by Miguel Abrantes
It would be hard to watch a story of a man being assailed by misfortune after misfortune and not see a parallel with the story of Job, and impossible after the protagonist, close to the very end, casts a befuddled, disconcerted look to the sky. All Is Lost, the 2013 film written and directed by J. C. Chandor, may be, among other things, a reimagining of that biblical tale, or may in any case illuminate some aspects of it. To someone like me, who, as a casual reader, has struggled to understand the Book of Job’s ultimate meaning, the film offers the suggestion that Job should not be seen as a special case, that his trials are a representation of ordinary life, that realizations such as “I have everything I need” or “all is lost” are always removed from spiritual maturity. Maybe we are supposed to understand that Job, for all his apparent devotion and praise giving, has, at the beginning of the narrative, a superficial spiritual life.
True grace is elusive, and indeed there are a number of stories predicated on the notion that one of the ways by which grace or wisdom may come might be by losing all, and spiritual journeys often amount to a progressive surrender of belongings and conceptions. A reader’s initial reaction to Job’s tale might be of frustration because its message is muddled with an unpalatable portrayal of God as, if not a petulant prankster, at least an insensitive ruler. Yet, if the eventual outcome of Job’s trials is his encountering true grace instead of the pretense of grace, isn’t the God who allowed those afflictions to fall upon him to be seen as ultimately caring and considerate? Or—what is God, but that sequence of events?
In All Is Lost, events happen and a person responds to them, and that is all. In spite of an opening voice-over, it becomes apparent early on that a distinct mode of storytelling, fundamentally objective and devoid of many of the conventional aspects of narrative film, has been chosen and is going to be sustained throughout. There is no attempt to explain anything, no kind of exposition, no dramatic exaggeration. By virtue of that sparse, clean approach, in combination with the specifics of the plot, the film plays like strict, pure action, not in the more common sense of the term, of adrenaline-boosting excitement, but in another, seldom explored sense. It allows, in turn, for character to be rendered in a unique way: in the absence of any apparent intention to show or tell anything in particular, “our man”, as he is referred to in the credits, can be revealed almost solely by his actions.
Actions, in this case, should be construed mostly as reactions, in terms of the straightforward dichotomy used when discussing conventional drama. The story begins immediately with a reaction to an event, the reaction being what is ostensibly shown, leaving the viewer to surmise the event (the action) itself. And from then on, “our man” must react to events that follow in quick succession. Over the course of the film there are instances of what may be termed “repetitions”: near identical situations, eliciting the same correspondent reaction on the part of the character, at different moments in the story. Repetitions can be interesting and give the viewer an awareness of the artifice of storytelling, but in this case they contribute to the opposite effect: they feel matter-of-fact, adding to the sense of an authentic, realistic narrative. The repetitions don’t serve to underline any special meaning to what is taking place, they rather seem to suggest that these events, at least on a superficial level, are meaningless. And the continuous (at times, unrelenting) series of events that form the structure of the plot seem to function as a demonstration, in the extreme, that life is merely a succession of nows, and that our essence is revealed in the mere reacting to what happens, and perhaps in the struggle between resistance to and acceptance of what happens. That arises as one of the themes of the film.
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I don’t know if it was something about the general constitution of All Is Lost that brought to my mind 2001: A Space Odyssey—or if it was just the image of “our man” dangling high above in a vast void, trying to fix a piece of equipment. A sense of unease is imparted in that scene, made sharper for its presence in a seemingly unexceptional and, while potentially dangerous, straightforward activity. Again, the elements of the scene seem to build a tension between necessity and meaninglessness in a simple, but significant, moment. In any case, I rewatched Kubrick’s film over the next couple of days after my first viewing of All Is Lost. And I was struck, this time around, by how much the ideas in it are conveyed by its form, as much as by the narrative. The concept of God is fundamental to 2001, and one of the questions that often accompanies the beginning of a person’s spiritual quest—What am I?—seems to be quietly suggested over the length of the picture, but not only because of what is unfolding in the plot; one can feel the question slowly forming, finally presenting itself by the final section, because the geometries and the rhythms of the film created a space for it.
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To believe that you will see yourself through any difficulty can be seen as a strength, but to consider yourself above any need for help can be a flaw. It is true that, in All Is Lost, “our man” asks for help to the ships that pass him by, but that seems almost incidental, and his stance throughout seems to indicate a certain arrogance and willfulness, as the fact that he finds himself in that situation in the first place indicates a certain individualism and “self-reliance”—an expression that allows for contradictory interpretations, depending perhaps on what is one’s understanding of the concept of “self.” In the situations in which a person feels completely lost and unable to overcome an obstacle, the longing for help, if such longing emerges, can feel like a sort of breakdown, of lowering of defenses, of erasing of the self.
“Our man” never fully acts out such a break-down, but what he experiences is an even more thorough erasing of the self: the viewer is justified in inferring that the character’s self-reliance is one core aspect of his idea of himself, and that idea, more poignantly than his material things or his physical well-being, is what he gradually loses. Confronted with the falseness of our idea of ourselves—that is to say, confronted with the truth—we momentarily feel lost, with nowhere to go, bereft of all reference. But we may also feel, or come to feel, light, free, and, because of the disconnection to what was once held to be real, connected, or reconnected, to something else. Losing things with which one identifies may eventually feel like opening up a space. As some notion of identity is destroyed, a feeling of fullness may change into a sense of void; and in that apparent void, something that had previously been buried may then be perceived. In All Is Lost, the protagonist’s presumptive final action is the opposite movement to everything he performed until that moment, a sign that a complete interior change occurred, even if unconsciously: possibly for the first time, he acknowledges something bigger, more powerful, and—no other meaning can be taken from that glance he directs to the sky—ever-present.
If one chooses to interpret the final moments of the final scene literally rather than allegorically, one could wish for a sequel to the film, because at the end of All Is Lost the viewer is left with the feeling of having watched a real person, whose future seems worth getting to know. The story was ultimately one of rebirth, as the overt symbolism of that last scene aptly underlines—and how interesting it would be to see a representation of that new human being.
About the Author
Miguel Abrantes is a visual artist, with a special interest in sequential art, storytelling, and filmmaking. His work can be seen online at www.miguelabrantes.com.
