writing teachers always encourage their students to imbue their readers with a sense of integrity: “show, don’t tell.” great film-making follows the same principle – don’t talk down to your viewers, don’t rely on gimmicks to tell the story, don’t spoon-feed us what we already know.
it’s been nearly a week since i saw Avatar, and i still can’t get it out of my head. it is not only one of the most brilliant films i have seen in the last year; it’s easily on my shortlist for all-time film favorites. it’s not that the plot broke breathtaking new ground, or that the 3D effects were, like, totally whoooaaa, or that the dialogue was remarkably original; Avatar‘s success lies in James Cameron + team’s extraordinary ability to show the viewers a sincerely rich and honest story.
in the shape of a legend – complete with heroes, heroines, villains and verisimilitude, Avatar gave us fleshed-out characters who riveted us into their shoes – and blue feet – while they fought, loved, lived and died on a visually unprecedented and stunning stage.
Cameron + crew invited us into our imaginations, and gave us the tools to live inside them for two and a half hours. a good chunk of this toolbox was film making discipline, steering clear of pitfall conventions: they didn’t bother with the bloat of opening credits, which would have detracted from the believable entrance into a world apart from ours, they didn’t abuse the narrator by pulling him out of the story and dropping him onto some omnipresent perch, and they kept a light and mature hand on the 3D effects, ensuring that technology didn’t overwhelm and cheapen the story.
this vivid and trustworthy storytelling helped Cameron + crew capture something that is so rare in film these days: the magic of the movies, the blissful suspension of reality. certainly it helped walking into the theater having read no reviews and knowing almost nothing about the film, aside from its astronomical budget; still, within minutes of the movie starting – the time it took to get accustomed to my 3D glasses, i was whisked onto planet Pandora, experiencing the awkwardness and joy of being in my new avatar body.
and i was still on Pandora, in my blue striped skin, when the theater lights flickered on at 1am. and still, when i got up from my seat, walked out of the theater, and stood like a mesmerized zombie on the escalator as it took me down, down, down. and even still, as Dan and i slid onto the seat of a cab and headed home.
and now, almost a week later, the afterglow of Avatar is still here. but, like all things ephemeral, it’s going to dissipate eventually. the good news is: Avatar‘s due to stick around the theaters for at least a couple more months.
seconds, please!
