jenn) leaving a big city in a van. Alex works at an interior design company and Jenn is a lawyer and (as we find out later) Alex wants to ask Jenn for marriage during this trip. They go camping in a remote area in a Provincial Park in Ontario, Canada. Alex claims to be a great connoisseur of the park (where he actually had not been here since high school) because he wants to impress his girlfriend. He may want to overcome through this behavior a complex of inferiority because he has a lower social status than Jenn. He boasts a lot and has a reckless behavior. He chooses to go to Blackfoot Trail, a route that is closed during that time of the year, he does not take the map the park’s ranger offers, he intentionally leaves Jenn’s mobile phone in the car, he has no suitable tools and self-defense devices and also not enough food. The presence of Brad who seems to be a real experienced hiker and connoisseur of the park is taken by Alex as a challenge and, after he left, he is much more determined to prove to Jenn how much of a mountain man he is. Unfortunately, he just leads his beloved Jenn into a real survival limit situation. After three days, they are really lost and without food and water inside the hunting ground of a huge Black bear that will prove to be a man-eating one. Hunger, thirst,

82  The survival genre as a mixed genre disorientation and fear for their lives menaced by the killing bear are the elements that define their status inside the limit situation. Alex has seen before the tracks of a bear but he hasn’t told anything to Jenn. He also did nothing when the bear destroyed their supplies; he did not take into consideration the menacing noises from the woods continuing to sleep in a tent that could not offer them safety. He also has no weapon to defend them against the bear. When he sees the bear, it is already too late: the bear kills and (partially) eats him. The spirit of sacrifice shown by Alex in his last moments of life is pretty impressive. During the attack of the bear, Alex is protecting Jenny with his body (“Stay behind me”, he says). While he is killed and eaten by the bear, his last thoughts and words are directed to Jenny (“Run, Jenn, run!”, he screams). Jenn also encouraged him when he was severely wounded after the first attack of the bear. Unfortunately, the second and fatal attack comes soon! After that, the rest of the movie shows Jenn’s lone fight for survival. She wears the wedding ring given by Alex in one of the previous nights. This trip and tragic experience was able to show that they loved each other beyond all social differences and beyond all dangers. Inside the limit situation, love proves its strength, but Alex’s lack of caution and reason kills him and endangers her. After the death of Alex, the bear follows her, but she manages to survive. This city girl proves here many survival skills in the wilderness: she sleeps in a tree for safety, eats cranberries, whistles to scare the bear, climbs down a very steep water fall to get rid of the bear… She breaks a leg but manages to straighten the broken bones and immobilize them. This shows her capacity to overcome the pain. Limping, paddling (the boat) and crawling, she finally reaches the shore where is found and rescued. This movie demonstrates that nature can be very dangerous and those who organize journeys in remote areas should be aware that they really bear a huge responsibility for themselves and for their companions. Mistakes are sometimes paid right away. Some may be even fatal, as it happens here. Nick and Lori, the protagonists from The Canyon (Harrah 2009), is a newly married couple who visit Grand Canyon. They enter the canyon illegally, led by a guide who will die along the way. They get lost. Nick breaks his leg and is carried by Lori while hunted by a pack of wolves. He discovers her in a new light during these moments and tells her: “I never knew that you are so…brave!” This sounds like a declaration of love under these circumstances. She answers with her declaration of love in exchange when she says to him: “I am not leaving you here!” After a while the wolves come again and surround them. Now is the moment when the true tragedy happens: losing her hope and perhaps wanting to protect him of a painful death she suffocates him to death. Right away, a rescue helicopter appears. She enters in a state of shock. Exhausted and without hope, she destroys in the end everything she has fought for: Nick’s life and their happiness together. This movie raises the question of euthanasia. No people have the right to take the life of another, not even to alleviate his/her sufferings. God gives

The survival genre as a mixed genre  83 life and He is The Only One entitled to take it. When people do otherwise, these (or other) sorts of tragedies may happen. The Snow Walker (Smith 2003) is one of the most interesting survival films ever made because it manages to express a very delicate relationship between the main characters. It is based on the short story Walk Well, My Brother written by Farley Mowat, although the names of the characters are modified in the movie. The action of the film is set “somewhere near the Arctic Ocean” in 1953. The protagonists are, as named in the film, the pilot Charlie Halliday (played by Barry Pepper) and an Eskimo girl named Kanaalaq (played by Annabella Piugattuk). In the introductory part, Charlie is presented partying in a bar from Yellowknife with his friends. An interesting event occurs here. Mocked by other people from the bar, an Inuit man, who tries to sell an artifact for a drink, bumps into Charlie and apologizes for this by saying: “I am sorry, brother!” Charlie, disturbed from his billiard game, quickly and rather violently answers him with a cliché of thinking by saying: “I ain’t your brother!” This is an important cue that will have a correspondent at the end of the film. Charlie is sent by his company to deliver some barrels in a remote area. After leaving those barrels to the destination, he is asked by an Inuit family to take a sick girl to the hospital. The girl is Kanaalaq. She may have tuberculosis. Charlie receives two expensive walrus tusks for this. The limit situation occurs when the plane with Charlie and Kanaalaq crashes in a waste land. The beauty of the movie lies in details, in the way that the viewers discover the personalities of the two characters. We discover them as they open themselves, little by little, one for another. In the beginning, Charlie tries to rely on modern technology. He represents the white men culture. He drinks Cola, eats from tin cans and tries to hunt with the gun. When he cannot repair the radio station from the plane, he goes mad. He decides to go alone to find help, but he will soon be defeated by the environment: his gun is blocked with mud, his matches get wet, his sleeping bag does not protect him during a heavy rain and he falls down exhausted and badly hurt by mosquitoes… The modern technology doesn’t work here. Kanaalaq, who has followed him, saves him, treats his wounds and makes him Inuit shoes. They come back to the site of their plane crash where Charlie thinks the rescuers would let at least some signs of their presence. Finding that nobody was looking for them, Charlie loses his hope. Kanaalaq teaches him how to hunt caribou. They hunt several and provide food for the winter and furs for clothing. Charlie, who initially has considered Kanaalaq as a load, will be saved by her knowledge and abilities she has about living in the nature. They live some happy moments in this immense free space. There are also funny moments like the one when he is left naked in the lake because she took to repair his clothes. He tells her about a restaurant he likes in Montreal, she describes to Charlie what Inuits believe about life after death. She also tells him the story about her mother who sacrificed herself leaving them because it was not enough food that year. Their entire journey is marked by

84  The survival genre as a mixed genre her coughs that are signs of her serious disease. She cries alone during one night. Toward the end of the movie, he carries her in a stretcher that slides on the walrus tusks he receives for her transportation. This is their value and utility in the wilderness. He hopes that they will eat at a restaurant after she will get out of the hospital, but she will die soon. She dies in a very discreet way, running from their tent somewhere out. Before dying she gives him another pair of Inuit shoes and tells him the simple words “Walk well, brother!” This salute clarifies the nature of relation that grew up between them during this unique journey. It is love at one of its highest levels, a mixture of purity, brotherhood, delicacy and respect. It is a spiritual lesson about humanity and fraternity of all people delivered to the one who once refused to be called “brother” by another Inuit. In the end he will be saved because he encounters other Inuit “brothers”. He buries her with all her belongings and with the walrus tusks as homage and a sign that nothing material matters when you have discovered the importance of a person, of every person. The hasty aviator who has been before concerned about making easy money is now changed.

4.2 Western and survival movies For Will Wright, the definition of the Western is encapsulated in the image of “a lone rider, sitting easily in the saddle of his dusty horse, (who) travels across the plains toward a small, new town with muddy streets and lively saloons…” (W. Wright 4). Little by little, starting from the first decades of the 20th century, Western has become one of the main American film genres providing cinema a very clearly defined narratological frame. Neil Campbell considers that this “frame” has not remained empty after World War II, as Deleuze stated, but has continued to offer a space both for ideological interrogations (Campbell 4) and for artistic attempts. These provided us with several hybrids of the genre, as Western comedy, Martial Arts Western or science-fiction Western. I consider that, among these categories, survival Westerns may have their place. They combine classic Western conventions with elements that render the fight for physical and spiritual survival of individuals and communities. The Revenant (Inarritu 2015) may be considered an individual survival story of this kind, while The Salvation (Levring 2014), Never Grow Old (Kavanah 2018) and The Magnificent Seven (Fuqua 2016) speak about the survival of a group of people. The Revenant tells the story of Hugh Glass who, after managing to survive a bear attack, seeks John Fitzgerald, the killer of his son Hawk, for revenge. The plot is common and predictable in its main idea. Some images are interesting, especially the close shots through which the feelings of the hero are rendered. The movie contains at least one unbelievable aspect: the character is staying extremely long time with his feet in the cold water of the river without any problems for his health. The limit situation may be split in two parts: the first presents a

The survival genre as a mixed genre  85 group survival story, and the second (that starts when Hugh is left alone) is the tale of an individual fighting for his life. The character does not change during the limit situation and after. He is protected by the love for his son, by his determination and by his capacity to endure sufferings. In the cruel world he lives, there still are some surprisingly good moments. One is his encounter with Hikuc, a lonely Indian who heals his wounds and saves his life. As a bitter irony, this good man is considered savage and killed by some French hunters. These hunters behave like real savages. One of them is killed while raping an Indian girl. A questionable episode is the last one, when, after nearly killing Fitzgerald in a brutal fight, he is remembering Hikuc’s idea about revenge. He says: “Revenge is in God’s hands, not in mine” and lets him float on the river without giving him the fatal hit. Few meters away, Fitzgerald will be killed by an Indian. Does Hugh believe in forgiveness or just that revenge cannot be done by people? The last image of the film is a close shot with Hugh looking right in the camera that does not offer any clue. It is just the wounded face of a suffering man. A man smashed by a violent world. The Magnificent Seven (Fuqua 2016) is a remake of the 1960 John Struges’ homonym movie which is also a remake in a Western style of Akiro Kuroshawa’s Seven Samurai released in 1954. It is a Western survival movie that raises important moral issues. The initial situation presents the community of the small town called Rose Creek terrorized by Bartholomew Rogue and his army of bandits. He wants to take the land at humiliating low price to extend his gold mining business. They kill several people and burn the church. Emma Cullen, whose husband was killed by Rogue, and another farmer named Teddy Q with the help of Sam Chisholm manage to hire another six warriors to help them liberate Rose Creek. The limit situation is triggered when this posse eliminates all Rogue’s men from Rose Creek area. Rogue seeks revenge and he comes with an army on mercenaries to attack the town. The seven warriors organize the defense of the city. Rogue and his men attack the city, and they are defeated. All of them (including Rogue) are killed. Four of the “magnificent seven” and many Rose Creek inhabitants die, too. The city is liberated, and people understand that a normal life can be lived only in dignity and freedom. At the end of the limit situation, Rose Creek become a good place to live and the church is rebuilt. The righteousness sought by Emma and his people is restored. “I seek justice, like we all!”, she once said. The seven warriors go beyond their individual lives and become the saviors of a community. They become heroes. Never Grow Old (Kavanah 2018) speaks also about the survival of a community confronted with evil and about to stand up successfully against the evil’s capacity of corrupting the soul. The action is set in the city of Garlow, California, on the Gold Rush trail in the mid-19th century. When the action of the film begins, Garlow is a city ruled by preacher Pike who presents it as “a holy town”, “a true Christian town”. The Christians banned from the city depravation and alcohol consumption, and they rule with a

86  The survival genre as a mixed genre certain authority, but the limits of this authority will be soon challenged… The protagonists of the movie are Patrick Tate’s family. Patrick (played by Emile Hirsch) peacefully lives with his pregnant wife Audrey, his son and his daughter, since a Dutch Albert (played by John Cusack) and his gang comes into town. Patrick is a carpenter and an undertaker and Dutch Albert approaches him little by little trying to treat him as a “friend”. Dutch Albert and his men kill many people and he pays Patrick to bury them. Dutch Albert starts taking over the city. He forces Emmett, the owner of the general store, to sell him his business. Dutch Albert starts selling alcohol and he opens a “saloon”. The Christians prove to be very weak; they let the evil influence of Albert Dutch to expand by doing nothing. They let Mrs. Crabtree and her daughter Emily to starve, and they didn’t help them at all, so Emily was forced to become a prostitute. She didn’t accept this and killed the first “customer”. The Sheriff and the entire city are guilty for hanging Emily. Preacher Pike points out the people who are guilty, but in these moments talking is not enough. Nobody stands behind the preacher; they do not take action against the real guilty persons. Patrick kills DumbDumb, one of Dutch Albert’s men, who came to harm his wife. Preacher Pike sets the saloon on fire with people inside and he is murdered by Dutch Albert. The Sheriff tries to shoot Dutch Albert and his fellow Sicily, but he is doing this alone, without any strategy and he is killed. The Preacher and the Sheriff are killed because they both act alone, because the community do not gather together to eliminate the evil. Audrey kills Sicily in self-defense and is wounded by him. Patrick kills Dutch Albert and the bartender inside the church. He is wounded. It is not clear if he will survive or not. He is a winner. Because of him, people can live again peacefully in Garlow. The lesson of this film is that nobody can be “friend” with the evil because evil destroys everything. Patrick makes up his mind to fight evil only when it approaches and menaces his family. He has to be sorry for many things. He has participated at many bad things because of fear and because of money. These are sins. He endangers his family. He and the entire community should have fought the evil earlier, together and more prepared. The God’s image “awakes” in people only when they understand the danger the evil represents for them and they act to keep it away from their lives. The Salvation (Levring 2014) has its action set in the 19th-century United States. The protagonist is Jon, a Danish emigrant. When his recently arrived son and wife are murdered, he kills the two criminals, without knowing that one is the brother of Henry Dealrue, rich and cruel man. Delarue forces the citizens from Black Creek to turn Jon over by killing three people and doubling the protection fee for the city. The community from Black Creek has no courage to offer protection to the grieving Jon. Mallick, who is at the same time the pastor and the Sheriff of the community, decides to sacrifice Jon because “sometimes you should sacrifice a single sheep to save the rest”. Through this, he hopes to buy some time waiting for the army to eliminate Delarue. This is a wrong way of thinking. As a minister, he

The survival genre as a mixed genre  87 should have known that Christ spoke about saving all the “sheep”, even the lost ones (Luke 15:1–7), and not about sacrificing some to “buy time”. This is a moral limit situation for a community and makes the film a spiritual survival movie. A community should not be frightened and should not collaborate with the evil at all. If not, it will be dragged in many sins. The people from Black Creek arrest Jon and his brother Peter for the evil Delarue. Mayor Keane does not even serve his community. He is corrupt and buys all the land he can for Delarue. Instead of helping Jon, he takes his boots while tied at a pole by Delarue. One positive character of the film is Peter, who saves Jon and sacrifices his life for him. The other positive characters are picked from the people who suffered the most: the widow Whistler (who gives Jon water and bread when he was wounded), the young store owner whose grandmother was killed by Dealrue (who helps Jon during the fight and is killed) and Madelaine, who survived many atrocities in her life, helps Jon to defeat Delarue. After the evil is defeated by these few people, without any help from the Black Creek community, pastor and Sheriff Mallick comes (with a posse) and pronounces this awkward phrase: “We’ve been hoping, praying for someone like you to come along to save us from our misery”. Unfortunately for them, the spiritual lesson of this film is that a community or an individual should fight evil very firmly, without compromises and they do not seem to understand this. He calls “misery” only the external circumstance without seeing the spiritual aspect which is the most important. The first step to get out of their spiritual misery would have been to ask Jon to forgive them for the way they treated him when he was in need. The pastor/sheriff does not do this and continues to remain superficial and to patronize Jon and Madelaine. The winners of this film are those who fought like they had not anything to loose. They earned a glimpse of spiritual freedom, and, through this spark, God’s image in Jon and Madelaine can be seen. In Mrs. Whistler, God’s image may be seen through her kindness that is not diminished by her sufferings. In the young storekeeper who dies during the fight, God’s image may be seen through his courage and righteousness.

4.3 Science-fiction and survival movies For Keith M. Johnston, a definition of the science-fiction genre may be given at least from three perspectives. The academic one “might focus on thematic areas around technology, science, futurism or the figure of the Other” (K. Johnston 7). “The popular criticism” identifies the genre by its “iconographic elements such as flying saucers, robots, ray guns and aliens” (K. Johnston 7). The perspective of the film industry “might focus on special effects or spectacle” (K. Johnston 7). This author seems to be less concerned in offering “a concrete, unyielding definition”, but “rather” to “demonstrate that the genre is as notable for its flexibility and genre hybridity as it is for a series of conventions around developing technology

88  The survival genre as a mixed genre or science” (K. Johnston 1). Some categories of film hybrids rooted in the science-fiction genre may be considered Western science-fiction (Cowboys and Aliens), science-fiction comedies as Idiocracy, romantic science-fiction as Passengers, Island, Equals and Code 46 (Winterbottom 2003), or philosophical martial arts science-fiction (the Matrix series, Equilibrium). Survival science-fiction films may be considered as some of these mixed genres. An important number (but not all) of these films are dystopias, stories of physical and spiritual survival placed in future and/or futuristic settings. The Martian (Scott 2015) and Interstellar (Nolan 2014) are two of the most salient and representative survival science-fiction movies of the recent years. The first is about an individual survival, while the second is about the survival of the entire mankind. One of the most obvious examples of the mixture between science-fiction and survival stories, The Martian, is not a dystopia. Its limit situation is triggered by a sand storm that hits the crew of the spaceship Hermes on Mars, which forces them to leave the planet and separates astronaut Mark Watney from them. He is considered dead, but he wakes up after a while. This is how the limit situation begins. This way he starts a long period of lone survival. He operates his wound; he manages to cultivate potatoes and to get in contact with people from Earth. His determination, knowledge and ability to solve problems constitute the first factors that help him to survive. The other essential element in his survival is the proper help received from Earth. Even people from the Chinese astronautic agency offer one of their space probes in this rescue mission. The third key element in his rescue mission is represented by his crew mates from Hermes. They accept to extend with many days their journey in space and to put their lives at risk for him. The mass media and the public opinion are also parts of this story. The image of this huge human energy corroborated with the use of very expensive hi-tech devices just to save one man’s life is a very optimistic one. It shows how important a human life is and how it should be treated. The human life is regarded here as a treasure and both, Mark and his rescuers, fight together to preserve it. This is the way it should be in real life and this is the moral lesson of the film. Unfortunately, the direct reference to God is almost absent, except for a brief and relaxed monologue of Mark keeping a cross in his hand. The action of Interstellar begins already inside the limit situation. In a possible future, at the end of the 21st century, humanity is on the verge of extinction because of the dust storms that torment the Earth and of an imminent famine caused by the extinction of all crops. One of the protagonists of the film is the ex-NASA pilot and engineer Cooper, a widower with two children, a boy named Tom and a girl named Murph (who is passionate about science). Along with Dr. Amalia Brand (daughter of Professor Brand and a scientist herself), other scientists and robots Chase and Tars, they are sent to find new shelters of humanity in other galaxies. After several adventures, due to them and to Murph Cooper’s scientific skills, humanity is moved to another habitat. Being recovered from his space expedition,

The survival genre as a mixed genre  89 Cooper wakes up in this habitat placed on the orbit of Saturn. The time has slower rhythm for him, so he meets his daughter Murph at an older age than him. After that, Cooper takes another shuttle to join Dr. Amelia Brand who remained alone in space, on Edmond’s Planet, trying to prepare another shelter for humanity. The film has an open end: although many people are “saved”, having already a habitat outside Earth, they are still looking for others. The film does not aim to highlight the transformation of characters. It is both a dystopia and a utopia which states that, when resources of the Earth will be exhausted, the future of mankind will be not strictly “bond” to this planet. This is a very improbable assumption and hypothesis. The story focuses mostly on the reason that human beings are endowed with, on the reason that is behind the scientific spirit. Cooper trusts that humanity will not die because, while passing through several crises, it will always look for solutions: “We’ll find a way (…). We always have!” To give examples of dystopian survival films, I have chosen three creations from the 1970s: No Blade of Grass (Wilde 1970), Soylent Green (Fleischer 1973), Logan’s Run (Anderson 1976) and one produced after 2000, namely, Equals (Doremus 2012). Despite the distance in time that separates the release of the first three from the last one, they all are about both physical and spiritual/moral aspects of survival. No Blade of Grass is a disaster science-fiction survival movie set in the United Kingdom sometimes after the seventh decade of the 20th century. Because of a virus that causes the destruction of the crops and, thus, famine in the world, the Chinese government already executed 300,000 of their people. Being aware of the perspective that soon the British cities will be blocked and the population will be killed after the Chinese pattern, the architect John Custance, his wife Ann, his daughter Mary and her boyfriend Roger leave London in order to find refuge at John’s brother, David, farmer in Scotland. On their way to Scotland, a young couple, Pirrie and Clara, join them. At a certain point during their journey, a large group accepts John’s command trusting him that he will bring them, too, to David’s farm. The limit situation consists in the dangerous circumstances that occur on their way to the presumingly safe location in Scotland. The substance of the movie lays in its action full of violent events: gun fights, rapes and killings. John’s group fights with a motorcycle gang and, at the end, they will fight even David’s companions. David tells John to secretly come inside the farm only with his family because there is no place and food for all men who came with him. John refuses and he and his men fight his brother. Finally, John’s team is taking over the farm. David dies in the fight, although John didn’t want this. David’s men left alive surrender and join John’s group. This is the first step out of the limit situation. The next step is represented by the burial of all the dead people. The normal and peaceful life begins with a prayer for the deceased and an asking for forgiveness: “God, grant peace to the souls of those we loved who lie here and may He forgive us all for what we have done”.

90  The survival genre as a mixed genre Soylent Green may be considered a science-fiction survival movie and a meditation with moral implications. The action is set in 2022 in New York in a period of famine and social disorder. Following a crime investigation, detective Frank Thorn discovers that “Soylent Green”, the wonder solution to feed the world, is made from the processed corpse of the dead people killed through euthanasia. Little by little, as he becomes aware of this monstrous mechanism, Frank transforms himself because he cannot live lying himself in a web of propagandistic and criminal lies. At the end of the movie, he reaches the courage to cry out the truth: “Soylent Green is made out of the people; they’re making our food out of people!” After this replica, Frank, badly wounded, is taken away on a portable bed. The last image of the movie is his bleeding hand rising up as a warning. He is a martyr. Unfortunately, he is surrounded by the indifference of the people around him and the supposed complicity of his chief. This makes his sacrifice looking even more painful. His love for truth causes him physical sufferings but makes him a free man. Righteousness, courage and freedom are elements of God’s image that become very visible in his character. This movie can be understood as a challenging meditation that urges an answer: should humanity try to survive at any cost, even through crime? Logan’s Run may be considered a dystopia and a spiritual survival movie whose action is set in 2247 when humans live in a sophisticated super-technologized colony under the earth. This “perfect world” is ruled by a computer, based on propaganda and enforced by police force. This propaganda says that people need to be “renewed” after the age of 30 through the public ritual of the “Carousel”. In fact they are killed. The “Sandmen” are the policemen assigned to kill every people who want to escape the “Carousel”, the “Runners”. The hope of “Runners” is to reach The Sanctuary, a place where they can live peacefully even after their 30s. The protagonist of the film is Logan 5, a Sandman who receives from the computer the mission to destroy the Sanctuary. He is forced to run because the computer changes his clock implanted inside the palm from green (that means “young”) to red (that means “old”). He and his girlfriend Jessica 6 manage to go up on the ground. They find an old man living in the ruined Washington House of the Senate. He and Jessica 6 manage to go back underground. Logan 5 will destroy the main computer and set free all the people who go up and meet the old man. They never saw a man older than 30. The “perfect world” based on lies collapses and, instead of it, the normal life occurs. It is a world in which people have the right to see the sun, to grow old and to see the things as they are, and not as they are presented by propaganda. The spiritual issue raised by this film, as well others as Fahrenheit 451 (Truffaut 1966), The Island (Bay 2005), Divergent (Burger 2014), Equillibrium (Wimmer 2002) and Equals (Doremus 2015), is that of the modern comfort that comes with a price, that of accepting the lies of the authorities, of accepting to be brain-washed. The human soul needs the truth to really live, because without truth the reason cannot function

The survival genre as a mixed genre  91 and real freedom cannot be felt and enjoyed. The vocation for truth and freedom are two elements of God’s image inside of us. Equals is a dystopia, a romance and a spiritual survival movie whose action is placed in an indeterminate future, in a human society where any emotion, love and especially normal sexual activity are forbidden. Babies are born only through artificial insemination. Love is seen as a disease called “Switch-On Syndrome” (SOS) that has to be cured. This “cure” goes from a close monitoring and a “treatment” up to the killing of the “infected” person especially by encouraging him/her to commit suicide inside the Defective Emotional Neuropathy (DEN) center. This is the limit situation in which humans are trapped. The protagonists of the film are Silas and Nia who fall in love one for another. They are helped to escape to a free zone called the Peninsula by Jonas, Bess and Gilead, members of an “illegal” support group. The group is turned out to the authorities by an ex-fellow named Max. They are sentenced to take Ashby ENI, the new “cure” for SOS. Previously, this three helped Nia, who was found pregnant and sent to DEN, to switch identity with a dead girl named Eva. Silas goes and asks for Nia at DEN, and, finding she was reordered as death, he thinks to commit suicide but changes his mind and takes the new “treatment” against emotions. After that, he goes at home, and, finding Nia there, still agrees to go with her to the Peninsula. The next day they take the train to go there, and he, finally, takes Nia’s hand. This means that his love for her was not affected by the “medicine” he had taken. This film states that no matter how high material comfort a society may provide, it may be still considered as inappropriate for humans if it forbids the spiritual fulfillment of the individuals. One of the key elements of God’s image in people is the sentiment, meaning love. Love puts a person in the right relationship with God and other people. Love is not the SOS disease as it was propagandistically presented by the rulers of this imagined society. One character of the film states a memorable definition of love by saying that “SOS is what we really are”. People search to receive love and opportunities to provide love. The sacrifice of Jonas, Bess and Gilead to help Silas and Nia is based on love. Helping them to become free, Jonas, Bess and Gilead preserved their humanity in a world that took from them all the “human” words of love, freedom, emotion, family… When a person fights for another’s freedom, he/she becomes freer himself/ herself. It is the case of these three characters. Also, if we overcome fear and brainwashing, we have the chance to find out how beautiful is our humanity, which is a gift from God. It should not be, nor is it any pharmaceutical “treatment” to “cure” humans of their humanity. This presumed “treatment” imagined in Equals didn’t extinguish Silas’ love for Nia.

4.4 War and survival movies Robert Eberwein considers that films belonging to the war film genre focus “1. directly on war itself (…), 2. on the activities of the participants off the

92  The survival genre as a mixed genre battlefield (…) and 3. (on) the effects of war on human relationships (…)” (Eberwein 45). He continues by stating the following amendment to the upper definition: “While some films easily meet all three criteria, others are notable for qualifying on the basis of one in particular” (Eberwein 45). According to Dancyger and Rush, “the point of view of the war genre ranges from romantic (Sergeant York) to cynical (Too Late the Hero). Whatever the perspective, the individual character is the focal point of the war genre” (Dancyger and Rush 116). This focalization of the character is the meeting point of war and survival genres. These authors consider as the first feature of this genre the fact that the “primary goal” of “the central character” is “survival”. “This may mean personal survival, national survival, or the survival of the personal or political values he believes in” (Dancyger and Rush 116). From this perspective, these genres almost overlap, with my amendment that a war survival movie may be defined as a survival story (individual or collective, physical and/ or spiritual) that takes place during wartime, but not especially during a battle. Some stories happen during a retreat of the army as in Dunkirk (Nolan 2017), others behind the front as in Behind Enemy Lines (Moore 2001), others in a remote region far from the space of the regular battles as the Into the White (Naess 2012)… Prisoners of War (POW) stories may be the frames of interesting survival stories as happens in Land of Mine (Danish: Under sandet) (Zandvliet 2015) or Rescue Dawn (Herzog 2006). The Pianist (Polanski 2002) is a powerful survival story in the Warsaw ghetto describing both a collective and an individual drama. A significant part of the action of Hacksaw Ridge (Gibson 2016) and The Last Full Measure (Robinson 2019) takes place on the battlefield. What makes them survival movies is the struggle for both physical and spiritual survival of the characters. Behind Enemy Lines (Moore 2001) is a war survival movie, and, more specifically, it belongs to a theme that describes the life of soldiers lost or caught in enemy territory, as The Siege of Jadotville (Smyth 2016), Lone Survivor (Berg 2013), Black Hawk Down (Scott 2001), 13 Hours (Bay 2016) or Rescue Dawn (Herzog 2007). Dunkirk (Nolan 2017) presents the evacuation of more than 300,000 allied soldiers from the French coast to the United Kingdom across the Strait of Dover. The limit situation is mainly provided by the furious attacks of the Germans against these soldiers trying to retreat. The focus of the movie lays on the description of the events individualizing some characters from the crowd of people caught in these dramatic events. The film describes the facts from three angles: from what happens on earth, on the sea and on the air. The time interval depicted on land is one week, the one on the water is one day and the one on the air is one hour. On land, the mob of soldiers waiting to embark becomes a collective character, but the movie focuses on the survival attempts of only three characters: Tommy, Gibson and Alex. They use all the opportunities they

The survival genre as a mixed genre  93 have to stay alive. Gibson is French and, in order to be rescued by the British army, he takes the uniform of a dead British soldier whom he buried on the beach. Unfortunately, after many efforts to survive and after saving Tommy’s life, he dies drowning in a sinking ship. From the beginning of the movie, Tommy’s actions can be defined as a long run for survival. He is the only survivor of an ambush on the streets of Dunkirk. He flees to the beach. Here he finds Gibson, and, together, they take a wounded soldier on a journey, pretending to be medics just to get inside a rescue boat sooner than others. They miscalculate this attempt, because, after leaving the wounded soldier on the ship, they are not allowed to remain there. This Red Cross vessel will be soon sunken by the Germans. They save Alex from this disaster. Together, they manage to reach another Red Cross ship, but this will be sunken, too. The three protagonists are forced to come back to the Dunkirk beach and find shelter, together with a group of other soldiers, in an abandoned small ship that lies on the shore. They wait inside of it for the tide, but, in the meanwhile, it is hit several times by the bullets of the Germans, who fire on it maybe just for fun. Finally the boat drilled in many places is taken by the tide, and they manage to escape, except Gibson. Inside this limit situation, these three characters do whatever they can to survive, but they also help others when they can. The end of the movie shows Tommy and Alex in England on the train. This retreat is not to be seen as a shameful one because it is just an episode in a war in which the British are decided not to surrender, as Winston Churchill said. The section of the film called The Sea (One Day) depicts a different behavior than that of the soldiers terrorized by the German attack on the shores of Dunkirk. It tells the story of a British sailor named Dawson, of his son Peter and of their fellow George, who decide to enter on their own will in the limit situation by taking their private boat and going to rescue as many soldiers as they can from the French coast. Peter and George are just some boys. They behave very bravely and calmly in very stressful and dangerous conditions. They save a British soldier from a sunken ship. He is under shock. First time he stays silently, after a while he insists that the boat should turn back to the British shore. When George tries to stop him from taking the control of the boat, the soldier pushes the boy who falls and got hit at the head. After a while, George dies because of this, but, when they reach the British coast and the unknown soldier asks about his condition, Peter, delicately, hides this truth from him. This delicate behavior is a form of love, and through it, the God’s image inside Peter is easy to be seen. Peter and his father have taken in the meanwhile many other soldiers from the sea, including Tommy and Alex. Knowing George’s desire to do something important with his life (because he previously wasn’t good at school or at anything), Peter goes and presents his friend to a newspaper as a hero. One hour of these events is seen from the sky from the perspectives of pilots Farrier and Collins. Collins’ plane is shot down. The pilot is rescued by Peter and brought to the Dawsons’ boat. Farrier continues to defend

94  The survival genre as a mixed genre his countrymen and manages to gun down a bombardier that menaces the mole. He puts his life in danger because he is aware that he will remain without fuel if he stays on the sky that long. Finally, he lands his plane on the shore, burns it and surrenders to the Germans. This heroic behavior as well as the Dawsons’ are forms of love for other people and make the God’s image very visible in these characters. Another noble gesture that puts also his life at risk is that of Commander Bolton, who decides to remain at Dunkirk, after British soldiers are gone, to organize also the evacuation of the French soldiers. This gesture raises him forever to the status of a real commander. This responsibility that a commander has can be, to a certain extent, close to the metaphor of the “Good Shepherd” who “lays down his life for the sheep” (John 10:11). Into the White (Naess 2012) is based on true events that happened in the spring of 1940 in the mountains near the village of Grotli in Norway. The protagonists of the film are five soldiers who survive their plane crashes because of aerial fights. Three of them are Germans: the Lieutenant Horst Schopis and his subordinates – the non-commissioned officers Josef Schwartz and Wolfgang Strunk. Two of them are English: Captain Charles Davenport and his flight attendant Robert Smith. The Germans wanted to go to the coast and go back to the fight, but they were forced by a storm to shelter in an isolated cabin in the mountains. The English come after, and they all are forced by the storm to live together in the cabin because of the stormy weather. The first stage of the limit situation is when the two groups survived the night after their planes crash, separated, before reaching the cabin. The second and the main stage of the limit situation is reached when the two groups are forced to find a way to face together the frozen Norwegian Spring. Soon after their encounter, the Germans take the English prisoners, but, after a while, the English manage to overthrow the situation. In the end, they give up their guns and live together as persons with equal rights and duties. In the beginning, they draw a “border” in the room to separate the area of the cabin for each group. They rationalize the little food they have in the beginning. They eat lichen soup, cook a polar rabbit hunted by Smith and, in the end, they find a box with good food and two bottles of alcohol hidden under the floor of the cabin. With these supplies, four out of the five soldiers make a kind of a party during a night and they become friends. They operate together Josef, cutting his gangrenous arm off and saving his life. They work as a unit, in communion, not taking into account that the war made them enemies. It is an extraordinary moment when four simple men defeat the war behaving like brothers. The characters change a lot during this experience. Robert Smith changes his provocative and offensive behavior toward the Germans, and especially to the silent Wolfgang Strunk, into respect and friendship. When Smith and Strunk go to explore the surroundings, the German opens his heart and tells him that he always wanted to become a painter. Robert Smith encourages him to fulfill his dream. He advises him to go to Paris and earn his

The survival genre as a mixed genre  95 living by painting the tourists. Captain Charles Davenport and Lieutenant Horst Schopis prove to be real leaders and well-balanced persons. Due to their calm authority, their subordinates do not kill themselves during the days spent in the cabin. Lieutenant Horst Schopis opens his heart to his former enemy and tells him a painful secret: that her wife left him for his best friend. The Lieutenant goes to war to regain his wife: “I want to impress her, and I went too far and…here we are!” At the beginning of the limit situation, the young Josef Schwartz looks like having his mind caught by the Nazi discourse. He reads Mein Kampf and is proud to have Hitler’s signature on it. Josef asks several times Lieutenant Horst Schopis to allow them, together, to kill Captain Charles Davenport and Robert Smith, but he is not able to do it alone. Josef is just a confused young man. During one of the last scenes on the cabin, when seeing the Captain and the Lieutenant talking, he stays apart silently. He just lost one arm. Maybe he is also baffled by the discovery of the human value in people he previously regarded as his enemies. Unfortunately, their experience in the mountains ends with a tragedy: Wolfgang Strunk is deadly shot by the Norwegian patrol that comes to rescue the English soldiers. The last scene of the movie shows the two Germans departing as POW in a boat under the kind gazes of Davenport and Smith. This movie proves the vocation of people for communion. It is actually a mark of their vocation for love given by the fact that they all are brothers. This affinity that people have for others like them may be considered a mark of the fact that they share the same interior structure: the God’s image inside them. Land of Mine (Danish: Under sandet) (Zandvliet 2015) depicts events that happened in post-World War II Denmark, when the Danish authorities ordered the de-mining of the Western beaches using German POWs. Before entering the limit situation, we get acquainted with Danish Sergeant Carl Rasmussen while staying in his army jeep and looking at the long convoys of German POWs passing under his sight. He suddenly gets down from his car and hits several times really hard a prisoner that carries a folded Danish flag crying loudly: “This is not yours!” This is just a sample of the hate Danish people have for Germans after the war. In the next scenes, the camera shows in close shots the faces of the so much hated Germans: they are just some scared boys dressed in various uniforms. We don’t know anything about how they behaved during the war. The camera retains only their silent figures. The limit situation starts on the beach for Sergeant Rasmussen and his group of 14 prisoners while facing an extremely dangerous mission: the de-mining of the beach sector. In the beginning, the sergeant was not concerned at all about the problems the boys faced: he even let them starving for two days. The boys got sick after they ate some stolen food from the house near them. After a boy called Wilhelm loses his arms during an explosion and later dies, the sergeant, little by little, changes his attitude related to the “boys”. He helps them cure of that nausea; he brings them food from the Danish army, although the officer Ebbe doesn’t agree.

96  The survival genre as a mixed genre Another time the sergeant protects them when Danish and English soldiers humiliate them. The boys display their pure souls, they try to behave normally during this extreme situation. They dream about their future, about jobs, beers and girls, they play with bugs. One keeps a wild mouse as a pet. The Sergeant starts talking with them in a more relaxed way, he lets them swim in the sea, and he doesn’t lock their cabin anymore. They play football together, and the boys make running contests on the beach. Another moment of tension occurs in their relation when the Sergeant’s dog dies stepping on a mine. This shows that the beach was not entirely safe. The boys prove the purity of their souls saving Elisabeth, the daughter of the Danish woman who hated them and let them eat that bad food. Unfortunately Ernst, who rescued her, commits suicide because of a nervous breakdown. Many other boys die while arranging and loading some mines. In the beginning there were 14, but only 4 of them survived to finish the mission. They were promised to be released when another order comes, one that obliges them to de-mine another beach, at Skalingen. Hearing this order, Sergeant Rasmussen helps these four boys to flee over the border in Germany. The boys passed through all these dangerous situations preserving the purity of their souls, and purity is an element of God’s image in man. They help Sergeant Carl Rasmussen to become from a cruel German hater soldier to a better man concerned to protect the life and purity of others. He discovers goodness inside his soul, and this is an element of God’s image inside him. On the other hand, at a larger scale, at the nations’ scale, this film demonstrates that when they do not control their hate, the former victims may become current aggressors and criminals, and soldiers belonging to the former aggressor army become victims. So beware of revenge and of the idea that it is justified! Unfortunately, it can enslave the souls of those who avenge. Those who avenge lose their ingenuity. Rescue Dawn (Herzog 2006) presents a true story that takes place during the Vietnam War. The American pilot Dieter Dengler is gunned down during a mission and imprisoned in a jungle prison camp. He and a small group of prisoners will try to escape. The limit situation has two stages: the first refers to the period of imprisonment and the second to the one spent as a fugitive. Before being sent to the prison camp, Dieter Dengler is brought in front of a Communist local leader who offers him the “chance” to sign a letter in which he condemns the United States. He refuses. He is tortured in several very cruel ways and after that he is brought to the camp where he meets other prisoners: two American pilots: Gene and Duane, and three local people: Y.C., Procet and Phist. Dieter is determined to escape with all these people. Gene is afraid. He opposes to the escape plan in the beginning, but finally agrees. Dieter is always in search for solutions. He makes a tool out of a nail in order to be able to open any time the handcuffs. They decide to escape on the 4th of July. Gene doesn’t stick to the plan and Dieter is forced to kill the guards except Jumbo who was kind to them. The first part of the limit situation ends here. The second part begins with Gene’s

The survival genre as a mixed genre  97 decision to follow Y.C. on his way to the jungle, while Gene and Dieter go in a different direction. Their plan is to find Mekong River and follow its course to Thailand. They face extreme fatigue, harsh jungle conditions and continue incertitude. They find a river and travel a part of the way with a raft, but it is destroyed in a waterfall, and they barely save their lives. Duane is in extremely bad shape. After beckoning two American “choppers”, Dieter is almost killed by one of them who took him as an enemy. After that, the two fugitives accidentally meet a group of peasants, who, in an access of fear and fury, decapitate Duane. Dieter manages to escape and, after a while, is rescued by another “chopper”. He is brought to a hospital, but secret services want to keep him for a long interrogation because he was a part of a secret mission. He is hidden and taken out of the hospital by some of his fellows and brought to their ship where a huge festivity is prepared in his honor. Dieter Dengler is an impressive character because of his simple intelligence, courage, determination and altruism. He fights every moment for his freedom, without doing compromises or being selfish. He draws lots with others for all useful things that are not in a sufficient quantity for all the people around him. Even when he has found a sole of a boot while he and Duane were running barefoot, he draws lots for it, and the sole is gained by Duane. Reason, love, will, lust for freedom, righteousness, kindness and compassion are just some elements of the God’s image that can be easily detected in Dieter’s soul. The Pianist (Polanski 2002) sets its action in Warsaw, Poland, between 1939 and 1945. It tells the real survival story of the Polish Jewish piano player Wladyslaw Szpilman during the German occupation of the city. The limit situation can be split in two parts. The first shows Wladyslaw “Wladek” Szpilman together with his family in the occupied city and in the Ghetto. In 1942, all of them are gathered to be brought by train to an unknown place. One of the collaborationists from the Jewish Ghetto Police pulls him out of the convoy. He returns to the city and does forced labor. Wladek manages to escape and is hidden in several houses by some friends. When his friends are arrested and disappear, he remains on his own. This is the second part of the limit situation. He is now surviving isolated, hiding from Germans, trying to find food and shelter. Wladek is found by the German Captain Wim Hosenfeld. He tells the German Officer that he is a pianist. The Captain brings him to the piano and asks him to play something. Aaron Kemer considers that: “This scene, where Szpilman belts out Chopin’s ‘Ballade’, is effectively the climax of the film. Although the war (and the film) is not over yet, the enemy is vanquished here, crushed under the massive weight of transcendental beauty” (Kemer 73). During this scene, a very interesting transformation of the role of the characters happens: when Szpilman reaches the piano and starts playing, he starts to shine, and Wim Hosenfeld renounces for a while to the rigid and dominating posture of military leader and suddenly becomes an amazed spectator. Music functions here as an instrument able to break down the boundaries set by war

98  The survival genre as a mixed genre conditions and to reveal the real nature of man, its vocation for brotherhood and beauty, for brotherhood in beauty, in fact. As a consequence of this revelation, the officer helps him to survive, bringing him food and even his military coat before the German’s retreat from the city. Wladek thanks him and Captain Hosenfeld tells him to thank God because all people should do God’s will. Wladyslaw Szpilman is saved not only by his intelligence and determination, but also by music, by his musical skills and prestige. Roman Polanski himself describes the character by saying that “the victim survives, thanks to his passion for the arts and for the music in particular, thanks to his willpower” (qtd Kemer 72). And also, like in The 12th Man (Norwegian: Den 12. Mann) (Zwart 2018), the survival of the protagonist is a result of the efforts of many people. Behind the effort of saving a “special” man lays the humility, the goodness and the solidarity of some less famous people, but precisely this humble behavior makes the God’s image more visible in their souls. During World War II, for Desmond Doss in Hacksaw Ridge (Gibson 2016), the refusal to bear arms for reasons of conscience brought him many adversities and sufferings from his commanders and from his fellow soldiers. He has the courage to act according to his conscience and to try to save people instead of killing them. Risking his life as a medic on the battlefield, he saves many lives during the battle of Okinawa and this brings him the Medal of Honor. In April 1966, during one of the bloodiest battles of the Vietnam War, the Pararescueman William “Pits” Pitsenbarger from The Last Full Measure (Robinson 2019) decides to descend from the relative safety of the helicopter and to remain on the ground to help a decimated infantry division. He refuses to go back on the helicopter when his airman colleague called him. In that day he saves many lives, and he dies. His extraordinary attitude changed many lives over the years. Because of the efforts of some of these people, he was awarded post-mortem the US highest military recognition: the Medal of Honor.

4.5 Conclusions Ken Dancyger states that “When two genres are mixed in one film, each genre brings along its conventions. This can sometimes make an old story to seem fresh” (Dancyger 181). He made this observation from the point of view of a film editor, but I think this statement has a general validity related to films. For the survival movies, “the old story” is that of fighting to preserve life, and the encounter of this general idea with the styles and conventions of different cinematic genres may provide “fresh” ways of expressing it. These may be found also in the survival movies hybrids I mentioned above in this chapter.

The survival genre as a mixed genre  99 In romantic survival films, the fight for life, specific to survival movies, acquire new meanings: the efforts for preservation of personal life may become an altruistic struggle to keep the loved person alive as happens in Backcountry (MacDonald 2014). In cases like Open Water (Kentis 2003), Adrift (Kormakur 2018) or The Canyon (Harrah 2009), the survival stories gain a more impressive sense because of the tragic love stories they are combined with. When the survival stories are placed in Western settings, they may absorb all the conventions of the Westerns and especially the moral scheme of the fight between the good and the evil. Enriched with this scheme, these hybrids may easily become spiritual survival films speaking about the fact that a community cannot survive just a physical entity. A community of human beings is a moral entity also, and, therefore, it must reject the compromise with evil in order to function normally. Films like The Salvation (Levring 2014), Never Grow Old (Kavanah 2018) and The Magnificent Seven (Fuqua 2016) assert this. When the survival stories happen inside the science-fiction genre conventions, they may gain a certain liberty to imagine futuristic scenarios and a certain capacity to portray man as a rational being in search for solutions, helped by technology, as happens in The Martian (Scott 2015) or Interstellar (Nolan 2014). No Blade of Grass (Wilde 1970), Soylent Green (Fleischer 1973), Logan’s Run (Anderson 1976) and Equals (Doremus 2012) provide scenarios about the possible so-called “perfect societies” and warnings about the dangers encountered by people inside them. Survival stories that take place in war conditions, as those presented above – Dunkirk (Nolan 2017), Behind Enemy Lines (Moore 2001), Into the White (Naess 2012), Land of Mine (Danish: Under sandet) (Zandvliet 2015), Rescue Dawn (Herzog 2006) or The Pianist (Polanski 2002 – are able to test the moral values of the characters in a violent environment (Dancyger and Rush 116). This proves that even in these extraordinary conditions, for people, life is not only a matter of biology. This chapter only aims to open a certain perspective by showing a possible way to arrange survival films at the intersection with some other cinematic genres, offering in this regard some examples that I consider eloquent. Of course, the description could have been continued to study how the idea of survival interacts with other genres such as action movies or comedy. This could be the object of other studies.

5 Survival and biology (physical survival)

To present survival as a biological reality, my study follows the definition given by Claude Piantadosi: Fundamentally survival can be defined in terms of interactions between an individual and its natural surroundings. The surrounding determines the extent to which a person is exposed to critical changes in environment, such as temperature, water, food and oxygen. The physical world imposes strict limits on human biology, and learning where the limits are and how to deal with them is what biologist call limit physiology. (Piantadosi 1) He considers that there are four objective “critical variables” in any survival equation: “1. the physics of the environment, 2. the limits of the human physiology, 3. the length of the exposure, 4. behavioral adaptation, including what the victim understands about survival requirements and the plans made to prepare for failure” (Piantadosi 7). Although he accepts the existence of the “intangible” will to live along with these factors, he does not see it as one of crucial importance. Precaution and a good preparation of the “life-support systems” (Piantadosi 8) are seen as decisive in the preservation of life in “extreme environments”: Every life-and-death struggle is influenced by intangibles, sometimes lumped under broad terms such as survival instinct and the will to live. Whether an individual survives an unexpected and prolonged encounter with a potential lethal environment, however, depends more on the equilibrium between biology and physics than on the intangibles. Strength of spirit, motivation, and spiritual factors are very important for survival, but less decisive under truly catastrophic conditions than our poets and writers would like to believe. (Piantadosi 4) As a synthesis of the ideas I mentioned above, I consider that the biological survival in extreme conditions depends on: (1) the characteristics of the

100

DOI: 10.4324/9781003356912-6

Survival and biology (physical survival)  101 environment and on the time of the exposure at harsh conditions, (2) the biological limits of the people, (3) the equipment (prepared in the beginning or improvised at the scene of the disaster) and (4) all the “intangible” human qualities as will, courage, intelligence, “motivation”, faith in God… I think this ability of people to survive on earth is considered by the Orthodox theology among “the garments of skins” (Nellas 57, 59) (see Chapter 1 of this book). When the harshness of the environment conditions exceeds the limits in which equipment can offer protection or the biological limits of people, death as a biological reality may occur. Even in this situation, the “intangible” human qualities mentioned above may still remain intact, truly “intangible” and even increase, as it will be shown analyzing some of the films from the following subchapter.

5.1 Failing to survive. Some occurrences of death in survival movies There is a category of films in which all or almost all the main characters die. This is why they may actually be called “non-survival films”. These films bring together the efforts to survive of the characters with their tragic end, because sometimes in real life, things go like this and some of these films are biographical: Everest (Kormakur 2015), Open Water 2: Adrift (Horn 2006) or The Last Descent (Halasima 2016). Other films, like On the Beach (Kramer 1959) and Testament (Littman 1983), although they are fictional, offer a grim perspective on the future of humanity. Another film that would fit into this category is Open Water 3: Cage Dive (Rascionato 2017). It is neither (entirely) biographical, nor metaphorical. All of the three main characters of the film die because of sharks’ attacks. Open Water 2: Adrift is a lost at sea group survival movie based on true events. Three couples – Dan and Michelle, Zach and Lauren and Amy and James with their baby Sarah – go in a yacht cruise. At a certain moment, Michelle, Zach, Lauren and James jump into the water to swim. Amy wears all the time a life vest because she is afraid of water, but Dan makes a joke and takes her into the water against her will. Just baby Sarah remains on the yacht. The limit situation occurs when they find out that they have no way to come back to the ship. The ship is too high, and nobody pulled the ladder. From now on, their agony begins because for many hours they find no solution to get back. Little by little, most of them disappear or die. Most of the characters were exceeded by this deadly situation. This was a tragedy that hit really quickly, like a flashlight. In the light of this flash can be seen the love that Lauren and Zack have for each other, the love that James and Amy have for each other and for the baby Sarah, the fear and a nuance of loneliness in Michelle’s case and the regret felt by Dan. The Last Descent belongs to trapped survival movies group. It is based on the true events happened in 2009 with John Jones, a student in medicine,

102  Survival and biology (physical survival) who got stuck in a tiny tunnel in Nutty Putty Cave in Utah. The introductory part presents John traveling with his wife Emily, their daughter Lizzie and John’s younger brother Josh in Utah. They came for the Thanksgiving party. Suddenly Josh and John decide to do a quick descend into Nutty Putty Cave. Here the accident happens. The limit situation consists in John’s efforts to survive blocked in the cave, in a painful position with his head down. Aaron, a very dedicated rescuer, sits next to him taking care of him all the time the rescue team prepares the pull-out attempt. During these long hours, John describes to Aaron the most important moments of his life, especially his love story with Emily and the love for his daughter. She was the girl John “had to marry”, and “she is everything”. About Lizzie, John says to Aaron that only having a baby girl makes you a “real man”. While blocked in the cave, John finds out from Emily that he will be father again. John tells Aaron that “no matter what” he “will be there when the baby is born”. Unfortunately, the rescue attempt fails. John remains in the cave and dies there. His biological limits are revealed in this narrow gallery that acts like a deadly environment. At the beginning of the movie, when he enters the cave, Aaron promises: “I am not coming up without him!” The chief of the rescue team makes at a certain moment of the film a pretty similar promise when he says that “nobody is resting till John is out of there!” These are promises that couldn’t be kept, but what is important is love and human solidarity that exist behind these words. This attitude makes everyone a better person, and although the promises couldn’t be kept, the attitude remains and makes more visible the brotherhood among people as a manifestation of God’s image inside them. In the imaginary dialogue that John has with his unborn boy, he asks him to love his mother and make her happy, because so, she will be able to love him and his sister with the kind of love they so much need. This is a plea for love as the sole milieu in which a human may develop as a harmonious and accomplished personality. Love is the necessary air of the soul. This disposal of people to look for love and to deliver love is a defining element of God’s image inside humans. The character from Buried (Cortes 2010) appears only within the limit situation, and he will present himself through everything that happens inside this state of emergency. The succession of details expresses his fight for survival. In the beginning, the screen is dark. The character becomes visible in the dark when he lights a cigarette. He screams even when his mouth is covered. He woke up in a narrow space with his hands and mouth tied. After uncovering his mouth, “Hey!” and “Help!” can be heard. These screams are the first reactions of the life inside him when confronted with this terrible situation. He unleashes his hands, tries to push the lid beneath him, discovers a mobile phone, calls the emergency number 112, makes the inventory of the objects he has with him. Once again, he calls the 911 service in Ohio. He calls at home, talks only with his wife’s voice reordered on the answering machine and leaves the message that he is buried in a box. The character talks to the FBI and tells them he was a driver in

Survival and biology (physical survival)  103 a food convoy, and he was hit with something on his head and woke up in this coffin. He calls the company that hired him and is directed to the staff manager, Allen Davenport. After that, the kidnapper calls him asking for a ransom of 5 million US dollars. He tells him he does not have the money. After that, he inspects the coffin and makes another call to Donna Mitchell, a friend. He tells her to look for his wife and to seek for another number from the State Department. He receives it and calls the Department announcing his condition. He is told that the government does not negotiate with terrorists, and he is given the phone number of Dan Brenner. He talks to him. The kidnapper calls again and asks Paul to make a video recording for him. After a while Paul tries to remove the lid of the coffin without success. In a small purse he finds two tubes and a flashlight. Dan Brenner calls back and tells him he was kidnapped for money. He encourages him that they were able to find another kidnapped man named Mark White, and they will find him too. Jabir, the kidnapper, insists that Paul has to record himself and send the film: “You make visual now!” The first fluorescent tube is over, he turns on the lantern. He eats something and talks to Marianne Conroy, his mother, who seems to have Alzheimer. He says he loves her. Jabir blackmails him that he will kill a girl named Pamela Lutti if Paul does not make and send the film. Paul lights the last fluorescent tube. A snake enters the coffin. He makes a fire to drive it away. The snake leaves. He manages to find the phone number he has in the coffin and to communicate it to his wife. He receives the recording with the murdering of Pamela Lutti. Dan Brenner encourages him, but the sand begins to pour inside the coffin. Allan Davenport calls him and makes an interview with him accusing Paul of having a love affair with Pamela Lutti. Davenport says that both were fired for this, and, as a consequence, his family would not receive any life insurance if he dies. The sand pours again. Dan tells Paul that they killed the kidnappers. Paul records his will on the phone. He gives to Linda his savings (700 US dollars), and to his son, Shane, his clothes and advises him to do always what’s right. Jabir asks him to cut one of his fingers and record this, unless he will punish Paul’s family. Jabir knows their address. Paul cuts himself a finger and sends the recording to his kidnapper. The sand continues to flow from the ceiling. Paul has a hallucination with his desired rescue. When he becomes conscious, Dan Brenner calls and tells him that they are coming soon. Linda calls him and makes desperate love declarations: “I love you so much! Please come back to me!” Dan Brenner calls back telling him that the informer has brought them to Mark White’s location. He repeats: “I’m sorry! I’m sorry, Paul!” This was a pretty detailed description of what Paul Conroy does to survive, but he is in a place that becomes more and more unsuitable for the preservation his biological life. His deeds speak very precisely about Paul’s will to survive, about how he uses his reason. He tries all solutions he has and does not hesitate to implement them. He is a poor man (perhaps that is why he decided to work in such a dangerous place as Iraq), he loves and he

104  Survival and biology (physical survival) is loved. Love appears profound and excruciating in the words of his wife. In the proximity of death the words of the characters gain a special power. Souls are raised here to a high tragic tension and become very visible and very obvious realities, true testimonies that man is God’s image full of reason, will and especially love. On the Beach (Kramer 1959) is a post-atomic survival movie. It presents the way in which some characters would react to an atomic disaster and to the perspective of their approaching death. Along with the (future or possible) physiological consequences of this kind of catastrophe, the psychological impact is of equal importance. The atomic disaster provides a very grim perspective that firstly seems to affect people’s will to live. Without hope people’s life is endangered. The main characters are Captain Towers (played by Gregory Peck), a commander of an American submarine that finds temporary shelter in Australia, Moira Davidson (Ava Gardner), her cousin, Julian Osborne (Fred Astaire), Lieutenant Peter Holmes (Antony Perkins) and his wife Mary (Donna Anderson). Captain Towers’ family disappeared in the catastrophe. The Captain and Moira Davidson gradually fall in love. It is a sad love story, menaced by the imminent end of the entire humanity (because Australia has only few months till the same disaster will reach it). It is “an apocalyptic love”. And it is impressive. The other “apocalyptic love” that occurs in the movie is that between Lieutenant Peter Holmes and his wife, Mary. They have a child, but they see no future for their daughter. Mary commits suicide. There is also a third “apocalyptic love” in the film that takes the form of the discreet admiration between the old admiral and his younger secretary, Lieutenant Hosgood (Lola Brooks). There is also a loner in the film. His name is Julian Osborne. He commits suicide, too, suffocating himself in his own race car. Too many people commit suicide, they want to take the place of God, to be the “directors” of their death, to make it very “aesthetic”. There is no “aesthetic” death; it is just a lack of faith in God of the contemporary people. One also could say that there is too much “aestheticism”, for example, in the way that Moira runs in her convertible fancy car along the beach to meet Towers for the last time. I appreciate “aestheticism” of other parts of movie: e.g., the scenography and the atmosphere of the deserted San Francisco are really memorable. The movie, as a whole, has atmosphere and a sort of elegant sadness that provides its quality. Although not all the characters of the film die till the end of the film, death is also a very pregnant presence in Testament (Littman 1983). The movie depicts how the American community of Hamelin is affected by a nuclear catastrophe. The action is centered mostly on Wetherly family. Carol’s husband, Tom, never came home from work after the nuclear blast. After a while two of Carol’s children, Mary Liz and Scottie die. Many other tragedies happen around them like the death of Pitkin family’s baby, the death of Larry (a child who joined the Wetherlys after his family never came back home) or the death of Mike, one of Tom’s friends and father of a child with

Survival and biology (physical survival)  105 disabilities named Hiroshi. Death is everywhere. Even Carol feels sick, she starts to vomit. Against this “siege” of death from everywhere, people find solutions that, although are not able to stop the disaster, preserve their dignity and humanity. First of all there is solidarity. They usually help each other. Carol accepts two foreign children, Larry and Hiroshi, to live with their family. Another “weapon” against death found by Carol is memory and endurance. She wishes to “remember it all… the good and the awful, the way we finally lived, that we never gave up, that we will last to be here, to deserve the children…”. It is a way to stick to life, and perhaps even a kind of unconscious declaration of faith. This means a powerful presence of the human spirit and of life against all the cruel adverse circumstances. Another victory of life among the apparently overwhelming presence of death is given by the fact that they decided not to commit suicide. They (Carol, Brad, her only left child, and Hiroshi) continue to live in a heroic way. For this reason, the film may be considered a spiritual survival movie. The black boy from Walkabout (Roeg 1971) is a tragic character. He dies because of love and cultural mismatch. Being rejected by the white girl, he sees no way back; thus, he continues courting her by dancing in the aboriginal way till exhaustion. Jenny from Love Story (Hiller 1970), George from Life as a House (Winkler 2001) or Jamie from A Walk to Remember (Shankman 2002) die at the end of the films, but they pass through the challenge of their terminal sickness spiritually transforming them and others. They become better persons during this limit situation; thus, they may be called “survivors in spirit”. Victor, the character suffering of leukemia from Dying Young (Schumacher 1991), was referring to something very “intangible” (Piantadosi 4) when he admits that the fight for survival is very difficult for him because he is “afraid …of hoping”. He is exhausted after several devastating sessions of chemotherapy and that is why he needs the presence and love of Hillary. He is “afraid to hope” because the disease recurrencies exhausted his body and soul. He is “afraid to hope” because he does not dare to imagine again that his happy life with Hillary is still possible. Hillary will remain with him, and their will continue fighting together for his life and for their life together. Jamie, the girl with incurable leukemia from A Walk to Remember (Shankman 2002), defined faith as being “like a wind. I can’t see it, but I can feel it”. This definition confirms faith among the “intangible” human qualities, and provides it with an additional nuance of mystery. At the end of the film, after the death of Jamie, her husband, Landon, will define love with the same words, suggesting that faith and love are among the “intangibles” that preserve the life of the soul. At the end of the film, Landon testifies that “Jamie saved me” through her presence, through her love, through her faith, through her purity, through her mysterious simplicity, through the fact that God’s imagine was so visible in her. Also, confronted with death sentence, Sam Cayhall from The Chamber (Foley 1996), Cindy Ligget from Last Dance (Beresford 1996) or Mathew

106  Survival and biology (physical survival) Poncelet from Dead Man Walking (Robbins 1995) live a very intense spiritual change. They die, but their spirit struggle for life by feeling awfully sorry for their crimes. Their attitudes prove the fact that human life and survival is first of all a matter of spirit. Cindy understands that the harm we do to others is actually done to ourselves when she says: “I killed him… I killed myself”.

5.2 Doing anything to survive or self-preservation in some films A series of very violent films as Preservation (Denham 2014), Beyond the Reach (J. B. Leonetti 2014), The Hunt (Zobel 2020) or The Decline (French: Jusqu’au declin) (Laliberte 2020) seem to demonstrate that the survival instinct functions in people in such a degree that it may enable a victim to turn against the attacker and change the defensive position with an offensive one. When people ground their behavior only on the survival instinct without any other superior understanding of what a human being represents, this often leads to extreme violence, to the desire to subjugate other people and, finally, to the physical and moral self-destruction of mankind. Superstition and fear enforce this destructive behavior. Without a moral to present humans as both physical and spiritual beings, as brothers responsible one for another, sons of the same loving God, the survival instinct may actually turn into its opposite, a destructive instinct. This scenario is very realistically presented in Apocalypto (Gibson 2006), and, with the means of allegory, in Lord of the Flies (Hook 1990). End of the Spear (Hanon 2005) provides the acceptance of the Christian way of life as a solution against this physical and spiritual self-destruction. A proverb says that “self preservation is the first law of nature” (Whiting 383). People seem to respect this law, but I consider that Robert K. Wen’s amendment to this principle is very important: “Survival is the basic instinct of any organism, unless is overruled by a higher value, such as the survival of a higher organism or group to which it belongs (e.g., country versus citizen)” (Wen 42). For people this “higher value” may also be a religious belief, a sentiment, an ideal which help them to overcome the fear of death and the search for personal safety. In the cases when people do not act according to values, they (usually) suffer moral degradation along with the physical one. Although the victory over fear and individualism is not an easy one, even in the simplest films of this kind, survival is not mere a biological one, but involves a feeling or moral turmoil. Thus, even these films may be presented according to the Christian anthropology perspective. In the following, I will present some films in which physical survival is the major issue, even if they are very different as settings and plots. Often, in films, the life preservation instinct is obvious when people have to protect their lives against animal attacks. These confrontations highlight the

Survival and biology (physical survival)  107 power of two existential realities: the man and the animal. Unfortunately, in these cases, they are put to destroy each other. This confrontation may appear in rather linear films where it constitutes the main line of action. It may appear as individual fights as in A Dog Called Vengeance (Spanish: El Perro) (Isasi-Isasmendi 1976) or combined with the theme of the family or community, as in Jaws (Spielberg 1975), Black Water (Nierlich and Traucki 2007), The Pack (Robertson 2015), Prey (Roodt 2007) or Into the Grizzly Maze (Hackl 2015). In The Edge (Tamahori 1997), it represents only an episode, a part of the plot, while in The Grey (Carnahan 2011) it may be considered also as a symbol able to trigger existential meditations. Cutterhead (Kloster Bro 2018) is one of the best examples about how life preservation instinct may function. It is the story of three characters, a Danish woman named Rie, a Croatian technician (Ivo) and a worker from Eritrea (Bharan), which are forced by circumstances to face an extremely dangerous situation. A fire breaks underground and they get trapped together in a two compartment rooms of the cutterhead that digs a tunnel for the metro in Copenhagen. As oxygen is less and less in their small survival capsule, Rie decides to take survival in her own hands and tries to isolate herself in a compartment to have more oxygen without taking into consideration that, by acting in this way, she puts other two people’s life in danger. Ivo stops her and cuffs her hands to a metal rod. She is released when a rescuer appears at the window. Unfortunately, after a short while, the rescuer is killed by a blast of fire, and they remain again on their own. Because the metal capsule is heating more and more, they decide to get out to the cutterhead direction. Ivo falls down and dies. Rie and Bharan manage to reach the soil, but their survival saga is not over yet. Rie tries to dig, but she encounters a portion of concrete and is forced to stop. During most of this time, Bharan is exhausted of cold. She manages to wake him by giving him the breathing apparatus. After a fight in the mud, Bharan is able to take the “breather” from her and to let her without this chance to survive. The film ends with the image of them both rescued and in the same room receiving supplemental oxygen. They exchange exhausted glances, but full of mysterious meanings, some related to a certain guilt and remorse. They may enjoy the idea of being alive, but this joy is maybe overshadowed by the remembrance of the way they acted during the limit situation. They could not surpass the strong biological life preservation instinct, and this may remain their “dirty” secret. Of course, they have all the justifications in the world for their behavior, but, still, their biological survival is not a pure victory. A shadow of shame still remains, because their spirit was not able to overcome the (purely biological) survival instinct. This is not an accusation; it is a meditation about the divine nature of humans and about the presence of conscience in this nature. In some moments of the limit situation, they acted like competitors, like temporary enemies. A more proper law for the functioning of the soul is that of self-sacrifice for others I will discuss in

108  Survival and biology (physical survival) Chapter 9. If they would have tried to sacrifice themselves for each other, this shame would have not been present in the silence and in their glances from the end of the film. I interpret this film as a moral study case. Lost in the Desert (Uys 1975) is a South African children adventure survival movie. The protagonist of the film is an 8-year-old child named Dirkie DeVries. He is sent by his father outside the city for a while to stay in “fresh air”. In their way, the small plane driven by his uncle Pete crashes in the Kalahari Desert because the pilot suffered a heart attack. From now on the limit situation begins for the only survivors, Dirkie and for his small dog. The first moments inside the limit situation are easier to bear for Dirkie because he is still in contact with his father on the radio station from the plane. Unfortunately, trying to avoid the attack of a hyena, the boy starts a fire and accidentally burns the plane and loses contact with his father. From now on Dirkie is forced to act. He climbs a mountain and spots a river. Going there, he realizes the river has dried up. The dog digs on the river bed and finds water helping both of them to survive. The hyena attacks, forcing the boy to climb a tree. He thinks that the hyena has killed the dog, but he will find it later. The boy eats some fruits, termites, ostrich eggs, but shows mercy and is not able to kill a chameleon. The image of the little boy carrying his suitcase through the desert is memorable. It expresses the strength and determination enclosed in the fragile body of a city child. As well, extremely important and impressive is the relation with his father who is looking for him. The leaflets that his father spreads in the desert to encourage him bears the message: “I love you very much and I will find you!” and concisely describe their relation. His father wants to spend all his money to rescue him. Unfortunately the military brought to search the boy are sent back to Pretoria. An important encounter in the desert is with the Bushmen, a man and a boy. They save him when he fell down bitten by a scorpion and he was close to be attacked again by the hyena. They take good care of him, but they separate from him because he wrongly understood that they roasted his dog. After a while, when the wreck of the plane is found and the search for Dirkie starts again, he will be found by his father due to the information given by the same Bushmen. This is a victory of a small boy against the desert, a victory of a father’s love for his son. When filled with courage and love, the human soul may be easily recognized as a God’s image. The Naked Prey (Wilde 1965) is a very violent adventure survival movie. It shows the story of a white man (played by Cornel Wilde himself) followed by people from a local tribe over the plains and bushes of Africa. He was a part of a group that went there for a safari, and one of them didn’t want to respect a traditional custom: to give a gift to the natives. Thus, all the people from the group, except the character played by Cornel Wilde, are killed. This last character is left alive to become a challenge, a possible prey hunted by some warriors. This is the main limit situation and it represents the substance of the movie. Finally, the white man will manage to stay alive

Survival and biology (physical survival)  109 by running and killing some of his pursuers. He also saves a black girl from a village attacked by merchants of slaves, putting his life at risk for her. At her turn, the girl will save him pulling him out from the water of a creek. He manages to come near to a colonial fort, but he falls down exhausted. One of his pursuers who were near to kill him is killed by the soldiers from the fort. The other three pursuers give up and remain into the bushes. One of them salutes the white man with respect. The deadly game ends here. The protagonist’s determination in fighting for his physical survival remains vivid in the memory of the viewer. It would be very good if people would have at least the same determination in defending their spiritual life against corruption and sin. The Shallows (Collet-Serra 2016) is a shark attack, lone survival movie whose action is set in the waters close to isolated beach from Mexico. The protagonist of the film is the young medical student Nancy Adams who suffers a lot after her mother’s death of cancer and, disappointed she could not do anything to save her, she may even think to quit the school. The introductory part shows her going for surfing to that beach in memory of her mother. This place has a special relevance for their relation because her mother was here when she was pregnant with Nancy. Nobody wants to tell the name of this beach to keep this “paradise” secluded from tourists. Nancy comes alone to this place because her friend Ann decided to stay at the hotel. Without knowing the name of the beach, she will not be able to help Nancy when she will need. The limit situation starts when Nancy, who remains alone in the water, is attacked by a white shark and is hurt at one leg. She finds shelter on the floating dead body of a whale, but the shark attacks again obliging her to find another refuge to a small cliff nearby. Here she uses her medical knowledge to stitch her wound with some ornaments from her necklace. Her capacity to endure this and to improvise the right treatment saves her leg and life. The shark kills two local surfers and a person who tries to steal Nancy’s board from the water. All of them entered the water without knowing about the shark’s presence. Nancy reordered his last testament and home address on the camera from the helmet of one dead surfer. This recording is found by a child and plays an important role in her rescue because the child alerts his father Carlos, the man who brought Nancy to the beach. After doing this recording, Nancy has to leave the rock to reach a buoy nearby because of the high tide. She acts in a very intelligent way swimming among a group of poisonous jellyfish that hurts her, but also keep the shark away for a time. From now on the scenes are hard to believe: first, because while attacking the buoy, the shark breaks the metal elements of the buoy as if they were biscuits; second, because the way she kills the shark is very improbable. She lures it to follow her to the bottom of the ocean, and, in the last moment, she makes a quick move making it to be punctured by a bar from the buoy. The epilogue shows her with his father and little sister Chloe ready to go surfing again. Beyond these improbable scenes, the way in which a woman defeats a violent huge

110  Survival and biology (physical survival) shark is impressive because it implies a lot of intelligence, endurance and strong will. Her capacity of doing the right thing at the right moment saves her life. If the movie is understood as a metaphor, the idea that everybody still has a chance as long as he/she fights for it with a good strategy may serve for those who are victims of an aggression. Another interesting thing about this film is that Nancy’s drama happened very close to the shore. A distance of 200 yards away from the shore seems to be enough to become the space of the limit situation when the protagonist cannot reach, for a certain reason, a secure space. In movies like Killing Time (Piersic Jr. 2012), Trapped (Motwane 2017) or Room (Abrahamson 2015), the survival dramas happen amidst some populated areas. All is Lost! (Chandor 2013) happens also at sea, and it also tells the efforts of an individual to survive alone. Actually, I consider it one of the most typical lone survival films. It is also a minimalist one: in film appear only one man, one yacht, one lifeboat, two ships (and perhaps the lights of another), the contour of the rescue boat in the end, and, of course, surrounding all, the immensity of the ocean. Because of the navigation technique and the costume of the main character shown in the film, its action may be set in the contemporary period. The movie shows the character only inside the limit situation. We do not know anything about his previous life. The statements he makes in the beginning represent a testament and prove that even a lonely man as him needs to relate to other people, at least to explain himself. The sentences are concise, strong and full of heroism and sadness: “I am sorry. I think you all agree that I tried. To be true. To be strong. To love. To be right. But I wasn’t. I fought to the end, I don’t know if it’s worth. But I tried”. Inside the limit situation he is helped by technology, by his sailing experience (reason) and by his strong will. Everything seems to go wrong: the yacht hit by the container sinks, two huge cargo ships pass by and do not notice him, he is burnt by the sun and has very little drinking water, the lifeboat burns… All seemed to be lost! He decided to give up the fight for life and right at that moment the salvation comes. He is rescued by a boat that may have seen the flame from his lifeboat. The entire movie is about fight, but a fight without enthusiasm. What are the joys waiting for him in the future? We do not know. He fought almost to the end. When it seems to be no rescue, the rescue comes after all. The joy lays purely in the fact of being alive. A certain light can be seen on the face of the character when he turns back to the surface. The mystery of human being and his/ her vocation for life and light are revealed in this gesture that the character makes in the end of the movie. Such a survival experience may bring a glimpse of optimism in the future life of this character. By surviving he receives another chance. The Deep (Icelandic: Djupio) (Kormakur 2012) may be also categorized as a sea lone survival movie. It is based on true events. Its action is set in 1984 in Westman Islands and in the North Atlantic waters surrounding them. The first part of the film describes the physical survival story and the

Survival and biology (physical survival)  111 second presents its consequences. Before entering the limit situation, the fishermen from “Breki” are presented in a bar and in their houses. After the boat is capsized, Larus, Hannes, Palli and Jon died pretty quick. Gulli starts swimming to the closest island. A seagull seems to lead him there. Gulli talks to the seagull, asking it to go for help, promising instead that he will never kill a seagull in the future. He even tries to tell the seagull a joke, but cannot remember it. He is not seen by a boat passing by. During these moments, Gulli promises that if he leaves another day he will be a better son for his mom, he will pay the last down payments at the bank for his motorcycle, he will let Hannes’ dog to his mom’s care and he will open his heart to the girl he loves. He reaches a village and is brought to the hospital. To spend six hours in freezing waters and still be alive seems impossible to many people. Television comes and takes him an interview. A researcher comes and takes him to Reykjavik and to London for investigations. He tells Gulli: “some says that you are a miracle, but I think this should have a scientific explanation”. Gulli’s mother, who was hearing this, answers to this attitude with a question: “How can you examine a miracle?” After several tests, no general conclusion could be drawn and Gulli decides to go home. He tells Palli’s wife and boys about his death. He takes Hannes’ dog with him, but he has not yet open his heart to the girl he considers “special”. After this entire rumor around his person, he goes back to work as a simple fisherman. What else could he do, anyway? The miracle of his survival becomes a part of his regular life. His life was saved, and he continues to live in his home village as a modest person. There is a mysterious modesty here, and this may be considered as a part of God’s image inside this character. Another lone fighter for his biological life is that from Detour (W. Dickerson 2013). This is a trapped survival movie. The character, as in Buried (Cortes 2010), is presented (except the last scene) only inside the limit situation. Jackson Alder, the protagonist of the film, is trapped under ground in his car because, as it will be unveiled little by little, he was caught in a mudslide somewhere in California. The focus of the movie is on describing this man fight for survival. He uses all his intelligence, all his determination and knowledge in order to stay alive. He tries to rememorize what he has done before ending up in this situation. He makes an inventory of all things he has in the car to see if they can be used in any way as survival tools. For example, Jackson finds out that the car lays a bit inclined to the left by hanging his telephone on a rope and by putting a bit of water in the plastic bottle stopper. During the long hours spent in this situation, he passes through different moods: he is astonished, he is mad of being in California where such mudslides occur, he prays and, after a while, rejects the idea of miracle, he cries, he is confident and after a while loses his hope, he rememorizes moments of the past, but finally he is able to gain his determination and gets out of the pile of mud that surrounds him and the car. We know about his life and especially of his love for Laurie from the flashbacks that

112  Survival and biology (physical survival) interrupt the course of action. When he realizes his desperate situation, he starts praying this pray: I know I am not the best person in the world, but I am not also the worst person in the world, and I just want to say that, if You get me out of this… I know You’ve heard this before, but… if You get me out of this, (I mean it), I would do anything…Anything. I just want to see Laurie again! After a while he will change his attitude saying: “I don’t rely on miracles! I am not convinced myself that God will reach down and pull me out of this shit! I don’t rely on miracles!” Addressing to himself, he says: “You had to do it yourself!” This “silence” of God, Who apparently does not answer the prayers, occurs also in The Grey (Carnahan 2011). But sometimes God discretely works strengthening the arms and the will of man. Jackson proves to be a complex character: he has humor, he is able to find solutions and to put them into practice. The way he manages to escape using the air from the spare wheel to breathe proves an extraordinary practical intelligence. The love for Laurie functions for him as the main reason to fight for his life. On his last recording on the mobile, Jackson finds important to specify that he is not a religious man, and although he feels this experience as a “born again” experience and he feels the beauty of it, he does not see it as a “religious awakening”. It seems that this “detour” in his life wasn’t enough for Jackson Alder to feel and consciously recognize the presence of God inside and outside him. Alfa (Hughes 2018) is a film placed in a very different setting. It is a historical survival movie set in Europe 20,000 years ago that brings together both the family theme as well as the relationship between humans and animals. During the annual hunt for buffalos, Keda, a youngster, son of Tau, one of the leaders of his tribe, is thrown in a dungeon by an angry wounded bull. He lands on a cliff and actually remains alive, but he soon finds that his father and his companions have already left thinking he died. Keda is forced to find solutions to survive. He becomes friend with a wounded shewolf that he heals and feeds. Before entering the limit situation, Keda is a sensitive young man who cannot kill animals on hunt with his tribe. He is still a boy who needs the protection of his father. When he finds himself alone in the wilderness, he very loudly cries for his father. He remains alone and becomes stronger. He is able to straighten his bones from his broken leg in spite of the pain he feels, he fights with wolves and hunts for food, he finds shelters, he tames the she-wolf. He names it Alpha. The encounter between a lonely man and a lonely wolf helping each other to survive is impressive and represents a consistent part of the movie substance. Alfa hunts for them, helps him to get out of the ice under which he has fallen and fights a saber-toothed tiger that attacked them in a cave. They defeat the tiger together. Love for his family motivates him to go further through these harsh

Survival and biology (physical survival)  113 conditions and to survive. When they finally reach home, Keda confesses to his parents: “I was scared I will never see you again!” At the beginning of the movie, his father told him: “Life is for the strong ones! You need to earn it! It is not a gift!” As a response to this, in the end, Keda tells his father that he has wanted to make him proud of him. Father confirms that he has succeeded. He earned his right to live with this huge effort to survive and to come home. Will, reason and love are the elements of God’s image that can be easily seen in Keda during the limit situation and after. He has love for people and animals and he is rewarded for both. He remains a sensitive person even after this extreme experience, proving that sensitivity is a quality and not a shortcoming even in that tough world. Through his kindness he has managed to tame the wolves and make them “members” of his tribe. Keda becomes more mature after this limit situation. This means he could better master his previous qualities without losing his childish purity. Jungle (McLean 2017) is a wilderness survival movie based on the true events that happened in 1981 in a Bolivian rainforest. The protagonist of the film is Yossi Ghinsberg, an Israeli young man who, after finishing his military service, is “desperate not to take the well-worn path” in life. Instead attending a high school, a university, to have a family and a career, he decides, to “enter the unknown, to discover lost tribes, behidden treasures, the darkest heart of the jungle”. This is why he “ended up in Bolivia”. Here he meets Marcus Stamm, a Swiss teacher in his “sabbatical”. Marcus introduces him to Kevin Gale, explorer and photographer, “a legend amongst the backpacking community”. Yosi meets also a girl named Kina in a camping area. In La Paz, a stranger, who is presenting him as Karl, approaches Yosi and convinces him to take him as a guide to the unknown places of the jungle, to “the hidden world”, as he calls it. Kevin and Marcus are also convinced to join them in this journey. Everything goes well for a while, but the limit situation takes shape little by little. Because of the long walk, Marcus hurts his feet very bad. That is why they decide to travel using the river and they build a raft. After the first day on the raft, the relationship between Kevin and Marcus is deteriorating, and because Karl seems to be “terrified” of water, the group splits in two. Yosi and Kevin go down the river by raft. Marcus and Karl walk into a different direction hoping to reach Apurama in three days. They salute each other like friends; Karl even decides that the other group should take more food because they have a longer way ahead. He also gives them indications about the dangerous zones of the river. In a zone full of rapids, the raft gets stuck on a rock in the middle of the river. Kevin swims to the shore, but Yosi is brought by the river far away down where he reaches the land. From now on the film focuses on Yosi’s survival story, because Kevin will be found after a while on the river by some people and brought to Rurrenabaque. He retrieves his backpack from the river and tries to reach Curiplaya to be saved. On his way, he kills a snake, routs a jaguar with a flame from a spray, removes a long worm grown under his forehead’s skin and eats unhatched chicken. Unfortunately, he finds nobody

114  Survival and biology (physical survival) in Curiplaya. When he sees his wounded feet, he speaks alone and apologizes to Marcus by saying: “I am so sorry, Marcus! (…) I was a coward and I deserve all of these”. His conscience tells the truth: he acted cowardly by not protecting Marcus when Kevin decided not to allow him to join their group. He goes through several nervous breakdowns as those that happen when he realizes that he actually has moved in circle or when he is not spotted by the plane. He has several hallucinations, too, as the one with Kina in a cosy casino or the longest one with a local woman found in the jungle. He almost dies sunk in a swamp. He manages to get back to the river where he makes a Y out of logs to be seen by possible rescuers. He shows mercy by not killing a turtle that passes by. Meanwhile, reaching Rurrenabaque, Kevin never gives up the search: firstly with the plane from the army and secondly with a local man named Tico. With the boat driven by Tico, he comes to the shore where Yosi put the Y, but he does not notice it. When they turn back to leave for Rurrenabaque, Yosi notices them, get out from his shelter, but he has no power to shout. He just stands up and whispers “Kevin.” Right before the boat would disappear from Yosi’s sight, Kevin sees and saves him. This last look back is a very important element of the film. It represents a special attitude that goes beyond desperation or determination: it is one last manifestation of hope. It is an act of unconscious faith. It is faith in God, even if some people are not used to call His proper name. On this ground of faith, Our Lord sometimes shows miracles like this. On this ground one could blend together Yosi’s fight for survival, Kevin’s determination to search for him and God’s inspiration that makes Kevin to look back when everything seemed to be lost. In an act of humble gratitude, Kevin and Yosi thank one another for saving their lives. The entire community where Yosi is brought seems to regard his “impossible” survival as a miracle. They welcome him in a very calm and serene atmosphere. A girl gives him a white flower and a woman thanks God for saving him. In this peaceful and heavenly atmosphere, every people looks like who he/she is: the image of God. The Tunnel (Korean: Teo-neol) (Kim 2016) is a Korean survival movie about a car dealer named Lee Jung-Soo who finds himself trapped in his car while Hado tunnel collapses. Other main characters of the film are his wife, Se Hyeong and Dae-Kyung, the leader of the rescue team. The trapped in the tunnel theme also includes films like Daylight and Cutterhead. In Kim’s film, as in Daylight, The Martian or The 33, people from outside the physical limit situation play certain roles in the rescue of Lee Jung-Soo. The main character cannot rescue himself; he needs to be find and rescued. All the efforts he needs to make are done in order to stay alive and to describe his location. Public opinion, mass media and politics are elements of the rescue ecuation. Technology also plays an important role. Using the mobile phone, Lee Jung-Soo announces the authorities and keeps in touch with the rescue team and with his wife. Without the drilling machines and other modern apparatuses, this rescue operation wouldn’t have been possible.

Survival and biology (physical survival)  115 Inside the limit situation, Lee Jung-Soo listens to Dae-Kyung’s advices: he rationalizes the water, he is even prepared to drink his urine and he saves up as long as he can the phone battery. When Lee Jung-Soo finds Mi Na in the tunnel, a severely wounded girl trapped on the driver seat by a huge piece of concrete, he takes care of her, sharing with her and her dog Tangie his scarce water supplies. He gives her his phone to call her mother and intends to share with her the birthday cake he still has, but the dog eats the cake while he sleeps. Unfortunately, she dies, and he remains alone with the little dog, with whom he shares some dog food found maybe in the girl’s car. Lee Jung-Soo does not need to drink urine because, right before doing this, he finds some water that was slowly pouring near his place. The battery of the phone will be soon over. Lee Jung-Soo is also exhausted; he wants to give up and that is why he prepares his wife for his death by saying: “Take good care of Su Jin and live your life well. Se Hyeong, I am sorry. I just can’t go on, I really can’t go on”. She does not accept this and begs him “just to live”. The authorities want to quit the search because the operation has lasted too long. Dae-Kyung reminds them that there is a person, blocked there, waiting for them. When a worker who participates at the operation dies in an industrial accident, public opinion and politicians turn against the rescue mission and convince her to sign the agreement to cease his search. But, after 35 days, when everything seemed to be lost, due to the determination of Dae-Kyung, Lee Jung-Soo is saved. While the Prime Minister wants to come near him to take undeserved credit for his rescue, Dae-Kyung tells to the media what Lee Jung-Soo transmits them: “Tell those sons of the bitches to get lost!” Se Hyeong, through her regret and love, Dae-Kyung and Lee Jung-Soo, through their courage and determination, get out of this limit situation more human and more free. They prove the power of human communion, and through this, the reality of God’s image inside them. Another character whose life is put at risk in a human-made environment is the protagonist from Trapped (Motwane 2016). The action of the film is set in nowadays Mumbai. The young Shaurya, employed in a call center, plans to marry Noorie, a work colleague. She has made arrangements for the wedding in two months, but Shaurya wants to change her mind by finding an apartment for them. He can afford only 15,000 Indian Rupee for the rent, and for this sum, he only manages to find a two bedroom, one at the 35th floor of an empty skyscraper whose construction is blocked due to some legal problems. The limit situation begins when Shaurya finds himself locked in the apartment with the key left outside, with little food and water, without electric power and without any way to contact other people. He is isolated in the middle of a big city. Shaurya uses his intelligence and determination to survive. He tries to get in contact with others. He manages to send a message through a cardboard. A woman takes the cardboard and even goes up on the stairs of Shaurya’s building, but, perhaps being afraid, gives up. Shaurya tries to signal his presence by firing up some clothes and a mattress. He drinks urine and vomits. He manages to collect a lot of

116  Survival and biology (physical survival) rainwater in many recipients and even in the refrigerator. Although his religion forbids it, he hunts and eats two pigeons. He catches a rat to be his dialogue partner. Being determined not to “die here”, Shaurya cuts the balcony grill and manages to climb down five floors from outside the block and to get out. Life is not very happy outside because, while in the hospital, he is visited by Noorie who did not wait for him and already got married. This situation resembles in a certain degree to that from Cast Away (Zemekis 2000). After that Shaurya resumes his previous occupation, getting a job at another call center. Gulli from The Deep (Kormakur 2012), after his unbelievable survival adventure, also goes back to his life as a fisherman. What could be the meaning of these stories that bring no apparent improvement in the lives of those who fought so much to stay alive? One answer can be that, even they are disappointed by the world they fought so hard to regain, their survival story represented an experience in itself, a somehow secret experience. If these experiences are received by people with pure hearts, without rebellion, without losing the faith or without disappointment, they may provide the souls with certain strength. I think that this strength belongs to the mystery as an element of God’s image in people. The protagonist from Wrecked (Greenspan 2010) is a man who wakes up trapped in a damaged car, in a gully of a forest. The man has a leg blocked in the twisted car. One dead man lays in the backseat of the car and another one is several meters away. The film starts already inside the limit situation. During the entire film, the character tries to reach a place from where he can be rescued and to remember who he is and how he got there. At first, finding a card with the name Raymond Plazzy written on it, he believes this is his name. He makes a lot of efforts to survive. After some days, he manages to get out of the car and crawls through the forest with a broken leg. An imaginary girl appears in several moments, but she is mostly a harassing presence and he will end shooting her. Another presence that will prove to be imaginary is that of a dog who accompanies him almost to the end. His first escape attempt fails because he goes in circle and reaches again the damaged car. The second time he manages to reach a road and is saved by a Sheriff or a ranger. While in this car and trying to put the seatbelt, he remembers that he got wrecked in the forest because he was kidnapped by some bank robbers and he pulled the wheel driving the car into that ravine. Before that he had found on the road the dead body of Raymond Plazzy who was one of his kidnappers. The imaginary girl from the forest was the image of his girlfriend. The film has not many moral connotations. Worth to be mentioned, in this respect, is the intelligence of the character and his determination to survive overcoming all the sufferings. His amnesia and hallucinations make the film more interesting. Another moral aspect is that nobody has the chance to enjoy the stolen money, neither the robbers, nor the hunter who sometime during the movie stole them from the accident scene. He will be eaten by a cougar. Being innocent, the main character remains alive.

Survival and biology (physical survival)  117 Solis (Strathie 2018) is a lost in space survival movie whose protagonists are two astronauts. Troy Holloway wakes up already inside the limit situation as a lone survivor of a damaged escape pod. The other protagonist is a woman named Roberts who works on a spaceship belonging to the same mining company as Troy. She is forced to take command of the spaceship because the commander died. Almost the entire action of the film presents their dialogue, with Commander Roberts encouraging and assisting him in his attempt to survive. Troy has oxygen supply for only 90 minutes and his escape pod goes very rapidly toward the Sun. At a certain moment Roberts tells Troy that she received an order from their superiors to bring him back alive to preserve the image of the company that would risk bankruptcy if it all the men of this mission would die. She is helping him beyond this order. From their dialogue, it is understood that both suffered a great loss in their lives: it is about Troy’s son and Commander Robert’s 12-year-old daughter. Between these two characters a human fraternity is born, and at the end of the film, they will thank one another. Commander Roberts manages to make the radio contact between Troy and his wife Liz. While he is still in radio contact with Liz and goes toward the broken porthole, he says that he is going home. What does this mean? Will he survive? It is not clear because the image does not show that Commander Roberts’ spaceship is in the right position to rescue him. It is also not clear why Commander Roberts thanks Troy if she will soon take on her spaceship. Was she lying all the time or was she unable to drive the spaceship in such a manner to assure his rescue? Another unclear aspect is to whom Troy addresses the words “I love you so much!” close to the end. Clear is the fact that, close to death, he feels the need to express his love. Through this he expresses himself as an image of God. Marooned (Sturges 1969) is also set in space. It tells the story of three astronauts: Jim Pruett (played by Richard Crenna), Buzz Lloyd (played by Gene Hackman) and Clayton Stone (played by James Franciscus) who cannot come back to Earth because of an engine failure at their ship. Their lives will be soon threatened by the lack of oxygen. The story is told following two plans: the first of the “marooned” people, and the second of the rescuers. The same narrative formula will be later used in The 33 (Riggen 2015), The Martian (Scott 2015) or The Last Descent (Halasima 2016). In this film, the “others” are represented by the Control Center, the mass media, their wives and even by Russian astronauts. It is a race against time for saving three lives. At a certain moment, it becomes clear that they have oxygen only for two people. Jim Pruett dies trying to repair something outside the spaceshift. His suit is accidentally drilled and he suffocates. Before this accident he looked ready to sacrifice his life to help the other two to survive. Ted Dougherty, the American rescuer, takes Buzz to the safety of his rocket. Clayton Stone will also be saved by him with the help of a Russian astronaut. Russians and Americans act like brothers in space, while on Earth they fight the cold war. This film speaks about solidarity and the

118  Survival and biology (physical survival) importance of every human being. When people act to save the lives of their peers they do what God likes, what they should do like bearers of the image of God inside them. Anything to Survive (Dalen 1990) is a TV movie placed in Alaska, “a dramatization of a real-life incidents” describing a sailing trip of a divorced father with his son (Billy) and the two daughters (Wendy and Krista). They go to Prince Ruppert, British Columbia, to “see the orthodontist”. Their trip back home will be terribly bad. Before the characters enter the limit situation they are described through some specific gestures: Krista reading “The Hobbit” “for the 103 time” (according to Wendy), Wendy thinking about going or not going to the prom. Girls are arguing a lot. While Wendy is combing her hair, Krista yells at her: “You don’t have to mother me!” Wendy answers: “I don’t have to! You just demand”. Perhaps the main cause they all enter the limit situation is the fact that father does not listen to his son Billy warning that is not good to depart when “the sun is almost set” and to travel through the dark “in the open ocean”. Father says that he is doing this because he has studied the weather report which is favorable. They hurry in order not to encounter “a wind shift”. The children have to go to school. They enter the limit situation because they were pushed by the storm into some rocks that crash and sink the boat. They swim to a desert island, build up a raft, sail together and reach another shore. Wendy is jealous about Krista, and she is calling her “dad’s little daughter”. Right in the moment she is saying this, she twists an ankle. After that, they paddle together to another shore. They sleep a night there, but the weather gets worse and father decides to go only with Billy to a cabin nearby to get help. Krista does not agree with this. They manage to get back only after 24 days. They find the girls alive and deeply transformed in their thoughts. The girls, who have used to argue before for many unimportant things, now overcome all conflicts. Wendy gratefully says about Krista: “She saves my life!”, and Krista confirms: “We are friends now!” It is a movie about family bonds, about love, about father’s decisions and about trusting him. Beyond all apparent mistakes, finally they survive because of their unity and because of their love. And where is love, there is a mark of God’s presence! The father reiterates this truth that now gains newer and deeper meanings: “We are a family! We stuck together after all!” Walkabout (Roeg 1971) is a wilderness survival movie that takes place in Australia. The main characters of the film are two city-raised brothers, a teenage girl and her younger brother, and an aboriginal teenager. The father of the children apparently takes them to have a picnic in the desert and, going crazy, tries to shoot them and kills himself. This is the beginning of the limit situation. For a while, the two brothers manage to survive in the desert eating their supplies. After that, they find a pond and a tree with eatable fruits. They sleep there, but, when they wake up, the fruits have

Survival and biology (physical survival)  119 been eaten by birds and the water dried. This is the moment when they meet an Aboriginal boy. He is during his rite of passage through manhood called “the Walkabout”. He has to survive six months alone in the desert to be considered a mature man by his community. They spend the next days in a rather pleasant manner, in spite of the harsh desert conditions. They walk, explore, play and eat food provided by the Black boy. He brings them to an abandoned house near a road, because the road leads them back to civilization. He cannot follow them more because he doesn’t belong to that world. He shows the younger brother the road. Because he has fallen in love with the girl, he paints his body and dances a traditional dance all the night till exhaustion. The girl, being very superficial and keen to come back to civilization, refuses this declaration of love. In the morning, the two siblings find him dead on a tree. His death has a tragic significance worthy of the great love stories of the world. He loves a girl, but he cannot follow her to civilization. The Aboriginal boy survived all the harsh conditions of the desert, but he could not survive when, in his walkabout, meets a beautiful girl and an unrequited love. After some years, the film shows the girl, who is already married, briefly thinking about how it could have been if she had the courage to decide the other way. She refused freedom and love for a certain external comfort, but this choice might have brought an inner discomfort, a failure of her entire life. Her conscience, that is an element of God’s image in people, will – normally – always remember about this bust. Lost in the Barrens (Scott 1990) is a partial survival movie since the limit situation occurs only in the last part of it. The first part presents how an orphan teenager named Jamie gets under his uncle Angus direct care after he has been forced to leave a private school because he has not enough money to pay the fees. His uncle lives in a cabin on a lake shore with his Indian wife and many Indian friends. Jamie has to go in a hunting trip on canoes with Indians. Here he makes a good friend in the person of Awasin, the Chief’s son. The boys are left by the adults at a certain point, because going too far would be too dangerous for them. From time to time the action is presented from Jamie’s perspective. The limit situation begins when Jamie convinces Awasin to go check the River of the Giants to see if the legends about it are true. Despites Awasin’s reluctance, Jamie insists to go further and further on the river because he feels the “first taste of the freedom of the wilderness”. A series of adventures start for the two teenagers. They discover a Viking tomb, they lose the boat and the riffle and Awasin almost loses his life in the rapids. They have some arguments and they even fight, but, after that, they agree that they “are in this thing together” and they should work together to survive. The two boys are obliged to cross the “barrens” where they are caught by snow and blizzard. They build a cabin, they hunt and they cross the frozen, windy and snowy desert helping each other. When Awasin falls on the ground exhausted, Jamie carries him on his shoulders and says: “I am not going anywhere without you!” After a

120  Survival and biology (physical survival) while, both of them fall down exhausted and are saved by an Eskimo and brought to uncle Angus’ cabin. Both teenagers come out of this limit situation “changed forever”, becoming more mature and stronger. The two main characters of The Edge (Tamahori 1997) are the rich Charles Morse (played by Anthony Hopkins) and the photographer Robert Green (Bob) (played by Alec Baldwin), who has a secret love affair with “Mickey”, Morse’s younger wife. Mickey is a model and the film begins with her, Charles, Robert and the entire crew going to a photo shooting session at a mountain cabin. On a wall of this cabin, Robert sees a photo of an Indian hunter named Jack Hawk, and he considers they will need him to be a part of the shooting session. Therefore, Charles, Robert and his assistant Stephen go by plane to look for him at his hunting cabin. They do not find him there. Going to search for him at a new location, the plane is hit by some birds and sinks into a lake. The pilot dies on the spot, the other three make it to the lake shore, and this is how the limit situation begins. This limit situation is split in two parts. The first one shows the fight of these three men against a bear who hunts them. Stephen is killed by the bear, but, after a while, Charles, helped by Robert, manages to kill the bear with an improvised spear. The second part of the limit situation has more moral implications. After killing the bear, Robert and Charles reach a hunting cabin and find here a gun and many supplies. Now Charles finds the proof that Mickey is cheating him with Robert. Robert wants to kill him, but he falls in a pit used to trap bears. One important blood vessel of his leg is perforated, but Charles takes care of his wound and carries him up to a lake shore where they could be easily spotted by the rescuers. A helicopter will come soon. On this lake shore, the most important dialogue between them takes place. Aware that his death will come soon, Robert shows his regrets that he has never done anything good during his entire life. He tells Charles that his wife was not a part of the plan to kill him. Robert apologizes in tears: “Charles, I am sorry! I am sorry for what I did!” separating him from his past faults. Robert dies soon, but he is a changed man through repentance. Charles is brought back to the cabin. He discreetly informs Mickey about her adultery and tells to the press who was waiting for him that “his friends died saving his life”. It is a noble lie and an elegant attitude. During this adventure, Charles survived the plane crash, the wilderness, the killing bear and the killing man. He discovered a painful truth about the woman he loved. This is one thing hard to survive, at least emotionally. The film does not show what he will do with his life in the future. He once says: “I may not go back”. To what degree and how he is transformed is impossible to say. Due also to Anthony Hopkins’ interpretation the character remains covered by mystery. Search for the truth, elegance and mystery of human being are some of God’s images in people that are encountered in this film. Black Water (Nerlich and Traucki 2007) is also a wilderness survival film. It is set in the contemporary period and is based on a true story happened in Australia. It fits also into man versus animal survival stories, being

Survival and biology (physical survival)  121 about a saltwater crocodile attack. Before entering the limit situation, the movie presents three young people: Lee and her older sister Grace (with her husband Adam) leaving their mom’s house and planning to relax out of town during their Christmas Holiday. After a stop to a crocodile zoo and another one to a bar, they decide to go fishing in some mangroves from an area called Back Water. Lee discovers that her sister is pregnant, but she has not told yet the surprise to Adam. They meet Jim at Black Water, and he offers to guide them. He seems to be less experienced than Barry, the owner of the fishing resort. This fact will be perhaps the main cause of the tragic events that will follow. Although he says that the presence of crocodiles in those waters belongs to “the old days”, he takes his pistol. He does not take into consideration the bumps hear from downside the boat, and he drives them out of the usual fishing spot, deep into the mangroves. When he realizes the danger, it is already too late: the boat is turned upside down, and a huge crocodile kills him. Adam brings Grace on a tree. Lee, who was entangled in ropes inside the capsized boat, manages to escape and climbs up on the boat. From now on they start a long fight for survival trying to design and fulfill the most appropriate escape plan. All of them show to each other the purest love and compassion, nobody is ever abandoned by their peers. They help each other. But, although they work as a team, not all of them will survive. They all try to use their intelligence to compare all possible solutions. Adam says that it is not an option to wait for the rescuers since nobody knows they are here. Grace goes from tree to tree to have an image about the territory that surrounds them. When she comes back, she says that, if they want, it is possible to try this solution, but they will still have to swim a certain distance in dangerous waters. She seems to prefer this option, while Adam prefers to take the boat. He manages to turn the boat on the right position, but he is killed few moments after that. Next day, the sisters enter the water and Grace is seriously bitten. Lee takes the initiative and manages to reach the boat, but the croc makes her return to the water and attacks her. After a while, Lee wakes up on a small mound of mud. After fighting the croc in the water, she kills it with Jim’s pistol. She returns to her sister and finds her dead in the tree. The last scene shows Lee paddling out of the mangroves with her dead sister on the boat. Jim’s and Adam’s bodies are scattered somewhere around. What a tragic end for a vacation! This last scene resembles the end of Backcountry (MacDonald 2014). These two movies belong to the same “family”. There are both movies that warn the spectator never to underestimate the dangers hidden in the wilderness. From both these extreme experiences, a girl gets out profoundly hurt, but more mature and stronger. In the Deep (aka 47 Meters Down) (Roberts 2016) is a combination between a shark movie and an underwater trapped survival movie. It tells the story of Lisa and Kate, two sisters who came to have fun in Mexico. The two sisters meet two local boys, Javier and Louis, who propose them to go next day for shark cage diving. During the next day, Javier and Louis bring

122  Survival and biology (physical survival) them to a ship in the open ocean. Louis and Javier lure the sharks throwing in the water parts of the fish and fish blood. The cable supporting the cage slides while the sisters are inside, leaving them on the bottom of the ocean, at 47 meters deep, with few a limited amount of oxygen and menaced by sharks. Inside this limit situation, they both manage to overcome their fear and help each other. In the first minutes spent down there, Kate takes the initiative: she removes the crane that fell down on the cage together with the cable and goes up some meters to communicate with Taylor, the captain of the ship. He says that Javier is coming to help them. Because Kate has only 17 bars of oxygen left in the tank, she comes back to the cage. Lisa overcomes her fear and goes outside the cage trying to find Javier. He is killed by a shark. Lisa loses her orientation, but she finally manages to come back to the cage guided by her sister. She attaches a new cable to the cage, but, while Taylor tries to lift them off the water, it breaks like the first one. The cage falls down at the ocean bed catching one of Lisa’s legs. Taylor sends them new tanks with air. Kate goes off the cage, trying to recover these tanks, and she is killed by a shark. Lisa manages to take the second air tank for her, but she hallucinates due to the phenomenon called nitrogen narcosis. She has the impression that she and her sister manage to go to the surface and save their lives. Actually Lisa alone will be found alive by the divers from the coast guard and brought safely to the surface. Worth to remember is the way these two sisters help each other in difficult moments and also the fact that sometimes reckless ways of having fun may cause tragedies. Frozen (Green 2010) is a trapped group survival movie. It is a story of three young people: Dan Walker, his girlfriend Parker O’Neill and Joe Lynch, one of Dan’s old friends, who go at Mount Holliston resort. Dan and Parker snowboard, and Joe skies. Before entering the limit situation, there are some tensions in the group. Joe is not happy that Parker came with them because she is a beginner snowboarder, slows them down on the ski slope and spoils their fun. Parker is not happy with the way Dan treats her. He is calling her simply “Parker”, and she tells him: “You suppose to call me something more affectionately: honey or sweety”. They prefer to bribe one of the ski lift attendants with 100 dollars for the whole day using of the lift instead of buying tickets. The limit situation appears when they convince the attendant to let them for the last lift on the slope after the fall of darkness. Due to certain circumstances, the ski lift is stopped earlier than they can get down, and the three remain suspended at a significant height. It is Sunday night, and the slope will be opened for ski only the next weekend. Inside this limit situation, trapped in the ski lift and tortured by fear and frost, they abandon superficial concerns and jokes. Dan changes his attitude toward Parker, and becomes more protective and affectionate encouraging her and calling her “baby”: “You gonna be ok, baby! You gonna be ok!” He makes a bold but hasty decision: to jump directly from the ski lift in order to go and find help for Parker and Joe. Dan miscalculates

Survival and biology (physical survival)  123 the effects of his gesture, and, therefore, he faces tragic consequences: he severely breaks both legs and is eaten by wolves. Maybe Dan could have got down on a rope made from their cloths or he could have gone on the cable to a pole and descend on it the way that Joe will manage to get down the next day. Unfortunately Joe will also be eaten by wolves. They catch him while going down the slope on the snowboard. While eaten by wolves, Dan has a last protective and delicate attitude directed to Parker: he asks Joe not to let her watch this terrifying scene. After Joe’s leaving, Parker stays one more night and, seeing that nobody comes to rescue her, she decides to get down herself. Due to the fact that her lift chair drops a certain distance (because of a screw that comes off), she is able to jump down and land safely. Parker passes near the wolves that are grouped around Joe’s body and manages to reach one road where she is rescued by a car. We don’t know how she changes after this experience, but we see her making the right decisions, overcoming her fear and her physical limits, and, because of this, saving her life. Dan died as a more loving person sacrificing him for the good of others. Joe behaved bravely and transcended his physical and spiritual limits. He managed to hold himself on his hands on the cable and go on it, a thing he could not do when he was a student. They both died, but they both died trying to survive. The God’s image becomes more visible in these characters that got rid of superficiality and achieved a more essential and brave way to be. Everest (Kormakur 2015) is a group survival film based on real events that took place in May 1996. Some figures from the group or of the groups are highlighted. Beck Weathers is a middle-aged climber, married and having two children. He will not make it to the summit. Beck remained somewhere on the way because of some problems with his eyes caused by altitude. After lying many hours in cold, he will be able to reach the camp alone. His wife, Helen, makes insistent calls to the American ambassador to convince the Nepalese authorities to send a helicopter for her husband. Yasuko Namba is a Japanese climber who, with this escalade, has completed the Seven Summit tour. She dies frozen on her way back. Dough Hansen is not an experienced climber. He used to work as a postman. He had a previous failed attempt before. Now Dough has another strong motivation: to bring the flag of a school to the summit. He remains behind, and Rob Hall (the main guide of the group) will bring him to the top, a fact that delayed Rob as well. Dough dies while descending. Guide Scott Fischer falls in the snow exhausted and dies frozen. Guide Andy Harris, nicknamed Harold, also dies sliding on a slope. In total eight people died on that expedition. One of the most touching story is that of Rob, whose wife is pregnant. Due to a satellite phone, he and his wife are able to speak to the end of Rob’s life. At the end of his power, he is caught in another storm. The rescue team is not able to reach Rob because of weather conditions, and he finally freezes to death. This movie proves the physical limits of people when they are confronted with harsh meteorological conditions. It is good for people to dare

124  Survival and biology (physical survival) to conquer difficult spaces in order to test their courage. Extreme situations like this can develop friendship and mutual help between people. In this film, the characters prove an honorable moral behavior, they want to help, but neither the alpinists from the last camp, nor are the group led by the Sherpa Ang Dorje able to rescue Rob and other possible survivors. From the physical point of view, people have well-defined limits, but the simple fact that they are trying to save each other, even by putting themselves in danger, provides some glimpses able to reveal other areas of the human beings.

5.3 Conclusions Baptist pastor Edward John Carnell speaks about these other areas when he shows that the physical survival effort of humans goes beyond life preservation in a strict biological sense and it must obey moral and spiritual commandments: The law of self-preservation is so deeply engrained in our nature that is impossible for man to engage in any conscious activity without seeking his own well-being. Whatever we eat or drink, or whatever we do, we do it all in the name of what we think will augment the sum total of our happiness (…) But what of the man who sacrifices his own life for the good of another? Does he not break this rule? The answer is no. Life is more than physical survival. Happiness at times is increased when we commit ourselves to those choices which in the end may issue in our own physical destruction. There are invisible data which we must reckon with: honesty, justice, courage, charity. If we betray ourselves by turning aside from these, we decrease our happiness, for we sense with a perfect intuition that the best within us is accented only when we are faithful to these unseen, yet always seen vitalitie. (Carnell 15) Father John Behr explains this “more than physical survival” in terms used by the Orthodox theology, distinguishing between βίος (bios) and ζωή (zoe), both terms meaning , with the difference that, in Christian theology, the first is used of all that which is animated by a whereas the latter is that which comes about through Christ: (John 10:10). (Behr b 92) He goes on by showing how life (as bios) is transformed into life understood as zoe, following the examples of Jesus Christ and of the martyrs: “Life, as zoe, lives when life, as bios, no longer lives for itself, but rather lays itself

Survival and biology (physical survival)  125 down for others, in the manner initiated by Christ and exemplified in the martyrs” (Behr b 92–93). Father Dumitru Stăniloae states very clearly that human being was never meant to remain in its strictly biological and physical determinations. He thinks “that the soul and the body begin to exist at the same time” (Stăniloae c 259) and that “the union between the soul and the body is so complete that they form a single reality (Romanian fire), superior to nature” (Stăniloae c 261). For him and the Orthodox Christian anthropology, and perhaps surprisingly to the common sense of the secular culture, the body is somehow inner to the spirit: “According to the Christian faith, the body is, in a particular way, interior to the spirit, going beyond the biological and physico-chemical level” (Stăniloae c 251). These two approaches to human nature prepare the issues discussed in the following parts of the book, especially in Chapters 8 and 9, dedicated to the topics of communion and spirituality.

6 Survival and communion (surviving together, as a community)

Motto: We were brought together by a great experience. Alive (Marshall 1993)

Robert Wen describes the survival on an individual in relation to “higher values”: “Survival is the basic instinct of any organism, unless is overruled by a higher value, such as the survival of the higher organism or group to which it belongs (e.g., country versus citizen)” (Wen 42). When this “higher value” is a community, Robert Wen considers that interdependence is established between an individual and the community to which he belongs: The survival of a human being depends first on that of his community, unless he is an out-and-out hermit. The community’s survival and welfare depend on the behavior of its individuals. Because of the survival instinct, it is usually defensive, but it can morph to become more aggressive. For its well-being, a community requires the curbing of the aggressive behavior within the community. This is where morality enters in human affairs. (Wen 42) Let us remember that Thomas Sobchack considered even in the initial definition of the survival genre the idea that people that reached in a certain situation of isolation had to organize themselves in order to form a functional community (Sobchack 12). People who decide to act without any respect for others reach moral degradation and become less and less human (see O’Brien from Sands of the Kalahari). Morals may be either imposed by laws and force (this has effect only at the superficial level of the conscience where this can be guided by fear) or it may (in a more profound way) come as an intuition of some higher values, of a different and more authentic path to happiness (Carnell 15). For Orthodox Christians, this morality is a living one. It is actually a way of life which implies communion with God and other people: “Each Christian uses his/her self-determining powers (…) to enter into an ever increasing relationship of conformity with God’s will, of growth in communion

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DOI: 10.4324/9781003356912-7

Survival and communion (surviving together, as a community)  127 with God, of Christ-likeness with others” (Harakas 170). When people behave Christ-like one to another, the communion becomes reality. An ideal community is one where people enter freely in communion one with another, in Christ or Christ-like manner. For the Orthodox anthropology, the entire mankind is and should be a community, one based on the fact that all human beings are made after God’s image and likeliness. People who take advantage, enslave and humiliate other people do not take into account this reality and commit awful sins. This theme is presented in films about human trafficking. The Whisleblower (Kondraki 2010) is one of them and Kathryn Bolkovac is the protagonist. She believes that the unmasking of the abuses and the traffic of women for prostitution in Bosnia is her duty. For Kathryn Bolkovac, to acting this way is the only way to preserve her humanity “We may be accused of thinking with our hearts, instead of our head, but we will have our humanity”. In the following, I will present how individuals work as a community trying to get out of various menaces. The films presented below, although some of them are set in very different contexts, have in common this attempt to achieve collaboration among people for the period of time in which they are in the limit situation. The analyses of the films go even further trying to show if this temporary collaboration will change in a profound communion with lifelong lasting consequences. In the films I present below, the limit situations, the settings and the plots are diverse, but they all are concerned about the survival of individuals inside a group and as a group. Survival at sea is a much frequented theme of this kind of films. In Lifeboat (Hitchcock 1944), different people find themselves trapped in the middle of the huge ocean, on a small lifeboat. The protagonists are one engine room crewman, a sort of a narcissist named John Kovac (who will take over the group leadership), Constance “Connie” Porter, Charles Rittenouse, a wealthy man, Stanley “Sparks” Garrett, a radio operator, Alice MacKenzie, a nurse, Gus Smith, a sailor, Joe Spencer, a black man, steward and exthief, and Mrs. Higley with her death child, plus Willi, who turns out to be a surgeon and the Commander of the German U-boat involved in sinking of the ship from which the lifeboat came. The events are many, all due both to the limit situation and to the specificity of each character. The relations between the characters change a lot during the movie. Willi becomes from an enemy ally, and then again enemy of the group (and he is killed by the entire group – except Joe Spencer – after he had killed and thrown overboard Gus Smith). John Kovac and Constance Porter become close and then they separate. They seem to become somehow close again at the end of the film, but in the way that two selfish people may have a relation. After the deaths of Mrs. Higley, Gus and Willi, the survivors, believe they will be saved by a German vessel. It turns out to be an unrealistic hope, because the vessel is destroyed. And even more, a young German sailor from that ship arrives on their boat, trying to save his life. They will not kill him and the

128  Survival and communion (surviving together, as a community) story of their salvation continues, leaving the movie with an open end. The characters of this film are presented only inside the limit situation. Connie Porter is a journalist more interested in getting some sensational shots than in showing compassion for those who suffered and died in this catastrophe. The beginning of the movie shows her already on the lifeboat. John Kovac arrives next, Stanley “Sparks” Garrett comes after, Alice MacKenzie, the wounded Gus Smith and Charles Rittenouse follow. Joe Spencer and Mrs. Higley (carrying her dead child) come later. The German Willi comes into the boat after a while. A moment of sad solemnity is the burial into the sea of the dead baby. Unfortunately, the devastated mother will commit suicide throwing herself into the sea. The group is organized under John Kovac’s command; they rationalize the food and water and seem to have good chances to survive for at least 43 days, as they estimate. Their plans are ruined by a storm which made them lose the supplies and also by Willi’s behavior. He drives secretly the boat toward a “secret” direction, wanted only by him. He saves Gus’ live cutting his leg touched by gangrene, but he hides a bottle of water from him and the group. His gesture of killing Gus is inexplicable. Is it a sort of euthanasia or a simple sadistic behavior? After Willi’s death, the group remains disoriented. Is it just a simple loss of direction in the middle of the sea or does it mean a moral shock because of their guilt? The film poses various problems. First of all, it is the possibility of cohabiting and collaborating of so different people (and the answer is not a simple one). Second, it is the mental barriers that the war raises between people. Third, it is the issue of hope, of how much people can endure, hope and still preserve their state of humanity. Was Willi’s murder done by the whole group a solution, a right punishment for killing Gus? Joe, the steward, wants to stop Alice, but she insists to participate at the crime. Another problem is that of different values in different situations: Constance’s diamond bracelet is good just to be food for fish in the middle of the ocean, but if she succeeds in returning to the civilized world, she would regret losing it. The film can be understood as a fictional study on human behavior in emergency conditions. The camera is always in motion, as the ocean moves the boat. Thus, the frames become hard to watch, they are tiring, but they are very real-like. The characters are treated by Hitchcock without compassion, with a certain degree of hardness, but through this, he does not cross the limits of plausibility. The Disappeared (Mitchell 2012) is a lost-at-sea group survival film. Its action takes place only inside the limit situation. Mannie, Pete, Gerald, Gib, Merv and Dickie are the only six characters that appear and will disappear in film. They are Canadian fishermen traveling in two boats, and they cannot find their way home. They have to share the provisions, they quarrel over the drinking water, and some of them even eat a seagull. They sometimes talk about God. One of them steals food, hoping to survive to see his family. They do not punish him. Mannie is the only one who dies during the film. They put their testaments in a bottle and continue to row

Survival and communion (surviving together, as a community)  129 searching for their home. They sing and disappear in the fog. After that, the silence comes. The mystery covers them. Will they be saved or will they die? No matter what the answer to this question is, the fact that they manage to remain together under the wise command of Captain Gerald is the most important thing. Their attitude proves that brotherhood and communion among people is possible, and it gives hope that, at a larger scale, humanity can act in unity to serve good causes. This vocation for unity is an element of God’s image in people. Harold Dixon, Tony Pastula and Gene Aldrich are the protagonists of Against the Sun (Falk 2014), a war survival movie based on some true events happened in 1942 somewhere in the South Pacific area. They form the crew of a bomber plane that, getting lost from its squad and remaining without fuel, sinks into the ocean. These three people are left in a small lifeboat without food and water and with very few means to survive. “Chief” Harold Dixon is the pilot, and he is in command of the raft. This whole critical situation results out of his orientation mistake. This first part is mostly narrative and relatively short. It does not provide detailed information about the biographies or the spiritual profile of the characters. Before entering the limit situation, they were strangers gathered together by the fact they served in the same army and needed to face the same challenge. They barely know each other names. But these soldiers will have plenty of time to get acquitted during the long days that lay ahead of them. They realize that this emergency situation will last longer when the rescue mission fails to spot their position. “Chief” Dixon takes the initiative: they make the inventory, he organizes them into shifts. They throw away the unnecessary items to make the boat lighter. The three talk about their lives. They invent a device for fishing, but they don’t catch anything with that. During these first days, they use a lot their intelligence to find solutions. After a while, when they understand that they cannot save their lives only by their own effort, the members of the group start praying together. Every one of them says a prayer. Pastula prays for rain, and, after a while, it starts raining. Another time they say together “Our Father”. “Chief” Dixon finds a pencil and draws a “chart” that their boat should follow to reach land. “Chief” Dixon also makes a “sea anchor” out of a vest and nylon rope in order to have a certain control of the route the boat takes. This will prove to be an important part of their survival success. After the rain, miracles continue to happen: one, that seems pretty unbelievable, is the killing of the shark. Aldrich has just randomly hit the water and managed to stab it. Eating this fish they remained alive. Another time they eat an albatross. In the beginning, “Chief” Dixon tries to accuse Pastula of being partially guilty of the present situation, but after some days in the boat, he assumes the whole responsibility for this. He utters a sad meditation about himself: “I am a pilot who lost his plane, his crew and myself!” He finds the courage to express the truth and his deep regret that he put others’ lives in danger. When he says “I am terribly sorry!”, these words mark an awakening of

130  Survival and communion (surviving together, as a community) the conscience. Another important moment of the film that occurs after this confession is that when Aldrich and Pastula decide to show their full trust in their commander by following the chart he drew. They trust this man who made repentance in front of them, and this is why the miracle of their survival occurs. They, who were simply strangers before entering the limit situation, behave more and more like brothers as the limit situation becomes more dangerous. For example, when the boat is hit by the storm, they take care of each other. Commander Dixon gives one of the two vests to Aldrich who does not know how to swim. After the storm passes they are exhausted, and they have sad thoughts. One of them says that “nothing is left of us” and that “no one will know we survive all this time”. They feel lost in the immensity of the sea. Another extraordinary thing that happens is the fact that Aldrich falls in love with Tony Pastula’s sister, without even seeing her once. Some ingredients of this spiritual phenomenon are the need of beauty and affection, the lust for life and the search for purity. They think of God and of the relation He has with people, and one conclusion is: “If God chooses our course, He wants us to make it”. People become winners when they fulfill the plan God has with their lives. This thought strengthens their spirits, and they start rowing with their bare hands. After that they reach such a degree of exhaustion that they simply believe Tony Pastula died, but this was not true. Finally they see land. Aldrich thanks God for this. They reach the small island of Pukapuka after 34 days at sea and after sailing for more than 1,000 miles. The last scene shows them and the traces they left on the sand while they are headed to a house on the beach. This is how the three get out of the limit situation. They proved during the film that each of their souls is now closer to perceive and live according to their true nature that is, in fact, God’s image inside them. Pressure (Scapello 2015) and The Chamber (Parker 2017) are trapped underwater survival films. Pressure takes place in the Indian Ocean at a certain distance from the Somalian coast. The protagonists of the film are Engel, Peter Mitchell, Hurst and Jones, four employees of Vaxxilon Oil Company who are sent 200 meters below the surface in a diving bell to meld a damaged pipe. The limit situation occurs when the ship is sunk because of a strong storm. This catastrophe left the four men abandoned on the ocean floor with oxygen supply for only 18 hours. Engel insists to let the diving bell flow and rise to the surface, even though this maneuver is very risky to their health because of inadequate decompression. Mitchell, who is in command, chooses to keep the diving bell at the bottom of the ocean and wait for the rescuers. Hurst goes, unauthorized, to bring another oxygen cylinder on the diving bell. He fails and dies sacrificing his life for his companions. After a while they manage to get in contact on the radio with a Chinese fishing ship, and this announces a military ship about their situation. Mitchell is also sacrificing himself trying to deliver a beacon that signals their location closer to the surface. Poisoned by jellyfish, he drops the beacon before starting its signal and, in order to catch it, he disconnects

Survival and communion (surviving together, as a community)  131 himself from the oxygen and dies. Before dying he was able to start the beacon and this would help the diving bell to be located. Engel starts the raising of the diving bell, but it gets stuck on some cables, and therefore, he gives the only remaining diving suit to Jones, sacrificing his life for him. Engel explains that he wants to save Jones’ life because once he did not save from drowning a man who was driving a car that killed his girlfriend and future wife. Along with that man died also his child. The only one who survives the limit situation is Jones and he is shown together with his wife and the newborn child. His survival is a result of the sacrifice of his older companions. This capacity of sacrifice shows that humans are spiritual beings whose behaviors may go beyond fear and self-preservation instinct. This capacity of sacrifice for others is a part of God’s image in people. The Chamber’s action is set in a bathyscaphe abandoned somewhere in the Yellow Sea and having inside four people. Mats is the pilot. The other three, a woman and two men, belong to American Special Forces. They are Edwards, nicknamed Red, Parks and Denholm. Denholm dies pretty soon because of an accident. The risks of the limit situation are accentuated by Parks’ behavior. He wants to survive fighting against others and attacking them. He is finally killed by Red. Remaining the only two alive, Red and Mats approach one another. Red tells him that her real name is Alice and about another limit experience she passed through while she got lost in the desert. They plan to go out by opening the hatch when the bathyscaphe is almost full with water. In these adverse circumstances, Alice tells Mats that he is a good man. When he modestly refuses this praise by saying that she does not know him “that well” she says with humor: “How much more intimately can you get to know a person than being tied together at the bottom of the ocean?” It is true that people show their character in limit situations. The way these people try to protect each other and to refuse the other’s sacrifice is impressive. Alice apologizes “for everything”. These attitudes show that people, even in difficult conditions, may preserve their delicacy, and, yet more, to show only delicacy and altruism. This may be considered a paradox, but, in fact, it shows our true nature made after God’s image. In the end, Mats dies and Alice reaches the surface. The story is sad, but these two characters have shown the beauty of their spirits. People may also be trapped under ground as is shown in The 33 (Spanish: Los 33) (Riggen 2015). The film presents the mining catastrophe happened in a Chilean gold mine on 5 August 2010, when 33 miners remained blocked till 13 October. “The heart of the mountain finally broke”, says one character. The main entrance is the only way to access the mine and it collapses. The miners find shelter in the “refuge”, 700 meters below the ground. This is the limit situation. The authorities take firm measures to save them. They use very advanced drilling technology. Many attempts fail, but in the end, they succeed. This success belongs to many people. The miners organized themselves well under the ground, and they were able to

132  Survival and communion (surviving together, as a community) survive 17 days only with the rationalized food found in the rescue room. The families of the miners are very determined and put pressure on the authorities. The President of the state himself gives all his support to the rescue mission. An essential role is played also by Andre Sougarret, a drilling expert, and by Laurence Golbone, Chilean Minister of Mining. The miners change during this limit situation. On 5 August, in the San Jose mine entered 33 workers, and on 13 October got out 33 brothers. This is the most important thing that happened there. These 33 brothers are waited outside by other brothers. This pure feeling of brotherhood among people is an element that testifies their common origin as sons of God. “God was with us”, the inscription left on the wall after their leave, testifies that they felt this as a mystic revelation. Above the earth may be also dangerous. It is also demonstrated by several films I present below. Survival Quest (Coscarelli 1988) is set in the mountains of California. It has a hybrid intrigue because the limit situation is generated by the harsh conditions encountered in the wilderness as well as by the threat coming from aggressive people. Two groups of people have to share for four weeks the same area in the wilderness to do their survival training. The first group, composed of young men dressed in paramilitary uniforms and having many weapons, is led by Jake Cannon. He teaches them to consider themselves “predators”, to dominate everything and everybody through violence, to act individually and trust nobody. The second group is composed of two rather fragile girls, Cheryl and Olivia, an old man named Hal and three youngsters: Joey, Jeff and Gray. Gray is brought by police because he is a condemned delinquent who attends this survival drill as a mandatory rehabilitation. This second group is led by Hank Chambers whose main principle is that survival can be realized only as a team. In opposition with the heavily armed group led by Jake, he considers that “survival in the wilderness is a matter of heart, not of hardware”. Jake’s approach to survival will lead to tragic consequences. He agrees that his group teases and scares Hank’s people, but he does not want to really harm them. Unfortunately Jake pushes too hard one of his students, humiliating him, and this student will end by stabbing him. This student, named Raider, shot Hank before, as a reflex. Raider tells that Hank has killed Jake and takes command of the group, trying to kill the entire other team. They will not succeed, but, on the contrary, he leads all his fellows to death. Jake does not die on the spot and is carried on an improvised stretcher by Hank, whose wound was not fatal. Jake changes himself seeing Hank’s attitude. In spite of all of Hank’s efforts, Jake will die thanking him for trying to save him. Jake’s death is a consequence of the violent behavior he developed among his students. He is a victim of his own ideas. This is one of the risks of considering violence as a game. All members of the other group survive and are all spiritually changed. Some of them learn to apologize for their mistakes. It is the case of Jeff in his relation with Cheryl. She learns to forgive by accepting his apology and saying: “we are both

Survival and communion (surviving together, as a community)  133 different people than we were then”. All members of this group learn to take care of others. Their humanity flourishes through this. This is a sense of communion which recommends all as sons of God and images of Him. The general moral conclusion of this film is that violence leads to death and communion and love are “paths” to life. White Water Summer (Bleckner 1987) is also set in the mountains. Its protagonist is Alan, a 14-year-old city boy wearing glasses, “scared of heights”, who has participated to several thematic camps before and who looks not willing to waste his summer vacation in a survival camp. His parents insist, Vic (who organizes the journey) insists, and Alan does not refuse firmly. This is how he ends up in Vic’s van going into a six weeks journey with other three boys: Mitch, George and Chris. The entire journey may be considered as a limit situation for this shy city boy. This summer camp will be littered with really intense and dangerous moments. Vic treats them very severely, and especially Alan, who looks a bit clumsy in the beginning. Vic forces him to cross for the second time a dangerous hanging deck because Alan forgot on the other side the poles of a tent. Alan proves to be a very strong personality and prefers to remain lonely on an island during one stormy night better than obeying Vic’s orders. An intense moment occurs when Vic leaves the boys alone in the wilderness. They manage to survive, and he comes back. Another time Vic left Alan suspended on a climbing rope on a cliff because he couldn’t balance well to reach him and the boys. After a long time, Alan does this alone and joins the group, but all the boys decide that they had enough of Vic’s style and they all want to go home and separate from him. They manage to find the canoe, but Vic is there insisting that they should continue their journey. Chris beats Vic with an oar, and he throws stones at him till he falls down from a cliff, hurts himself and breaks a leg very severely. The boys pull him out of the ravine he felt, but they decide to leave him and go for the rangers. The only one who decides to stay is Alan. Chris remembers him that Vic has left him before, but Alan still considers that to remain is the right thing for him. After that, seeing Vic’s bad shape, Alan decides to bring him down on the river with the canoe. Down on the river, after their canoe is overthrown in a fall, a helicopter comes and rescues them. This fight for others’ life, and especially for the life of a person who made him suffer, made Alan a character in which God’s image may be easily seen. With humor, the film avoids the cliché endings by saying that after this adventure Alan is not willing to go back in the wilderness. He prefers urban parks instead. Alive (Marshall 1993) is one of the most famous survival films ever made. This is a group survival movie which strictly fits into the definition of the survival genre as given by Thomas Sobchack. “We were brought together by a great experience”, says Carlitos Páez, one of the survivors. “Together” is one of the key words of the movie, and it opens a path to analyze it. “Together” is close to the word “team”, and most protagonists of this movie, were, before the experience from the mountain, members of a rugby team.

134  Survival and communion (surviving together, as a community) During the limit situation, they become members of a survival team. Before entering the limit situation, we meet them on a plane chatting about various things, making jokes, playing with the rugby ball: just some young men with their relatives and friends. Entering the limit situation puts them in a different light, revealing their profound nature. The limit situation refers to the plane crash, but also to the dangers they encounter during the 72 days they spend isolated on the mountain: hunger, a cold, avalanches, the death of other people around them, desperation, the wish to give up… Inside the limit situation, they discover a deeper spiritual communion with one another by living a simpler life. They use their intelligence: they rationalize food, recover useful things from the plane, find how to melt snow on aluminum sheets, build up a shelter to protect them from cold… They overcome the tensions that have occurred among them, and finally learn how to work together for survival. This film openly describes the relation with God. The characters say together once “Our Father” for the dead people. Other time Carlitos manages to make them say together the rosary prayer. Another time, before dying, Alberto Antuna has tears in his eyes and says: “I’m so close to God!” An extremely important role in this survival story is played by Nando (the nickname of Fernando Parrado). Through his spiritual and physical strength, he represents the vanguard of the group. Seeing that several people continue to die, he decides that: “It’s time to go! Before we turn into animals!” Together with Roberto he manages to cross the mountains and bring the rescuers. When others see no chance to succeed, he is able to see the beauty of the moment. Nando does not accept to give up: “If we die, we gonna die walking!” He encourages Roberto and Tintin by telling them, on their road across the mountains, that they have already done the impossible surviving 70 days on the mountains. Sitting among huge snowy peaks he says: “I am very proud to be a man in a day like this!” He continues: “Look! It is magnificent! It’s God!” He sees in this immense landscape a suggestion of the infinity of God! Here we have a testimony of the immensity of the human soul who finds its place only in this state of infinite freedom. In the end, 29 people die and 16 survive. The movie does not show what these 16 did after the “Miracle of the Andes”. We have just Carlitos’ testimony about a certain state of spiritual elevation he experienced during those 72 days, a state in which he felt the presence of the God, usually hidden by civilization. Another famous film of the genre is The Flight of the Phoenix (Aldrich 1965). The relationships among characters evolve according to a pattern commonly found in survival movies. At first, people behave like strangers, then, as survival becomes more and more difficult, some disputes arise among them. Other problems get inside the limit situation from the outside world (e.g., the lack of trust with which the German engineer is regarded by others). Toward the end of the movie (as they pass together through some difficult situations and start to trust each other) the relationships among people change, people become close to each other and succeed together. At

Survival and communion (surviving together, as a community)  135 the end of the film, when the plane is ready to fly, joy may be seen on everyone’s face. Forced by the limit situation, people outdo themselves. Engineer Dorfmann rises beyond his condition of a model builder and manages to build from scraps a functional plane that will save their lives. The characters of the film use all their intelligence, knowledge and power for the common good. They go beyond the issues that might separate them, and simply work together. The image with the pilot driving the plane on the ground and all of them pulling it up to exhaustion is relevant for the unity this group has gained. This image may be understood as a metaphor of the world as it should be, a space of communion for all the people. Deadly dangers may unexpectedly appear in isolate areas, but sometimes they are not provoked by natural phenomena, but by people, as in Utoya: July 22 (Norwegian: Utoya 22. July) (Pope 2018). This is a terrorist attack survival movie. It describes real events which happened in 2011 during the terrorist attack at a summer camp in Utoya Island. The characters are fictional. The camera follows the movements of a girl named Kaja in her attempt to survive the attack. The film has no montage cuts and offers a possible real-time description of the attack from Kaja’s reactions. After hearing the first gunshots, she goes to the central pavilion of the camp, and then runs with others into the forest. Here one boy thinks that it is an army exercise, another one believes that police is shooting them. They manage to call 112. Kaja goes to Emilie’s tent, but she does not find her. She convinces a boy named Tobias to hide himself into the forest. Later she finds him death on the beach. In the forest, she takes care of a wounded girl, but the girl will die soon. She goes on the beach, where some people do not accept her in their hideouts. Magnus, a guy she met before, helps her. She refuses to stay in a safer place and goes to search for Emilie and is shot and killed. From now on, the camera follows Magnus, who reaches a boat and is saved. Emilie is on this boat, too. The goal of the film is to describe the terrorist attack as real as it is possible from the victims’ points of view. Detached from the frightened crowd of youngsters, Kaja manages to go beyond her fear helping others and trying to find and protect her sister. This behavior shows her worthy of her status of God’s imagine. In other films, communities are endangered by worldwide cataclysms as it happens in Deluge (Feist 1933), one of the early survival movies. The general frame of this film is given by a series of disasters that hit the world: a powerful storm hit the East Coast, several earthquakes caused huge waves which wiped out New York and many other states to such a degree that civilization was destroyed. The action of the movie is set in New York State. Martin and Helen Wilson and their little children have to leave their house because of the earthquake. Martin brings his family in a safe place, on some cliffs, and he goes back to their house to take food, water and other supplies. Unfortunately, because the flood comes, he remains away from his family, believing that they are lost. The other line of the plot presents Claire, a beautiful young woman found unconscious by Jepson, who along

136  Survival and communion (surviving together, as a community) with another man named Norwood, had previously found shelter in a cabin near water. After Claire wakes up, Jepson kills Norwood for Claire, and Claire runs away from him. He follows her and joins a gang of very bad people. Claire finds shelter at Martin, who lives in another cabin. She falls in love with him and they will eliminate Jepson and almost all members of the gang. They are found by a large group coming from a “settlement”, a community that wants to reorganize itself as a civilized society on the ruins of the one destroyed by the disaster. In this community, Martin finds his wife living with their children. He is elected the leader of this community because he was able to eliminate the gang and offered them a solution to regulate the economic issues which occurred among them through the idea of credit. Every member of the community receives at the beginning, a certain credit that could be used instead of money in order to acquire certain goods without fighting and violence. Claire chooses to leave him with his wife and children. She jumps into the water, as she appeared, and disappears from this community and from this life. Apart of this romantic issue, the substance of the movie lies mostly in its action. The most important moral issue it raises is related to how people behave in moments when social rules and constraints fall apart (at least for a while). Some people choose to behave in a violent way, to impose upon other aggressively. They become the bad people and they are represented here by Jepson, Norwood and the gang. Other people choose to remain “human” being mild and treating others at least with respect (even if moments of certain crisis may still appear). These are good people. If they act rationally, in good faith and faith in God, they have a chance to create a social environment where people can still live preserving and developing their vocation as God’s images looking to be alike to their Creator: good, free, loving… The Baldwins (Harry, Ann, their son Rick and daughter Karen) are the main characters of Panic in Year Zero! (Milland 1962), a film that may be categorized as a family post-atomic survival movie. This family goes out of Los Angeles for camping and witness the explosion of an atomic bomb. Realizing that the entire social and economic system has collapsed, they take guns and provisions and they find refuge on the mountains. Forced by circumstances, Harry takes the guns from a hardware owned by Ed Johnson on debt. Actually he forces him to deliver them because Rick pointed a gun on Mr. Johnson. On the mountains, the Baldwins have a fight with a bunch of hoodlums and rapists that took over a farm near them. The movie shows that the end of civilization may represent the end of social rules and the beginning of wild violence because some people give up respect for moral rules and act like beasts. The same idea appears in Deluge (Feist 1933). The Baldwins fight them, they are hurt (the daughter is raped, the son is shot), but they stay together, they also save from the hoodlums the daughter of Johnson family and they finally win. Harry Baldwin makes a big mistake when he decides not to let Johnson family to join them at their place. Next day he finds Ed Johnson and his wife killed by the hoodlums.

Survival and communion (surviving together, as a community)  137 Harry bears certain guilt in this because if he had accepted the Johnsons to live with them, things would have looked different for all. It is good for a family to stick together, but this is not enough. It is mandatory to help other people, too. They seem to understand this thing too late, by taking Miss Johnson with them. At the end, the Baldwins and Miss Johnson represent a part of the hope for the rebirth of the world. They are named by a soldier as the “five good ones”. The army that starts taking control over the roads represents here the return of social rules and civilization. “There must be no end – only a new beginning”, states the movie at the very end. The theme of the family occurs in several other creations of the genre. Talking about two recent films about the Biblical flood, Evan Almighty (Shadyac 2007) and Noah (Aronofsky 2014), Adele Reinhartz points out the consequences of the catastrophe on the lives of survivors: “In these two films, the flood provides an occasion for rethinking and promoting familial harmony” (Reinhartz 296). The limit situations encountered in the films presented below are also able to trigger important changes inside families. Under extraordinary circumstances members of the same family discover each other qualities, love and family bonds deepen. A good example to support this idea is Escape from Wildcat Canyon (Voizard 1998), a movie focusing on some dramatic events through which the Flint family passes. The protagonists of the film are Granpa Martin, Douglas and Jaynie (father and mother) and Pete (nephew and son). The introductory part is very long (it lasts more than 27 minutes) and presents these characters reunited for grandpa’s birthday. The main issue of this introductory part is the intention of Douglas to move his wife and child to New York, where he is about to receive an important job in the field of architecture. If they move there, Grandpa Martin will remain alone at home. Pete also does not want to change his school. This is the atmosphere in the family when they plan to make a short journey to a remote lodge placed in the Wildcat Canyon area. Pete and Grandpa Martin will go earlier with a small plane. Douglas and Janyie will go first to New York and will come after. Before entering the limit situation, Douglas proves to be a very ambitious man who puts his career first and who is severe with him and other people. His wife discusses with him about his plans for the future. She asks him if he has doubts about the decision he seems to make, suggesting that “it’s ok to have second thoughts”. In the scenes previous to the limit situation grandpa spends a lot of time with Pete, fishing and teaching him to drive his truck, although his father doesn’t agree. Pete is complaining to his grandpa that in the past, his father also spent time with him (playing computer games), but “now he just works all the time”. A plane crash stands as the beginning of the limit situation, as in Lost in the Desert or A Cry in the Wild. Pete and Grandpa Martin survive without any serious injury, but the pilot gets stuck into the plane with his legs broken. They leave him there promising that will bring the rescuers. During this long journey back to civilization, the grandfather and the nephew will face may dangers: the

138  Survival and communion (surviving together, as a community) cold, the extreme fatigue, wolves, a puma that attack them twice. They also find a stray dog that will become their pet and will help them to get rid of the puma. They have to climb down steep cliffs and pass through. Grandpa shows Pete what he can eat in nature. Here grandpa saves Pete from a very dangerous stone. Pete, at his turn, saves grandpa from the wolves attack using a signal which drives them away. Pete will also make the insulin shots to him, because grandpa suffers of diabetes. They help each other to survive, and they also talk about important problems. Granpa opens his soul to Pete and tells him that he was not a cook in the army, but a combatant SEAL soldier, and he killed people during the war. No member of the family knew about this. So, the limit situation is a time to know each other better and to discover unspoken truths. It is a special time of communication and communion. On the other plan, during this time, Douglas and Jaynie alert the rescue teams and insist to continue the search. Douglas becomes more concerned about his family than about career and money. During these extreme moments, he cries: “I want another chance! I want my family back!” First they find the pilot, who announced the accident, and after, they save Pete and Martin from a raging river. After they escape the limit situation, Douglas decides not to move to New York because he understood during these events that affective and spiritual values come first. He states two conclusions. The first is: “I decided to keep my family together!” The second is about making money by building up their own company because they are strong when they are together: “We are Flints! We’ll find a way!” These extreme events will also help Martin and his son Douglas to communicate better. Martin tells him that he was a combat soldier and not a cook, and Douglas accepts to pay attention to these war stories he once avoided to hear. The characters of this film discover the importance and the beauty of every moment spent together, they discover that “the pursuit of happiness” cannot be an individualistic effort. Their happiness is provided by making other people happy. This is one way of revealing God’s image in us. The message of the movie is very human, but the scenes and the dialogues are too long and too explicit. The play of the actors is naïve, artificial, predictable and, thus, boring for a spectator of the 21st century. Vertical Limit (Campbell 2000) is also about family bonds, but this is only one aspect of the film. Peter and Annie are brothers, children of Royce Garret, an experienced alpinist who died sacrificing his life for his kids during an escalade. Because the rope on which all three were hanging wouldn’t support their entire weight, Royce commanded Peter to cut the rope. Peter did this, and this fact caused deep spiritual wounds for both brothers. After a time, Peter meets his sister in a camp base under K2. After a series of events, Peter will save Annie from an escalade that went wrong. It was a rather impossible mission that proved what a powerful force love between brothers could be. The film contains many other characters and stories. It is in fact the complex story of a complex rescue expedition in search for Annie and other characters. What is really impressive in the film is actually not

Survival and communion (surviving together, as a community)  139 as much the struggle of characters for their own lives, but for others’. The limit situations occurring in the mountains will reveal not only the climbing skills, but especially the human qualities of the characters, especially their openness to friendship, brotherhood and spirit of sacrifice. Montgomery Wick, Kareem, Skip Taylor, Cyril, Malcom, Monique and, of course, Peter prove these qualities. In this attitude of the mountain climbers, God’s image and His likeness may be observed. I am speaking of the Image of Christ Who accepted the sacrifice for His “friends” (John 15:15). The main characters from Prey (Roodt 2006) are Tom Newman, an engineer who works at the construction of a dam in Africa, his daughter Jessie, his son David and his second wife Amy. The film action takes place somewhere in the African savannah. Before entering the limit situation, the main tension that exists in the family is related to Jessica who behaves as a teenager rebel because she dislikes the fact that his father divorced her mother and married Amy. The next day after their arrival at a remote resort close to Tom’s working place, he sends Amy, Jessica and David in the savannah, led by a ranger named Brian. The limit situation is provoked by Brian’s reckless behavior. He drives the jeep off the road, and, when he stops to let David to do his needs outside, they are attacked by lions. David escapes, but Brian, who protected him, is killed by lions. He dropped the gun and also the key of the car in the grass. From now on Amy takes the role of the leader and tries to find the right solution to get all of them out of this dangerous circumstance. She manages to recover the key, but drives in an awful manner, stucks the car in the ground and damages the radiator. The scene is stupid and hard to believe. In this new location, another unbelievable scene happens: just a second before the lioness is to reach Amy and Jessie, it is killed by poachers. One poacher shows Jessie where to find water. The scene may be also considered as unbelievable. The three tourists spend too much time in open space without being attacked by lions. They quickly come back because they hear a shot. There they find the other poacher killed by lions. During the night, Jessie shows a total change of attitude toward Amy, and she asks how she met her father. Amy states very clearly that her parents were already separated at that time. They talk calmly and friendly. Another rather hard to believe scene occurs when the second poacher comes trying to find shelter in the car and, after few moments, he is precisely pulled out of the car by a lion through the windscreen. Meanwhile, finding about his family disappearance, Tom hires a professional hunter named Crawford to help him finding Amy and the children. They manage to locate the car, but on the way to it, Crawford is attacked and killed by a lion. Tom makes it to the car and, followed by the male lion, he finds shelter under the vehicle. Now is time for Amy to find another solution: she tells Tom and the children to run away from the car. She drills the oil tank, lures the lion into the car and provokes an explosion. The lion is killed, and (again hard to believe) Amy is not hurt at all. The last scene is significant for the meaning of the film: Tom embraces Amy, Jessie takes Amy’s hand and Tom is kept

140  Survival and communion (surviving together, as a community) very protectively by his father who says: “Let’s go home!” They got through this challenge stronger and more united. Amy has a special position in this film. She put her life at risk for Jessie and David and, through this attitude, she gained their trust and love. All these four people have become a more unified structure, they are bond by love. About love and care is also No Escape (Dowdle 2015), set in an unknown country from Asia during a coup d’etat that triggers a long series of bloody events. Especially American and Western citizens are targeted by the guerilla fighters. Jack, his wife Annie and their daughters Lucy and Briegel “Breeze”, the Dwyers, an American family, are caught among these dangerous events. The limit situation consists in the fact that they are stubbornly pursued by rebels in their attempt to reach the Vietnamese border and to get out of the country. Being an action and pursuit film, the characters go very rapidly through many facts and circumstances. The focus of the movie is to express the suspense of events, but also in revealing the unity of the family that passes through all these dangers. Jack is the “head” of the family, he protects it and leads it to salvation, but without his wife’s interventions in some key moments he wouldn’t survive. Lucy also saves her father’s life once. Together they cross the border in Vietnam and manage to survive. A special attention deserves Hammond, a British spy played by Pierce Brosnan, who sacrifices his life to eliminate a truck which was following the Dwyers. The film is rather linear, the characters simply act. The film focuses mainly on their immediate reactions rather than on their longtime transformation. Room (Abrahamson 2015) can be categorized as a family survival movie because its protagonists are a mother named Joy and her son, Jack. The limit situation can be split in two parts. The first happens in the Room where the two are kept prisoners and lasts till their escape. The second refers to their efforts to adapt to the life outside the Room. Joy was kidnapped seven years ago by a male known as Old Nick and, since then, she has been captive in a shed (she calls it The Room) in a backyard of the kidnapper’s home. Her five-year-old boy is also entrapped in The Room. She protects Jack by never letting Old Nick (who is his natural father) to touch him and by hiding him in the closet while the man is in The Room. Joy uses her intelligence to design an escape plan. She makes Jack understand that The Room is not the only reality, and he awakes his interest for the outside world. She makes Jack looking as having fever to convince Old Nick to bring him at the hospital where he could escape. This plan does not work, but she does not give up. During the next day, she wraps Jack in the carpet and tells Old Nick to take away his body. Old Nick carries him in his open truck. The child manages to escape and to announce the authorities that will release his mother soon. The second part of the limit situation takes place outside the Room, where life seems to be very easy at least for Joy. She finds that her parents have divorced and her mother has a boyfriend named Leo who is a kind person. Robert, Joy’s father, cannot accept Jack

Survival and communion (surviving together, as a community)  141 and disappears from their life. While giving a television interview, Joy is asked why she kept all the time the boy with her without thinking to ask Old Nick to leave it in a hospital. This issue makes her feel guilty, and she tries to commit suicide, but is saved by Jack, Leo and Nancy. During the time Joy spends in the hospital, Nancy takes good care of Jack and he even tells her: “I love you, granma!” She cuts his hair at his request and sends the locks to Joy in the hospital. Later she will tell Jack that, by doing this, he saved her one more time. She apologizes to him saying: “I am not a good enough ma!” His answer “But you are ma!” makes her laugh and from this moment on they both seem to overcome all the difficulties of their social integration. They visit for the last time The Room that now has its door open and is cleared by most of their belongings. In the last scene, they both leave the yard with The Room through a light snow fall. Mother and son, they are both survivors. The love they have for one another may heal the wounds and makes them go further. To go further after so many pains may be considered a homage brought to God, The Life Giver, and homage similar to the deepest prayer. This capacity to survive, to live as a prayer, as an act of faith, should be considered an element of God’s image in Joy and her boy. Sanctum (Grierson 2011) is a trapped survival movie whose action is set in an unmapped and unexplored portion of a cave system from Papua New Guinea. The limit situation is triggered by the flooding of the cave’s exit because of a cyclone that hit the region. Therefore, the characters of the film cannot return to their camp base and are forced to go further in the cave searching for a possible, but still unknown exit. All the members of the group finally die except the young Joshua McGuire (Josh), the son of Frank, an experienced explorer and cave diver. Frank is a very determined man and, in critical moments, he makes decisions that look cruel and inacceptable. The relationship between Frank and Josh evolves during the film. Initially, Josh is baffled by his father’s style and challenges his decisions and gestures. Little by little, father and son open their soul to one another. Frank apologizes to Josh because he was not the father he should have been. Frank says that, if somebody wanted to know him, he should have come in the caves because these are his “cathedrals”. At the end of the film, Frank perforates his back during a fight and asks Josh to kill him. Only after Frank’s death, when Josh manages to save his life due to his father’s advice, he is able to admit: “I never knew my father, but I found him in that cave”. These two characters change during the limit situation: Frank by asking for forgiveness and Josh by discovering his love for his father. This makes them very “human” and heals their relationship. Father and son relation is one of the main themes of The Road (Hillcoat 2009) whose action is set after a cataclysm that causes the constant decrease of temperature on earth. The civilized society collapses and famine occurs. The relations among people are dominated by distrust and extreme violence. The film starts when this limit situation is already present. The protagonists of the film are a father and a son. The boy’s mother is not

142  Survival and communion (surviving together, as a community) present because, in this grievous atmosphere, she totally lost her hope and abandoned them. The father considers the boy as his “warrant” and his mission. The film describes their “road” to south and to the ocean. The main moral issue of the movie is about what things can be done for survival and what are not acceptable. Because of famine, the people split into two categories: bad and good people. Bad people find cannibalism as a way to survive. This is morally unacceptable, because, by doing so, humans do not survive spiritually, they lose their humanity and become beasts. Those who avoid behaving savagely remain human, “good people” and if they find other “good people”, they still can offer and receive love. The father is wounded and dies after bringing his son to the ocean shore, but the boy is found by a group of other “good people”, a family with two children who invite him to stay with them. He accepts. In this film, like in Bird Box (Bier 2018) or The Silence (J. Leonetti 2019), the main responsibility for people is to preserve their humanity in difficult circumstances. The theme of the leader is strongly connected with that of group survival. This is why in the following I will present some relevant films in which it occurs. In Abandon Ship! (original title: Seven Waves Away) (Sale 1957) a transatlantic liner called Crescent Star hit a mine and sank, broken in two. About 1,000 people died, and 37 survived, some of them badly injured. It is the case of the ship captain, who will die soon. He passes the command of the boat to the executive officer Holmes. His last words, addressed to Holmes, were: “Save as many as you can!” We did not encounter the characters of the movie before the limit situation. The practical question raised by the movie is how to save 27 people in the “captain shore boat” designed only for 9. The moral question raised is: are all the gestures permitted in order to survive? The survival of the group is in question here, the survival of as many people as possible. Is it right to sacrifice the weaker, the old and the injured people in order to keep the rest of the group alive? One thing that the film analyzes is the relationship between the leader and the group. Alexander Holmes trusts his reason guided by Darwin’s concept of the “survival of the fittest”, and he authoritatively guides the group according to it. Almost at the end when he is wounded by a knife, he passes the command to the communication officer Jimmy “Sparks” Clary and jumps over board. This proves his good intentions. Alexander Holmes is saved and brought aboard. During these harsh days, we witness at least a gesture that proves that some people can go beyond this “survival of the fittest” principle and sacrifice for others. It is the case of Officer Will McKinley who decides to remain over board with the sick Ruth Spencer. There is also a father that goes in the water insisting that his son will be kept on board. Other people are openly showing their scare and cry to remain on board. This is understandable. Alexander Holmes uses his reason and strong will along with his sailing knowledge to bring the surviving group of 14 closer to Africa, where they are finally rescued. We do not see the characters outside the limit situation,

Survival and communion (surviving together, as a community)  143 but just on the verge of getting out of it (in the boat as they approach the rescue ship). While facing the contact with civilization with its rules and the possible perspective of a trial of Alexander Holmes for letting some people die, the survivors dissociate from their leader. They leave him alone, saying that they did everything forced, because he had a pistol. Edith is the only one who says that he did the right thing, and Julie remains with him because she loves him. After the end of the “emergency”, most of the people on the boat prove to be coward, being happy that they finally have physically survived. They feel relieved. “What’s the difference? It’s all over!”, says Sam, the Black steward, answering to the moral doubts of Julie. She says that it is good to be alive, but she shows remorse for the death of other people. From that moment on Julie considers that they are condemned to “live in shame”. For her, the physical survival is not enough. Her conscience is awake; her feeling of guilt proves to be an unexpected presence. This shows the vocation for truth the human soul has. This unexpected presence, that goes beyond physical survival, may be seen as an element of God’s image in Julie, revealed because the passage through the limit situation. Daylight (Cohen 1996) is a trapped group survival movie whose action takes place in New York. Before entering the limit situation the film shows excerpts from the lives of the people who will be caught inside the crisis situation. They are people from different social backgrounds and with very different biographies. For some hours, they will be gathered together as characters of the same story. Madelyne Thompson (Maddy) is a playwright who is disappointed by her life in general and by the life in New York in particular. Roger and Eleanor Trilling is an old couple accompanied by their deceased son’s dog. Roy Nord (played by Viggo Mortensen) is a TV star and he considers himself a specialist in climbing and in survival techniques. He proves to be just a bragging and a careless person, and he will die in the first moments of the crisis because he does not listen to advices. George is a guardian of the tunnel in which the emergency situation occurs and he is in love with Grace, a colleague. The Crightons (Steven, Sarah and their daughter Ashley) are a middle-class family. Sarah behaves like a spoiled teenager, and the atmosphere in their car is tensed. There is also a group of young delinquents carried by a prison truck. A special figure among the characters of the film is Kit Latura (played by Silvester Stallone), an ex-head of the city emergency rescue service who quitted the service after a rescue mission went bad. At the beginning of the film, he works as a cab driver. He will play the role of the leader and of the group savior. Latura is not caught in the tunnel; he enters by his own will in order to save other people. The limit situation consists in the blocking of both ends of the northern tunnel that connects New York to New Jersey because of the explosion of three trucks illegally carrying toxic waste. When they find themselves stuck together inside the flooded tunnel with little air left and with the water still growing, their true spiritual structures reveal and develop in a positive way. For example, they all work together to raise the

144  Survival and communion (surviving together, as a community) car that blocked George under it. The Crightons do not quarrel anymore. Little by little, Kit Latura gains their trust. He is always concerned about saving them, always looking for solutions, always capable for sacrifice. He falls into the water saving Cooper, the dog of the Trillings. From being total strangers in the beginning, they become, in the end, people that care for each other. For example, after Kit Latura falls into the water, they try to help him. In this process, Madelyne falls, too, and remains with Kit. Latura encourages others to leave them because the group is close to get out. Finally, Madelyne and Kit manage also to get out of the tunnel through an explosion that propels them in the water of the harbor above. This is a rather unbelievable moment, as is the fact that the rest of the group arrives at the surface right under the floor of the room where the rescuers are. The passing through this limit situation changes (at least some of) the people involved. A boy and a girl from that juvenile delinquent group fall in love. Kit and Madelyne also seem to be at the beginning of a romantic relation. The previously rebel Ashley Crighton now embraces her father in tears. One of the juvenile delinquents very carefully helps the old man Trilling saying full of joy and friendship: “Roger, we did it!” One thing the survivors have gained during this shocking experience is the communion with other people, the pure love. And pure love is always selfless, it is always an element that belongs to the God’s image in man. The famous The Poseidon Adventure (Neame and Allen 1972) is a trapped group survival movie whose action is set on the sea. The limit situation occurs when the SS Poseidon, an old ocean liner, is hit by a huge wave and turns upside down. The key character of the movie is Reverend Frank Scott (played by Gene Hackman). Around him is organized a group of people who are fighting for their survival by going up into the ship. Reverend’s words “God loves winners!”, “God loves triers!”, “God will fight you all the way!” show people that one essential meaning of life is to fight for every bit of it, to have faith and never surrender. Reverend Scott dies after turning off a faucet to save others. Some people of his group have died before, and the reverend cries his last words to God: “Do not fight against us!” Rogo, the policeman, is invested as the leader of the group. “Get them through!” is the legacy that Frank Scott left to him. And Rogo with other five people (two girls, one boy and two men) are rescued. Some of them are deeply hurt (Manny Rosen lost Belle, Mike Rogo lost Linda), but they are survivors, winners. In spite of their sorrows and traumas, they can feel together the taste of victory; they understand and live in their lives the words “God loves winners!” A leader who manages to survive the victory he gains for him and for his group is Captain Philips from the homonymous film. A brief presentation of the film was made in Chapter 3. Paul Greengrass’ film is based on real events which happened in 2009. The story is based on the confrontation between the crew of MV Maersk Alabama and the Somali pirates. Before the limit situation is set, (some) characters from each side are presented inside

Survival and communion (surviving together, as a community)  145 their home environment. Captain Richard Philips is shown in the United States driving his SUV. on the way to the airport and talking with his wife, Andrea, about their children and about their future voyage. Captain Philips is confronted with the common problems of an American middle-class husband and father. Muse, Bilal, Najee and Elmi, the pirates, are introduced while they are selected for this hijacking “job” from a group of people in a village of the Somali coast. These Somali people are confronted with severe poverty and depend on their local mobsters. The settings are also very specific for these two very different worlds: middle-class neighborhoods, highways and the airport define Captain Philips’ universe. Shabby houses and boats in an African coastal village, many young guys poorly dressed, some barefoot with or without Kalashnikovs asking to be recruited by “bosses” for a job of pirating ships – these are some elements that describe the universe of Muse and his fellows. The story that brings them together begins when the pirates leave the shore and MV Maersk Alabama leaves the port. The pirates will start the pursuit, and this will mark the entrance into the limit situation. Their first attempt fails because of the maneuvers of MV Maersk Alabama, causing people from one of their boats to give up and go back to the shore. The boat led by Muse continues the pursuing next day, and finally they are able to take over the ship, but the confrontation (one in intelligence and spirit) continues. The crew led by Captain Philips will fight them in various and very clever ways. From the beginning of this emergency situation, they try to defeat them by announcing authorities, running and changing the direction of the ship several times, shooting them with water cannons. When it is obvious that they are hijacked, the Captain tells the crew to hide. With the pirates aboard, Captain Philips proposes them to take the 30,000 US dollars from the safe box and leave the ship. The crew shuts down the power from the ship, and they put broken glass on the floor to wound a pirate who goes barefoot. The sailors from MV Maersk Alabama take Muse prisoner, so that they are able to negotiate with the pirates to leave the ship. The pirates do this, but they also take prisoner the captain inside the lifeboat. From this moment, another kind of survival situation is set, one that reunites a prisoner and four angry kidnappers in the very hot and narrow space of the lifeboat. Soon this lifeboat is surrounded by three huge American military vessels. From now on the pirates become hunted, but the life of Captain Philips is more endangered than before, especially after he manages to jump out of the boat and is caught and brought back. The pirates plan to kill the Captain, but very few minutes before the three pirates from the boat are killed. Muse was previously invited and brought to one American ship under the pretext to discuss with the elders of his village. This was a trap, and he is made prisoner by soldiers. Captain Philips is saved, but he is under shock. During the entire limit situation, he proved strong will, intelligence and spirit of sacrifice for his crew. This spirit of sacrifice combined with all other qualities reveals in him the Image of Christ, of Whom Who “put His

146  Survival and communion (surviving together, as a community) life for His friends” (John 15:15). This Christic behavior is not named in the film, it is simply practiced. It is the duty that a captain has for his crew, but also a duty that every man has for his neighbor. It is about love. The Captain also needs to be loved, and he expresses this in the most tensed moments of the film when he addresses the presumingly last words to his beloved wife Andrea. These extreme moments made him stronger and a total winner. At the end of the film, there is the information that “on July 23, 2010” he “went back to sea”.

Conclusions. Group, community and communion A pretty common definition says that “a community is a body of people (…) that shares values, benefits and aspirations and creates its own icons” (Ahmad and Al-Sayed 77). The groups of characters in survival movies are forced by circumstances and are stuck together inside a limit situation. Thomas Sobchack speaks only about the cases in which they manage to become a community that works for the benefit of each individual (Sobchack 12). In films as The Vanishing (Nyholm 2018) or The Decline (French: Jusqu’au declin) (Laliberte 2020), people do not succeed in becoming a community working together and tragedies happen. When people succeed in working together, their “values” are related to collaboration and mutual respect, and their “benefits and aspirations” are linked to the idea of survival (physical and spiritual). The icons of these ephemeral communities are also related to their common goal of overcoming the vicissitudes and preserving their lives. One of the most obvious symbols of this kind is the plane from The Flight of the Phoenix (Aldrich 1965) and its reconstruction. An object is able to gather around it the entire group and to transform the group into a community. I consider the idea of community as the continuous result of collaboration among people. Under this visible part, in the most special and profound cases, the idea of communion is hidden and revealed. About this topic, the Orthodox Metropolitan John Zizioulas said that communion requires our humbleness and self-diminishing up to kenosis in relation with other people (as with God): Communion with the other requires the experience of the Cross. Unless we sacrifice our own will and subject to the will of the other, repeating in ourselves what our Lord did in Gethsemane in relation to the will of his Father, we cannot reflect properly in history the communion and the otherness that we see in the triune God. Since the Son of God moved to meet the other, his creation, by emptying Himself through the kenosis of the Incarnation, the ‘kenotic’ way is the only one that benefits the Christian in his or her communion with other – be it God or one’s ‘neighbor’. (Zizioulas 5–6)

Survival and communion (surviving together, as a community)  147 This does not mean self-annihilation, but, on the contrary, our self-affirmation as persons, careful and ready to be filled by love, which represents the proper environment for the fulfillment of ours and others’ lives. For the Orthodox Metropolitan John Zizioulas, communion means a celebration of life, of every person, just for the fact that he or she simply exists: In this ‘kenotic’ approach to the other, communion is not in any way determined by the qualities that he or she might or might not possess. In accepting the sinner, Christ applied to communion the Trinitarian model (…): the other is not to be identified by his or her qualities, but by the sheer fact that he or she is, and is himself or herself. We cannot discriminate between those who are and those who are not ‘worthy’ of our acceptance. This is what the Christological model of communion with others requires. (Zizioulas 6) When the Baldwin family is concerned only about their own safety and do not accept the Johnsons to live with them, they do not respect this model of communion and this will cost the life of Ed Johnson and his wife (Panic in Year Zero!). In other films, the characters make the right decision. Kit Latura (Daylight), Captain Philips (Captain Philips), Reverend Frank Scott (The Poseidon Adventure), Engel (Pressure), Captain Gerald and his fishermen (The Disappeared) or the 33 miners and their rescuers (The 33) behave like they have discovered this sense of communion with others. Some of them die, others survive, but all of them affirm without words, through their lives, that to be human means to be Christ-like. Because Jesus Christ is the fundament and the guarantor of the capacity of humans to be together in love (Zizioulas 6).

7 Survival and morality

Motto: “I have never been so close to God as I was in prison.” Nicoleta Valeria Grossu, Bless You, Prison! (Romanian: Binecuvântată fii, închisoare!) (Mărgineanu 2002)

From the perspective of the Orthodox Christian anthropology “the final goal of people is the gain of eternal life (…) This (present) life is considered to be one of the great gifts from God because, here, people develop their capacities towards perfection, fulfilling their destiny” (Marin 32). This destiny is synonymous to the becoming of the people more and more like Christ, that means actually “to live a life in Christ” (St. Nicholas Cabasilas, St. John of Kronstadt), as the Orthodox theology considers. In the spiritual definition of every human being seems to be written this vocation of becoming united with Christ. This comes from the fact that man is created according to the image and the likeliness of God. The attempt to continuously “reach” this image is discovered, sometimes through intuition, by several characters of survival films (see the end of the previous chapter). Perhaps, the most important hypostasis of the Christ-like behavior of people is the acceptance of sacrifice. I believe that the relation between survival and morality may also be easily highlighted through a rather negative example. One of the saddest examples of attitudes related to the perspective of the imminence of death is that of Ann, the main heroine from My Life Without Me (Coixet 2003). When Ann finds out about having a very aggressive form of cancer that leaves her only about two more months to live, she makes a list of priorities, a “to-do list”. This list includes admirable things through which she tries to show her love for her daughters, mother and father. There are a number of other things that can be considered ridiculous, as the applying false nails or the going to the hairdresser. Unfortunately, this urgent list also includes a series of sins that she considers to be signs of her freedom. She wants to cheat on her husband to see how is to have sex with other men. She will do this with one man, Lee. Another thing, at least as serious as this, is to make someone fall in love with her. And Ann will do this, using the same man,

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DOI: 10.4324/9781003356912-8

Survival and morality  149 Lee, as a kind of object, ignoring the pain she will cause him very soon, when she will die. She proves to be very selfish, in this respect. She proves also to be a liar, because she lies to her husband, by hiding this illicit love affair. The fact that Ann finds a future wife for her husband, for when she will be dead, is also a questionable gesture. It is very sad that she does not know what to do before her death and accumulates a sum of important sins, completely useless. The way she reacts to the imminence of her death reveals her education devoid of Christian values, an education based on the clichés of the contemporary secularized world that considers freedom as the possibility of doing all the possible nonsenses instead of preserving and deepening the purity of the body and soul. The end of the film finds the main character in a much more normal spiritual position: that of prayer. How has she reached prayer is not clear. It is probably due to an intuition of God’s presence that exists in every human being. Probably because Ann has people she loves and about whose lives she cares a lot. A short fragment of her prayer sounds like this: “You pray (…) You do not know Who and why you are praying to, but you are praying”. This prayer makes her look more human. When she acts according to the clichés of the secular education, she does a lot of mistakes and sins. When Ann prays, she may have a chance to discover to Whom she is praying. And by discovering Him, she discovers morality, her sins and the true path to true freedom.

7.1 The motif of self-sacrifice The capacity of people to act apparently against their individual life preservation for the sake of others is another way of revealing the true nature of human beings, which is one of moral beings. The existence of the self-sacrifice spirit keeps alive the moral life of the people, makes the moral values to be living values. Sacrifice and self-sacrifice as a cinematic theme has already caught the attention of several contemporary authors as John May and Jon Pahl, as well as of Costică Brădățan and Camil Ungureanu, the editors of the 2016 Routledge anthology entitled Cinema and Sacrifice. John May considers this “a theme in movies that happily, for the believer, transcends genres” (May 60), and he highlights it in films like Casablanca, Serpico, High Noon or Shane (May 59–60). In the last two, he sees “variations of the theme of redemptive sacrifice” (May 59). Stephen Post defines “self-sacrifice” as “the voluntary forgoing of what one considers a great personal good for the sake or good of another” (Post 152), and he speaks of “radical self-sacrifice” as the one that goes “to the point of accepting death” (Post 152). Because in survival movies, the theme is the fight for the physical and spiritual life preservation, self-sacrifice is sometimes a solution to the spiritual problems the characters face. Although self-sacrifice is seen as a radical solution that often brings sufferings and physical death of one character, it may also be seen as a testimony of a soul that reaches a “very high moral temperature” that may open the

150  Survival and morality gate to “eternal life” for the character who acted in this way. Sometimes characters accept sacrifice to help others. It is the case of scientist David Martin from Terror Out of the Sky (Katzin 1978), who dies requesting not to be rescued by the army in order to destroy all the “killer bees” and, so, to save an entire community. Other times, characters simply don’t give up their human dignity, while oppressed by others. John May calls this the “redemptive value of unavoidable suffering” (May 55). Cool Hand Luke’s “resistance to the inhumanity of the chain gang” (May 57) is offered as a significant example. Molly and Daisy, the sisters from Rabbit Proof Fence (Noyce 2002), belong to the same spiritual family as Cool Hand Luke. They fight for their freedom. This movie is based on true events happened in Australia in 1931. The protagonists of the film are three “half-castes” girls (this means that they have a white parent and the other is Aboriginal). Molly (14 years old) and Daisy (8 years old) are sisters and Gracie (10 years old) is their cousin. According to an order given by an official named A.O. Neville, they are taken away from their family to be educated as “civilized” person in a camp far away from home. This is the beginning of the limit situation. The girls manage to escape that camp, and Molly and Daisy come back home after going a long and difficult way along the Rabbit Proof Fence. Gracie is caught by Mister Riggs, a policeman who was pursuing the girls during all the way. The two girls reunite with their mother and grandmother, and for the moment the pursuit is ceased because of the lack of funds, as Mister Neville states at the end of the movie. Unfortunately, Molly tells that the harassment of Oliver Neville have continued years after. The authorities destroy again her life by bringing her back to that camp as an adult with her daughters. Molly manages to escape again (with one daughter). The authorities take her child once more, and she would never see her since then. This is a spiritual survival movie because it renders the fight of some persons to preserve their freedom, and it raises the question of the abusive intervention of the state in the life of the individuals, causing a lot of pain. The film states clearly that freedom is the primordial condition for happiness and for a normal development of a soul. No educational system that can replace the love and care of a family. To take by force the children away from the families that love them is an abominable spiritual crime. The happiest moment of the film is the one that shows the tender touch of Daisy’s mother on her face when they get reunited. This is a moment when the God’s image in people may be seen because we all are created for love and happiness. Another film that has a message close to that of Cool Hand Luke, but with a happier ending because the hero remains alive, is Unbroken (Jolie 2014). It is a biographical survival movie based on events of American athlete and Officer Louis Zamperini’s life. His personality is presented through some flashbacks from his childhood and from his sport career before World War II. The limit situation begins in 1943 when Louis and his crewmates crashed with their military plane in the ocean. The limit situation can be

Survival and morality  151 split into two parts: the first describes their survival on the ocean and the second, his life as a prisoner of war in Omori and Naoetsu Japanese prison camps. Louis, Phil and Mac are the only three survivors of the plane crash. After 47 days on the ocean, only Louis and Phil survive, and they are taken prisoners by the Japanese. They are imprisoned in the same place for a while, but, after that, they are sent to different prison camps. In Omori, Louis meets corporal Watanabe, the chief of the camp, who treats him in a sadistic manner hoping to humiliate him and to break his will. Louis proves to be a very strong character, and he resists by remembering his brother’s advice: “if you can take it, you can make it”. Louis is taken to the radio to send a message for his parents, but he refuses to read an anti-American letter. That’s why he is sent back to the camp where Watanabe obliges every prisoner to punch him in the face. Louis resists without fear, and he scores a spiritual victory. Watanabe is a criminal because he goes far beyond his duties as a guardian by tormenting Louis in order to re-educate him, namely, to destroy his soul. After a while, Watanabe is promoted and transferred from Omori, but Louis will meet him again soon at Naoetsu. Here prisoners have to carry heavy loads of coal to the barges. Louis is exhausted, and a guardian pushes him. He falls down and hurts one leg. Watanabe obliges him to push up a heavy beam and to keep it above his head, unless he will be shot. With an unbelievable effort, he manages to raise the beam higher than Watanabe expected and defeats his torturer again. Watanabe hits him several times as an act of weakness. Soon the war is over and the prisoners are liberated. Louis forgives Watanabe and tries to find him after the war, but he refuses to meet him, proving again his week character. This film testifies that a person can remain free and “unbroken” even when the circumstances are adverse. The determination not to give up and the capacity to forgive are the two characteristics that recommend Louis Zamperini as a bearer of God’s image. 12th Man (Norwegian: Den 12. Mann) (Zwart 2018) is also a historical war survival movie. It tells the story of Jan Baalsrud, the only survivor from a group of 12 saboteurs sent from Scotland to Norway and intercepted by Germans in 1943. He manages to escape from a German ambush, and the entire film presents his fight for life and his way toward freedom. He is pursued by Germans led by Sturmbannfuhrer Kurt Stage who understands that if Jan Baalsrud will remain alive, he will become a national symbol of Norwegian resistance. Jan Baalsrud’s survival is a result of his personal efforts and, at the same time, of the common effort of his compatriots who, overcoming many risks, manage to bring him across the border, to freedom, in the neutral Sweden. What does Jan for his survival? He fights the Germans and is shot in a toe. He uses his intelligence leaving circular tracks into the snow to confuse his pursuers. He dares to jump and swim into frozen waters during that winter time. Those waters are so cold that people do not enter them not even during the summer. He proves physical resistance and strong will here and during the entire limit situation. Jan fights

152  Survival and morality cold, loneliness, fear, hallucinations, pain (he manages to cut himself a toe touched by gangrene). Kurt Stage takes Jan’s escape as a personal challenge, and he sends his soldiers to look for him everywhere. Jan is even attacked by a German plane, but he escapes due to an avalanche. His saviors are both Norwegian and Sami. They all represent a community that acts in perfect unity. All of them deserve respect. All remain in the memory of the viewer, with a special focus on Marius, Agnette, Gudrun, Nigo and Ball brothers. They hide Jan (in their houses and in a remote cabin), treat his leg, give him clothes and skis, guide and transport him to several locations in his way to Sweden. Ball brothers transport him on a sledge carried by a reindeer among their herd across the border to freedom. The fact that Jan Baalsrud survived 63 days wounded in the conditions of the Norwegian winter is “a miracle”. Nigo admits: “I need a miracle. That’s why I help you”. He and the entire country needed a miracle. Gudrun makes Jan aware of the fact that “there is a reason why you survived!”. And this reason is to give hope to others, to show that even in the darkest moments of history there is still a glimpse of hope. This spark of hope is the miracle. It is an answer of God to all the positive risky actions and efforts done by every character in the film. The survival of Jan Baalsrud, that costs many sufferings, becomes a way to express an idea larger than his life, the idea that a person, a group or a nation that do not accept defeat, even if subjugated, cannot be in fact defeated. This attitude proves the fact that, first of all, survival is a matter of spirit, and the spirit should never give up his values. Freedom, the sense of communion and dignity are key elements of the film message and also elements of God’s image in people. Although set in different settings and historical contexts, films as River (Dagg 2015) and Desierto (Cuaron 2015) may be included – along with 12th Man (Norwegian: Den 12. Mann) (Zwart 2018) – in the group of pursuit/chase survival movies. River is a lone survival movie set in present days in Laos. His protagonist is the American doctor John Lake who works in this country. The limit situation is triggered by an incident in which the doctor tries to stop a rape sometimes during the night. In the morning, the aggressor is found dead. The doctor is accused of killing this young person who happens to be the son of an influential Australian senator. John Lake claims that it was on self-defense because the Australian attacked him. The limit situation presents the lone run of the doctor through a country that now becomes hostile to him. After a complicated and adventurous journey through Laos, he manages to cross the border in Thailand and to get in touch with an official from the American embassy in Bangkok. The situation seems to be solved for Jack when the American official tells him that Laos dropped the extradition order for him and he will be deported to New York. He receives a new passport and some money from his sister. Here the most important turning point of the movie occurs. On the way to the airport, Jack reads on a newspaper that the authorities from Laos are accusing now Nang Chanh, the raped girl, for the death of the Australian. Jack runs

Survival and morality  153 out of the car and takes a train back to Laos. If it had stopped before Jack’s decision to go back in Laos, the movie would have been a simple story about a person who tried to avoid to be convicted, to preserve his comfort as a free man. From this point on, the film becomes a spiritual survival movie because Jack understands that he cannot continue to live his life if he accepts this injustice, if his future comfort will be obtained by sacrificing an innocent person. His soul rejects this odious deal. If he had accepted this compromise, he would have not been a spiritually free person anymore, but a prisoner to this guilt. In Jack’s gesture, it can be seen the presence of the conscience that guides him to make the right choice, even though, through this, he exposes himself to some enormous risks. This conscience is an element that recommends Jack as a bearer of God’s image inside of him. Desierto tells the story of a group of Hispanic people who try to cross illegally the border between Mexico and the United States. Their truck breaks down close to the border, and they need to walk the rest of the way. The group splits into two. All the members of the first subgroup are killed by an American sniper named Sam. The members of the second subgroup will be killed little by little by Sam and his dog named Tracker until only two people, Moises and Adela, remain alive. Moises tries to enter illegally in the U.S. because he has promised his son that they will reunite there. Adela is a young girl “forced” by her parents to emigrate in order to make a life out her native violent city. She was accompanied in this journey by Ramiro, a mean and libidinous male, who was supposed to take care of her, but who tried to take advantage of her. He was killed by Sam’s dog. Before entering the limit situation, people just sit silently in the back of a truck waiting to arrive. They don’t know each other. They have nothing to say to other people. When the limit situation begins, most of the people die. The main characters of the movie are the four mentioned above, split into two opposite groups: Moises, Adela (the hunted), Sam and his dog (the hunters). For the hunted ones, the entire movie is a fight for survival, for the hunters it is an also huge effort motivated by hate (for Sam) and by the killing instinct (for the dog). Moises and Adela prove determination and intelligence. Through intelligence and courage, they manage to steal Sam’s truck, but they relax a bit too soon and Adela is shot in the car by Sam, and, because of this, Moises loses its control. The truck turns upside down, they need to quit it and their run starts again. Moises leaves Adela (with a canister of water) because she is too wounded to go. He says that unless he leaves her there, they will be both killed and he has a son. Moises feels remorse for this gesture and, when he was up on a hill, he shots the flare gun taken from the truck to put Sam and his dog on his footsteps. After that he manages to kill the dog and to push Sam down from a cliff. Sam severely broke a leg and he lets him there to be killed by the desert (“I will let the desert to kill you”, Moises says). After that Moises goes back, takes Adela on his back and they go together toward the flickering lights seen on a highway. He goes step by step carrying the unconscious girl with his last powers,

154  Survival and morality toward these lights seen at the horizon. This can be a symbolic image of brotherhood. Now he has two tasks: to bring the teddy bear to his son and to bring Adela to a safe place in civilization. By gaining this last supplementary task, he actually gains more humanity. Although at a given moment he has left her, now he behaves with her full of compassion and care, fulfilling (perhaps without being aware) the evangelical commandment “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12: 31). In this love for other people, God’s image may be easily seen. Arctic (Penna 2018) and The Reef (Traucki 2010) are also survival films set in a natural environment. We meet the character from Arctic only inside the limit situation, living in an arctic area around the debris of a crashed plane that he has transformed into his shelter. We witness his daily program: fishing and making provisions, signaling his presence at fixed hours, sleeping… Finally he receives a signal back. This means that his position was acknowledged and he would be rescued. Unfortunately, the helicopter sent to rescue him crushes, the pilot dies and a female (wounded) survives. Now one rescuer becomes a victim to be rescued. The limit situation has two phases: first, when he was alone and the second, after the appearance of the wounded women. It is, in fact, a deepening of the limit situation that gains new meanings. The first stage is about how to fight for your own life, the second, about defending other people’s life. The external situation that presents a man and a woman trapped in a remote arctic area have certain resemblances with that from The Snow Walker (Smith 2003), but there is, at least, an important difference. While in Penna’s film only the man is in a proper physical form to fight for survival, in Smith’s movie, both work for saving their lives, but the woman is the one who knows more about surviving in arctic conditions. The woman from Arctic feels very bad almost all the time, she utters few words (it seems she does not even speak the language spoken by the man). From a photo found in her pocket, we find out that she is married and the mother of one child. The relation established between the two protagonists of the film is one of superb purity: one human being fighting beyond limits for the life of another. This may be another cinematographic illustration of the biblical commandment: “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31). To get out of this limit situation, the character uses his reason: he writes a huge SOS to be seen from the air, he recovers and reuses objects and materials, from both the plane and the helicopter, he uses a map in order to reach a seasonal resort, he makes a sledge out of a plane door. The substance of the movie consists in describing the effort for survival that the character makes. He could not survive as a complete human person unless he does everything to keep the other human being (the woman) alive. Abandoning her, he would abandon his humanity, actually his God’s image inside of him. In this effort to fight for his “neighbor”, we have all the elements of God’s image in humans reunite together. The man asks the unknown woman from time to time to squish his hand in order to be sure she is alive.

Survival and morality  155 When she is not able to do this anymore, he decides to leave her and go alone. Maybe as a sign that he is doing something wrong, he falls down in a hole on the snow and seriously wounds his leg. He seems to understand the message and comes back to the woman. The man is exhausted but finally reaches a peak. From there he sees a rescue helicopter. He burns even his anorak to be seen by the rescuers. He is not thinking at him, but only at her, uttering with the last drop of energy left: “She is here!” He falls exhausted, keeping her hand and saying the encouraging words: “It’s ok!” Finally, in the image, behind these two creatures of God in pain we see the salvation: the rescue helicopter. The Reef is a shark group survival movie “based on true events” whose action is set in the Ocean waters near Eastern Australia. There are five characters. Luke, who has to deliver a yacht in Indonesia helped by Warren, invites Matt and his girlfriend Suzie to join him. Together with Matt comes his sister Kate, who was Luke’s girlfriend. In their first day of sailing, they reach the Cygnet reef. On their way out of the reef zone, their inflatable boat is damaged because of the low tide. Next morning, on the yacht, Luke and Kate discuss about their relation: they “have doubts”, but, at the same time, they missed each other very much while they were separated. Right after this discussion, the yacht hits a coral reef. It is punctured and capsized. This is how the limit situation starts. Luke considers that the best solution is to swim to Turtle Island. Warren decides to remain on the capsized boat that is sinking little by little because he knows that these waters are shark-infested. The other three go with Luke. They cut in two a bodyboard and, this way, they obtain two swimming boards. They swim together for a long time. Matt is killed by a shark while attempting to retrieve Kate’s board. He dies doing something useful for his sister and for the group. Suzie blames Luke for advising them to leave the yacht, but Kate says that it is not his fault because he did not oblige them to follow him. In the most tense moments, frightened and with the shark circling them in the dark night, Suzie prays: “Somebody help us!” They manage to sleep during the night on the water holding the swimming boards. In the morning, they spot a small rocky island not very far from them. As a sad irony, Suzie is killed by the shark while swimming to that island. Luke and Kate take a rest on some small rocks from the reef. After Luke bandages her wounded foot, Kate tells that she loves him, and he answers: “I love you, too!” This limit situation makes them eliminate all the “doubts” between them. Unfortunately, on their way to the rocky island, they are followed by a shark. They reach the island. Because its margins are very steep, Luke helps Kate to climb them, but she is not able to pull him out of the water and he is dragged in the ocean by the shark. Kate remains on the island ravished by pain. At the end of the limit situation, she and Luke are transformed, but they do not have the chance to live this love without “doubts” together. At least not on earth. Luke’s spirit of sacrifice shows at least one element of God’s image inside him. This is love.

156  Survival and morality Hours (Heisserer 2013) is set in a human-made environment: a hospital. It is a family survival movie that tells the story of a father who tries to keep alive his newborn daughter during a power outage caused by in New Orleans by the Hurricane Katrina. The introductory part has a very alert rhythm. A man named Nolan Hayes goes in a hurry with the ambulance cart that carries his pregnant wife Abigail to the delivery room. While he waits, the hurricane breaks the hospital windows, and all the people, including Nolan, are evacuated upstairs. The hurricane is the first element that constitutes the limit situation. The second is the announcement made by doctor Edmonds that Abigail’s liver ceases working and she died after giving birth to a girl. The third element of the limit situation is that the girl is born prematurely and she needs to remain in a “ventilator” at least for 48 hours till she learns to breathe by herself. The hospital is evacuated, and Nolan remains inside of it alone with his daughter. Because of the flood caused by the hurricane, the power goes off in the entire hospital. These are other main elements that form limit situation. From now on the main concern of Nolan is to charge the ventilator’s batteries with a manually operated generator and to constantly change the infusions to feed the baby. He chooses the name Abigail for the baby hoping “the lightning doesn’t strike in the same place twice”, meaning to prevent her from having the same tragic end as her mother. Several moments from Nolan and Abigail’s lives before the birth of their daughter are reconstituted through a series of flashbacks. They are two people in love, two people made one for another. After his wife’s death, he goes for her in the morgue of the hospital. He finds her body put down on the floor and he takes care of it, putting it up on a cart with love and respect. Some people behave nicely with Noland. It is the case of the cook from the cafeteria who gives him the last pieces of “salami and turkey”. Nurse Shelly loses her life trying to bring a new provision of IVs to Nolan’s baby daughter. They are extraordinary people. During the blackout in the hospital, Nolan also meets bad people: one thief tries to steal his food, other two who are looking to steal medical substances to use them as drugs are killed by him in defense. Nolan does everything necessary to keep his daughter alive. The most representative imagine of the film is that of Nolan turning again and again the lever of the generator to charge the batteries that keep the young Abigail alive. He defines in his own words his decision of not giving up: “I keep cranking this thing, then I check on the baby. I just do it. Now I’m cranking till the arms fall off and I’ll die trying”. Nolan’s efforts are successful: he saves her daughter, and he will be also rescued after he falls down exhausted. The last image of the film is of him embracing his daughter while they are taken on the rescue cart. Another fundamental question of the movie is related to Nolan’s survival after he has saved his daughter’s life. The question is how he will manage to live without his wife. In the imaginary dialogue he has with his wife before his fainting, she helps him understanding his new situation. She says that “sometimes you just need to hold on whatever you can”. This seems to be a

Survival and morality  157 definition of Nolan’s future life. His wife says: “You have me. You always will”, by this helping him to understand that she will remain forever with him as a memory, but also in the form of their little girl, because “she is you and me together”. Nolan did other good deeds during the crisis situation: he rescued a dog and gave it the last pieces of food. The dog, at its turn, helped and defended him. It is this dig that saved his life in the end by bringing the rescue team to him. God’s image becomes more visible in Nolan’s hurt soul through the love he shows to his daughter, but also through his practical intelligence and strong will he proves. During the limit situation he always finds solutions, pushing his physical limits up to impossible and overcoming every physical and spiritual pain. Gravity (Cuaron 2013) is set beyond the limits of the Earth. This is a space survival movie with two protagonists: Dr. Ryan Stone (played by Sandra Bullock) and Captain Matthew Kowalski (played by George Clooney). Before entering the limit situation, they and another engineer named Shariff do some reparations to the Hubble Space Telescope. The atmosphere of the movie is one of a calm working day in space. Dr. Stone works, Matt Kowalski tries to help her and he tells some humoristic stories. Engineer Shariff is perhaps working and enjoying the life in space by doing a sort of dance. The limit situation is generated by the chain of explosions of some satellites whose debris hit and damage the shuttle, killing engineer Shariff and cutting the contact with their coordinators from the Earth. The cosmic setting, the view of the Earth from above, technical devices and the human bodies floating on the air without gravitation offer an impressive imagine, but the most impressive of all are the actions and the stories of these two protagonists. Kowalski is a very talkative person, passionate of old cars and of spatial missions. His life on the ground seems not to be very happy since his wife left him while he was flying in another mission. He proves to be an extraordinary person. At a certain moment, these two characters reach such a situation that only one of them has the chance to survive. Kowalski chooses to sacrifice himself to increase Dr. Ryan’s chances to survive. He makes this gesture in a very discreet mood, without letting her to see the tragedy behind it, but, on the contrary, still preserving his positive tone and being more concerned by her life than by his own. On the other hand, Dr. Ryan is a person who passed through a tragedy before: the death of her four-year-old daughter Sarah. After this, she has nothing else to do with her life, but to go and get out of her job. She seems a broken soul, but, confronted with this new limit situation, she will overcome herself. At a certain moment, Dr. Ryan cries that she cannot pray because nobody taught her how to do it. In a moment of deep despair, she is grieving her loneliness. After a while she bounces back and proves herself capable to handle all these complicated technical spacecrafts and capsules, to do everything in time and at the right time, so she finally manages to come back to the Earth alive. She needs to get accustomed again with the gravity, to walk again

158  Survival and morality (physically and symbolically), and to take life step by step as Chuck Noland from Cast Away (Zemekis 2000) who “just kept breathing”. In addition, she may have realized how important her life is, if a person like Mattew Kowalski decided to sacrifice himself for it. In every person who decides to sacrifice for another and in every person hit by a tragedy who still continues to live (as Dr. Ryan), the image of Christ may be clearly seen. Surviving in any way? 28 Days Later (Boyle 2002) brings into debate another moral issue: that of the relation between the physical survival and the inner spiritual laws which govern people. It tells the story of a generalized infection with a virus that causes the alteration of human beings through violence. Infected people lose their rational behavior, become simple, uncontrolled beasts trying to attack and destroy especially healthy people. A small group of survivors travel through the deserted London trying to find shelter in a perimeter guarded by a small group of soldiers. Two members of the group die and the rest (Jim, Selena and a girl called Hannah) manage to enter that sanctuary. But this proves not to be a very safe place. Thus, the limit situation can be split into two parts: the one outside the sanctuary and the other, inside it. In the first they have to fight infected people, in the second, after a certain moment, they need to defend themselves against the soldiers who want to kidnap and rape Selena and Hannah, maybe in order to perpetuate the human race. Even the physically “healthy” soldiers prove not to be so morally healthy. They attempt to kill Jim in order to fulfill their lusty desires. The main characters of the film are presented only inside the limit situation, and the film does not focus on the transformation of the characters due to the experience they pass through. The efforts of good people are directed in this film toward the resistance against evil. They need to resist and to defend their lives and humanity. The most important moral issue raised by this movie is that physical survival cannot be realized by all means. Kidnapping and rape cannot be accepted as survival solutions of the human race.

7.2 The theme of remorse Trying to ask “why is remorse a topic of interest and even fascination for people”, Proeve and Tudor give the following answer: “Perhaps it is partially because is related to the theme of human redemption and renewal, and so is ultimately an emotion of hope (...) (Proeve and Tudor S. 207). I consider one of the main themes of movies like A Hijacking (Danish: Kapringen) (Lindholm 2012) or 247 F (Bakhia and Jguburia 2011) to be remorse, the sentiment of guilt delivered by conscience for the tragedies voluntarily or involuntarily caused by some characters. I consider that the continuation of this regret should be the search for forgiveness and redemption. It requires a strong, conscious and vivid relation with God, and the characters of these two films do not openly express it. This next movement of the soul that opens remorse to forgiveness and peace is called repentance.

Survival and morality  159 A Hijacking (Danish: Kapringen) (Lindholm 2012) is a group survival movie centered on a series of events than happen on the sea. It tells the long and complicated story of the negotiations caused by the hijacking of the Danish ship MV Rozen with his crew by the Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean. The main characters of the film are Mikkel, the cook, Peter, the CEO of the company that owns the ship and who is in charge to negotiate the ransom, and Omar, the negotiator representing the pirates. He pretends not to be a pirate. Before entering the limit situation, we find Mikkel talking on the phone with his family, announcing them he will be two days late because he has to help the new cook to get accustomed with his duties. For Mikkel, his family is very important, and the symbol of this bond is the ring that the Rozen’s cook handles like a treasure. That’s why he hides it in the kitchen when the pirates take over the ship. Before hijacking, life on Rozen was peaceful, with Mikkel taking good care of every member of the crew. The focus of the movie lays in the description of the psychological burden and of the fearful and humiliating position in which the crew from Rozen find themselves after the “hijacking”. They are menaced every second by the presence of the pirates. A psychological war starts between Omar and the Danish negotiators. The lives of Mikkel and his crewmates are caught in this war. The film is both narrative and descriptive. The scenes from the ship are shot with on shoulder, very mobile camera. The psychological pressure is augmented by the narrow spaces of the cabins in which live for such a long time both pirates and their hostages. The characters sweat, they sweat a lot, they stay in undershirts and even shirtless. In spite of these, there are still some relatively relaxed moments as the fishing episode or the one when both, pirates and hostages, sing “Happy birthday” for Camila, Mikkel’s wife. Omar uses Mikkel to persuade Peter to pay more. The days go slowly until, after four months, they reach an agreement and the crew is at the point to be released. Then a stupid and tragic accident happens. Hearing about their imminent release, Mikkel has taken out this ring from its hiding place. Seeing the ring, a pirate wants to take it. Mikkel refuses to give it; the captain intervenes, and he is shot by the angry pirate. The hostages are helped from outside by Peter, Lars, Julian Connor, the negotiators, and by the company that agrees to pay the ransom. The crew members from Rozen are simply victims. They are caught in a mechanism bigger than them. The only task they have is to resist and not suffer nervous breakdowns. And this is not simple sometimes. No one should ever have such power over other people as these pirates had over their hostages. The long period of captivity on the ship tests Mikkel’s and his crewmates’ patience and their power to endure and to hope. The only moment Mikkel hurries costs the life of the captain. Mikkel gets relaxed a bit too soon, and then the tragedy occurs. This unexpected death of the captain suddenly puts an end to the atmosphere that has become more relaxed and fills the air with silence. A shocking and tragic silence covers all the characters at the end of the movie. Mikkel is perhaps the most affected, so much so that he cannot

160  Survival and morality enjoy the reunion with his beloved family. He says nothing to them. Mikkel seems to be transformed or, at least, under shock. He feels guilty. He cannot feel the joy of freedom because, in his soul, he feels responsible for captain’s death. 247 F (Bakhia and Jguburia 2011) is a trapped survival movie based on a true story. The protagonists are four young people: Jenna, her best friend from childhood, Renne, with her boyfriend Michael and Ian. Before entering the actual limit situation, the film shows that, three years ago, Jenna lost her boyfriend in a car accident just before their wedding. Because of this shock, she regularly takes medication. Before entering the limit situation, this group of four reach Ian’s uncle Wade cabin near a lake. Inside the cabin, they find a sauna and decide to use it. They have fun going several times from the hot sauna to the cold lake. Michael gets drunk and, after an argument with his girlfriend, leaves them and, by mistake, moves a ladder that blocks the door of the sauna with his friends inside. This is how the limit situation begins. After a while, the three people realize that they are trapped inside where they need to face for many hours a very high temperature. Ian is the one looking for solutions. He breaks the small round window from the door with a stone taken from the sauna heating system. He provokes a short-circuit hoping that without electricity the sauna system will cease to function. Unfortunately, he is wrong in this case. Jenna and Rennee have a fight because Rennee wants to pull the thermostat of the wall. Jenna hits her hard, she falls down unconsciously, but she recovers pretty quickly. After his previous attempts, Ian has a nervous breakdown. He tries to pull off the gas pipe. The gas pipe explodes throwing out the stones that surround it and killing Ian. Alone with the semi-conscious Rennee, Jenna manages to suspend her with some towels to get her face close to the broken window to breathe fresh air. Jenna does not lose her lucidity in these circumstances. She behaves like a true friend and saves Rennee’s life. Jenna has previously blocked the broken gas pipe with a piece of wood. Finally, Wade, Jan’s uncle, comes and rescues Rennee and Jenna. An ambulance takes them. They hold their hands with friendship as a sign of the fact that they manage to get through this difficult situation together. Michael feels remorse and cries for Ian’s death and for the entire situation he has unconsciously created. A drunken and a drugged person may cause tragedies even against his will, because, in that state, his/her behavior is no more guided by reason, which is one of the elements of God’s image in people. The theme of resistance to temptations is also a moral one as it occurs is Bird Box (Bier 2018). This film tells the story of a certain negative force that occurs and is able to take the liberty of people, to subjugate and turn them into beasts with washed-out brains if they only take a simple look at it. The only way to be protected from this is to avoid looking toward this negative force. The entire movie describes, through a series of flashbacks, the journey of a female named Malorie and of the two children who accompany

Survival and morality  161 her to a sanctuary. Through these flashbacks, the viewers discover also their previous history. The “compound” (the sanctuary) is located far away, in a house among the woods, where a small group discovered how to live isolated from this force that subjugates souls. In this film, the survival effort is one of resistance against something external that presents itself as being somehow interesting/tempting, but actually resembling in its effects rather to a demonic possession. Malorie and the children resist the temptation to look, and, thus, they are not spiritually subjugated by this demonic Medusa. They reach the sanctuary and here they can live freely. In this film, the idea of loosing spiritual freedom is represented through a simplistic metaphor: that of a simple gaze toward forbidden things. This can be compared to the way Orpheus loses Eurydice. However, I still underline this particularly spiritual theme of the film, no matter how questionable it may be. Children save themselves by doing what Malorie says. Malorie saves herself due to her strong desire to remain a free person through temporary abstinence. These attitudes of the three characters can be linked to the idea of asceticism as a way of gaining more and more the spiritual freedom, “an independence from the created things” (Stăniloae a 14).

7.3 The theme of liberty As Far as my Feet Will Carry Me (German: So weit die Füße tragen) (Martins 2001) is a prisoner of war escape and survival movie based on the book of Joseph Martin Bauer. This book describes the post-World War II experience of the German soldier Cornelius Rost. The character of the book and of the film receives the name Clemens Forell. I will not debate the authenticity of the real survival story. I just state that the movie contains many improbable events as the presence of the Russian Officer Kamenev on the Iranian side of the bridge, waiting for Clemens Forell to cross or the fact that Clemens’ uncle does not recognize him from the first sight in Iran. Before entering the limit situation, the movie shows Clemens Forell leaving to the front and promising his pregnant wife that he will come back soon and to his daughter that he will send her a postcard. These promises will provide him with the strength to fight for survival and for returning home. The next scene shows him accused by a Soviet jury for crimes against the partisans and condemned at 25 years of forced labor. The limit situation might be split into two parts: the first showing him as a prisoner in the labor camp and the second presenting him as a fugitive. As a prisoner, he behaves courageously. Once he intends to give his coat to a young prisoner who was punished by Officer Kamenev to stay naked in a freezing weather. This is the first encounter with Officer Kamenev. Another time Clemens fails in his escape attempt, and he is punished to be beaten by his comrades who were kept without food for five days because of him. He proves to be a strong character and does not give up. Finally, Clemens is helped

162  Survival and morality to break free by Dr. Stauffen who has prepared his escape but has given up because he has cancer. It is sad that, after such an impressive gesture, Dr. Stauffen commits suicide. In the labor camp, we discover surprising proofs of human dignity. The inmate responsible for Forell’s group tells Kamenev: “You can kill us, but from now on we will never beat one of us!” It is an affirmation of spiritual values over death and fear. During his life as a fugitive, Forell is also helped by some other good people. It is the case of the Chukchi people who save him from the wolves, cure him, keep him in their tents and help him to continue his way home. Impressive is here the presence of the Chukchi girl who gives birth to his child and still lets him free to continue his way. At his departure she says: “Go home! Forget my name!”. Another person who helps him is a Polish Jew who meets him somewhere in Central Asia and provides him with a passport to cross the border in Iran. Kamenev finds this Jew who suffers a heart attack and makes in front of the Russian officer a beautiful declaration of humanity: “Yes, I helped him, and I would help any other!” We encounter here goodness and courage as elements of God’s image in man. During this limit situation, Forell talks to God. First, when he is caught in the blizzard and very hungry, he desperately changes a part of “Our Father” crying “Give my daily bread now!” Other time, while he was in Central Asia, he entered an empty mosque and prayed: “God, forgive my sins!” He seems to discover repentance. A special character of the movie (although unbelievable) is Officer Kamenev, the stubborn pursuer of Clemens. He sees Forell’s attempt to escape as a personal challenge. The last gesture he makes on the bridge to Iran when he permits Forell to pass toward freedom puts him in a positive light. For Kamenev, the pursuit is over. He seems to appreciate the determination and the effort of the ex-prisoner. Kamenev just tells him: “It is my victory!” A deeper spiritual victory (although slightly improbable for a Communist Officer) is that he does not seek revenge; he does not seek to destroy his “competitor”. Clemens Forell’s survival success results from his personal qualities (especially strong will and love for his family) as well as from the compassion for others, as doctor Stauffer, the Chukchi people and the Jew from Central Asia. God works through good people here as well as in The 12th Man. God seems also to work in other unpredictable ways, even through “great sinners”. It is the case of In the Forests of Siberia (French: Dans les forets de Siberie) (Nebbou 2016). “I left because life suffocated me like the collar of a shirt that was too tight”. This is the phrase that opens the film, and it clarifies the existential problems that the character faces before entering the limit situation. The main character of the film is Teddy, a French townsman who worked as “chief of a multimedia project”. He considers as unbearable the rigors of the modern life. These rigors bring him into a spiritual deadend from which he tries to escape by starting the extreme adventure of living alone in Siberia. By avoiding this deadend, he plunges into an almost

Survival and morality  163 continuous limit situation that is life in the wilderness. Teddy continues to define his reasons of being in Siberia in the following way: I walked away because the world’s noise deafened me and I’ve been tired to have no time. I wanted to live a simple, quiet life and enjoy it. I want only to hold the essential things. But we cannot hold the essence of things, we discover it. The introductory part presents him while traveling with a local friend in a truck that carries his provisions to spend a year in a cabin on a remote shore of Lake Baikal. Teddy enters voluntarily in the limit situation. This is represented by the harsh conditions of living in solitude, away from the comfort and discomfort of civilization. He owns very few and very simple means of survival. Teddy is also looking here for an experience of knowledge: “I came to get close to what I do not know: the cold, the silence, the spaces… and the loneliness”. The first things he does after remaining alone are expressions an intense joy of being free: he screams, runs and dances as a madman. The protagonist of the film puts from now on his soul in a certain state of freedom. This is the state of his soul while living in Siberia. Here he simply lives his life by cooking, eating, reading, looking at things, playing the trumpet, meditating about essential things or about freedom: “In the city, the minutes, the hours, the years escape us. Here, time becomes calm. I am free, because my days are free”. There are some dramatic events that happen, as the “visit” of the bear that enters the cabin and eats Teddy’s food or the moment when he hurts a leg in a trap set for animals. An event of a particular importance that happens to him is the encounter of Alexei, who miraculously appears and saves Teddy’s life when he got lost and passed out on the lake during a blizzard. Long time ago, Alexei killed an officer and he had hidden himself in the wilderness till the prescription of his deed. Teddy and Alexei become friends. They talk about their lives and Alexei teaches him how to survive in the wilderness. He saves Teddy’s life for a second time when, during another blizzard, he builds a shelter for them in a small hole in the ice covered by snow. Teddy tells Alexei with gratitude: “You killed a man, but you saved another. You saved me”. During one of their discussions Teddy explains to Alexei that, before, he had an empty life. He says that “I quitted everything… I wanted to know if I have an inner life. I never felt so alive, as free as I do here. Here I feel free”. This experience away from civilization helped him to unveil a deeper way of existence. He feels alive because he is now walking on the path to freedom. Alexei advises him to go back among people because he has “everything there”. Alexei gets sick and dies while Teddy is at Irkutsk looking for medicines to cure him. In his last advises written on paper, Alexei encourages (again) his friend to go among people and continue to be free. This letter translated from Russian by a woman from Irkutsk sounds like this: “You made a part of the way.

164  Survival and morality Be strong. Continue. Not be afraid. You are free”. At the end of the movie spring arrives, the ice from Baikal melts and Teddy shaves his beard as a possible preparation for the return among people and civilization. Teddy sees cities as “vaults” and the taiga as a church. Discovering freedom and living freely in Siberia was perhaps easier than keeping this freedom among people in the middle of civilization. But it is not impossible. Hopefully, this freedom will remain at least a landmark and a nostalgic memory for the rest of Teddy’s life. Freedom and sovereignty are elements of God’s image in man, and Teddy experiences them as a part of his true life. This is what he discovers in the taiga during this year “long as a lifetime”. For at least one movie character, freedom means to Leave no Trace (Granik 2018). The film is inspired by true events as presented in Peter Rock’s novel My Abandonment published in 2009 (Turnquist no page). This cinematic story can be categorized as a family psychological and spiritual survival movie. The protagonists of the film are Will, an ex-Iraq soldier who is traumatized after the war, and his 13-year-old daughter Thomasin, nicknamed Tom. At the beginning of the film, they are shown living outside in an improvised shelter in a natural park in Oregon. Will earns money by selling the medicines he receives for free. For this ex-soldier, the limit situation is given by the fact he cannot fit into the civilized society. He prefers to live in nature, far from people. Is he just a traumatized man or one who enjoys freedom? Maybe both. The series of events that follows is a pretty simple one. Tom is seen by a person who was jogging through the park. Soon both, Will and Tom, are taken in custody. After being questioned by people from the social services, they are both sent to work in a farm that has a fire tree plantation. Here Tom makes a boy her friend, and they go to a meeting about raising rabbits. She seems to like the life here and advises her father to try to adapt to this way of life. He cannot do this. “The only place where we cannot be seen is in the house”, he says. Tom insists that he still “can think his own thoughts”. She is concerned about the way children will see her if she will go to school. This dialogue already shows a clear difference in their opinions, and this difference will grow during the following events. Will decides that it is time for them to leave the farm, and they travel by a freight train, by a bus and by a truck till they reach the state of Washington. They sleep a night in the woods and illegally enter a cabin in the woods. While going to buy supplies, Will breaks a leg. Tom saves him, and they are brought to some people who live in a camping from the woods. They help them. After a while, when Will’s leg looks pretty healed he decides to leave. Tom now decides to remain here and live in the trailer she rented. Their separation is painful and impressive. She gives him the steel for starting the fire as a farewell gift. She will continue to put supplies for him in the wood. They go on separate ways, but both understand each other, and their love for each other remains. At the end of the movie, the characters are transformed. Tom is more mature now, and she has the strength to decide what is good for her, even this means the separation from his father. When Will

Survival and morality  165 tries to tell her that they need to leave the camp, she very firmly tells him “You need…not me!” Will accepts this, because it is true and it is good for her to remain. He simply agrees by saying “I know”. A general question raised by this film is that our contemporary society has become so dominant against individuals that it is seen by many people as a place inappropriate for living. This society sends people to wars and may hurt them irreversibly as happens in Will’s case. The search for freedom is not a disease, but a profound intuition. There are people who seek freedom and decide to live far from this society full of artificial constraints. This option is a manifestation of human liberty which is an element of God’s image in people. This film may be included in the same category as Into the Wild (Penn 2007), Rabbit Proof Fence (Noyce 2002) or Alabama Moon (McCanlies 2009), movies in which the civilized world is seen by some characters as a place unsuitable for their lives, a place from which they want to escape. Of civilization, manipulation and freedom speaks also The Humanity Bureau (King 2017). This film may be considered a spiritual survival movie. The action of this dystopian movie is set “in the near future” when famine and the great migration came after an economic catastrophe. The climate changed, and the civil war made the contemporary society, as we know it, to collapse. An agency called “Humanity Bureau” was invested by the government with extended powers in order to separate the citizens considered useful to the society from those seen as useless. The useless ones are sent to a place called The New Eden. From this place, advertised a lot by the “bureau”, nobody ever came back. The protagonist, Noah Cross (played by Nicholas Cage), is an agent of the “bureau”. He is sent to investigate a young woman named Rachel Weller and his son, Lucas, who are peacefully and happily living in a farm, although they are living in a wasteland where the food is scarce and the water polluted. He is sent to investigate Rachel’s “productivity rate”. Less productive people are to be relocated in New Eden which is advertised as a place with pure air and water and very good living conditions. Noah attitude will change when he finds out that New Eden is not an Eden at all, but a complex of crematories designed to burn the people sent there. He decides to save the lives of Rachel and Lucas by running with them to the north in search for freedom. From now on the limit situation begins. It consists in the long run of these three characters, stubbornly followed up by agent Adam Westinghouse and his crew. Noah finds out that Rachel Weller is in fact Amanda Douglas, a friend of the real Rachel. The real Rachel died, and Amanda took her identity in order to take care of Lucas. Noah finds out also that Lucas is his son. They manage to reach Canadian border, but here Noah and Rachel are killed by Adam. All the agents except one are killed by a border ranger. Lucas is saved and the border ranger finds at him the memory card (hidden by Noah) that reveals the truth about New Eden. He spreads the information, and, because of this, people start a riot which, as it is suggested, restores normality. The main question raised by the film is how much power a state should have over the

166  Survival and morality life of individuals and if the social productivity is a right criterion to evaluate people. Maybe, if humans do not harm others or the environment, they are not to be judged at all. People should just be contemplated how happy they are with their beloved ones and helped, if they need. The lesson of this film is that freedom is the environment in which humans can develop their souls and achieve happiness. Even with less material comfort, people are happy if they live where they “belong”, in the company of persons they love. Sometimes states provide wrong ideologies and try to manipulate people through lies and fear. The film presents a possible scenario of humanity being trapped in such a web of lies and crimes (7 million persons were killed in New Eden). This is a limit situation in which the entire world is trapped. Mercy and love for truth guided Noah to break this web of lies. Through him a fresh restart is given to the world. The biblical reference related to his name is mandatory to be noticed. Through this new Noah the world is restored as a space of human freedom. A man guided by love, passion for truth and courage to rise against a corrupt system has good chances to fulfill his mission as image of God. The way back to our true nature necessarily involves the way to freedom. It is proven by The Way Back (Weir 2010), a group survival movie set during World War II. The film begins already inside the limit situation with the Polish army officer Janusz Wieszczek interrogated and sentenced to forced labor in a camp from Siberia. His wife, forced by the communist authorities, has denounced him. The limit situation has other two parts: one presenting his life in the Gulag labor camp and the other one, the longest, describing the long journey of Janusz and his fellows after their escape. In the labor camp life is very tough, it is very easy to die because of guardians, of harsh weather and of some criminals, fellow inmates. A prisoner named Khabarov tells Janusz about a plan to escape to Mongolia, but Khabarov has no courage to fulfill it. During a snow storm, Janusz leaves the camp together with engineer Smith, criminal Valka, the Polish artist Tomasz, Voss, a Latvian priest, the Yugoslav accountant Zoran and the young Polish named Kazik. Kazik will die soon, frozen, but as a “free man”. The rest of the group reaches Lake Baikal. Here, Irena Zielenska, a Polish girl joins the group. They take care of her, and she represents a beam of purity and tenderness for the entire group. She makes them to know each other by making them talk and expose their life stories. At the Mongolian border, Vlaka refuses to cross it and remains in the Soviet Union. After going a long distance with them through the arid spaces of Mongolia, Irena dies. At her burial, Voss asks the angels to come and “take her to heaven, her country”. She was really a memorable angelic figure. After her the gifted artist Tomasz dies leaving them some sketches drawn on tree bark. Smith is close to give up, but Janusz motivates him and manages to make him continue the way. Smith feels guilty for bringing his son David to the Soviet Union, where he was killed. Janusz tells him that his wife must feel the same for denouncing him, and he wants to survive just to come back home and

Survival and morality  167 release her from this guilt. Smith goes with the group to Tibet and separates from them here, hoping that he will reach China and will be rescued by Americans there. Janusz, Zoran and Voss reach India and find their way to freedom. The end of the film shows Janusz meeting his wife in their home, after 1989. This is a gesture of forgiveness that releases her from guilt and heals his spiritual wounds. Love and capacity to forgive are elements of God’s image in people. Between Pain and Amen (Romanian: Între chin și amin) (Enache 2019) shows that there are other more diabolic and terrifying ways to try the destruction of somebody’s freedom. One of them, of which this film speaks, is the so-called “Pitești phenomenon” through which the Romanian communist regime attempted to brainwash and “re-educate” through terror people incarcerated in Pitești prison. This fictional story is about a young composer named Tase Caraman, his brother Iancu and other prisoners caught in this process of “re-education”. To accept re-education meant to accept to become from a victim of the regime to a servant of it, a torturer of your fellow prisoners. This means the loss of a deeper freedom: the inner, the spiritual one. Iancu has accepted this horrible position for a while, but, after meeting their sister in prison, he finds the spiritual strength to reject “re-education”. He is killed but dies as a free man. The film is very amateurishly done, with a very superficial documentation about historical events and very improbable scenes (see only how their sister Tana enters inside the prison). Yet, the film provides an accurate example that, for human beings, survival means more than the instinct to preserve the biological life. Facing the pressure to become a torturer himself, Tase Caraman gives a concise definition of the mode he sees spiritual survival and freedom by saying “I’d rather die myself than kill others”.

7.4 Conclusions The frequent occurrence of themes as sacrifice, remorse or liberty in survival films proves that in the composition of struggle for human life preservation, several moral factors intervene. This proves this struggle to be a more complex phenomenon than a simple act based on biological survival instinct: The law of self-preservation is so deeply engrained in our nature that is impossible for man to engage in any conscious activity without seeking his own well-being. Whatever we eat or drink, or whatever we do, we do it all in the name of what we think will augment the sum total of our happiness (…) But what of the man who sacrifices his own life for the good of another? Does he not break this rule? The answer is no. Life is more than physical survival. Happiness at times is increased when we commit ourselves to those choices which in the end may issue in our own physical destruction. There are invisible data which we must

168  Survival and morality reckon with: honesty, justice, courage, charity. If we betray ourselves by turning aside from these, we decrease our happiness, for we sense with a perfect intuition that the best within us is accented only when we are faithful to these unseen, yet always seen vitalities. (Carnell 15) The survival of human beings is, first of all, spiritual in nature. This spiritual nature of human survival includes the concern for the preservation of biological life. Sometimes, in extraordinary circumstances as presented above in this chapter, some film characters may understand that spiritual survival should prevail over the biological one and act according to this intuition or revelation. This is when self-sacrifice happens. By behaving this way, these characters prove again (see the end of Chapter 5) that people, in order to fulfill their call and nature, should be Christ-like.

8 Survival and transformation (spiritual survival)

Motto: Live and die on this day. The Grey (Carnahan 2011)

“Conflict and character transformation” are seen by Aaron Kerner as “the given principles of conventional narrative cinema” (Kerner 32). Speaking about Holocaust films, he considers that they, “like most films adhere to the general principles of dramatic structure where a protagonist negotiates a conflict, and is subsequently compelled to undergo a transformation” (31). I consider that most survival films also belong to this category. Seen as a cinematic theme, the idea of character’s change or development may be presented at least in two hypostases or types: 1 The physical transformation, when characters change their appearance, achieve characteristics, capacities or “powers”. This may be considered the superheroes pattern. Superhero films may be considered as survival films because their plot includes on a regular basis the issue of community existence when menaced by evil forces. 2 The inner transformation, when characters change some of their previous opinions, values and behaviors, mostly preserving their physical appearances. In films as Batman (Martinson 1966), Batman (Burton 1989) or ­SpiderMan (Raimi 2002) the main characters have a double identity: one as a “normal” person and another as a superhero. Transformation is for them a “regular” phenomenon. The two hypostases of the characters are very “visibly” marked. This transformation is a technique belonging to the fantastic genre. Through its repetition in many films, it has become a cliché used for entertaining purposes. But even in this case, these metamorphoses of the characters still preserve in their substance the generous and spiritual idea that people are not what they seem to be at prima vista. In each person hides or may hide a superhero.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003356912-9

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170  Survival and transformation (spiritual survival) Moreover, the acquiring of “superpowers” involves for the “good guys” the necessity of living according to moral rules: “With great power comes great responsibility”, Spider-Man says. The villains are living proofs that without an altruist morality, the presence of “superpowers” may cause spiritual decay, enslavement to the evil. Relevant examples for this situation are Green Goblin – Spider-Man (Raimi 2002) or Joker – Batman (Burton 1989). Thus, even this type of transformation is not merely physical. It has spiritual connotations and consequences. A film as Wanted (Bekmambetov 2008) bridges the gap between the superhero films and the “regular” action movies. It can be considered a hybrid action, crime, fantastic and survival film. This film brings the type 1 transformation closer to the type 2 one. The change of the character’s appearance is done in a realistic manner (without the using of the superheroes “funny” costumes). The main character of the film is Wesley Gibson, an accountant who is very unhappy with this miserable life. He is very poor and terrorized by his boss at the office. He lives in a very inappropriate home near the railways, and is annoyed every morning by his irascible girlfriend who will later prove to be cheating Wesley with one of his colleagues. These data of his existence seem to be for him an endless limit situation. From the spiritual point of view, he is a frightened and complexed character. Sometimes Wesley looks so tensed that the spectator would expect to have a heart attack or a cerebral stroke. The exit from this limit situation is in fact the entering in another. At a certain point his life is saved by a girl named Fox, who proves to be a professional killer. She brings him to her fellow criminals. They are members of a secret organization of assassins (a fraternity of “waivers” led by Sloan) that pretends to deliver justice by fulfilling missions sent through messages encrypted in a loom code. They all insist that Wesley should become part of their organization of which his (recently assassinated) father was a salient member. Wesley inherits a huge amount of money from his father, and quits his job, unleashing all his frustrations against his boss and his dishonest colleague. Now both the physical and the spiritual transformations occur. After a tough period of training inside the fraternity, Wesley’s attitude radically changes. After some missions, he is sent to kill Cross, the supposed assassin of his father. Right before he dies, Cross tells him that he is indeed his father and that “everything is a lie”. This is another major turn in the action of the film because, from this moment on, Wesley starts to uncover the architecture of lies that surrounded him from his first contacts with the fraternity. With the help of Pekwarsky, a friend of his father, he finds that Sloan took over the fraternity for his own interest and that he does not carry out the tasks given through the loom. From now on Wesley considers that he has the mission to destroy this organization that no longer acts (if it ever did) as a “hand” of justice or fate, but just as a criminal one. He will destroy the fraternity with the help of Fox who sacrifices herself. The moral of the film is rather egocentric because, in the end, we will find out that in fact all these crimes,

Survival and transformation (spiritual survival)  171 facts and events meant only a man’s effort to take control over his life. “This is me taking back the control of my life”, Wesley says. I wonder what will do Wesley from now on with his life? In Wanted (Bekmambetov 2008), as in other action films, the characters are commonly used just as action bearers. For the sake of “entertainment”, of the conventions of this cinematic genre and of the fluency of action, the film cultivates violence rendered in a plethora of stunts and special effects. I consider that, once achieved, there are better things to do with freedom than violent acts. The practice or the simple admiration of violence and crimes causes people to lose control over their own lives, the loss of their liberty and not at all the acquisition of this control. It is not wrong to have control over your life, but not by going this way or by using these means as Wesley. The main body of this chapter will be focused on the presentation of type  2 transformations. These can be gradually organized. They range from an incomplete transformation to a change of a single trait or attitude up to the total renewal of an individual confronted with a great and overwhelming revelation. Solo (Stuven 2018) provides a perfect example of an incomplete spiritual transformation of the character. The film is based on the real survival story of the surfer Alvaro Vizcaino. After falling into shallow waters from a high steep cliff and seriously wounding a hip and one arm, he spent 48 hours on a desert beach of Fuerteventura Island. The film follows the general narrative scheme of this kind of movies (see Chapter 2) with the two “cover” spaces (space A, that generally represents the secure, civilized universe, framing the space B, that of the limit situation). The plot uses several flashbacks and imaginary scenes given by the hallucinations of the hero. In the beginning, we meet him at a party on the island with his group of surfers. Here we find out that Alvaro has a complicate relation with his girlfriend, Ona. After this party, he goes alone on a remote part of the island, and he falls into the sea (and into the space B), entering this way in the logic of survival movies. From this moment, almost everything will become really painful. Time becomes his enemy, and Alvaro is using all his energy to survive, that means to get out of an isolated beach he managed to reach after his fall. During these moments, we will encounter some typical elements of these type of films as the hero uses all his qualities to stay alive: he will collect water in an aluminum foil, he will use all the objects found as survival tools and he will defend himself against a seagull. Other specific elements for these stories are the missed chances to escape depicted in a note of bitter humor. One false chance to escape appears when his parents and his sister seem to give him a call, but it was actually a recorded call. Another specific element of the genre is the depiction of the character at the end of his powers, exhausted, at the verge of death. In this state, Alvaro slides from the surfboard fragment that helps him to swim and goes right to the bottom of the ocean. In this very moment from bottom up, we see the

172  Survival and transformation (spiritual survival) profile of a boat that rescues him. The way of filming this scene reminds me of a pretty similar scene from All is Lost. After this moment, he re-enters space A: we meet him on a bed in a hospital. Another common element of some contemporary survival movies based on biographical events is the appearance at their end of the real people who inspired these cinematic stories. This sort of epilogue appears in this movie and also in 127 Hours (Boyle 2010) and Adrift (Kormakur 2018). The only constant refrain present in this movie is “Freedom or love! You cannot have both!” It is repeated by many characters in different situations. It is said by a girl named Yaiza when she proposes to Alvaro to “have fun” together. It is said by the “old” Nelo when he announces his withdrawal from the surfers group. Ona says it to Alvaro after the accident, and Alvaro himself repeats it on the hospital bed, near the end of the movie. This film shows only a partial change of its protagonist. The change lies in the fact that, after passing through the limit situation, Alvaro is now able admit that he had a selfish reaction (he overreacted) when he found out that Nelo was getting married and waiting for a child. At the end of the movie, Alvaro will finally say that he enjoys this news. Another moment of truth (pretty sad) is the recognition that Alvaro does not really love Ona. He likes her just because she is “perfect”. I consider this attempt to be honest as a stage of his moral change process, but not at the end of it. The only complete moral transformation that happened to him because of passing through the limit situation is the decision to embrace his father and to tell him that he loves him. At the end of the film, our character remains “solo” (alone) watching the waves from a rock, a sign that his soul has not found a deep and profound opening to others and to God. He has not yet “found” himself. Alvaro still remains a prisoner to this fake saying: “Freedom or love! You cannot have both!” that puts his soul in the frame of the atheist and secular Western way of thinking. It is a way of understanding the freedom of man without God and by rejecting Him. Perhaps Alvaro would still have to suffer at least another such “accident” (there is no need to be an external one like this, it could be just an interior one) to get closer to the true understanding and living of his own life. This would mean to understand, in front of God and humans, that if you accept the overcoming of the external life that attempts to subordinate the soul to the specific life of the body, if you succeed in overcoming the patterns of secular thinking and in approaching the Christian perspective, there is a chance to understand that freedom is related to the struggle against sins and for purification. Freedom lies exactly in the pure love for others, in fidelity, in marriage, and not in superficial, perverted or random relationships, nor in escapism, no matter how beautiful the sea, the rocks or the beach are. Alvaro and his group of surfers seek their freedom in exterior, in the immensity of the sea, and they call “love” a certain – psychological and physical – attraction (not knowing that freedom means the state of the soul cleaned of sin, that love means purity and protection of others, that love means to enjoy the joy of others). This joy is a sign of a true freedom.

Survival and transformation (spiritual survival)  173 For Alvaro and his friends, if they really believe that love and freedom cannot coexist at the same time, fidelity and spiritual purity seem incomprehensible. Freedom is presented as a reality that can be accessed only “solo”, which is basically untrue. This kind of proverbs tends to keep human beings away of their true vocations, placing them away from God and from other people, leaving them “solo”. The film contains beautiful aerial and underwater shootings, other done from surprising and suggestive angles, intense colors and at least a remarkable script artifice (that false flash-forward through which we see Alvaro and Ona discussing on the same isolated beach at a time apparently after his rescue). The end of the film is to a great extent sad because that this limit experience does not bring hero’s total healing. Alavro has his chance in the future because he has achieved a certain courage, the courage to admit his envy related to Nelo’s family, the courage to express his love for his father and the courage to analyze his relation with Ona. About Ona, he says: “I must let her go. I learned that I can be alone and still survive”. After having that accident on the beach, he seems to have learned not to “cling” on other people to live his life. I believe that one of the next steps should be the discovering of true love. In conclusion, we are waiting for a sequel of the film, one that will further lead the hero on the path of discovering freedom in love and love in freedom. In conclusion, it seems that, for the changing of this soul, one accident is not enough! The main character from A Cry in the Wild (Griffiths 1990) is one who acquires at least one new trait of character after passing through the limit situation. Based on Gary Paulsen’s novel Hatchet, the film is a typical children adventure survival movie. It follows the ABA narrative scheme. Before the start of the limit situation, we encounter Brian, a teenager who lives in town with his mom. She prepares him to visit his father who works in oil industry in a remote area of Canada. Later we will find out that his parents are divorced, and he sees this as an important trauma. At departure, his mom gave him a hatchet as a gift. She, somehow premonitory, says that this may be useful in the wilderness. This, indeed, will prove to be a very helpful survival tool. The hatchet can be also seen as a bond between him and his mother, as a bond between him and civilization. Before entering the limit situation, he was a regular teenager, listening loudly rock music and being ashamed by his mother’s signs of affection. His mom embarks him on a small plane. After a certain amount of time, the pilot suffers a heart attack and dies. The uncontrolled plane falls into a lake. This is how the boy enters the limit situation. Brian will prove to be a strong character, one who becomes stronger during the wilderness experience. He has the will to survive and the power to resist alone against several threats: mosquitoes, stormy weather, a white wolf (imaginary or not) and a black bear. He also has to fight against his bad memories (about his father’s leaving the family, about his mother meeting another man). He uses his hatchet to make a fire, to build up a shelter and to make other tools and weapons. Unfortunately

174  Survival and transformation (spiritual survival) Brian kills the bear that was attacking him. Later, he finds that it was a female bear that had cubs. He was sorry for this. He eats berries, earthworms, some other white worms, fish. The boy learns how to make sparks by hitting stones with his hatchet in order to start a fire. He swims freely into the lake and sometimes sings. He uses technology to survive recovering the survival kit and some pots from the crashed plane. Finally he is rescued by another plane. When Brian returns to civilization (space A), he seems to have learned how to respect simple things. He, who had starved in the wilderness, takes with a lot of consideration a tomato from the supermarket. He, who had fought with the bear for his shelter in the woods, seems now to really enjoy the comfort of his room and of his home. Our hero also defeated his fears. He, who was so deeply wounded by the behavior of his parents, seems to show them mercy and forgiveness. Unfortunately, his father does not reconcile with his mother. It is really sad that he has to get accustomed with the lover of his mother, but he, mercifully, accepts him, and they pray together at what seems the Thanksgiving dinner. The conclusion of this gesture seems to be that, sometimes, an incorrect reconciliation is better than a legitimate war. Thus, at least one characteristic of the God’s image is revealed in Brian’s behavior after these extreme experiences, and this is mercy. Actually, if a character acquires a new perspective about life or a new trait, everything changes inside and outside his soul. The relation with people and (obviously) with God changes, even this last one remains often in the territory of unspoken words. A movie about all these mysterious things and especially about people in state of emergency is How I Ended This Summer (Russian: Kak ya provyol etim letom) (Popogrebsky 2010). This is a spiritual and psychological survival movie whose action is located in a desert island from the Arctic Ocean. The main characters are Sergei Gulybin, the chief of the meteorology station from the island and Pavel Danilov called Pasha, a student who is doing his internship at this station. Their task is to transmit to the center certain meteorological data at fixed hours. The characters are presented only inside the limit situation. The limit situation goes through several stages of increasing its tension. The first stage is that – at the beginning of the film – of the regular life in this isolated weather station. It is difficult especially for Pasha who has to get accustomed with their schedule and especially with Sergei who proves to be a harsh, closed and grumpy man who despises Pasha’s skills in using computers. Pasha finds refuge in listening to music, sleeping, playing computer games, in staying alone and contemplating the sea far from the house. The next stage of the limit situation occurs when Sergei leaves Pasha alone in the station because he goes fishing arctic trout at the Southern Lagoon. While Sergei is missing, Pasha receives a radiogram that indirectly announces that Sergei’s wife and son died in an accident. Marked by this news, Pasha does not wake up at the right time and transmits false data. Sergei figures out this and goes mad. Sergei tells him that this is unacceptable in a station that functions at very

Survival and transformation (spiritual survival)  175 rigorous scientific standards since 1935. He frightens Pasha by telling him that once one scientist killed another because he was not doing honestly his job duties in the station. Sergei underlines: “We are not playing games here!” He hits Pasha twice while he supervises how he is doing his duties. Pasha does not tell Sergei the tragic news. The third stage of the limit situation begins with Sergei’s second leave for fishing after he finds out from Pasha that the ship “Akademic Oburcev” will soon take them. Sergei wants to bring more trout because his wife (who he believes is still alive) liked them a lot preserved in salt. While his second time alone in the station, Pasha lies also to Sofronov (the chief from the center) that he has already told Sergei about his loss. He also finds out that “Akademic” is stuck in the ice, and that a helicopter will be sent from them at the Southern Lagoon. Pasha hurries there, he gets scared by a polar bear and, running from it, he slides on a snowy slope. He wakes up in Sergei’s boat. The fourth stage of the limit situation starts when, arriving at the shore, Pasha finally tells Sergei about the death of his family. Frightened of him, Pasha shoots a fire toward him, but does not hit him. After that he runs away leaving the gun on the ground. Sergei shoots a bullet after him and misses. He fires the next bullets on the air, while Pasha is disappearing up on a cliff. This stage of the limit situation is one of maximum mistrust between the characters. Frightened of Sergei, Pasha finds shelter in a hillside empty cabin. Sergei shoots the second time toward his colleague while he was in the cabin, but this was mostly a defense reflex. Pasha contaminates some dry fish at a radioactive beacon from the hill and gives them to Sergei. After a while, seeing him through the window, Sergei calls Pasha inside the cabin. Pasha confesses that he has poisoned him with radioactive fish. The end of the limit situation approaches when the ship comes. Pasha tells Sergei that he has to go on the continent for a medical control, unless he will tell everything. Sergei utters very firmly: “Don’t you understand? I need to remain here! Alone!” These two men have passed through very difficult moments living in isolation. Sergei’s life is destroyed by the loss of his family. So he considers he has no reason to be back into the civilized world. His health may be permanently affected by the radioactive fish he ate. This seems not to be important to him. Healthy or not, he forgives Pasha embracing him. Life in isolation is not easy. They both did mistakes. Sergei decides to let Pasha go free to his life among people. At what things will Sergei think alone on the island? What will his words and silence mean? We will not know because the film ends here. Through Sergei, the mystery as an element of God’s image in human beings becomes visible in a very touching and particular way. The limit experiences that take place on water change characters and take effect on their lives on earth. It is the cases of Cast Away (Zemekis 2000) and of The Surface (Cates Jr. 2014). The first one is a complex survival movie. Its protagonist, the Fed Ex engineer Chuck Noland, is the only survivor of a plane crash, and he manages to reach a small tropical island where he will live alone for four years. In these four years, he uses all his energy

176  Survival and transformation (spiritual survival) to survive motivated by his love for Kelly. He eats cocoa nuts, crabs, fish, he manages to make fire, to pull out one of his teeth with an ice skate. Chuck makes a human face (a sort of companion for his discussions) called Wilson out of a ball found on a package. He leaves the island on a raft and will be rescued by a ship. With this, the first part of the limit situation ends. On the island and on the ocean Chuck proved determination, patience, courage, intelligence, capacity to endure pain, lust for life (although he once tried to hang himself), the ability to learn from everything and even humor. The second part of the limit situation begins when he finds out that his girlfriend Kelly is now married and she has a daughter. The love for her gave him hope during all these years spent as a stranded person, and now, without it, how can he live even one more day? This is the second challenge, and it is no easier than the lone survival on the island and on the ocean. Without the fulfillment of his love, he feels stranded among his previous life and among all the things he knew. The answer he gives to this question (“I know what to do now: keep breathing.”) makes the movie a masterpiece. The answer can be very useful for the moments we feel that our expectations and our entire “world” fall down. Then we still need to “keep breathing” “because who knows what the tide could bring?” At the end of the movie, we leave Chuck looking to the road Bettina Peterson has just left. She is the woman whose package was delivered by Chuck from the island. Is this the new road and the new chance provided by God for this character? It is just a barely suggested solution of the movie, which still remains with an open end. The most important lesson we can draw from this film is that, no matter how tormented we may be and how unfair life may seem, we must resist up to the end in order to see what God wants to do with us. When we do this, we rise to the status of real God’s dialogue partners and miracles may happen in various ways. A person who rises to this level has already gained a certain freedom and this freedom is a mark of God’s image in man. Most of the action of The Surface (Cates Jr. 2014) is set nowadays on the waters of Lake Michigan. The film has two protagonists. The younger character is Mitch. He has a mother with Alzheimer, and he has just remained without job. The older character is Kelly, who is a pilot and whose plane just crashed in the middle of the lake while he tried to deliver a mysterious package to earn 3,000 dollars. Kelly broke his right arm, and he suffered other wounds during the crash. Mitch rescues him while floating on the lake on a plane wing. The limit situation is set when Mitch realizes that the propeller of his boat is lost and they are stuck far away from land. The situation gets worse when they realize that the boat starts to take water. Most of the time, Mitch and Kelly discuss about their lives. This is how the spectator finds out that Mitch came to the lake to commit suicide using liquid nitroglycerine and bleach. Mitch is very lonely and has passed through many sorrows in his life. The death of his girlfriend and especially that of his father for which he feels guilty are the main ones. Mitch takes care of Kelly; he keeps him alive till he will be rescued by a helicopter.

Survival and transformation (spiritual survival)  177 Taking care of other’s life, Mitch (who is not at his first suicidal attempt) regains his desire to live. Actually, he was in a serious spiritual limit situation before coming to the lake. Meeting the wounded Kelly and getting stuck on the lake are not only elements of an external limit situation, but also parts of the solution for Mitch’s existential problems. Mitch receives here good advices; he makes a friend and discovers the happiness of helping others. Saving Kelly’s life, actually he saves his own. One of the last scenes shows him submitting his application for a job at the nursing home. This new opening of his soul toward others is a solution against desperation and makes God’s image very visible inside Mitch. Wilderness offers the right conditions for spiritual transformation in films as 6 Below: Miracle on the Mountain (Waugh 2017), Into the Wild (Penn 2007) or The Grey (Carnahan 2011). 6 Below: Miracle on the Mountain is based on the autobiographical book Crystal Clear written by the ex-hockey player Eric LeMarque in collaboration with David Seavy. It presents a turning point in Eric’s life. The real events took place in 2004, when he got lost in a storm in Sierra Nevada while he went snowboarding. The film is the story of his 8 days of fight for survival in a very harsh weather. Before entering this limit situation, Eric was a very violent person. Because of this, he was even expelled from the team, although he was very talented. One source of this behavior might be caused by the fact that his father was a brutal man who left him and his mother. Eric became a drug addict. The relation he has with his mother is one of crucial importance. He enters the limit situation in February 2004, when, ignoring the storm that was obviously coming, he took a not recommended trail and got lost on the mountain. His strong will to fight and his intelligence helped him to survive. He used his mind and knowledge when he decided to climb on a high peak to transmit an electronic signal that might have been detected by the rescue teams. The love for his mother and his twinges of conscience for his faults gave him another sort of motivations to struggle for survive. When he arrived exhausted on that peak his thought and words were directed to his mother. He said: “Hi, mom! It’s me! (…) I am sorry for everything!” His mother was all this time looking for him, she alerted the rescue team and she prayed for him. The answer came when people wanted to give up the rescue mission. It came on the form of that signal received from the mountain. Eric is saved due to God, to himself, to his mom, to the rescue team and also due to modern technology. Eric remained drug-free after these events, and he became a motivational speaker. He got married and has two children. He lost both his legs from the knees below, but he understood this huge loss and this entire experience in a spiritual way, as it can be seen from his confession at the end of the movie: Sometimes you get hit and you fall. You can’t get back up. You fall further. Before the mountain I couldn’t see how far I’ve fallen. Maybe that’s why I had to go through, to finally live.

178  Survival and transformation (spiritual survival) Sometimes a part of yourself has to die, maybe the part you love the most to realize what makes you whole, and clearly see that it is larger than us. If you are in the dark get through it by seeing the invisible, so that you can do the impossible. It will all make sense when you see the light in the break of dawn. The idea of losing a part of the body understood as a spiritual lesson occurs also in Danny Boyle’s 127 Hours. Aron Ralston loses a part of an arm, but he gains a more profound perspective of his life. Likewise, Eric’s thoughts prove him as a profoundly changed, renewed person at the end of the limit situation. All his life is seen from this turning point like through a magnifying glass and it is put on the right path. Into the Wild (Penn 2007) is based on a true story. For Christopher McCandless, the civilized world with its rules and values seems to be a place impossible to live in. He is not interested in achieving none of the pre-fabricated goals that this world puts ahead of him. He tries to go as far as he can from his parents who provoked a lot of moral pain to him and his sister. Chris sees them as representatives of the hypocrisy the rules this world. His favorite writers are Lev Tolstoy, Thoreau and Jack London. That’s another reason he chooses to escape in the wilderness. The civilized world provides him an unbearable limit situation, life as wanderer tramp will offer him others. His long and sinuous way to Alaska and his experiences of living there constitute the action of the film. The plot describes his adventure in Alaska week by week interrupted by several flashbacks describing important moments of the journey that brought him there. These flashbacks express the spiritual development of the hero as stages of human life. They form the “chapters” of the film named My Own Birth, Adolescence, Manhood, Family and Getting the Wisdom. In “chapter 1”, he is born as a free man in the company of Jan and Rainey, two middle-aged hippies, with whom he spends extraordinary moments on a wild beach on the Pacific coast. Maybe he would prefer them as his parents. He spends his “adolescence” as a new man making new friends: Wayne and his crew from his harvesting company from South Dakota, Sonja and Mads, two Scandinavian tourists met in the Colorado Canyon. He goes illegally on Colorado River and also manages to illegally cross the border in and out Mexico. It is a period of extreme freedom and happiness. During “manhood” he learns how to preserve freedom and he experiences the risks of liberty and the pain. Chris is extremely brutally beaten by a man for the fact he was illegally traveling on a freight train. To preserve his freedom means for our hero to do no compromise: he leaves the job he had at a restaurant because his supervisor requested him to wear socks. In the fourth “chapter”, he learns how to live a family life joining Rainey and Jen in “Slab City”. Here he lives a peaceful life helping them to sell used books, talking and listening to music. A girl from this hippie colony named Tracy falls in love with him. He behaves delicate and protective, and avoids having a relation with her.

Survival and transformation (spiritual survival)  179 The last important character he meets in his way to Alaska is Ron Franz. He meets him in the desert in California. Ron’s life is marked by a tragic event: in 1957, while serving in the US army in Okinawa, his wife and son were killed by a drunk driver. Because of this, Ron became a drunkard, but after a while he managed to quit. When he met Chris, he was living a lonely life working as a leather carver and going to the church regularly. Chris helps Ron to overcome himself making him to reach a peak of a hill that previously the old man has considered inaccessible. Chris brings a bit of happiness in Ron’s life. Ron proposes to adopt him as a grandson. Chris tells him that they will discuss this on his return from Alaska. They have a very important dialogue about the source of happiness. Chris tries to convince him that happiness can be found everywhere and cannot be reduced to relationships with people. This seems to be one of the truths Chris has learned from his journey up to that moment. But in a very discreet way, Ron, who has figured out about the problems Chris had with his parents, makes a plea for the importance of forgiveness and of good relations with all people as a fundament of happiness. He says: “When you forgive, you love, and when you love, God’s light shines on you!” This light covers Chris in the moment of his death while he is seeing himself embracing his parents as a sign of love and forgiveness. Then, he, who has previously written on a book “happiness only real when shared” asks his parents: “What if I were smiling and running into your arms? Would you see then what I see now?” If people knew that they are shrouded by a beauty they are not usually aware, they would harm nobody, and they would forgive easier. Forgiveness and communion are some of the keys to happiness and heaven. The farewell words of Chris “I have had a happy life and thank the Lord. Good bye and may God bless you!” are a testimony that he found the “right name” of everything. This “right name” starts with forgiveness and ends with happiness. Due to forgiveness and love for truth, the image of God becomes very visible in one particular individual: Christopher McCandless. The Grey (Carnahan 2011) is set somewhere in a wasteland of Alaska in winter. Most of the characters are oil workers. The protagonist, John Ottway, is a hunter hired to protect workers from wolves’ attacks. Before entering the limit situation, the film shows the noisy and chaotic atmosphere from the oil exploitation station in contrast to the sadness of John Ottway who is at the verge of shooting himself. On their way home, the plane carrying Ottway and many workers crashes. Those who survive the crash enter the limit situation: it is a freezing weather and they are hunted by a pack of wolves. The last five survivors (Burke, Talget, Diaz, Hendrick and Ottway) are presented in a more detailed manner through some elements of their lives. They fight back and kill a wolf. Burke suffers of hypoxia and dies. Talget hits a tree because his rope broke and dies seeing his long-haired daughter. Diaz, with a wounded leg, stops exhausted on a log and says that the best place and moment to die is there, while watching the mountains. After all the difficulties they have faced together, Diaz, Hendrick

180  Survival and transformation (spiritual survival) and Ottway present themselves with their forename. They feel that they are now more than work colleagues known only by family names, they are individuals, friends recommended by their forenames. While running from wolves, Pete (Hendrick) gets his foot stuck and drowns in the river. Speaking about the religious connotations of the film, the Catholic deacon Steven D. Greydanus noticed that: It is possible to discern a ray of grace in the darkness that surrounds Ottway. Like the real world, the world of The Grey doesn’t oblidge us either to acknowledge God or to deny Him. If we choose, we can hear His voice speaking a word of reassurance. If we don’t, the movie doesn’t press the point. (Greydanus no page) I agree with the idea that the film approaches the issues of faith in good taste and in a discreet manner, but I must complete that this approach is also a very revealing and powerful one. Alone, Ottway prays and cries to God: “Do something! (…) Earn it! Prove it! Show me something real! I need it now, not later! Now!” Not receiving a direct and visible answer, he decides to “do it himself”. When he realizes that he is surrounded by wolves, he understands that this is the day evoked in his father’s poem, the day he has always prepared for. This is the day in which he should show and give everything, the day in which he should be who he truly is, unchained and free. “Live and die on this day” is the signal that the human soul can trigger its immense force accepting the possibility of death, but affirming its life. This enormous energy can wipe out at least an entire pack of wolves. God Who didn’t answer Ottway’s prayers in the way he asked is The One Who knows that there is such a power in the creature made after His image and likeness. The desert and the war are two elements able to humble the protagonist from Mine (Guaglione and Resinaro 2016). The film is based on true events. Its action is set somewhere in the desert, and the protagonist is Sergeant Mike Stevens, an American sniper. The beginning of the film shows him on a mission together with his comrade Tommy Madison. They are on a ridge preparing to kill “the target” Said Assif, a supposed terrorist leader at a wedding ceremony. Because “the groom is in the way of the target”, Mike suffers a “spiritual crisis” and hesitates to kill both, the groom and the alleged Said Assif, with the same shot. Mike is also not entirely sure about the identity of “the target” because of the distance and because he got down from a different car as described in his mission plan. Finally, they are spotted by the bodyguards who fire upon them. From presumptive attackers they become “targets” themselves. This is how the limit situation begins. Before seeing the wedding, Mike is presented as an average soldier who has a girlfriend back home and who is ready to fulfill his missions without analyzing them too much. The idea of shooting the person during

Survival and transformation (spiritual survival)  181 his wedding ceremony is too much for him. It awakens his conscience; he becomes more human, but also puts him and his fellow in danger. They are “saved” from the bodyguards’ attack by a huge sand storm. For a while he goes through the limit situation together with Tommy. They have to walk five hours to the closest village to be “extracted”. Tommy tells him about his marriage and about the happiness that means for him and his wife to have their son Jake. Tommy steps on a landmine which cuts his legs and, because of this, he shoots himself. While Tommy was still alive, Mike felt that he himself stepped on a landmine and remained blocked at that place. Making contact with the base, he finds out that has 52 hours more to wait till the rescue team will arrive. While inside this limit situation, he has to deal with the enemies (they appear close to the end), with the sandstorms, with thirst, with his own body that is blocked in an uncomfortable position (in knees sitting on a presumed mine), with his own conscience and with hallucinations. The memories about his girlfriend bring him both encouragement and a certain regret because they had a fight before his departure in the mission. Being in a state of exhaustion, he lays mentally at the border between reality and non-reality. It is not clear when this border is crossed or not. Several qualities help him while inside the limit situation. Some of them are intelligence and knowledge about survival in the desert. Intelligence tells him that the best solution is to remain still till the rescuers will come. Another quality is determination, namely his will to survive, even by doing unpleasant things. He drinks his urine till a Berber girl gives him some water. His conscience appears in the form of a Berber male who asks him: “Why you a soldier?” He cannot answer to this question. Perhaps he now understands the superficial, external motivation which he had when became a soldier, a man whose main task was to kill people. Mike does not lie, does not provide false arguments, he just painfully admits he does not know the answer. It seems that now he understands his fault. He understands that he reaches this limit situation as a consequence of his previous choices. Symbolically, this immobilization in the middle of the desert may show that he was not a free man. The Berber speaks him precisely about this freedom, of which he is now physically deprived because he previously renounced to it through superficiality. The fundamental lesson he should acquire is pronounced by this Berber male. Mike is stuck in the desert to overcome the clichés and the minor problems and, symbolically, to go forward: “That’s why you are here! Time to move on!” He passed through the limit situation due to the mercy shown by the Berber girl, to his comrades and to his own qualities. The fact – shown at the end of the film – that he did not really step on a real mine, but on a tin can containing plastic soldier toys, is of less importance. What is important is that he got stuck in the desert till he understood his faults and got the courage “to move on” from the supposed mine. He is transformed after getting out of the limit situation. His will and determination saved him, but he is exhausted. The last scene (from the airport) shows him sitting on one knee in front of his girlfriend

182  Survival and transformation (spiritual survival) (in the position he practiced so many hours in the desert). He is more lucid, wiser and full of love, closer to a more appropriate relationship with people. The relationship with God is not explicitly mentioned here. A special category of survival movies is represented by the stories of Christian missionaries in remote areas. Films like Black Robe (Beresford 1991), End of the Spear (Hannon 2005) and Silence (Scorsese 2016) are relevant examples. In these films, the limit situation is not mainly generated by the harsh conditions encountered in the wilderness (although they appear especially in Black Robe), but first of all by the reactions of non-Christians to the ideas and the lifestyle preached by the missionaries. It is about the confrontation between two different ways of understanding life: the Christian one and the non-Christian ones. This spiritual encounter has been the cause of suffering and death of many Christian missionaries throughout time. Both the approach of people to the Christian faith and, then, the transformation of their souls according to God’s will are often very dramatic processes. The affinity of man for God and of God for man is an overwhelming reality that can be expressed in the most paradoxical ways able to combine the deepest pain with the deepest happiness. This space of profound affinities is one of perpetual transformation for people who try to live in faith. Faith is meant to become a state of absolute opening to God, “for the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Matthew 7:14). Among the people who entered the “narrow gate” are maybe some characters from Silence (Scorsese 2016). This is a historical and spiritual survival movie set in the 17th century in Japan. The protagonist of the film is the Portuguese Jesuit priest Sebastiao Rodrigues. He is sent, together with another young Jesuit named Francisco Garupe, in search for their mentor, father Ferreira, about whom there were certain rumors that he would have fallen into apostasy under torture. Fathers Rodrigues and Garupe are brought in Japan with the help of Kichijiro, and they meet the Christians from Tomogi village who are very willing to have priests among them. The locals hide them. Christians from Gotto come and ask for a priest, too. Rodrigues goes with them, celebrates the mass, baptizes children and hears confessions. People from other villages come to him, too. He feels “renewed”. Father Rodrigues feels here that God is “so close”. Here he finds that Kichijiro renounced his faith, but his family did not, and they were killed. Father Rodrigues hears his confession. When his life is again in danger, Kichijiro falls in apostasy again. When three people from Tomogi are killed for faith, father Garupe goes to Hirado Islands and Rodrigues leaves for Gotto, where he finds the village destroyed and he is delivered by Kichijiro to the authorities for money. Father Rodrigues is taken prisoner. He is brought on a beach and sees father Garupe sacrificing his life to save one from a group of Christians drowned by the authorities. Meanwhile father Rodrigues meets Ferreira, who lives in a temple and writes a book against the Christian belief, and tries to convince him that there is no

Survival and transformation (spiritual survival)  183 way to preach Christianity in Japan. Rodrigues rejects him. In prison, he is blackmailed that if he does not repudiate Christ by stepping on His image, five Christians will die in horrible pain. Ferreira is here and advises him to do so. Before making a decision, Rodrigues hears the voice of Christ saying: “Come ahead now! It’s alright to step on me. I understand your pain. I was born in this world to share this pain. I carry this cross for your pain. Your life is with me now. Step!” And he steps, ravaged by pain. After that, he and Ferreira work for the authorities to find any objects with hidden Christian symbols. In a dialogue with Rodrigues, Ferreira used the expression “our Lord”, but asked again about it, he did not admit. It is a subtle message that he still believes in Christ, in order to encourage Rodrigues. After a while Rodrigues is offered the family and the house of a Japanese man who died recently and the name of Okada San’emon. When Kichijiro comes to him again to hear his confession, he tries to stop him. Then he has a revelation. Lord tells him: “I suffered beside you. I was never silent”. Father Rodrigues defines his way of relating to God: “But even if God had been silent all my life, to this very day, everything I knew, everything I’ve done…speaks of Him. It was in this silence that I heard Your voice”. Father Rodrigues expresses this reality in a paradoxical way: God is silent, and yet he hears His voice. This silent voice is the voice of the affinity that people have for their Creator. If they sharpen their spiritual hearing opening their heart to God, they will understand He represents the Normality of the human being because God’s image is the fundament of every individual. It cannot be other way. This is why, even if the authorities had obliged Rodrigues to apostatize, Kichijiro came to be his servant and friend and remained a hidden Christian and his Japanese wife most likely became one. She is the one that, after Rodrigues’ death, secretly puts a wooden cross in his hand while he was in a wooden barrel prepared for a Buddhist burial ceremony. This secret presence of the wooden cross in the hands of an apparently renegade priest may be a cinematographic representation of a life “hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3). Faith, even if deeply hidden in tormented souls, represents the environment in which a soul can survive.

Conclusions As I presented in the previous chapters, usually people act according to their moral intuitions while inside the limit situations. This chapter went further by showing that, in various ways, the moral values that people discover or activate during the limit situations may lead to a spiritual transformation of the individuals. Brian from A Cry in the Wild (Griffiths 1990), Pasha and Sergei from How I Ended This Summer (Russian: Kak ya provyol etim letom) (Popogrebsky 2010) and Christopher from Into the Wild (Penn 2007) transform their lives by learning the importance of forgiveness. Chuck Noland from Cast Away (Zemekis 2000), Mitch from The Surface (Cates Jr. 2014) and Sergeant Mike Stevens from Mine (Guaglione and

184  Survival and transformation (spiritual survival) Resinaro 2016) transform themselves by learning in very surprising ways that life, as full of pain as it is, should go on; therefore, they have to “move on”. Eric LeMarque from 6 Below: Miracle on the Mountain (Waugh 2017) loses his legs, but he finds a path to recover his soul through faith. Fathers Sebastiao Rodrigues, Francisco Garupe and Cristovao Ferreira, Kichijiro along with other Christians from Silence (Scorsese 2016) and John Ottway from The Grey (Carnahan 2011) live in their personal way the “silence” of God which, paradoxically, strengthens them and offers them a way (or several ways) to live. Through these diverse “lessons”, people get closer to their true nature and reach a certain state of happiness and freedom. This is a state of grace, but without the “knowledge” of God, which inspires repentance, this happiness and freedom cannot be kept for a longer period. This may be the moment zero of a spiritual “rebirth” and/or “restoration” (Tyneh 84). Even if it is not openly called as such in many survival films, the presence of God is behind these “moments of Grace”, they are actually provided by His Grace. According to the Orthodox Theology, By his own strength, (…) (man) cannot restore himself from his moral degradation to stand pure and with integrity, with boldness before God. God moves him to repentance and faith. God restores and keeps him firmly established upon his Christian course of life (…) God does this, i.e., God’s Grace. (Tyneh 84) In the films I will further analyze, I will show what processes of changing occur inside the characters and what shapes their relation with God and other people take. Happiness and freedom can be preserved only by avoiding sin, namely by living in Christ, repentance and cleansing tears. Without these, people may live only scattered and flashing moments of freedom, namely of happiness or perhaps to experience these right before the end of their lives. By discovering the happiness of repentance, freedom will stay longer with us, meaning that we begin to be transformed more and more into the beings we were meant to be. St. Niketas Stithatos is even able to dissociate between repentance and compunction and to describe them as two separate phenomena by using an extended comparison: Tears of repentance are one thing, tears that flow because of divine compunction another. The first are like a river in spate that sweeps away all the bastions of sins, the second are to the soul like rain or snow to a field, making yield a bountiful crop of spiritual knowledge. (Philokalia 21)

Survival and transformation (spiritual survival)  185 But without confession and the practice of faith in Jesus Christ, there is no possibility of living such repentance and compunction as described above. Father Tchiflianov clearly states that people can live these as hope for forgiveness from God only in Christ. He explains that “regarding the necessity of faith in Christ, and hope in His mercy, to obtain pardon from sins, we would realize that we receive pardon only through Christ’s sufferings on the Cross” (Tchiflianov 49). For the situations when this explicit faith is not present, as it happens in the case of many survival films, the encounter of God’s presence appears to people as a feeling of encountering their true nature. In these cases, after making the right decisions while in limit situations, the characters experience that they finally truly live. In these moments, people live a climax experience able to bring together death and life in a moment of maximum concentration of human nature. “Live and die on this day”, says the extraordinary poem already cited from The Grey. In the following chapter, the conclusions of this study will be organized right around the climaxes and the deepest messages of the films, namely right around the days when we feel we die, but just to really live. These are the days when people show their true measure, that of being images of God, as the Orthodox Christian theology states.

Conclusions. How the image of God is seen in those who passed through limit situations?

Motto: Chipul slavei Tale sunt, deși port rănile păcatelor. I am the image of Thine inexpressible glory, even though I bear the wounds of sin. (Excerpt from Molitfelnic. Slujba înmormântării/ The Orthodox Funeral Service)

As we concluded in the previous chapter, in the happiest cases which appear in survival films, these characters who pass through extreme situations manage to feel that they really live. To really live means to cleanse yourself of bad habits, of daily constraints and false certitudes in order to reveal your true face, that is in fact the image of God after which you were made. The perspective given by the Orthodox Christian anthropology is able to “grasp” this spectacular phenomenon. As I have already said in the beginning of my study, this perspective provides the analysis with another advantage: it can also “grasp” both the physical and spiritual aspects that are always involved in the survival stories of human beings. These “moments of truth” usually represent (or at least are connected with) the climaxes of the films. The climaxes are “the most intense moments of the film” and they have to be expressed through “a powerful image, or series of images” (P. Cooper and Dancyger 54). These, along with the endings, are designed to impress the viewers and to last longer in their memory. The climaxes and the endings can offer the essential clues to define the inner structure the character reached. Ross Hockrow considers the climax to be in fact the reason why the story exists, its “point” (Hockrow 27): I consider that the climax modifies the characters in ways worth to be read because the climax contains in a very concentrated manner the beginning and the end of the story of which it is the turning point (Hockrow 29). The transformation and the true nature of characters may be seen instantly during these turning points. The endings of the stories (if they exist at all) are usually nothing but consequences of these turning points. In many films, the climax is considered so important that it coincides or

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DOI: 10.4324/9781003356912-10

Conclusions  187 almost coincides with the last scene, as it happens in Into the Wild (Penn 2007) or The Grey (Carnahan 2011). The climaxes and the endings of many films show very clearly how the status of characters developed and what they gained while and after passing the limit situations. This newly acquired status was presented during this book in terms of Orthodox Christian anthropology. The characters were treated as images of God having at least five characteristics or “powers” (M. Ciulei 91): reason, will, sentiment, conscience and unfathomable mystery (Stan 167). Father Nicolae Răzvan Stan continues this enumeration with “immortality of the soul, goodness, righteousness, purity, beauty, happiness” (Stan 167). And, in my opinion, this list remains open. I used this perspective during my book, and I will use it further in articulating these following conclusions. Furthermore, the theological perspective states that human beings cannot really survive by trespassing God’s commandments or by ignoring the voice of the conscience. This assertion completes the strictly community and social definition that Thomas Sobchack gave to survival films (Sobchack 12) with a spiritual perspective. Thus, the question raised at the end of this book is how do the survival films present people as images of God, as both material and spiritual beings? Some of the characters do not manage to physically survive. A part of them are victims, but they struggle for their lives. It is the case of Paul from Buried (Cortes 2010), Daniel and Susan from Open Water (Kentis 2003) or Iacob from Iacob (Danieliuc 1988). Some people die because they enter unprepared in potentially dangerous situations. They endanger themselves and (sometimes) their companions. It is the case of Dan and Joe from Frozen (Green 2010), Alex from Backcountry (MacDonald 2014), Victoria from Sanctum (Grierson 2011) or Nick from The Canyon (Harrah 2009). Other people lose their lives because of an accident or a mistake. Simplifying or maybe oversimplifying, this happens to Christopher MacCandless from Into the Wild (Penn 2007), to John Jones from The Last Descent (Halasima 2016) or to the many victims from Everest (Kormakur 2015). Some people die because they harm or try to harm others. This happens to Wade from The River Wild (Hanson 1994), to Carl from Sanctum (Grierson 2011) or to Raider from Survival Quest (Coscarelli 1988). There are also people who tried to harm others and would later become aware of their guilt and reach repentance: e.g., Robert Green (Bob) from The Edge (Tamahori 1997). People like Reverend Frank Scott from The Poseidon Adventure (Neame 1972) or Captain Matthew Kowalski from Gravity (Cuaron 2013) sacrifice their lives for others (Chapter 9 contains a detailed description of the idea of sacrifice in films). A very interesting issue, related with the observation of God’s image in people, is that of spiritual survival. Some characters do not seem to survive from the spiritual point of view. For them the limit situation acts like a trap in which their spirit remains entangled. The God’s image (even if it

188 Conclusions exists in every people) cannot be seen inside them. It is the case of Hitman number 2 from Killing Time (Piersic Jr, 2011), played by Cristian Gutău. In him, any of the characteristics of God’s image cannot be perceived because they are covered or distorted by his sadistic behavior. He is a cold blood criminal without any human felling, without any remorse. He is simply a monster with human appearance. From the spiritual point of view, he is a dead man even he physically survives the limit situation, while the Hitman number 1 (played by Florin Piersic Jr.), whom he kills, dies as a spiritually living person. His spirit is kept alive by the love for his family. Films such as Surviving the Game (E. Dickerson 1994), Preservation (Denham 2014), Beyond the Reach (J. B. Leonetti 2014), The Hunt (Zobel 2020) or The Decline (French: Jusqu’au declin) (Laliberte 2020) present people as acting mainly led by the survival instinct. Left to be the sole “leader” of human actions, this “instinct” often generates violence, revenge and even hate, which may provide spiritual exhaustion for the characters. The theme of revenge, as devastating as it is, has been very much frequented in films “to the point that it has spawned a category of its own” (Sison 39). Where there is only selfishness, violence, instinct without conscience and revenge, God’s image in people cannot be seen at all. Another cause of “dehumanization” can be the search for money or treasures. By dealing with a supposed treasure, people, physically and spiritually, destroy themselves and others. It is the case of Cheryl, Lee and Dawn from Numb (Goode 2015) or of Jim Reed and the bank robbers from Blood and Money (Barr 2020). Will from Numb (Goode 2015) survives, but he is devastated. In people who treat their peers as cruel as they do, the image of God can hardly be seen. This image may be noticed only in the love that Will shows for Cheryl and Lee for Dawn. Unfortunately the desire to have money blinds them, they do not act according to their reason and positive sentiments, thus God’s image becomes nearly imperceptible in these characters. Jim Reed (Blood and Money) preserves his humanity through his last gesture of giving all the money to Debbie, the waitress. Isolation may also cause madness. In The Lighthouse (Eggers 2019), the loss of reason and faith causes the shading of God’s image in Thomas Wade and Ephraim Howard. In How I Ended This Summer (Russian: Kak ya provyol etim letom) (Popogrebsky 2010), the end of the story could have been pretty similar, but Sergei has the capacity to bear his pain, and both, Sergei and Pasha, are able to forgive each other. Forgiveness helps them to spiritually survive after that rough period of isolation because it is able to renew the image of God in people. By forgiving each other, Sergei and Pasha become more human, namely more Christ-like. I consider that in the most interesting survival movies a certain change happen inside every character that passes through the limit situation. This happens even in some films in which action and suspense are predominant. In these movies, the inner transformation of the characters is often rendered through a change in relationships with others. Even a very violent

Conclusions  189 film as The Naked Prey (Wilde 1965) where most of its action consists in a continuous pursuit and fight has at the end a small gesture of reconciliation and respect. It is the salute that one black hunter transmits to the white man, “the naked prey,” who is already escaped by reaching the area of a fortress where he is protected by military. In a pretty implausible film as The Pack (Robertson 2015), after the Wilsons manage to defend their lives against a bunch of ultra-ferocious and ultra-rapid wild dogs, their family bonds strengthen. Into the Grizzly Maze (Hackl 2015) also exhibits a lot of action, but at the end of it, suspicions and barriers that were present in the beginning between Beckett and Rowan, brothers and main characters of the film, fall down. Beckett simply says a “welcome home” to his brother. In survival films, people who physically survive can be divided into two broad categories: those who no longer want to return into the civilized world and those who want to go back. There are various reasons for which people do not want to return to civilization after they passed through a survival limit situation. Brian from Sands of the Kalahari (Endfield 1965) and Andreas from Eden (Madiraju 2014) decide to stay far from society because they are/become wild, namely selfish, cruel and instinctive rather than rational. They seem to belong to the same “spiritual family” as Tubal-Cain from Noah (Aronofsky 2014). Paul Jenson from Day of Animals (Girdler 1977) is another character who, in the wilderness, behaves with other people like an immoral beast. He aggressively claims the discretionary authority over the group, kills a young man and tries to rape a girl. Finally Paul Jenson will be killed by a bear. The film suggests that his capacity to judge as a civilized man was affected by the same solar radiation that turned animals against humans. All of these characters refuse to obey God’s commandments, and they use their freedom strictly for personal purposes. In a wrong way, Tubal-Cain from Aronofsky’s film considers himself as manifesting his resemblance with God by building, inventing, “squeezing” the richness of the world, making children, killing and eating animals, making weapons and using them in wars, so that he and his “followers” can survive. He is an exponent of the people who either reject God or compete with Him. They are proud, full of their own image, somehow narcissistic. They do not want to understand that the likeness of God is given as a gift only to faithful people who obey because of love. People as Tubal-Cain are unhappy and always on alert. Noah belongs to another type of people, of those who listen to God and, after great ordeals, discover Him as He truly is, that is All-Merciful. Another character that has no place among other people (because he is a menace to them) is Will Caster, the scientist from Transcendence (Pfister 2014). He refuses to die. He wants to survive by transferring his spirit to a computer after the death of his body. He wants to live, even if this desire costs the lives of many people and the transformation of the entire world as we know it. Will Caster is a monster of selfishness with a devilish pride who wants to subjugate the whole world to his own interest. Will Caster tries to

190 Conclusions reach immortality bypassing God, and even trying to substitute Him. The perfect world Will Caster proposes is a perfect hell. In this world, people lose their identity and freedom, they become brainless puppets and slaves dominated by Will Caster. The life of Will Caster is the proof that survival is not worth without moral. A decent death is to be preferred to a survival through crimes. Intelligence must be doubled by humbleness, faith in God and love for other people in order to not give birth to monsters. Sergei from How I Ended This Summer (Russian: Kak ya provyol etim letom) (Popogrebsky 2010) also decides not to go back to civilization, but for a different reason. His family recently died, he ate radioactively contaminated fish given by his colleague Pasha, and he finds no reason to go back among people. Sergei is devastated by pain, and he has no reason to (re) accommodate with the social rules. Sergei simply needs to live alone. This is why he remains on that remote island. Some people cannot come back to civilization, even if they want to. It is the case of Christopher from Into the Wild (Penn 2007) who intends to go back to his family after acquiring the spiritual “teachings” of his adventure across the country. Chris’ solitary experience goes further than he wanted; and he remains stuck in the immensity of Alaska. From here he starts his last earthly spiritual journey to even a greater immensity, to the infinite heavens. By passing through limit situations, some people may remain with very bad memories, traumatized or even with crushed souls. I assume this about Lee from Black Water (Nerlich and Traucki 2007) after she witnesses the killing of her older sister Grace and her husband Adam by a saltwater crocodile in some swamps of Australia. I assume the existence of traumas in the case of Jenn from Backcountry (MacDonald 2014) after the death of her boyfriend Alex and after her subsequent lone survival experience, and also in the case of Parker from Frozen (Green 2010) after the dramatic death of her boyfriend Dan and of their friend Joe. The most devastated seems to be Lori, the protagonist of The Canyon (Harrah 2009). Close to the end of the film, she kills her husband Nick to protect him from the pain of being eaten alive by wolves, not knowing that a rescue helicopter will arrive soon. The positive effects of passing through limit situations are many. In these cases, the image of God becomes very visible in survivors. This revealing of God’s image in characters expresses through attitudes, gestures, through the living of some spiritual values. I will list some of these below accompanied with illustrative examples.

The rising from sins or the healing of some psychological wounds Dario from The 33 (Spanish: Los 33) (Riggen 2015) clearly changes his attitude toward life after the shock of those 69 days of confinement underground. Before the accident he was living like a homeless (sleeping on benches, drinking) and avoiding the dialog with his sister who wanted to

Conclusions  191 help him. After getting out of the mine, Dario is the one looking for his sister Maria. In the image of these two brothers embracing each other, the loving nature of people may be noticed. During the time, he has his arm stuck in by the rock, Aron Ralston from 127 Hours (Boyle 2010) realizes how wrong his previous life has been, although he got accustomed with it and it seemed to be like any regular life of a young educated person who could afford to live separately from his family. While blocked in that crevasse, his conscience (which is an important mark of God’s image inside him) is waking up revealing to Aron how alienated, selfish and incapable to express his feelings he was before. Actually, he was stuck in a kind of spiritual death. His blockage in the canyon ravine may be considered as a visual metaphor that depicts his spiritual status. Aron’s salvation comes due to his intelligence and strong will, strong enough to cut his blocked arm and to overcome the pain caused by this. He accepts this unbearable pain to be free again, to be able to join again the people he loves. Reason, will, love and vocation for freedom are some elements of God’s image that Aron Ralston discovers inside him during the accident. Now he can “move on” because he is no longer spiritually dead. Sergeant Michael Stevens from Mine (Guaglione and Resinaro 2016) is another character who needs to “move on.” Thinking that he stepped on a land mine, he remains blocked in the desert. This physical blockage is also a metaphor expressing his spiritual blockage in superficiality and in the propagandistic clichés delivered by the army. Sergeant Michael Stevens is a sniper. His hard re-humanization process is starting when he hesitates to “eliminate a target.” His conscience awakes when he could not answer the question of a Berber male met here: “Why you a soldier?” The limit situation Michael Stevens that finally manages to overcome helps him to see the truth by entering in a spiritual crisis able to demolish the clichés he previously accepted. This vocation for truth, no matter how painful, is an element of a “healthy” conscience, an element of God’s image inside him. The limit situation experienced by the ex-hockey player Eric LeMarque from 6 Below: Miracle on the Mountain (Waugh 2017) in February 2004, when he got lost in the wilderness of Sierra Nevada, represents a major turning point of his life. It helps him to give up his previous senseless life dominated by drug addiction, but costs him the partial loss of his legs. Eric’s strong will along with his mother’s love and perseverance saved then his physical life. That moment meant also was a new beginning in his spiritual life. As the character states at the end of the film, he “finally” feels alive and able to understand the proportion of his decline. With his conscience awaken and with his soul filled with love for others, Eric LeMarque will become a motivational speaker, an individual in which the presence of God’s image may be observed. While Eric LeMarque is trapped in the wilderness by accident, Cheryl Strayed from Wild (Vallee 2014) deliberately seeks the wilderness of nature to find the healing of her wild heart that led her into so many sins, into a deadend of her life. In this film, her soul suffocated by

192 Conclusions these sins and by so much pain, finds the immense nature as the one reality able to match its immensity and force. And to host them. By walking long distances, Cheryl is actually learning how to approach her soul. One way of perceiving God’s image in Cheryl is by perceiving the mystery of her soul. Behind the immense presence of nature lies the discrete (never directly mentioned) presence of God, the Healer of our souls.

The struggle to preserve humanity The struggle of characters to preserve their humanity is another mode through which God’s image is revealed in people. This mode often occurs in dystopian survival movies, but not only. In The Road (Hillcoat 2009), the father preserves his humanity by fighting for both the physical and spiritual life of his son in apocalyptic times. He maintains the physical integrity of his son by protecting him of all aggressions and dangers. He also takes care of the spiritual life of the child teaching him that survival is not possible through cannibalism, crimes and robbery. The rejection of cannibalism preserves their humanity, and it is an expression of the conscience, an element of God’s image inside them. In 28 Days Later (Boyle 2002) appears the idea that humanity cannot survive by accepting rape. This intuition states very clearly that human beings do not function only according to biological laws, but first of all according to the laws of the spirit which are centered on love and respect. Detective Thorn from Soylent Green (Fleischer 1973) assumes the role of a messenger of truth in a morally anesthetized world by shouting that euthanasia and disguised cannibalism cannot be solutions for the survival of humanity. He lets his conscience to express itself and, therefore, to express the presence of God’s image in his soul. Logan’s Run (Anderson 1976) states that people cannot reach happiness by avoiding God’s commandments, which means in fact avoiding His presence. Happiness without God is one that finally excludes humans, it is a perfectly artificial one, an illusion. The designers of this “perfect” society violate the command not to kill, and because of this all is completely wrong. People are brainwashed, persuaded that they happily live in a world that excludes God, a world they must leave at 30 through a ceremonial public execution. Logan and Jessica may be considered symbols of contemporary humans in search for themselves, trying to save themselves from the utopias amidst which they have been raised. These two characters search for something they are not sure exists, but that should exist: a natural world, a more livable world, one where people are not forced to be artificially happy, one where husbands and wives exist, one in which people can grow old and die naturally. The search for a natural world is the search for God’s world, namely a sort of unconscious search for God. As a French proverb says: “qui se ressemble, s’assemble.” People are looking for the One after Whose image they were made.

Conclusions  193 1984 (Radford 1984) outlines the portrait of spiritually mutilated human beings in which the image of God can no longer be seen. The totalitarian communist society from the film causes destruction of the people. They are left without intimacy and possibility to love and to be loved, without freedom, without thoughts and language, without any normal existential horizon. Their spirit is crushed and forced to “love” only the leader who is, at the same time, their torturer. In the lives of these tormented beings only loneliness, fear, betrayal and self-betrayal are left. But the destiny of a real person who passed through this kind of brainwashing, as is the case of Aurel Vișovan, a survivor of the horrific “Pitești Phenomenon,” gives us hope that this dehumanization process is reversible through God’s grace. Aurel Vișovan describes his inner life while he was brainwashed and spiritually crushed in the following terms: The idea of suicide had begun to infiltrate into my mind. They had annihilated my will, they had provoked that pathological repression of not tolerating any real or unreal thoughts that I would not divulge to the authorities. I was horrified at the thought that if – who knows how – I would get home and hear my mother speaking out against the regime and, with tears in my eyes, I would run to Securitate to rat her out. I don’t know if it could be anything worse. (Vișovan 48) For him this spiritual crash ended in a miraculous way: “The great miracle had been accomplished. I recovered. I was like before. I never thought it would ever happen to me. I regained my strength. I felt even stronger than before I entered the prison” (Vișovan 68). This unexpected change proves God’s love and care for every people in pain and demonstrates that God’s image never disappears inside of human beings. Fahrenheit 451 (Truffaut 1966), Equilibrium (Wimmer 2002) and Equals (Doremus 2016) also describe the efforts of totalitarian societies to create the “new man.” It is a type of “man” enforced by propaganda, a “man” surrounded everywhere by physical comfort provided by sophisticated technology, but deprived of freedom. This “new man” is built up more like a piece of technology, like a robot. These films can be interpreted as spiritual survival films. The first two try to impose a model of “man” without memory, feelings and inventiveness. The third presents love as a disease. All the physical comfort delivered by these societies is not able to provide the happiness and the answers the protagonists of the films are looking for. Finally, by daring and sometimes with the help of other people, the protagonists of these films will become themselves. The image of God that propaganda had tried so hard to cover in their souls finally manifested itself and freed itself with the force of a rushing river that broke all the dams to reach its normal bed.

194 Conclusions Bird Box (Brier 2018) offers a rather simplistic and “unrealistic” metaphor of people who may lose the control over themselves just by briefly looking to a demonic force. Much more plausible is the allegory delivered by Lord of the Flies (Hook 1990). The behavior of the 24 cadets that have to live alone on a desert island speaks about inter-human relations, about God and gods. The only one who manages to physically and spiritually survive till the end is Ralph. For different reasons, the other survivors become savages and murderers, killing in fact their own souls. The arrival of the rescuers surprises them while hunting Ralph, to their shame. These savage children could not stand Ralph because he represented the conscience that was showing the truth about them. Reason, conscience, courage and compassion are elements of God’s image that can be noticed in Ralph. Hostiles (S. Cooper 2017) brings together (in a larger group) two hard enemies: Captain Joseph Blocker and Cheyenne chief Yellow Hawk (who is suffering of cancer). Another protagonist of the film and member of this group is Rosalee Quaid, a woman who lost everything. This journey acquires spiritual value because, during it, people discover each other’s humanity and hate is replaced, at least, by deep respect and consideration. The three protagonists of the film are people very much hurt. Their humanity begins to reveal while, sometimes suddenly, other times little by little, the two warriors get over hostility. Rosalee manages to live with the pain of losing her entire family because of her faith. She once confesses that “I have to believe that is times like this that strengthens our bond with Him. If I did not have faith, what would I have?” The image of God inside these people living hard times becomes more visible while they get to know each other, acquire compassion and even deep communion helping each other. This was very clearly expressed by Chief Yellow Hawk while thanking Rosalee for her care: “Your spirit…you…within me! Me…within you!” This communion is also rendered in the farewell words addressed by Captain Joseph Blocker to the dying Chief Yellow Hawk: “Don’t look back, my friend! Go in a good way! A part of me dies with you.” In Life is Beautiful (Italian: La vitta e bella) (Benigni 1997), the father preserves his humanity through the sacrifice for his son. His loving and playful spirit proves to be even stronger within the horrible reality of the extermination camp, during the continuous menace of death. Here we have the God’s image in man in a unique recipe that incorporates love and sacrifice with a refined joking spirit. This father bequeaths to his child an extraordinary gift, a gentle way of regarding the world, of surviving, a lens through which injustice, humiliation and even death lose their abomination. The unwavering loving presence of the father even after his disappearance makes the world a less terrible environment and it is at the same time a metaphor that can signify the continuous and loving presence of the Heavenly Father even in the midst of the most terrifying reality. In another famous film about Holocaust, The Pianist (Polanski 2002), the passion for music preserves the humanity of people amidst war and

Conclusions  195 injustice. Art has sometimes the power to bring together even war enemies. The Polish pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman (of Jewish origin) and the German Army Captain Wilm Hosenfeld meet during wartime, but their common passion for music is able to lift them above the historical context. In the atmosphere of madness generated by the war, this common passion actually creates an oasis of normality, reason, humanity and beauty. The German officer helps the Jewish pianist to physically survive by providing him food and clothes. The Jewish pianist provided the German officer with a beautiful artistic moment while playing a work of Chopin. The need and the search for purity and beauty make very pregnant the God’s image inside people. Far from Men (French: Loin des homes) (Oelhoffen 2014) is another film about two men who meet in the midst of very turbulent historical events. The story is placed in Algeria in 1954 at the beginning of the civil war. The two protagonists are the French primary teacher Daru and Mohamed, an Algerian accused of murder, whom the teacher has to escort to Tinguit, to be judged. Daru realizes that, if he brings Mohamed to the authorities, he will be sentenced to death. Mohamed is also afraid that the family of the victim will follow him for revenge. The film tells their journey. At a crossroad close to Tinguit, Daru releases him advising to join the nomads where nobody will look for him. Mohamed follows his advice. Daru is happy for saving a man’s life. In this joy, the God’s image may be seen. Avva Alonie, a monk from the 4th or 5th century, also considers that is worth to lie for saving somebody’s life because God is the only One able to judge him/her right (The Egyptian Pateric/Patericul egiptean 39). German businessman Oskar Schindler from Schindler’s List (Spielberg 1993) and Swedish Ambassador Harald Edelstam, the protagonist of the The Black Pimpernel (Hultberg 2007), are other life saviors. They dare to take the side of the oppressed and of the victims during historical periods that may be considered limit situations for some countries or even for the entire humanity. They experience the truth of the saying that “Whoever saves one life saves the world entire.” Another expression of the true value of a human being is given by Our Lord Jesus Christ Who teaches us that a person is of more precious than “the whole world” (Matthew 16:26). In the attitudes full of compassion of Oskar Schindler and of Ambassador Harald Edelstam, the God’s image may be easily perceived. The struggle to remain human is very obvious in films about the Romanian communist prisons as Bless You, Prison! (Romanian: Binecuvântată fii, închisoare!) (Mărgineanu 2002) and Between Pain and Amen (Romanian: Între chin și amin) (Enache 2019).

Perseverance or strong will Perseverance is a feature of God’s image that can be noticed in many characters from survival movies. I will mention only few of them. Strong will

196 Conclusions (along with intelligence) save the lives of Jackson from Detour (W. Dickerson 2013) or of the protagonist from Wrecked (Greenspan 2013). Strong volition characterizes rescuers, too, in films as The Martian (Scott 2015), The 33 (Spanish: Los 33) (Riggen 2015) or The Last Descend (Halasima 2016). Endless perseverance is the mark of winners. Even when they are defeated by insurmountable adverse circumstances, they die with dignity as Paul Conroy from Buried (Cortes 2010) or John Jones from The Last Descent (Halasima 2016). Masters of perseverance are also Clemens Forell from As Far as My Feet Will Carry Me (German: So weit die Fusse tragen) (Martins 2001), Louis Zamperini from Unbroken (Jolie 2014) and Luke from Cool Hand Luke (Rosenberg 1967). In their stories, perseverance is triggered and maintained by their love for freedom. Both will and love for freedom are elements of God’s image inside them. All is Lost! (Chandor 2013) contains a unique combination of perseverance and sorrow. The unwritten diary or testament of the protagonist provides the viewer with a sample of the incomprehensible mystery of the human being. This lonely sailor appears as a melancholic hero who examines his life with certain regrets, but still preserving his dignity, even if he is not able to see any salvation: “I fought to the end, I don’t know if it’s worth. But I tried.” Another character who proves determination while passing through his survival story is Gulli from The Deep (Icelandic: Djupio) (Kormakur 2012). In his case, determination appears together with simplicity and modesty. Gulli shows also determination when he continues to tell his incredible survival story for the media and scientists who receive it with disbelief. Gulli’s survival is simply a miracle, but a miracle loaded with pain because he lost some friends during that accident. After it, Gulli continues his discreet life in silence among his fellow fishermen. He preserves his modesty, so he can preserve the unspoken effects of this miracle in his life. One effect is that Gulli can still enjoy this life and this world with its familiar places and figures. I consider the silence and the peace that Gulli emanates at the end of the film to be effects of God’s presence. Robyn Davidson, the protagonist from Tracks (Curran 2013), makes out of her attempt to cross the desert exactly a statement about will as an extraordinary power that lies sometimes unknown and unused in human beings: “this is precisely the point of my journey. I’d like to think that an ordinary person is capable of anything.” This power may open for humans an opportunity to invincibility and freedom, but this is just an opportunity which should be completed with a limitless opening to Christ in order to bring spiritual fulfillment and endless happiness.

The force of family bonds In some survival movies, the image of God becomes easier to be noticed when, in difficult situations; members of a family prove the love they have for each other. This love makes even the biological survival instinct to be

Conclusions  197 overcome. People act led by this love and use all of their qualities and all their energy into saving others. Being in this state of grace, during the limit situations, these people prove able to sacrifice themselves for others. They show qualities that they may not have had before or may not have known they have. It is the case of the protagonists from The River Wild (Hanson 1994), Alaska (Heston 1996), Escape from the Wildcat Canyon (Voizard 1998), The Road (Hillcoat 2009), The Impossible (Bayona 2012), Hours (Heisserer 2013), 6 Below: Miracle on the Mountain (Waugh 2017), Alpha (Hughes 2018), Breaking In (McTeigue 2018) or The Breakthrough (Dawson 2019). Testament (Littman 1983) demonstrates that family life does not mean isolation and that, in crisis situations, love that is the connection of a family is not a barrier to others, but rather openness to all that need care. When, during the nuclear catastrophe, Carol encounters Larry and Hiroshi, two children left without parents, she offers the protection of her family. Her attitude prepares the ground for introducing the ideas of friendship and communion as means of revealing God’s image in people.

Friendship A proverb says that “a friend in need is a friend indeed” (Dundes 2), and many survival films demonstrate the truth of this assertion. Friendship functions in those situations as a key element in survival. But beyond this “practical” value of friendship, it also has the capacity to reveal people as they are indeed: images of God. This friendship can be between people who belong to the same culture, as happens with Ralph and Piggy from Lord of the Flies (Hook 1990), Christopher McCandless and Wayne Westerberg from Into the Wild (Penn 2007), Mitch and Kelly from The Surface (Cates Jr. 2014), Bill Bryson and Stephen Katz from A Walk in the Woods (Kwapis 2015) or with Lee Jung-Soo and Dae-kyung from The Tunnel (Korean: Teo-neol) (Seong-Hun 2016). But perhaps more surprising and impressive are friendships that appear (during dangerous situations) between people belonging to different cultures or different “worlds.” This is the situation with the American journalist Sydney Schanberg and the Cambodian journalist Dith Pran from The Killing Fields (Joffe 1984), the white boy Jamie and the Cree boy Awasin from Lost in the Barrens (Scott 1990), the white Jesuit Father Paul LaForgue and the Algonquin Indian Chomina from Black Robe (Beresford 1991), the Jewish accountant Itzhak Stern and the German businessman Oskar Schindler from Schildler’s List (Spielberg 1993), the white missionary Steve Saint and Mincayani, a member of Waodani people from the Ecuadorian jungle, from End of the Spear (Hanon 2005), the French teacher Daru and the Algerian peasant Mohamed from Far from Men (French: Loin des hommes) (Oelhoffen 2014), the American navy SEAL soldier Marcus Lutrell and the Pashtun Mohammad Gulab from Lone Survivor (Berg 2013) or the army Captain Joseph Blocker and Cheyenne Chief Yellow Hawk from Hostiles

198 Conclusions (S. Cooper 2017). The existence of this kind of friendship between people that firstly looked so different proves that human beings are surprising and mysterious beings whose vocation is to end up behaving like brothers, sons of the same Heavenly Father.

Communion Given the above, I believe that what, in theological terms, is called communion, in secular terms could be translated as a very deep friendship. A deep and pure friendship represents a kind of communion in Christ, even when He is not named as such. Friendship at its highest degree implies to display a Christ-like behavior toward others. The Defiant Ones (Kramer 1958), through the image of a white and a black men, who, tied to the same chain, flee in search of freedom, offers one of the most appropriate and powerful symbols of the unity of all human beings and of communion. I think that characters from Flight of the Phoenix (Aldrich 1965), The Poseidon Adventure (Neame 1972), Survival Quest (Coscarelli 1988), Alive (Marshall 1993), The Way Back (Weir 2010), The Grey (Carnahan 2011), The Disappeared (Mithchel 2012), The 33 (Spanish: Los 33) (Riggen 2015) or Arctic (Penna 2018) reach this way of understanding friendship/communion. The encounter of the limit situation helps them to develop a sense of communion which many of them may have not been aware of otherwise. In Arctic (Penna 2018), the protagonist’s decision to do everything to keep the unknown woman alive also helps him to survive both physically and spiritually. This survival (his and hers) may be understood as a miracle, a gift and a reward from God. A concise definition of both friendship and communion is given by one of William Pitsenbarger’s fellows from The Last Full Measure (Robinson 2019): “Bill’s blood is mixed with ours. He is our brother!”

Remorse/repentance and asking for forgiveness Remorse/repentance and asking for forgiveness are other ways in which God’s image becomes visible in people. Remorse/repentance is a manifestation of the conscience. As I stated at the end of Chapter 10, according to the teachings of the Orthodox Church, repentance is not possible without an explicit faith in Jesus Christ. I consider remorse to be the first and the preliminary step toward repentance. A Protestant theologian as Richard V. Peace defined repentance as “a turning around in one’s thinking” (Peace 244). I consider that this mental change is also present when we speak of remorse and regret. And remorse and regret may be present in every people as manifestations of conscience and reason which are elements of God’s image in people. Deep remorse and regrets show characters like Sam Cayhall from The Chamber (Foley 1996), Robert Green from The Edge (Tamahori 1997) or Franț Țandură from The Afternoon of a Torturer (Romanian: După-amiza

Conclusions  199 unui torționar) (Pintilie 2001). Master Sergeant Thomas Metz from Hostiles (S. Cooper 2017) has a very tormented conscience and that is why he apologizes to Cheyenne Chief Yellow Hawk in this impressive way: “Our treatment of the Natives cannot be forgiven. Please… accept this tobacco. Have mercy on us.” Yellow Hawk remained silent, but he looked impressed. I think he finally “had mercy” on the soldiers on whose behalf Thomas Metz spoke. In Open Water 3: Cage Dive (Rascionato 2017) remorse plays a crucial role. Three American tourists, Josh, his brother Jeff and Jeff’s girlfriend Megan, while doing cage diving to spot sharks, find themselves in an extremely dangerous situation because the boat that brought them far from the coast capsizes. They manage to remain alive several hours in shark-infested waters. Jeff finds out that Meagan was cheating him with Josh for a while. Meagan dies soon after, and after some time Jeff will die too, perhaps due to his heart problems. Left alone and feeling deep remorse for what happened, Josh records his bitter confession-like declaration on camera: I don’t have much battery left. And I don’t think I’m going to make it alive. So just…if anyone finds this, please tell mom and dad that I love them. I love you and I miss you so much, I miss you so much. I didn’t want for any of this to happen. Jeff, if I could, I’d take it all back, man. I never would have overstepped the line with you and Megan. You mean the world to me. You mean…But I know that can’t happen. I watched you die. Now, it’s my turn. This is the voice of a man who, in the last moments of his earthly life, dissociates himself from the lie in which he has lived and expresses his regret for all the evil he has done to people around him. In this painful awakening of his conscience, something of the God’s image can be seen.

Forgiveness Forgiveness is not an easy thing to accomplish. Hugh Glass from The Revenant (Inarritu 2017) sees revenge as the only way to get justice for the murdering of his son Hawk. Sydney Pollack’s Jeremiah Johnson was caught in a long conflict with the Crow Indians. During this conflict, he lost his family and took revenge, but he is very happy when Paints-His-Shirt-Red, the Crow Indian chief, expresses his desire for peace. It takes Chris McCandless from Into the Wild (Penn 2007) almost a lifetime to be able to forgive his parents, Walt and Billie. After he passes through the limit situation, Brian from A Cry in the Wild (Griffiths 1990) acquires a certain wisdom, a way of accepting people the way they are, with their imperfections, even if this acceptance is painful for him (since this refers to his parents). I think that this wisdom is originated in forgiveness.

200 Conclusions At the end of the film, looking into each other’s eyes, after some time before they tried to kill one another in the fight for survival, Rie and Bharan from Cutterhead (Kloster Bro 2018) seem to have forgiven each other. If it is true, this suggested forgiveness offers them a release from a difficult situation. It restores, to a certain degree, their inner peace. Also about the liberating power of forgiveness is the story of Pasha and Sergei from How I Ended This Summer (Russian: Kak ya provyol etim letom) (Popogrebsky 2010). About the restoring power of forgiveness speaks the end of Hostiles (S. Cooper 2017), too. Forgiveness frees and provides a new life for three people who suffered a lot. It helps them to form a family. Through forgiveness, Rosalee Quaid, whose family was killed by Indians, becomes the adoptive mother of an Indian boy, Little Bear. He is from a different tribe than the killers, but still an Indian. The husband and father in this family becomes Captain Joseph Blocker, who previously was an enemy of Indians. In this extraordinary capacity to forgive and to love, God’s image in people may be easily seen.

The power to continue to live The power to continue to live in spite of all sorrows and defeats is a form of hope and one of implied faith. It shows a certain opening toward God, even if He is not always named explicitly as such. I consider this capacity as related to will, love and rationality which are mentioned as “powers” of the soul by Father Marin Ciulei (M. Ciulei 91). This power which brings together such important “powers” may be distinguished in the souls of Rosalee Quaid from Hostiles (S. Cooper 2017), of Chuck Noland from Cast Away (Zemeckis 2000), of Shaurya from Trapped (Motwane 2016) or in Joy “Ma” Newsome and his son Jack from Room (Abrahamson 2015).

The vocation of freedom The vocation of freedom is a fundamental and defining manifestation of human beings. The Orthodox theology expresses this truth by including freedom as free will among the elements which belong to God’s image in people (Ioan G. Coman paraphrased in Stan 167). This vocation of freedom can also be related to the mistery of the human soul (Stan 187), and it appears in films in several ways. One of its hypostasis is the search for vast wild spaces in Jeremiah Johnson (Pollack 1972), Into the Wild (Penn 2007) or Wild (Vallee 2014). Here there is also a kind of search for adventure in the sense of self-exploration while living in nature. Some people do extreme sports to experience a sensation of freedom. It is the case of Aron Ralston from 127 Hours (Boyle 2010) or of Eric LeMarque from 6 Below: Miracle on the Mountain (Waugh 2017). This thirst for freedom is exemplarily expressed also by the prison break theme as appears in The Defiant Ones (Kramer 1958), Cool Hand Luke (Rosenberg 1967), Papillon (Schaffner

Conclusions  201 1973), A Dog Called Vengeance (Spanish: El perro) (Issasi-Isasmendi 1977) or Escape from Alcatraz (Siegel 1979). The taste of freedom combined with that of victory and with the desire to achieve things apparently impossible is a pretty frequent mixture of feelings for survival movies characters. It appears especially related with the climbing of extremely difficult peaks, with the exploration of caves, jungles and exotic places. Characters as Tony Kurz and Andi Hinterstoisser from North Face (German: Nord wand) (Stozl 2008), the alpinists from Everest (Kormakur 2015), Frank and Joshua McGuire from Sanctum (Grierson 2011) John and Josh Jones from The Last Descent (Halasima 2016) or Yossi and Kevin from Jungle (McLean 2017) experienced the call of hardto-reach spaces.

The work of conscience or how to do the right thing at the right moment After a very difficult race for his physical survival, Doctor John Lake from River (Dagg 2015) was about to board the plane that could have taken him home, when he does something apparently unexpected… He was about to escape the physical threat, to reach safety, but in order to remain also spiritually alive he decided to do a paradoxical gesture. He returns to Laos, so that an innocent woman not to suffer because of him. By doing so, the image of God becomes very visible inside of him. Doctor John Lake listens to the voice of the conscience that gives him the strength to go against the instinct of physical survival. In this way, he behaves as a human being, as a man in his full splendor, not as an animal dominated by fear.

The power to testify the truth at any risk To testify the truth even/especially when this attitude can have very unpleasant consequences is a way of doing the right thing at the right moment, a way of affirming the vocation that people have for truth. This vocation is linked, at the same time, with reason, will and sentiment as elements of God’s image in people. In some cases, the passing through limit situations is able to strengthen the attachment humans have to the truth. This happens to George Pollard Jr. and Owen Chase, captain and first mate of the lost whaling ship Essex, protagonists of In the Heart of the Sea (Howard 2015). After passing through a very harsh survival story, the two refuse to promote the false version imposed by the ship-owners, even this could affect the careers of both. The two characters act like this for the sake of the truth and out of respect for the people who died or suffered during these events. During and after the limit situation, George and Owen acquire an “additional” respect for their own lives and for others’. In Silence (Scorsese 2016), we encounter an interesting case and method of spiritual survival: a series of lies is used to protect the truth. In times of

202 Conclusions cruel anti-Christian persecutions, Fathers Rodrigues and Ferreira behave as defeated persons, accepting formal apostasy, in order to keep in the depths of their souls and of others their defining value: the faith in Jesus Christ. The practical validity of this solution may be discussed on other occasions.

The spirit of sacrifice/self-sacrifice On the same spiritual path as Doctor John Lake from River (Dagg 2015) are Marius, Agnette, Gudrun, Nigo and Ball brothers from The 12th Man (Norwegian: Den 12. Mann) (Zwart 2018), who accept to expose themselves to great risks in order to save Jan Baalsrud’s life. Overgard, the man from Arctic (Penna 2018), invests all his strength to the point of exhaustion in rescuing an unknown woman. Other people die in the process of saving or protecting others. It is the case of Reverend Scott and Belle Rosen from Poseidon Adventure (Neame 1972), William Pitsenbarger from The Last Full Measure (Robinson 2019) or Alex from Backcountry (MacDonald 2014). Other character who proves spirit of self-sacrifice is Desmond Doss from Hacksaw Ridge (Gibson 2016). A concise definition of this extraordinary human quality is given in The Last Full Measure (Robinson 2019) by the motto of the Pararescumen. According to it, sacrifice represents all “these things we do that other may live.” Nate Saint and the other missionaries from End of the Spear (Hannon 2005) do not use their guns to defend themselves against the attack of the Waodani people. They accept to sacrifice their lives in order to show the Waodani that the Christian way of life offers them a chance to get out of the chain of revenges and to approach salvation. The willingness to sacrifice for others is a sign of the presence of God’s image in people.

Love The image of God becomes the most visible in people when they love each other because “God is love” (1 John 4:16). Daniel Kinter and Susan Watkins from Open Water (Kentis 2003), Nick and Lori from The Canyon (Harrah 2009), Alex and Jenn from Backcountry (MacDonald 2014), Richard Sharp and Tami Ashcraft from Adrift (Kormakur 2018) or James More and Danielle Flinders from Submergence (Wenders 2017) are just few examples of characters that support this statement. Every love story represents an essential encounter. Because of these essential encounters, characters “dive” their spirits in certain “states of crisis” that help them to show their profound and true nature. But there are also other kinds of important encounters.

Other essential encounters/transformations In The Snow Walker (Smith 2003), an essential and short encounter takes place between the white pilot Charlie Halliday and the Eskimo girl named

Conclusions  203 Kanaalaq. They develop a very delicate and pure relation. It is hard to say if it is the beginning of a love story, a story of comradeship or maybe both. Anyway, encountering Kanaalaq will help Charlie to become more human, to overcome many clichés, to go through sufferings, to really understand and live the sentiment of brotherhood for all people. While all these happen, God’s image is revealing more and more inside him. Many characters who witnessed the brave and dedicated attitude of William “Pits” Pitsenbarger from The Last Full Measure (Robinson 2019) have their lives changed. First of all, the memory of Pits brings and keeps them together. Second, it helps them to become better persons, to reveal God’s image inside them by sticking to the truth, by overcoming their weaknesses, by seeking justice together, in communion. These are some of the miracles that happen when one man (in this case, Pits) manages to behave Christlike. After encountering Pits’ story, the young Pentagon employee Scott Huffman decides that human values are more important than professional career. Billy Takoda finds the power to admit that many of his fellows died in a “friendly fire” because he miscalculated their position. Other soldiers involved in the events as Tully, Burr and Mott find somehow their peace after Pits is postmortem awarded with the Medal of Honor. By receiving the Medal of Honor in behalf of their son, Pits’ parents receive also a certain consolation. They understand that he was an extraordinary man if his behavior saved so many lives then and changes lives even today. Pits’s story waited for more than 30 years to reach this end. It is an open end that leaves the characters mentioned above with their souls opened to eternity. For all, the girl, her brother and the Aboriginal boy, from Walkabout (Roeg 1971), meeting each other under those circumstances has represented an essential event in their lives. This fact seems to be obvious at least for the girl, who, at the end of the film, after she re-entered in the frames of urban life, still bears in her mind the memory of the desert that symbolize at the same time danger, mystery and freedom. But, by far, the most interesting character of the film is the Aboriginal teenager who lives his unrequited love story with spiritual purity, with total commitment and readiness for sacrifice. It is in these characteristics that the image of God may be “detected.” The Return (Russian: Vozvrashchenie) (Zvyagintsev, 2003) speaks also about an essential encounter, that between Andrei, Ivan and their father, after many years of their parent absence. The trip of the three to and on a desert island contains some tense moments. These moments culminate when, as a reaction to the fact that the father has hit Andrei, Ivan runs away and climbs on the roof of an old tower. Knowing his fear of heights, his father follows him, but, due to an accident, the father falls off and dies. The father and the two sons love each other, but they cannot find calmer ways to express it. The encounter with their father along with his tragic end changes the lives of the sons. In the tumult of the events, Ivan overcomes his fear of heights. From the top of the tower, he shouts at the same time angrily and victoriously: “I can do anything!” The father dies trying to protect his

204 Conclusions son, whom he has upset. Somehow unexpectedly, during these events, love expressed itself and erupted in a very concentrate form as in the last words of the father: “Vanya, son….” Through these few alarmed words a spark of love occurs, and, in the light of this spark, the God’s image can be seen. Discovering that their father loved them will change the sons’ lives forever. Deeply hurt by the behavior of his parents and not interested in what standard way of life could offer him, in 1990, the Emory graduate Christopher McCandless – Into the Wild (Penn 2007) – decided to take another course of his life. He opens himself to the challenges of the world by starting an adventurous journey. He is leaving his past life by renouncing the “safety” provided by his car and his money savings becoming a “leather” (a “leather tramp”) as one of his future friends will called him later on. He will take a new name, that of Alexander Supertramp. During this journey, our hero will encounter some people that will play a role in his spiritual development. The first essential encounter is with the forest, with the nature on the Pacific Crest Trail. It provides him with the sense of immensity, peace and beauty. The two encounters with Rainey and Jan, a traveling hippie couple, gives him a certain sense of a warm family. Meeting Wayne whom he employed to work on combine harvesters provided him with the sense of true comradeship and with the beauty of work in the fields. The brief encounter of the Danish couple Mads and Sonja on the Colorado River gave him a sense of liberty and (I dare say) purity. When he is beaten by a railway security officer on his way back from Mexico, he understands that sometimes physical pain is a price for liberty. While in “Slab City” visiting Rainey and Jan, Chris, alias Alexander Supertramp, meets a teenage girl named Tracy who falls in love with him. He does not take advantage of her. Being protective to her provides a sense of “extra” purity to his soul. In a gas station near Salton City, our protagonist meets the lonely and sad old man Ron Franz, who lost his family in an accident. With him he develops a special friendship and Ron even wants to adopt him as his grandchild. Chris/Alex postpones the answer until his comeback from Alaska. With Ron he will have another experience of both friendship and family. Close to the end of the film, our traveler will meet nature again, this time as his enemy, as a space of confinement, pain and death instead of freedom and happiness. He will be released soon, because while dying of eating a poisonous plant, God opens His splendor in front of his eyes. Seeing this beauty, Chris thinks with forgiveness at his parents. The forgiveness and the love he acquires represent the conclusions of all the important encounters he had and of this journey. In the love and the forgiveness offered by the character the image of God becomes visible. Death is presented as the end of a journey and as the beginning of another. The most important encounter from The Grey (Carnahan 2011) is the face-to-face confrontation between John Ottway alone and the whole pack of wolves that has chased him and his fellows for a long time. The film ends right at the beginning of it, leaving the ending of the film open. For

Conclusions  205 John this is the DAY when he should, at the same time, be prepared to fully die and fully live, as the poem of his father says. The end of the film concentrates and rises to an extremely high level the tension accumulated throughout the action. In the last frame, John Ottway provides the image of man determined to fight total and to the end. It is the image of the man unchained, the man who has nothing to lose, freed from fear, simply freed, as much as is in man’s power to free himself. An unlimited will may be observed on his face, a strong will not limited by anything, not even by the limitations of the body. In this attitude, it can be seen something from the infinity of human soul and will, namely something from the image of God in man.

Faith Vladimir Lossky defines faith as “a personal adherence to the personal presence of God Who reveals Himself” (Lossky 13). That’s why, through faith, the human being created by God affirms the reality of the Creator. Actually, this act of “personal adherence” is a direct affirmation that we belong to God and He belongs to us, that we are made by Him and after His image. A key element in the so-called re-education that started in 1949 at Pitești prison (Mureșan 92–94) was the destruction of faith and the forcing of those imprisoned to abjure and blaspheme. Tase Caraman from Between Pain and Amen (Romanian: Între chin și amin) (Enache 2019) manages not to do so, meaning that he manages to preserve his humanity. Nicoleta Valeria Grossu, the heroine from Bless You, Prison! (Romanian: Binecuvântată fii, închisoare!) (Mărgineanu 2002), describes the fundamental role that faith played in her life while she was imprisoned by the communist regime in this way: My only wish was to immerse myself into faith, to take my beneficent power from here. I set out to be serene, to sing psalms… In such a state of my spirit, I decided almost unconsciously to smile at the guard who was delivering me food. I did not feel hatred for him, on the contrary, I tried to forgive him. Through faith, serenity and joy the image of God was miraculously developing inside her. Beyond its dangerously free approach to the text of the Old Testament, I mention Noah (Aronofsky 2014) as a relevant film for this topic. The film debates the question of faith, of what obedience to God really means, and concludes that faith and obedience should be always controlled by love and mercy. I also consider Breakthrough (Dawson 2019) as relevant for this topic, along with the films already mentioned at the end of Chapter 10: Black Robe (Beresford 1991), End of the Spear (Hannon 2005) and

206 Conclusions Silence (Scorsese 2016). In Breakthrough (Dawson 2019), a series miracle happens to save the life of John Smith, who drowned in a lake and the regular resuscitation procedure proved to be useless. He was brought to the hospital, but he remained without pulse for almost an hour till his desperate mother cried to the Lord: “Please, Lord, send Your Holy Spirit and save my son!” And right after that, the pulse reappears. This is one climax of the film and it shows God as He is, a loving God Who listens to prayers. This moment makes also very visible the image of God in Joyce Smith, the mother, through her immense love, pain, determination, fragility and faith. Another miracle that happens is that, after a long induced coma, John perfectly recovers, without sequelae. The third miracle related to this event is that John’s accident was able bring together many people. The guardian from the lake, the rescuers, the medical staff, the school mates, the pastor, the people from the church and from other areas of society, each of them played a role in John’s rescue. People deeds and prayers function here as survival tools. In their loving behavior, God’s image may be very easily seen. People who believe in Our Lord Jesus Christ are meant for this kind of communion, “they may all be one” (John 17:21), able to break through every wall. Throughout this chapter of conclusions, I have emphasized the Orthodox Christian anthropological approach, and I have presented several ways in which God’s image (through its elements) can be distinguished inside the characters of survival films. Some climaxes of the limit situations that help the revealing of God’s image present in every human being should be considered as moments of grace, as gifts from God. Without the explicit knowledge and faith in Jesus Christ, people cannot remain for a long time in these blessed states, during which the souls fully express themselves. Among the films I have analyzed, there are at least two clear cases of approaching to the spiritual values as a direct consequence of passing through limit situations. I think of Louis Zamperini from Unbroken (Jolie 2014) and Eric LeMarque from 6 Below: Miracle on the Mountain (Waugh 2017). Along with the biological survival instinct, the spiritual motivation helps these people to survive. Often survival instinct and the spiritual motivation go in the same direction, but there are cases when they are in contradiction. When this happens, it is better for the spiritual motivation to be stronger than the survival instinct and to prevail over fear and biology. Faith in Jesus Christ can offer this powerful spiritual motivation. Through his powerful spirit, Louis Zamperini remained free and “unbroken” in the Japanese labor camps, but it is faith in Christ and forgiveness that helped him to preserve his spiritual freedom after he was released. By using this combination of strength, faith and forgiveness, Louis Zamperini preserved his spiritual life, he remained also spiritually alive. But according to John Behr’s interpretation of Saint Irenaeus of Lyons’ pneumatology as described by Anthony Briggman, “all living human beings are body and soul made alive, indirectly (in temporal life) or directly

Conclusions  207 (in eternal life), by the presence of the Holy Spirit” (Briggman 152). I understand from this assertion that all people are alive, but those who call the Holy Spirit, as they receive Him more and more, become more and more alive. The living human being is the one who finds inside himself/herself the image of the One after Whom he/she was created. A human being becomes fully human when he/she no longer wants to cover this image inside of him/ her, when he/she wants to approach, even through passions, through Jesus Christ, the Image after he/she was created. Father John Behr interprets in this way Saint Ignatius of Antioch’s wish of not to be stopped from his way to the martyrdom for Christ. Saint Ignatius considers that only when he will reach that point, he will be human (Behr a 3) “indeed”: It is better for me to die for the sake of Jesus Christ than to reign over the boundaries of the world. Him I seek Who died for us. Him I desire, Who rose (for our sakes). (…) Hinder me not from entering into life: desire not my death. Bestow not upon the world him who desires to be God’s, nor tempt me with the things of this life. Suffer me to receive pure light. When I come thither then shall I be man indeed. Suffer me to be an imitator of the passion of my God. (St Ignatius of Antioch 77) This Christian understanding of humanity and of life gives us a surprisingly, but a clear and complete, perspective on what survival should really mean. From this perspective, the goal of life is people’s deification, is to become God-like creatures, united with Him because, as Saint Athanasius says: “God became man so that man might become divine” (Saint Athanasius qtd Harakas 170). Therefore, when limit situations occur, people should remember that they first must fulfill this spiritual vocation and bring or keep their soul of the path of approaching God. I insisted so much on the spiritual component of survival because the contemporary films that refer to this idea are complex creations and they lead me to this path in order to analyze them in a proper manner. Throughout the study I have presented the survival movies from some different perspectives: a theoretical one (based on genre theory) and another, historical. I have analyzed particular films mainly from the narrative point of view and according to the Orthodox Christian anthropology. I have approached survival as a biological reality, but also as one related to technology, community and morality. I have put a special emphasis on the potential for inner transformation that the limit situations encountered in the movies can have in the lives of the characters, namely on the survival understood as spiritual reality. Through this, I have completed and surpassed the predominantly social and community perspective from which Thomas Sobchack regarded this kind of films in the 80s of the 20th century. The introduction and the development of the concept of spiritual survival film helped me to make more flexible the criteria according to which a film can be considered

208 Conclusions as belonging to the survival type and to expand the list of the films that can fit into this category. This also happens because, as I said before, survival movies become more and more interesting and complex along the years, especially along the last three decades. Born as a subgenre of the adventure genre, as it was introduced by Thomas Sobchack (Sobchack 12), due to its overlap across the borders of other traditional genres, survival movies has become in the late years very prolific in form. They blend survival stories with love stories (Love Story, Adrift, Backcountry, The Canyon, Submergence), with war stories (Lone Survivor, Dunkirk, The Pianist, Hickshaw Ridge, The 12th Man, Land of Mine, The Last Full Measure), with Western stories (Jeremiah Johnson, Meek’s Cutoff, Hostiles, Never Grow Old, The Salvation), with SF stories (Logan’s Run, Soylent Green, Fahrenheit 451, 1984, Equilibrium, Equals, The Road), with existential and philosophical stories (Cool Hand Luke, Walkabout, Lord of the Flies, Testament, 127 Hours, Far from Men, Jungle, Right at Your Door, Wild, The Snow Walker, How I Ended This Summer, The Return, Into the Wild, The Deep, Cast Away, Unbroken, The Grey, All is Lost!, Room, Leave No Trace, Arctic) and provide real masterpieces. I consider these films as masterpieces especially for the fact that they are able to offer profound and accurate portrayals of contemporary people while their souls are unveiled, tested and transformed by the passing through limit situations. That’s why my analysis focused especially on characters. Survival films have a great capacity to describe people because they capture their image in crisis situations, when “masks fall” and when their true nature can be revealed. This true nature is, according to Orthodox Christian anthropology, always the image of God inside of them. I revealed this image of God in the characters of the survival films by unfolding it into its elements (Stan 167). I considered that these elements are the sources of the behaviors presented in films and that’s why they can be “extracted” from these behaviors and used as proofs of the manifestation of God’s image in characters. In the characters who live consciously the faith in Christ, the elements of God’s image can be very clearly distinguished, and it can be seen/understood the way in which this image is fulfilling its vocation through “the work of likeliness” (Stăniloae c 272). Among these characters are Father Laforgue from Black Robe (Beresford 1991), Nate Saint and the missionaries from End of the Spear (Hanon 2005) or Fathers Ferreira, Garupe and Rodrigues and the Christians from Silence (Scorsese 2016). In people who are not explicitly interested in the Christian faith, these elements can be expressed in several ways: as the correcting of a wrong behavior, as the struggle to preserve their humanity, as the listening to the voice of the conscience, as help offered to others, as perseverance, as love for parents and relatives, as friendship, as remorse for something they did wrong, as forgiveness, as endurance, as vocation for freedom, as spirit of self-sacrifice, as love. For people who deliberately choose the wrong path, as Brian O’Brian from Sands of the Kalahari (Endfield 1965) or Tubal-Cain

Conclusions  209 from Noah (Aronofsky 2014), I find very appropriate Father Dumitru Stăniloae’s statement that inside them “the structures of human nature remain essentially the same, but they are activated in a sense opposite to (this) nature” (Stăniloae c 273). As a final consideration, I say that, due to today’s historical conditions, due to a great interest of the public in survival stories and in scenarios referring to mankind’s relationships with its own technology, due to their special focus on the human nature and due to the increasing number of masterpieces of the late years, it is possible that survival films will become one of the major cinematic genres in the future.

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214 Bibliography • Morris, John W. (Archpriest). The Historic Church. An Orthodox View of Christian History. AuthorHouse, 2011. • Mundt, Christoph. “Jaspers Concept of : Extensions and Therapeutic Applications”. Karl Jaspers’Philosophy and Psychopathology, edited by Thomas, Fuchs et al. Springer Science & Business Media, 2013, pp. 169–178. • Mureșan. Alin. Pitești. Cronica unei sinucideri asistate. Third edition. Editura Manuscris, 2017. • Neale, Steve. “Questions of Genre”. Film Genre Reader III, edited by Berry Keith Grant. University of Texas Press, 2003, pp. 160–184. • Nellas, Panayotis. Omul - animal îndumnezeit. Editura Deisis, 1994. • Noble, Ivana. Theological Interpretation of Culture in Post-Communist Context. Central and East European Search for Roots. Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2010. • Payton, James Jr. The Victory of the Cross. Salvation in Eastern Orthodoxy. InterVarsity Press, 2019. • Philokalia. The Eastern Christian Spiritual Texts-Selections Annotated & Explained. Annotated by Allyne Smith. Translation by G. H. E. Palmer, Philip Sherrard and Bishop Kallistos Ware. SkyLight Paths Publishing, 2008. • Piantadosi, Claude. The Biology of Human Survival: Life and Death in the Extreme Environments. Oxford University Press, 2003. • Plested, Marcus. “Reflections on the Reception of the Church Fathers in the Contemporary Context”. Theology in the Service of the Church: Global and Ecumenical Perspectives, edited by Allen Hugh Cole Jr., Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2014, pp. 3–13. • Pop, Doru. Lecția de cinemeză. Editura Ecou Transilvan, 2020. • Post, Stephen. Unlimited Love: Altruism, Compassion and Service. Templeton Foundation Press, 2003. • Preston, Catherine. “Hanging on a Star: The Resurection of the Romance Film in the 1990s”. Film Genre 2000: New Critical Essays, edited by Wheeler Winston Dixon. SUNY Press, 2000, pp. 227–244. • Proeve, Michael and Tudor, Steven. Remorse. Psychological and Jurisprudential Perspectives. Routledge, 2016. • Reinhartz, Adele. “Reversing the Hermeneutical Flow: Noah’s Flood in Recent Hollywood Films”. T&T Clark Companion to the Bible and Film, edited by Richard Walsh, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2018, pp. 287–299. • Ritzer, Ivo and Schulze, Peter. “Genre Hybridisation”. Genre Hybridisation: Global Cinematic Flow, edited by Ivo Ritzer, Ivo and Peter Schulze. Schuren Verlag, 2016, pp. 9–38. • Sachs, Randall John. The Christian Vision of Humanity: Basic Christian Anthropology. The Liturgical Press, 1991. • Schmemann, Alexander. For the Life of the World. Sacraments and Orthodoxy. Saint Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2004. • Sison, Antonio. World Cinema, Theology and the Human: Humanity in Deep Focus. Routledge, 2012. • Slade, Andrew. “Hiroshima, Mon Amour, Trauma, and the Sublime”. Trauma and Cinema: Cross-Cultural Explorations, edited by E. Ann Kaplan and Ban Wan. Hong Kong University Press, 2004, pp. 165–182.

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Filmography

• 6 Below: Miracle on the Mountain. Directed by Scott Waugh, performances by Josh Hartnett, Mira Sorvino and Sarah Dumon, Dune Entertainment, 2017. • 7 Days in Entebbe. Directed by Jose Padihla, performances by Zina Zinchemko, Ben Schnetzer and Alla Dakka, Participant Media, 2018. • 13 Hours. Directed by Michael Bay, performances by John Krasinski, Pablo Schreiber and James Badge Dale, Paramount Pictures, 2016. • 28 Days Later. Directed by Danny Boyle, performances by Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris and Cristopher Ecclerston, DNA Films, 2002. • ’71. Directed by Yann Demange, performances by Jack O’Connell, Sam Reid and Sean Harris, Crab Apple Films, 2014. • 127 Hours. Directed by Danny Boyle, performances by James Franco, Amber Tamblyn and Kate Mara, Pathe, 2010. • 1984. Directed by Michael Radford, performances by John Hurt, Richard Burton and Suzanna Hamilton, Umbrella-Rosenblum Films Production, 1984. • 2001: A Space Odyssey. Directed by Stanley Kubrick, performances by Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood and William Sylvester, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), 1968. • 2012. Directed by Roland Emmerich, performances by John Cusack, Thandie Newton and Chiwetel Ejofor, Columbia Pictures, 2009. • A Cry in the Wild. Directed by Mark Griffiths, performances by Jared Rushton, Ned Beatty and Pamela Sue Martin, Concorde Pictures, 1990. • A Dog Called Vengeance (Spanish: El Perro). Directed by Antonio ­Isasi-Isasmendi, performances by Jason Miller, Lea Massari and Marisa Paredes, Deva Cinematografica, 1976. • A Hijacking (Danish: Kapringen). Directed by Tobias Lindholm, performances by Pilou Asbæk, Søren Malling and Dar Salim, Nordisk Film, 2012. • A Twelve-Year Night (Spanish: La noche de 12 anos). Directed by Alvaro Brechner, performances by Antonio de la Torre, Chino Darin and Alfonso Tort, Alcara­van, 2018. • A Walk in the Woods. Directed by Ken Kwapis, performances by Robert Redford, Nick Nolte and Emma Thompson, Route One Entertainment, 2015. • A Walk to Remember. Directed by Adam Shankman, performances by Mandy Moore, Shane West and Peter Coyote, Warner Bros, 2002. • Abandon Ship! Directed by Richard Sale, performances by Tyrone Power, Mai Zetterling, and Lloyd Nolan, Copa Productionst, 1957.

218 Filmography • Adrift. Directed by Baltasat Kormakur, performances by Shailene Woodley, Sam Caflin and Jeffrey Thomas, Huayi Brothers, 2018. • After Earth. Directed by M. Night Shyamalan, performances by Jaden Smith, David Denman and Will Smith, Columbia Pictures, 2013. • Airplane! Directed by Jim Abrahams and David Zucker, performances by Robert Hays, Julie Hagerty and Leslie Nielsen, Paramount Pictures, 1980. • Airport. Directed by George Seaton and Henry Hathaway, performances by Burt Lancaster, Dean Martin and George Kennedy, Universal Pictures, 1970. • Airport 1975. Directed by Jack Smight, performances by Charlton Heston, Karen Black and George Kennedy, Universal Pictures, 1974. • Alabama Moon. Directed by Tim McCanlies, performances by Jimmy Bennett, Gabriel Basso and Uriah Shelton, Alabama Moon Entertainment, 2009. • Alaska. Directed by Fraser Heston, performances by Thora Birch, Vincent Kartheiser and Dirk Benedict, Castle Rock Entertainment, 1996. • Alfa. Directed by Albert Hughes, performances by Kodi Smit-McPhee, Johannes Haukur Johannesson and Marcin Kowalczyk, Studio 8, 2018. • Alive (Frank Marshall, 1993) Directed by Frank Marshall, performances by Ethan Hawke, Vincent Spano and Josh Hamilton, Film Andes S.A., 1993. • All Is Lost! Directed by J.C. Chandor, performance by Robert Redford, Roadside Attractions. 2013. • American Guerrilla in Philippines. Directed by Fritz Lang, performances by Tyrone Power, Micheline Presle and Tom Ewelly, Twentieth Century Fox, 1950. • Anything to Survive. Directed by Zale Dalen, performances by Robert Conrad, William B. Davis and Tom Heaton, ATL Productions, 1990. • Apocalypto. Directed by Mel Gibson, performances by Gerardo Taracena, Raoul Max Trujillo and Dalia Hernández, Icon Entertainment International, 2006. • Apocalipse Now. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola, performances by Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando and Robert Duvall, American Zoetrope, 1979. • Arctic. Directed by Joe Penna, performances by Mads Mikkelsen and Maria Thelma Smáradóttir, Armory Films, 2018. • Argo. Directed by Ben Affleck, performances by Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston and John Goodman, Warner Bros, 2012. • As Far as My Feet Will Carry Me (German: So weit die Fusse tragen). Directed by Hardy Martins, performances by Bernhard Bettermann, Iris Böhm and Anatoliy Kotenyov, B & C Filmproduktion GmbH, 2001. • Away from Her. Directed by Sarah Polley, performances by Julie Christie, Michael Murphy and Gordon Pinsent, Foundry Films, 2007. • Backcountry. Directed by Adam MacDonald, performances by Missy Peregrym, Eric Balfour and Nicholas Campbell, Fella Films, 2014. • Bait. Directed by Kimble Rendall, performances by Richard Brancatisano, Xavier Samuel and Chris Betts, Bait Productions, 2012. • Batman. Directed by Tim Burton, performances by Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholoson and Kim Basinger, Warner Bros., 1989. • Batman: The Movie. Directed by Leslie Martinson, performances by Adam West, Burt Ward and Lee Meriwether, Marvel Enterprises, 1966. • Before the Fall (German: Napola – Elite fur den Fuhrer). Directed by Denis Gansel, performances by Max Riemelt, Tom Schilling and Devid Striesow, Olga Film, 2001.

Filmography  219 • Behind Enemy Lines. Directed by John Moore, performances by Gene Hackman, Owen Wilson and Gabriel Macht, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, 2001. • Between Pain and Amen (Romanian: Între chin și amin). Directed by Toma Enache, performances by Vali Popescu, Constantin Cotimanis and Kira Hagi, La Steaua Film Studio, 2019. • Beyond the Reach. Directed by Jean-Baptiste Leonetti, performances by Michael Douglas, Jeremy Irvine and Martin Plamer, Square One Cinema, 2014. • Bird Box. Directed by Susanne Bier, performances by Sandra Bullock, Trevante Rhodes and John Malkovich. Netflix, 2018. • Bitter Harvest. Directed by George Mendeluk, performances by Max Irons, Samantha Barks and Terence Stamp, Tell Me a Storey, 2017. • Black Hawk Down. Directed by Ridley Scott, performances by Josh Hartnett, Ewan McGregor and Tom Sizemore, Revolution Studios, 2001. • Black Robe. Directed by Bruce Beresford, performances by Lothaire Bluteau, Aden Young and Sandrine Holt, Alliance Communications Corporation, 1991. • Black Water. Directed by David Nierlich and Andrew Traucki, performances by Diana Glen, Maeve Dermody and Andy Rodonera, The Australian Film Commission, 2007. • Blast from the Past. Directed by Hugh Wilson, performances by Brendan Fraser, Alicia Silverstone and Christopher Walken, Forge, 1999. • Bless You, Prison! (Romanian: Binecuvântată fii, închisoare!). Directed by Nicolae Mărgineanu, performances by Maria Ploae, Dorina Lazăr and Ecaterina Nazare, Ager Film S.r.l., 2002. • Blood and Money. Directed by John Barr, performances by Tom Berenger, Kristed Hager and Paul Ben-Victor, Allagash, 2020. • Breaking In. Directed by James McTeigue, performances by Gabrielle Union, Billy Burke and Richard Cabrall, Will Packer Productions, 2018. • Breakthrough. Directed by Roxann Dawson, performances by Marcel Ruiz, Topher Grace and Sarah Constible, Fox 2000 Pictures, 2019. • Buried. Directed by Rodrigo Cortes, performances by Ryan Reynolds, José Luis García Pérez and Robert Paterson, Versus Entertainment, 2010. • Captain Phillips. Directed by Paul Greengrass, performances by Tom Hanks, Barkhad Abdi and Barkhad Abdirahman, Scott Rudin Productions, 2013. • Cast Away. Directed by Robert Zemekis, performances by Tom Hanks, Helen Hunt and Paul Sanchez, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, 2000. • Children of Men. Directed by Alfonso Cuaron, performances by Julianne Moore, Clive Owen and Chiwetel Ejiofor, Universal Pictures, 2006. • Code 46. Directed by Michael Winterbottom, performances by Tim Robbins, Samantha Morton and Om Puri, BBC Films, 2003. • Colossus: The Forbin Project. Directed by Joseph Sargent, performances by Eric Braeden, Susan Clark and Gordon Pinsent, Universal Pictures, 1970. • Cool Hand Luke. Directed by Stuart Rosenberg, performances by Paul Newman, George Kennedy and Strother Martin, Jalem Productions, 1967. • Cube. Directed by Vincenzo Natali, performances by Nicole de Boer, Mauricea Dean Wint and David Hewlett, Cube Libre, 1997. • Cutterhead. Directed by Rasmus Kloster Bro, performances by Christine Sonderris, Kressimir Mikic and Samson Semere, Beo Starling, 2018.

220 Filmography • Cyclone. Directed by René Cardona Jr., performances by Arthur Kennedy, Carroll Baker and Lionel Stander, Corporación Nacional Cinematográfica (CONACINE), 1978. • Damnation Alley. Directed by Jack Smight, performances by Jan-Michael Vincent, George Peppard and Dominique Sanda, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, 1977. • Dances with Wolves. Directed by Kevin Costner, performances by Kevin Costner, Mary McDonnell and Graham Greene, Tig Productions, 1990. • Day of Animals. Directed by William Girdler, performances by Christopher George, Leslie Nielsen and Lynda Day George, Film Ventures International (FVI), 1977. • Day the World Ended. Directed by Roger Corman, performances by Richard Denning, Lori Nelson and Adele Jergens, Golden State Productions, 1955. • Dead Man Walking. Directed by Tim Robbins, performances by Susan Sarandon, Sean Penn and Robert Prosky, Havoc, 1995. • Deep Impact. Directed by Mimi Leder, performances by Robert Duvall, Tea Leoni and Elijah Wood, Paramount Pictures, 1998. • Defiance Directed by Edward Zwick, performances by Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber and Jamie Bell, Paramount Vantage, 2008. • Deluge. Directed by Felix E. Feist, performances by Peggy Shannon, Lois Wilson and Sidney Blackmer, K.B.S. Productions Inc., 1933. • Dersu Uzala. Directed by Akira Kurosawa, performances by Maksim Munzuk, Yuriy Solomin and Mikhail Bychkov, Atelier 41/Daiei Studios/Mosfilm, 1975. • Detour. Directed by William Dickerson, performances by Neil Hopkins, Brea Grant and John Forest, Fishbowl Films, 2013. • Divergent. Directed by Neil Burger, performances by Shailene Woodley, Theo James and Kate Winslet, Summit Entertainment, 2014. • Dunkirk. Directed by Christopher Nolan, performances by Fionn Whitehead, Barry Keoghan and Mark Relance, Syncopy, 2017. • Dying Young. Directed by Joel Schumacher, performances by Julia Roberts, Campbell Scott and Vincent D’Onofrio, Fogwood Films, 1991. • Earthquake. Directed by Mark Robson, performances by Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner and George Kennedy, Universal Pictures, 1974. • Elysium. Directed by Neil Blomkamp, performances by Matt Damon, Jodie Foster and Sharlto Copley, TriStar Pictures, 2013. • End of the Spear. Directed by Jim Hanon, performances by Louie Leonardo, Chad Allen and Jack Guzman, Every Tribe Entertainment, 2005. • Enemy of the State. Directed by Tony Scott, performances by Will Smith, Gene Hackman and Jon Voight, Touchstone Pictures, 1998. • Equals. Directed by Drake Doremus, performances by Nicholas Hoult, Kristen Stewart and Vernetta Lopez, Freedom Media, 2015. • Equilibrium. Directed by Kurt Wimmer, performances by Christian Bale, Sean Bean and Emily Watson, Dimension Films, 2002. • Escape from Alcatraz. Directed by Don Siegel, performances by Clint Eastwood, Patrick McGoohan and Roberts Blossom, Paramount Pictures, 1979. • Escape from Wildcat Canyon. Directed by Marc Voizard, performances by Dennis Weaver, Michael Caloz and Peter Keleghan, Cypress Point Productions, 1998. • Evan Almighty. Directed by Tom Shadyac, performances by Steve Carell, Morgan Freeman and Lauren Graham, Universal Pictures, 2007.

Filmography  221 • Everest. Directed by Baltasar Kormakur, performances by Jason Clarke, Ang Phula Sherpa and Thomas M. Wright, Working Title Films, 2015. • Ex Machina. Directed by Alex Garland, performances by Alicia Vikander, Domhnall Gleeson and Oscar Isaac, A24, 2014. • Fahrenheit 451. Directed by Francois Truffaut, performances by Oscar Werner, Julie Christie and Cyril Cusack, Anglo Enterprises, 1966. • Far from Men (French: Loin des hommes). Directed by David Oelhoffen, performances by Viggo Mortensen, Reda Kateb and Djemel Barek, One World Films, 2015. • Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America. Directed by Richard Pearce, performances by Joely Richardson, Scott Cohen and Justina Machado, American Broadcasting Company, 2006. • Five. Directed by Arch Oboler, performances by William Phipps, Susan Douglas Rubes and James Anderson, Arch Oboler Productions, 1951. • Flight of the Phoenix. Directed by John Moore, performances by Dennis Quaid, Miranda Otto and Giovanni Ribisi, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, 2004. • Flu (Korean: Gamgi). Directed by Sung-su Kim, performances by Jang Hyuk, Soo Ae and Min-ah Park, iLove Cinema, 2013. • Force Majeure (Swedish: Turist). Directed by Ruben Ostlund, performances by Johannes Kuhnke, Lisa Loven Kongsli and Clara Wettergren, ARTE, 2014. • Fox-Hunter (Romanian: Vulpe-vânător). Directed by Stere Gulea, performances by Oana Pellea, Dan Condurache and Mara Grigore, Ecco-Film Berlin, 1993. • Free State of Jones. Directed by Gary Ross, performances by Matthew McConaughey Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Mahershala Ali, Route One Entertainment, 2016. • Fury. Directed by David Ayer, performances by Brad Pitt, Shia LaBeouf and Logan Lerman, Columbia Pictures, 2014. • Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai. Directed by Jim Jarmusch, performances by Forest Whitaker, Henry Silva and John Tormey, Pandora Filmproduktion, 1999. • Gog. Directed by Herbert L. Strock, performances by Richard Egan, Constance Dowling and Herbert Marshall, Ivan Tors Productions, 1954. • Gravity. Directed by Alfonso Cuaron, performances by Sandra Bullock, George Clooney and Ed Harris, Warner Bros., 2013. • Grizzly. Directed by William Girdler, performances by Christopher George, Andrew Prine and Richard Jaeckel, Joda Productions, 1976. • Hacksaw Ridge. Directed by Mel Gibson, performances by Andrew Garfield, Sam Worthington and Luke Bracey, Summit Entertainment, 2016. • Hey, I am Alive! Directed by Lawrence Schiller, performances by Edward Asner, Sally Struthers and Milton Selzer, Charles Fries Productions, 1975. • Hidden. Directed by Matt and Ross Duffer (known as The Duffer Brothers), performances by Alexander Skarsgard, Andrea Risenborough and Emily Alyn Lind, Primal Pictures, 2015. • Hostiles. Directed by Scott Cooper, performances by Scott Shepherd, Rosamund Pike and Ava Cooper, Grisbi Productions, 2017. • Hours. Directed by Eric Heisserer, performances by Paul Walker, Genesis Rodriguez, and Nancy Nave, Safran Company, 2013.

222 Filmography • How I Ended this Summer (Russian: Kak ya provyol etim letom). Directed by Aleksey Popogrebsky, performances by Grigoriy Dobrygin, Sergey Puskepalis and Igor Chernevich, Koktebel Film Company, 2010. • I, Robot. Directed by Alex Proyas, performances by Will Smith, Bridget Moynahan and Bruce Greenwood, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, 2004. • Idiocracy. Directed by Mike Judge, performances by Luke Wilson, Maya Rudolph and Dax Shepard, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, 2006. • In the Deep (aka 47 Meters Down). Directed by Johannes Roberts, performances by Mandy Moore, Claire Holt and Matthew Modine, Tea Shop & Film Company, 2016. • In the Heart of the Sea. Directed by Ron Howard, performances by Chris Hemsworth, Cillian Murphy and Brendan Gleeson, Warner Bros, 2015. • Insurgent. Directed by Robert Schwentke, performances by Shailene Woodley, Ansel Elgort and Theo James, Summit Entertainment, 2015. • Interstellar. Directed by Christopher Nolan, performances by Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain, Paramount Pictures, 2014. • Into the Grizzly Maze. Directed by David Hackl, performances by James Marsden, Thomas Jane and Piper Perabo, Paul Schiff Productions, 2015. • Into the Wild. Directed by Sean Penn, performances by Emile Hirsch, Marcia Gay Harden and William Hurt, Paramount Vantage, 2007. • Jaws. Directed by Steven Spielberg, performances by Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw and Richard Dreyfuss, Zanuck/Brown Productions, 1975. • Jaws 2. Directed by Jeannot Szwarc, performances by Roy Scheider, Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton, Universal Pictures, 1978. • Jeremiah Johnson. Directed by Sydney Pollack, performances by Robert Redford, Will Geer and Delle Bolton, Sanford Productions (III), 1972. • Jungle. Directed by Greg Mclean, performances by Daniel Radcliffe, Thomas Kretschmann and Joel Jackson, Babber Films, 2017. • Just a Breath Away (French: Dans la brume). Directed by Daniel Roby, performances by Romain Duris, Olga Kurylenko and Fantine Harduin, Quad Productions, 2018. • Katyn. Directed by Andrzej Wajda, performances by Andrzej Chyra, Maya Ostaszewska and Artur Zmijewski, Akson Studio, 2007. • Killing Time. Directed by Florin Piersic Jr., performances by Florin Piersic Jr., Cristian Gutau and Olimpia Melinte, Kinosseur, 2011. • King Kong. Directed by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, performances by Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong and Bruce Cabot, RKO Radio Pictures, 1933. • Kingdom of the Spiders. Directed by John “Bud” Cardos, performances by William Shatner, Tiffany Bolling and Woody Strode, Arachnid Productions Ltd., 1977. • Land of Mine (Danish: Under sandet). Directed by Martin Zandvliet, performances by Roland Moller, Louis Hofmann and Joel Basman, Nordisk Film, 2015. • Last Dance. Directed by Bruce Beresford, performances by Sharon Stone, Rob Morrow and Randy Quaid. Touchstone Pictures, 1996. • Life as a House. Directed by Irwin Winkler, performances by Hayden Christensen, Kevin Kline and Kristin Scott Thomas, Winkler Films, 2001.

Filmography  223 • Life Is Beautiful (Italian: La vita e bella). Directed by Roberto Benigni, performances by Roberto Benigni, Nicoletta Braschi and Giorgio Cantarini, Melampo Cinematografica, 1997. • Lifeboat. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, performances by Tallulah Bankhead, John Hodiak and Walter Slezak, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, 1944. • Lone Survivor. Directed by Peter Berg, performances by Mark Wahlberg, Taylor Kitsch and Emile Hirsch, Film 44, 2013. • Lord of the Flies. Directed by Harry Hook, performances by Balthazar Getty, Chris Furrh and Danuel Pipoly, Castle Rock Entertainment, 1990. • Lost in the Barrens. Directed by Michael J. F. Scott, performances by Nicholas Shields, Evan Adams and Lee J. Campbell, Atlantis Films, 1990. • Lost in the Desert. Directed by Jamie Uys, performances by Wynand Uys, Jamie Uys and Lady Frolic of Belvedale, Mimosa Films, 1975. • Love Story. Directed by Arthur Hiller, performances by Ali MacGraw, Ryan O’Neil and John Marley, Paramount Pictures, 1970. • Mad Max. Directed by George Miller, performances by Mel Gibson, Joanne Samuel and Hugh Keays-Byrne, Kennedy Miller Productions, 1979. • Man in the Wilderness. Directed by Richard Sarafian, performances by Richard Harris, John Huston and Henry Wilcoxon, Limbridge, 1971. • Marooned. Directed by John Sturges performances by Gregory Peck, Richard Crenna and David Janssen, Columbia Pictures Corporation, 1969. • Meek’s Cutoff. Directed by Kelly Reichardt, performances by Michelle Williams, Bruce Greenwood and Paul Dano, Evenstar Films, 2010. • Memento. Directed by Cristopher Nolan, performances by Guy Pearce, ­Carrie-Anne Moss and Joe Pantoliano, Newmarket Capital Group, 2000. • Metropolis. Directed by Fritz Lang, performances by Brigitte Helm, Alfred Abel and Gustav Fröhlich, Universum Film (UFA), 1927. • Miracles Still Happen. Directed by Giuseppe Maria Scotese, performances by Susan Penhalion, Paul Muller and Graziella Galvani, Cinecita Studios, 1974. • My Life Without Me. Directed by Isabel Coixet, performances by Sarah Polley, Scott Speedman and Mark Ruffalo, El Deseo, 2003. • Never Grow Old. Directed by Ivan Kavanagh, performances by Emile Hisrch, John Cusack and Deborah Francois, Ripple World Pictures, 2019. • Noah. Directed by Darren Aronofsky, performances by Russel Crowe, Jennifer Connely, and Ray Winstone, Paramount Pictures, 2014. • Noah’s Ark. Directed by Michael Curtiz and Darryl F. Zanuck, performances by Dolores Costello, George O’Brien and Noah Beery, Warner Bros, 1928. • No Escape. Directed by John Erick Dowdle, performances by Lake Bell, Pierce Brosnan and Owen Wilson, Bold Films, 2015. • North Face (German: Nordwand). Directed by Philipp Stölzl, performances by Benno Fürmann, Florian Lukas and Johanna Wokalek, Dor Film-West Produktionsgesellschaft, 2008. • Numb. Directed by Jason Goode, performances by Jamie Bamber, Marie Avgeropoulos and Aleks Paunovic, Hope of Glory Pictures, 2015. • O, Brother, Where Are Thou? Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, performances by George Clooney, John Turturro and Tim Blake Nelson, Touchstone Pictures, 2000. • On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Directed by Peter R. Hunt, performances by George Lazenby, Diana Rigg and Telly Savalas, Eon Productions, 1969.

224 Filmography • On the Beach. Directed by Stanley Kramer, performances by Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner and Fred Astaire, Stanley Kramer Productions, 1959. • Open Water. Directed by Chris Kentis, performances by Blanchard Ryan, Daniel Travis and Saul Stein, Plunge Pictures LLC, 2003. • Open Water 2: Adrift. Directed by Hans Horn, performances by Susan May Pratt, Richard Speight Jr. and Niklaus Lange, Orange Pictures, 2006. • Open Water 3: Cage Dive. Directed by Gerald Rascionato, performances by Joel Hogan, Josh Pothoff and Megan Peta Hill, Susan May Pratt, Richard Speight Jr. and Niklaus Lange, Just One More Productions, 2017. • Panic in Year Zero! Directed by Ray Milland, performances by Ray Milland, Jean Hagen and Frankie Avalon, Roger Corman Productions, 1962. • Panic Room. Directed by David Fincher, performances by Jodie Foster, Kristen Steward and Forest Whitaker, Columbia Pictures Corporation, 2002. • Papillon. Directed by Franklin J. Schaffner, performances by Steve McQueen, Dustin Hoffman and Victor Jory, Solar Productions, 1973. • Passengers. Directed by Morten Tyldum 2016, performances by Jennifer Lawrence, Chris Pratt and Michael Sheen, Columbia Pictures, 2016. • Planet of the Apes. Directed by Franklin J. Schaffner, performances by Charlton Heston, Roddy McDowall and Kim Hunter, APJAC Productions, 1968. • Platoon. Directed by Oliver Stone, performances by Charlie Sheen, Tom Berenger and Willem Dafoe, Hemdale, 1986. • Poarta albă. Directed by Nicolae Mărgineanu, performances by Cristian Bota, Sergiu Bucur and Iulian Burciu, Ager Film, 2014. • Pompeii. Directed by Paul Andersen, performances by Kit Harington, Emily Browning and Kiefer Sutherland. TriStar Pictures, 2014. • Portrait of the Fighter as a Young Man (Romanian: Portet al luptătorului la tinereţe). Directed by Constantin Popescu, performances by Constantin Diţă, Bogdan Dumitrache and Ionuț Caras, Filmex Romania, 2010. • Preservation. Directed by Christofer Denham, performances by Wren Schmidt, Pablo Schreiber and Aaron Staton, Present Pictures, 2014. • Pressure. Directed by Ron Scapello, performances by Danny Huston, Matthew Goode and Joe Cole, Bigscope Films, 2015. • Prey. Directed by Darell Roodt, performances by Bridget Moynahan, Peter Weller and Carly Schroeder, Anant Singh Production, 2007. • Q.E.D (Quod erat demonstrandum). Directed by Andrei Gruzsniczki, performances by Sorin Leoveanu, Ofelia Popii and Florin Piersic Jr., ICON Production, 2014. • Rabbit Proof Fence. Directed by Philip Noyce, performances by Everlyn Sampi, Tianna Sansbury and Kenneth Branagh, Rumbalara Films, 2002. • Red Planet. Directed by Antony Hoffman, performances by Val Kilmer, Carrie-Anne Moss and Tom Sizemore, Warner Bros., 2000. • Rescue Dawn. Directed by Werner Herzog, performances by Christian Bale, Steve Zahna and Jeremy Davie, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), 2006. • Reservoir Dogs. Directed by Quentin Tarantino, performances by Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth and Michael Madsen, Live Entertainment, 1992. • River. Directed by Jamie M. Dagg, performances by Rossif Sutherland, Douangmany Soliphanh and Sara Botsford, REDLABdigita, 2015. • Robinson Crusoe. Directed by George Miller and Rod Hardy, performances by Pierce Brosnan, William Takaku and Polly Walker, Miramax, 1997.

Filmography  225 • Robinson Crusoe. Directed by Luis Bunuel, performances by Dan O’Herlihy, Jaime Fernández and Felipe de Alba, Producciones Tepeyac, 1954. • Robinson Crusoe on Mars. Directed by Byron Haskin, performances by Paul Mantee, Victor Lundin and Adam West, Aubrey Schenck Productions, 1964. • Room. Directed by Lenny Abrahamson, performances by Brie Larson, Jacob Tremblay and Sean Bridges, Element Pictures, 2015. • Runaway Train. Directed by Andrey Konchalovsky, performances by John Voight, Eric Roberts and Rebeca De Mornay, Golan-Globus Productions, 1985. • Salvo. Directed by Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza, performances by Saleh Bakri. Luigi Lo Cascio and Sara Serraiocco, Acaba Produzioni, 2013. • San Andreas. Directed by Brad Peyton, performances by Dwayne Johnson, Carla Gugino and Alexandra Daddario, New Line Cinema, 2015. • San Francisco. Directed by W.S. Van Dyke, performances by Clark Gable, Jea­ nette MacDonald and Spencer Tracy, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), 1936. • Sanctum. Directed by Alister Grierson, performances by Rhys Wakefield, Allison Cratchley and Christopher James Baker, Universal Pictures, 2011. • Sands of the Kalahari. Directed by Cy Endfield, performances by Stanley Baker, Stuart Whitman and Susannah York, Joseph M. Schenck Enterprises, 1965. • Save Private Ryan. Directed by Steven Spielberg, performances by Tom Hanks, Matt Damonand and Tom Sizemore, Dreamworks Pictures, 1998. • Schindler List. Directed by Steven Spielberg, performances by Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennesand and Ben Kingsley, Universal Pictures, 1993. • Seven Days, Seven Nights. Directed by Ivan Reitman, performances by Harrison Ford, Anne Heche and David Schwimmer, Caravan Pictures, 1998. • Silence. Directed by Martin Scosese, performances by Andrew Garfield, Adam Driver and Liam Neeson, Cappa Defina Production, 2016. • Skyscraper. Directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber, performances by Dwayne Johnson, Neve Campbell and Chin Han, Legendary Entertainment, 2018. • Solis. Directed by Carl Strahie, performances by Syeven Ogg, Alice Lowe and Sid Phoenix, Godfinch Studios, 2018. • Solo. Directed by Hugo Stuven, performances by Alain Hernandez, Aura Garrido and Ben Temple, Fargo Entertainment, 2018. • Someplace in the East (Romanian: Undeva în Est). Directed by Nicolae Mărgi­ neanu, performances by Remus Mărgineanu, Valentin Voicilă, Dorel Vişan and Călin Nemeş, Solaris Films, 1991. • Soylent Green. Directed by Richard Fleischer, performances by Charlton Heston, Edward G. Robinson and Leigh Taylor-Young, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), 1973. • Spider-Man. Directed by Sam Raimi, performances by Tobey Maguire, Kristen Dunst and Willem Dafoe, Columbia Pictures, 2002. • Stagecoach. Directed by John Ford, performances by John Wayne, Claire Trevor and Andy Devine, Walter Wanger Productions, 1939. • Stalker (Russian: Stalker). Directed by Andrey Tarkovsky, performances by Alisa Freyndlikh, Aleksandr Kaydanovsky and Anatoly Solonitsyn, Mosfilm Studios, 1979. • Still Alice. Directed by Richard Glazer and Wash Westmoreland, performances by Julianne Moore, Alec Baldwin and Kristen Stewart, Lutzus-Brown, 2015. • Submergence. Directed by Wim Wenders, performances by Alicia Wikander, Celyn Jones and Janik Shumann, Backup Media, 2017.

226 Filmography • Sully. Directed by Clint Eastwood, performances by Tom Hanks, Aaron Eckhart and Laura Linney, Flashlight Films, 2016. • Survival Family (Japanese: Sabaibaru famirî). Directed by Shinobu Yaguchi, performances by Fumiyo Kohinata, Eri Fukatsu and Yuki Izumisawa, Altamira Pictures Inc, 2017. • Survival Quest. Directed by Don Coscarelli, performances by Lance Henriksen, Mark Rolson and Steve Antin, Starway International Inc, 1989. • Surviving the Game. Directed by Ernest Dickerson, performances by Rutger Hauer, Ice-T and Charles S. Dutton, New Line Cinema, 1994. • Tabu: A Story of the South Seas. Directed by F.W. Murnau, performances by Anne Chevalier, Matahi and Hitu, Murnau-Flaherty Productions, 1931. • The 12th Man (Norwegian: Den 12. mann). Directed by Harald Zwart, performances by Thomas Gullestad, Johnatan Rhys Meyers and Marie Blokhus, Nordisk Film Production AS, 2017. • The 25th Hour (French: La vingt-cinquieme heure). Directed by Henri Verneuil, performances by Anthony Quinn, Virna Lisi and Gregoire Aslan, MetroGoldwyn-Mayer, 1967. • The 33. Directed by Particia Riggen, performances by Antonio Banderas, Rodrigo Santoro and Juliette Binoche, Alcon Entertainment, 2015. • The Afternoon of a Torturer (Romanian: După-amiaza unui torționar). Directed by Lucian Pintilie, performances by Gheorghe Dinică, Radu Beligan and Ioana Ana Macaria, Filmex, 2001. • The Black Pimpernel (Swedish: Svarta nejikan). Directed by Asa Faringer and Ulf Hultberg, performances by Michael Nyqvist, Lumi Cavazos and Kate del Castillo, Moviefan Scandinavia A/S, 2007. • The Birch Wood (Polish: Brzezina). Directed by Andrzej Wajda, performances by Daniel Olbryschski, Olgierd Lukaszewicz and Emilia Krakowska, PP Film Polski, 1970. • The Canyon. Directed by Richard Harrah, performances by Eion Bailey, Yvonne Strahovski and Will Patton, Middle Fork Productions, 2009. • The Chamber. Directed by Ben Parker, performances by Johannes Kuhnke, Charlotte Salt and James McArdle, Edicris, 2017. • The Chamber. Directed by James Foley, performances by Chris O’Donnell, Gene Hackman and Faye Dunaway, Universal Pictures, 1996. • The Concorde … Airport ‘79. Directed by David Lowell Rich, performances by Alain Delon, Susan Blakely and Robert Wagner, Universal Pictures, 1979. • The Day after Tomorrow. Directed by Roland Emmerich, performances by Dennis Quaid, Jake Gyllenhaal and Emmy Rossum, Twentieth Century Fox, 2004. • The Death of Mister Lăzărescu (Romanian: Moartea domnului Lăzărescu). Directed by Cristi Puiu, performances by Doru Ana, Monica Bârlădeanu and Alina Berzunteanu, Mandragora, 2005. • The Decline (French: Jusqu’au declin). Directed by Patrice Laliberte, performances by Guillaume Laurin, Marie-Evelyn Lassard and Real Bosse, Couronne Nord See, 2020. • The Deep. Directed by Baltasar Kormakur, performances by Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, Stefán Hallur Stefánsson and Joi Johannsson, Blueeyes Productions, 2012. • The Defiant Ones. Directed by Stanley Kramer, performances by Tony Curtis, Sidney Poitier and Theodore Bikel, Curtleigh Production, 1958.

Filmography  227 • The Disappeared. Directed by Shandi Mitchell, performances by Billy Campbell, Shawn Doyle and Brian Downey, Two Dories Film, 2012. • The Edge. Directed by Lee Tamahori, performances by Anthony Hopkins, Alec Baldwin and Elle Macpherson, Art Linson Productions, 1997. • The Enchanted Grove (Romanian: Dumbrava minunată). Directed by Gheorghe Naghi, performances by Diana Muscă, Ernest Maftei and Elena Drăgoi, Casa de Filme Unu, 1981. • The End of the World (Danish: Verdens undergang). Directed by August Blom, performances by Olaf Fønss, Carl Lauritzen and Ebba Thomsen, Nordisk Film, 1916. • The Exterminating Angel (Spanish: El Angel Exterminador). Directed by Luis Bunuel, performances by Silvia Pinal, Jaqueline Andere and Enrique Rambal, Barcino Films, 1962. • The Flight of the Phoenix. Directed by Robert Aldrich, performances by James Stewart, Richard Attenborough and Peter Finch, The Associates & Aldrich Company, 1965. • The Green Mile. Directed by Frank Darabont, performances by Tom Hanks, Michael Clarke Duncan and David Morse, Castle Rock Entertainment, 1999. • The Grey. Directed by Joe Carnahan, performances by Liam Neeson. Dermot Mulroney and Frank Grillo, Open Road Films, 2011. • The Hunger Games. Directed by Gary Ross, performances by Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth, Lionsgate, 2012. • The Hunt. Directed by Craig Zobel, performances by Betty Gilpin, Hilary Swank and Ike Barinholz, Blumhouse Productions, 2020. • The Hurricane. Directed by John Ford and Stuart Heisler, performances by Dorothy Lamour, Jon Hall and Mary Astor, Samuel Goldwyn Company, 1937. • The I Inside. Directed by Roland Suso Richter, performances by Ryan Philip, Sarah Polley and Piper Perabo, MDP Worldwide, 2004. • The Impossible (Spanish: Lo imposible). Directed by J. A. Bayona, performances by Naomi Watts, Ewan McGregor and Tom Holland, Mediaset España, 2012. • The Innner Circle. Directed by Andrei Konchalowski, performances by Tom Hulce. Lolita Davidovich and Bob Hoskins, Numero Uno International, 1991. • The Killing Fields. Directed by Roland Joffé, performances by Sam Waterston, Haing S. Ngor and John Malkovich, Goldcrest Films International, 1984. • The Killing Room. Directed by Jonathan Liebesman, performances by Nick Cannon, Clea DuVall and Timoty Hutton, Winchester Capital Partners, 2009. • The Last Days of Pompeii (Italian: Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei). Directed by Mario Caserini and Eleuterio Rodolfi, performances by Fernanda Negri Pouget, Eugenia Tettoni Fior and Ubaldo Stefani, Società Anonima Ambrosio, 1913. • The Last Full Measure. Directed by Todd Robinson, performances by Sebastian Stan, Alison Sudol and Asher Miles Fallica, Foresight Unlimited, 2019. • The Last Survivors. Directed by Lee H. Katzin, performances by Martin Sheen, Diane Baker and Tom Bosley, Bob Banner Associates, 1975. • The Martian. Directed by Ridley Scott, performances by Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain and Kristen Wiig, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, 2015. • The Matrix. Directed by Wachowski Brothers, performances by Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishbourne and Carrie-Ann Moss, Warner Bros., 1999. • The Maze Runner. Directed by Wes Ball, performances by Dylan O’Brian, Kaya Scondelario and Will Poulter, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, 2014.

228 Filmography • The Naked Prey. Directed by Cornel Wilde, performances by Cornel Wilde, Gert van den Bergh, and Ken Gampu, Sven Persson Films, 1965. • The Omega Man. Directed by Boris Sagal, performances by Charlton Heston, Anthony Zerbe and Rosalind Cash, Walter Seltzer Productions, 1971. • The Pack. Directed by Nick Robertson, performances by Jack Campbell, Anna Lise Philips and Katie Moore, Breakout Movies, 2015. • The Pianist. Directed by Roman Polanski, performances by Adrien Brody, Thomas Kretschmann and Frank Finlay, R.P. Productions, 2002. • The Poseidon Adventure. Directed by Roland Neame and Irwin Allen, performances by Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine and Shelley Winters, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, 1972. • The Poseidon Explosion (Romanian: Explozia). Directed by Mircea Drăgan performances by Radu Beligan, Gheorghe Dinică and Toma Caragiu, România Film, 1973. • The Postman. Directed by Kevin Costner, performances by Kevin Costner, Will Patton and Larenz Tate, Tig Productions, 1997. • The Prisonier of Shark Island. Directed by John Ford, performances by Dorothy Lamour, Jon Hall and Mary Astor, Samuel Goldwyn Company, 1936. • The Reef. Directed by Andrew Traucki, performances by Damian Walshe-Howling, Gyton Grantley and Adrienne Pickering, Lightning Entertainment, 2010. • The Return (Russian: Vozvrashchenie). Directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev, performances by Vladimir Garin, Ivan Dobronravov and Konstantin Lavronenko, Ren Film, 2003. • The Revenant. Directed by Alejandro Inarritu, performances by Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy and Will Poulter, Regency Enterprises, 2015. • The River Wild. Directed by Curtis Hanson, performances by Meryl Streep, Kevin Bacon and David Strathairn, Universal Pictures, 1994. • The Road. Directed by John Hillcoat, performances by Viggo Mortensen, Charlize Theron and Kodi Smit-McPhee, Dimension Films, 2009. • The Salvation. Directed by Kristian Levring, performances by Mads Mikkelsen, Eva Green and Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Zentropa Entertainments, 2014. • The Shallows. Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, performances by Blake Lively, Oscar Jeanada and Angelo Josue Lozano Corzo, Columbia Pictures, 2016. • The Shawshank Redemption. Directed by Frank Darabont, performances by Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman and Bob Gunton, Castle Rock Entertainment, 1994. • The Silence. Directed by John Leonetti, performances by Stanley Tucci, Kieran Shipka and Miranda Otto, Constantin Film, 2019. • The Snow Walker. Directed by Charles Martin Smith, performances by Barry Pepper, Annabella Piugattuk and James Cromwell, Infinity Media, 2003. • The Surface. Directed by Gil Cates Jr, performances by Sean Austin, Mimi Rogers and Chris Mulkey, Good Note Productions, 2014. • The Terminal. Directed by Steven Spielberg, performances by Tom Hanks, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Chi McBride, Dreamworks, 2004. • The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. Directed by Tommy Lee Jones, performances by Tommy Lee Jones, Barry Pepper and Dwight Yoakam, EuropaCorp, 2005.

Filmography  229 • The Towering Inferno. Directed by John Guillermin, performances by Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, William Holden, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, 1974. • The Vanishing. Directed by Kristoffer Nyholm, performances by Peter Mullan, Gerald Butler and Emma King, Mad as Birds, 2018. • The Way Back. Directed by Peter Weir, performances by Jim Sturgess, Ed Harris and Colin Farrell, Exclusive Films, 2010. • The Wind. Directed by Victor Sjöström, performances by Lillian Gish, Lars Hanson and Montagu Love, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), 1928. • Things to Come. Directed by William Cameron Menzies, performances by Raymond Massey, Edward Chapman and Ralph Richardson, London Film Productions, 1936. • Three Bilboards over Ebbings, Missouri. Directed by Martin McDonagh, performances by Frances McDormand, Woody Harrelson and Sam Rockwell, Blueprint Pictures, 2017. • Titanic. Directed by James Cameron, performances by Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet and Billy Zane, Twentieth Century Fox, 1997. • Trahir. Directed by Radu Mihăileanu, performances by Johan Leysen, Alexandru Repan and Mireille Perrier, Parnasse Production, 1993. • Trapped. Directed by Vikramaditya Motwane, performances by Rajkummar Rao, Geetanjali Thapa and Shiladitya Sen, Phantom Films, 2016. • Trahir. Directed by Radu Mihăileanu, performances by Johan Leysen, Alexandru Repan and Mireille Perrier, Parnasse Production, 1993. • Terror out of the Sky. Directed by Lee H. Katzin, performances by Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Dan Haggerty and Tovah Feldshuh, Alan Landsburg Productions, 1978. • Twelve Monkeys. Directed by Terry Gilliam, performances by Bruce Willis, Madeleine Stowe and Brad Pitt, Universal Pictures, 1995. • Unbroken. Directed by Angelina Jolie, performances by Jack O’Connell, Miyavi and Domhall Gleeson, 3 Arts Entertainment, 2014. • Under The Volcano. Directed by John Huston, performances by Albert Finney, Jacqueline Bisset and Anthony Andrews, Conacite Uno, 1984. • Unknown. Directed by Simon Band, performances by Jim Caviezel, Greg Kinnear and Bridget Moynahan, Rick Lashbrook Films, 2006. • US Marshals. Directed by Stuart Baird, performances by Tommy Lee Jones, Wesley Snipes and Robert Downey Jr., Warner Bros., 1998. • Vertical Limit. Directed by Martin Campbell, performances by Scott Glen, Chris O’Donnell and Bill Paxton, Columbia Pictures, 2000. • Volcano. Directed by Mick Jackson, performances by Tommy Lee Jones, Anne Heche and Gaby Hoffmann, Twentieth Century Fox, 1997. • Walkabout. Directed by Nicolas Roeg, performances by Jenny Agutter, David Gulpilil and Luc Roeg, Max L. Raab Productions, 1971. • Wanted. Directed by Timur Bekmambetov, performances by Angelina Jolie, James McAvoy and Morgan Freeman, Universal Pictures, 2008. • When Worlds Collide. Directed by Rudolph Maté, performances by Richard Derr, Barbara Rush and Peter Hanse, Columbia Pictures Corporation, 1951. • White Water Summer. Directed by Jeff Bleckner, performances by Kevin Bacon, Sean Astin and Jonathan Ward, Columbia Pictures Corporation, 1987.

230 Filmography • Wild. Directed by Jean-Marc Vallee, performances by Reese Witherspoon, Laura Dern and Gaby Hoffmann, Fox Searchlight Pictures, 2014. • Wrecked. Directed by Michael Greenspan, performances by Adrien Brody, Caroline Dhavernas and Ryan Robbins, Independent Edge Films, 2010. • Zelig. Directed by Woody Allen, performances by Woody Allen, Mia Farrow and Patrick Horgan, Orion Pictures and Warner Bros., 1983.

Index

Ahmad, K. 146 Altman, R. 25, 27, 28 Andronescu, D. 55 apophatism 15, 17 Arnold, S. 47 Bazin, A. 31 Behr, J. 124–125, 206–207 Benshoff, H. 29 biology 5, 99, 100, 206 Blizek, W. L. 7–8 Bodiu, D. 8, 31, 40–41 Bordwell, D. 25–26, 28, 32, 43, 50 Bradatan, C. 149 Briggman, A. 206–207 Brophy, P. 28 Campbell, N. 84 Carnell, E. J. 5, 124, 126, 168 Chandler, D. 29 Christian anthropology 1–6, 11–12, 19–21, 23, 31, 106, 125, 148, 186–187, 207–208 Christian survival movies 76 Ciulei, M. 1, 14–15, 20, 187, 200 Clark, K. 48 Clement, O. 12 communion 5, 12, 14, 17, 19, 40, 66, 94–95, 115, 125–127, 129, 133–135, 138, 144, 146–147, 152, 179, 194, 197–198, 203, 206 community 5, 30, 45–46, 60–61, 69, 85–87, 99, 104, 107, 113–114, 119, 126–127, 136, 146, 150, 152, 169, 187, 207 conscience 3, 6, 14, 16–17, 20–23, 38–39, 42, 55, 57, 80, 98, 107, 114, 119, 126, 130, 143, 153, 158,

177, 181, 187–188, 191–192, 194, 198–199, 201, 208 Cooper, P. 186 Cornea, D. 8 Dancyger, K. 92, 98–99, 186 De Valt, M. 47 Deacy, C. 10–11 de Certeau, M. 50 Detweiler, C. 68 Dirks, T. 30 disaster movies 30 Dulgheru, E. 8 Dundes, A. 197 dystopia 30, 61, 88–91 Eberwein, R. 91–92 Eder, J. 43 The Egyptian Pateric 195 faith 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 62, 76, 101, 104–105, 114, 116, 124–125, 136, 141, 144, 180, 182–185, 188, 190, 194, 198, 200, 202, 205–206, 208 family 5, 33, 39, 46, 50, 62, 64, 66, 70–71, 73, 83, 86, 89, 91, 97, 103–105, 107, 112–113, 118, 121, 128, 135–140, 142–143, 147, 150, 156, 159–160, 162, 164, 173, 175, 178, 180, 182–183, 188–191, 194–197, 199, 200, 204 feeling 2, 16, 18, 51, 66, 70, 84, 106, 132, 143, 185, 191, 193, 201 Fielding, J. R. 7 Fludernik, M. 25, 43 forgiveness 5, 41, 46, 51, 59, 70, 73, 85, 89, 141, 158, 167, 174, 179, 183, 185, 188, 198–200, 204, 206, 208

232 Index Fowler, C. 48 freedom 37–38, 46, 50–51, 54–55, 62, 66, 68, 70, 72, 85, 87, 90–91, 97, 119, 134, 148–152, 160–167, 171–173, 176, 178, 181, 184, 189–191, 193, 196, 198, 200–201, 203–204, 206, 208 Fuchs, T. 2 “garments of skin” 19–20, 22–23, 101 Genesis (Book of) 1, 12–13, 19 “genuine survival movies” 53 Giannetti, L. 32 Grant, B. K. 28, 30–32, 47, 57 Grenzsituation. 1, 2 Greydanus, S. 180 Grindon, L. 78 group 3–4, 11, 25–29, 30–32, 40–41, 43–46, 48, 53, 57–58, 63, 65, 67–70, 73–74, 84–85, 89, 91, 93–97, 101, 113–114, 122–124, 126–129, 132–134, 135–136, 141–146, 151–153, 155, 158–162, 166–167, 171–172, 182, 189, 194 Grundsituation 2 Harakas, S. 127, 207 Helfield, G. 48 Hockrow, R. 40, 186 “hybridisation” 78 Ianolide, I. 12 “image of God” 4–6, 12–20, 22–24, 114, 117–118, 166, 179, 186, 188, 190–194, 196, 201–206, 208 imagination 22 individual (noun) 2, 5, 23, 30, 38, 84–85, 91, 100–101, 126–127, 146, 150, 165–166, 171, 179–180, 183, 191 Jacobs, C. P. 11 Jaspers, K. 1–2 Johnston, K. 87–88 Johnston, R. K. 7–8, 10–11 Keane, S. 67 Kerner, A. 169 King, G. 29 Krehan, H. 49 liberty 37, 55, 76, 99, 160–161, 165, 167, 171, 178, 204 “likeness” 1–5, 12–14, 17–18, 23–24, 40, 127, 139, 180, 189

“limit situation” 2–3, 5, 20–24, 29–31, 35–40, 43, 45–47, 49, 52–53, 55–70, 72–76, 78–85, 87–89, 91–97, 101–102, 105, 107–122, 127–135, 137–146, 150–166, 170–183, 185–191, 195, 197–199, 201, 206–208 Lossky, V. 205 love (noun) 3, 5, 13–16, 18, 20–23, 31, 34, 39, 49, 50–51, 54, 58–61, 66–69, 76, 78–82, 85, 90–91, 93–95, 97, 99, 101–105, 108, 108, 111–113, 115, 117–121, 130, 133, 136–138, 140–144, 146–150, 154–157, 162, 164, 166–167, 172–173, 176–179, 182, 188–194, 196–197, 200, 202–206, 208 Lyden, J. 7–10 Marin, D. 148 May, J. 149–150 Milhorn. T. 31–32, 43 mind 15–18, 21, 26, 31, 33, 48, 50, 56, 62, 66, 80, 86, 91, 95, 115, 149, 177, 193, 203 Moine, R. 26, 29, 78 morality 5, 9, 15, 22, 126, 148–149, 170, 207 Morris, J. W. 14 Mundt, C. 2 Mureșan. A. 205 Neale, S. 26–27, 30 Nellas, P. 1, 12, 19–22, 101 Noble, I. 141 Orthodox 1–2, 4, 11–15, 17–19, 23, 101, 124–127, 146–148, 184–187, 198, 200, 206–208 “partial survival movies” 53–54, 119 Payton, J. Jr. 24 Philokalia 184 physical survival 19, 70, 100, 106, 109–110, 124, 143, 158, 167, 201 Piantadosi, C. 5, 100, 105 Plested, M. 3 “political survival movies” 76 Pop D. 29 Post, S. 149 “post-atomic survival movies” 104, 136 Preston, C. 78 Proeve M. 158 Reinhartz, A. 137 Remorse 5, 55, 107, 143, 153, 158, 160, 167, 188, 198–199, 208

Index  233 Ritzer, I. 78 Romance 26, 29, 32, 78, 80, 91 Romans (Epistle for) 2, 24 Rush, J 92, 99 Sachs, R. J. 3 Saint Apostle Paul 24 Al-Sayed, R. 146 Schmemann, A. 12 Schulze, P. 78 science-fiction 4, 28, 30, 61, 84, 87–90, 99 self-preservation 106, 124, 131, 167 self-sacrifice 4–7, 107, 149, 168, 202, 208 Sison, A. 188 Slade, A. 21 Sobchack, T. 3, 4, 29, 31–32, 43–47, 54, 57, 67, 126, 133, 146, 187, 207–208 “spiritual survival film”/“spiritual survival movie” 54–55, 87, 90–91, 105, 150, 153, 164–165, 182, 193, 207 St. Athanasius the Great 1, 12, 15, 17, 19–20, 207 St. Basil the Great 1, 12 St. Gregory of Nyssa 1, 12, 15–16, 18–19 St. Ignatius of Antioch 207 St. John Chrysostom 1, 2, 13–14, 16 St. John of Damascus 13, 16, 22 St. John of Kronstadt 148 St. Maximus the Confessor 1, 12, 14 St. Nicholas Cabasilas 148 Stan, N. R. 1, 3, 5, 12—20, 22, 187, 200, 208 Sta˘niloae, D. 1–5, 12–18, 20, 23, 40, 125, 161, 208–209 Suchianu, D. I. 25 “survival movies of resistance” 76 Thunberg, L. 14 transformation 2, 5, 19, 22–24, 57, 89, 97, 140, 158, 169–172, 177, 182–183, 186, 188–189, 202, 207

“trapped film” 130; “trapped movie” 36, 44, 101, 111, 121–122, 141, 143–144, 160 Tudor, A. 25, 28 Tudor, S. 158 Tyneh, C. 184 Ungureanu, C. 149 Vișovan, A. 193 war 4, 8, 28–29, 41, 43, 53, 60–61, 63–64, 66, 75, 84, 91–92, 94–99, 117, 128–129, 138, 150–151, 159, 161, 164–166, 174, 180, 189, 194–195, 208 “war survival movie” 70, 92 Ward, P. 50 Watson, P. 26–28 Wen, R. 106, 126 Western (movie genre) 4, 28–30, 43, 46, 62, 69, 73, 75, 84–85, 88, 99, 208 “Western survival movie”/“survival Western” 29, 78, 85 Whiting, B. J. 106 wilderness 41, 48–49, 53, 66, 68, 72, 77, 82, 84, 112, 119, 120–121, 132–133, 163, 173–174, 177–178, 182, 189, 191 “wilderness adventure survival movie”/“wilderness survival movie” 81, 113, 118 will (noun) 2, 5, 13–16, 18, 20–23, 36, 40, 58, 67, 74, 80, 82, 97–98, 100–101, 103–104, 110, 112–113, 126, 142–143, 145–146, 151, 157, 160, 162, 173, 177, 181–182, 187, 191, 193, 195–196, 200–201, 205 Wright, M. 7, 10 Wright W. 84 Yaffe, G. 33 Zizioulas, J. 146–147