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DiggThe Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship
By Clair McPherson
Christianity is about transformation. Holy Scripture, both New and Old Testaments, can practically be summed up as a series of positive, supernatural human transformations, from Abraham to Jesus Christ and beyond. God transforms us, the great theologians have understood, in a process of continuous creation. Our primary sacrament, Baptism, is of course all about transformation, from earthly creature to heavenly. And the first creative theologian, Irenaeus, saw Christianity as a transformation of every individual human being from Adam (in the Hebrew sense, which is non-gender specific and means “human being”) to Christ.
Any film that depicts such a transformation can be understood in the light of this teaching: it certainly does not have to be a “Christian” or an overtly “religious” movie to do so. One of the best movies about spiritual transformation is usually thought of as secular, far from “religion”: the World War II classic, Casablanca. It begins as an apparent thriller, with refugees, spies, French Resistance members, and Nazis. The central character, Humphrey Bogart’s Rick, is a cynical, nihilistic, self-serving, and self-pitying wreck of a man who is somehow sitting out the war in French Morocco. Despite his sharp white dinner jacket and his jaunty way with a cigarette, Rick is visibly depressed: he slouches, he grunts at people, he moves robotically. When he drinks, which is often, he wallows in his gloom and his eyes water over.
As all the world knows, the reason for his spiritual state walks through the door of his “gin joint” a few minutes into the film: Ilsa, played by the luminous (literally; she is photographed to make her look like a source of light) Ingrid Bergman, the woman who, as Rick understands it, jilted him. At this point, the apparent thriller becomes a melodrama, a three-handkerchief love story, albeit an extremely well done one. Rick guzzles booze and mutters his sardonic one-liners; Ilsa sighs and stares and shines. Their signature theme, the melody from “As Time Goes By,” is frequently heard in the background. This is what happens when Eros , the passionate kind of love, the falling-in-love experience, goes awry. People suffer, and they suffer so badly we almost forget about the other kind of suffering that is happening at the same time.
But we don’t quite forget and neither really does Rick. Throughout the film there are hints of something better within his soul: notably his helping a young refugee couple escape without the girl having to compromise herself. Rick’s friend and foil, the Vichy chief of police portrayed by Claude Raines, calls Rick a “romantic” for this kind of thing. He is wrong, but not very.
For, by the end of the movie, when Rick has learned the actual reason for Ilsa’s standing him up, and the memory of their brief moment of happiness has been reclaimed, he has been transformed. Rick insists Ilsa escape Casablanca with her husband, the heroic freedom fighter, even though she wants to stay with Rick. It is a moment of self-donation almost unequaled in the history of the art.
It is against that history that the film is best appreciated. Movies have dealt with thrilling tales of war and weepy love stories from the start, and everyone knows this. Casablanca seems almost until the end a successful blend of those two genres. But when the end comes, the movie suddenly reveals its heart: it is about the spiritual transformation of Rick from cynic to saint. It is a surprise ending — not because of the plot twist, but because, for once, Eros is overcome by Caritas.
More recently, of course, there have been all sorts of outward transformations in the movies — morphings and shape-changes that look believably real. But genuinely thoughtful movies are becoming more and more rare, and therefore so is the inner-transformation genre.
One interesting exception is a movie most people probably thought of as merely a commercial romp: Shallow Hal (2001). I include it not only because it depicts the transformation of a superficial man into a real human being, but because it also involves the other, outward and physical, kind of transformation. The two types of transformation are, in fact, in a kind of counterpoint in this film.
Hal, played with obvious relish by Jack Black, is so superficial he is practically a cartoon. He is only interested in surfaces, and this is especially the case with women. He will stand only for the ideal, which he, in conformity with the fashions of his culture, thinks of as ultra-slim and cover-girl pretty.
Then it happens. A hypnotizing self-help guru alters Hal’s vision. Deep, thoughtful, selfless people now appear conventionally attractive to Hal, while conventionally attractive but superficial people look terrible. Meanwhile, we the viewers continue to see everyone as they actually look. Where we see Gwyneth Paltrow in a very effective “fat suit,” Hal sees — naturally — Gwyneth Paltrow in all her movie-star loveliness. Surface and soul, in other words, have been reversed: everyone has been turned inside out.
The real transformation, though, is what happens to Hal. Gradually, this trick of perspective becomes a spiritual reality; he begins to look into people’s souls himself. That is, he begins to “see” deep people as deep, shallow people as shallow, and good people as good. So when the inevitable return to normal physical vision happens, Hal is transformed. Overweight women now look overweight to him, but this no longer matters to Hal. He is now the one turned inside out: his formerly superficial, self-regarding, ridiculously narcissistic persona is inverted into a humble, loving, decent man. It is a very satisfying, even moving, spiritual transformation.
Shallow Ha is a fantasy about abrupt changes. It is not subtle. In contrast, the 2003 film Monsieur Ibrahim is. It is about the kind of gradual, almost imperceptible, transformations most people go through if they experience spiritual transformation.
Monsieur Ibrahim , an exquisite independent film starring the young French actor Pierre Boulanger and veteran Egyptian star Omar Sharif, portrays just such a transformation. Boulanger is Moise or “Momo,” a Jewish adolescent living in 1960s Paris in an immigrant neighborhood. Momo’s father is depressed, his mother deceased, and Momo is directionless. He hangs with friendly prostitutes up the block who humor him and he gets into petty scrapes; mostly he simply drifts around his decidedly unromantic corner of the City of Light.
And one day he visits a new grocery across the street where Monsieur Ibrahim is the proprietor. Momo decides to do a little shoplifting, thinking (in a voice-over) that it won’t matter, stealing from an Arab. Ibrahim gently and patiently lets him go about his shopping and browsing — we are not sure whether he realizes what Momo is up to. Then, as Momo is about to leave, Ibrahim states, “I am not an Arab. I come from the Golden Crescent.” He has read Momo’s mind; or else it’s a coincidence. The first of many eerie little coincidences. And the first of many lessons.
Monsieur Ibrahim develops an intentional and nurturing friendship with Momo. He subtly challenges Momo’s prejudice, never once denying its basis in historical animosity. He gently challenges Momo’s amoral, amorphous lifestyle. He very quietly challenges his implicit atheism. Throughout, he obviously replaces Momo’s emotionally-challenged father. And throughout, there is always the subtle suggestion that Ibrahim is not only different from Momo in ethnicity, but in species. After all, in the Abrahamic tradition, angels appear more often than not in the guise of humans.
Whatever and whoever Ibrahim is, he serves as catalyst for Momo’s becoming an adult. As their friendship proceeds, Momo assumes a new worldview, discards his unthinking anti-Muslim reflexes, gets a responsible attitude toward women, acknowledges the possibility of God, and embraces an ethical code.
In the end, Ibrahim must depart — exactly why, where, and how I won’t reveal here, because it would diminish the impact and the mystery of this extraordinary movie. But it will not spoil things to say that the boy ends up owning the little grocery store, and that the movie closes with a 30-year-old Momo watching, bemused and wise beyond his age, an Arab boy practice a little shoplifting. That cycle we can see coming throughout the story: it has to happen, if there is a God.
St. Bernard maintained that the transformational nature of divine love was the heart of Christianity. I suspect that simply watching a well-executed work of art about transformation tends to effect spiritual change. And each of these films — the classic Casablanca , the pop hit Shallow Hal , and the mystic parable Monsieur Ibrahim — in fact have to do with Bernard’s tenet. They are more effectively “Christian” than many a more intentionally “religious” movie. Not one of them mentions “transformational experience.” But that is their subject. Not one of them mentions “the love of God.” But that is their theme.
The Rev. Dr. Clair McPherson is a retreat leader, spiritual director, workshop leader, author, and parish priest. He has taught spirituality, history, and theology at colleges and seminaries for 30 years.
This article appears in the Transformation issue of Trinity News.
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