It would be misunderstood if I were to say that I was left with a lump in my throat and a heavy heart after watching Clint Eastwood's masterpiece, Gran Torino. Yes! the movie, akin to the Marlowesque school of drama, centers around one man; so much so that almost 90 of the 116 minutes seem to have been devoted to Walt Kowalski(Clint Eastwood); his disdain, his cynicism, his morbid self-deprecation, his compassion and even his brand of love. But then one thinks, of how inept an endeavour it would be, had the director or the script tried to encompass the totality of events, and the multitude of effects they have on human nature. But these 116 minutes stand testimony to the fact that at times, Man, and by that I mean a single, solitary Man, can become an anthem of reflections that represent not only the tragedy of living-dead, but even the beauty of a dying-life. Rushdie, in the voice of Salim Sinai had once remarked, 'all of us owe a death to life'; Walt's life and thereafter his death had a deeper connection than this. For though, his life and thereafter his Death, wasn't the psycho-philosophical bliss akin to Kate Winslet's as Iris, nor was it a metaphor of cruelly twisted irony that was to become of Kate at the hands of her Reader. Rather, Walt Kowalski lived a life carrying a burden that quite literally weighed him to the annals of self-deprecatory scorn and hellish cynicism. 'I want to be left alone', were what we started with; that the end would be of a man paving the way for his own salvation, albeit absolutely unknowingly, is what overwhelms us with sense of profound realization. And which is this: Death is what brings a limiting factor to the infinity of life. And yet, Life is what gets us there. In effect, Life and Death aren't 'Cause' and 'Effect', but it is the other way round; 'Death' is the 'Cause', and 'Life' is the 'Effect'. Do think about it, O! kind reader.
I would not refrain from acceding that our protagonist hadn't been the morbid, edgy, grumpy Old man through out! Through his own ministrations we get to know how much he loved his wife; through his confessions we realise how much the human in him repents at not being able to foster a 'normal father-son relationship'! But 'Korea', or precisely, the Korean War is what left its indelible mark in him. After all, what are Wars for?! Let Homer's Chariots and Valmiki's Bed-of-Arrows rest in peace in the musty pages where they sleep immortalized! The fact remains that there is absolutely no glory in killing another man for State, Borders or Constitution! It is redundant, it is supercilious and most of all, it just reflects as to how insecure Humanity really is! Not one man, but the whole breathing, living, thriving multitude of uniqueness-in-sameness humanity! Even the 'Rhetorical Justice' of the 'Blind Statue' standing with her scales is symbolic of how restrictive and 'blind' we really have to turn ourselves to bring ourselves to co-exist! And this is another one of the schisms that the protagonist addresses! Giving the impression of finally being 'the avenger', he avenges the follies of lesser beings by sacrificing himself. And yet, even though, the trickle of a tear from the audience's eye is testimony of how much glory we seek in his martyrdom, the fact remains that for this man, his death was simply a way of giving back to Life.
It wouldn't be inappropriate to accede that the film was in some way, an excoriation and an antithesis of Modern Christian dogma. On one hand, we see how much Walt's 'troubled soul' initially shrugs at the notion of 'Confession'. The fact that his 'confessions' are totally devoid of the flavours of 'juicy sin' carries a quasi-ironic, quasi-dark humoured flavour. For we know, as he remarks, 'I am at peace, now!', that for a Man such as him, Peace certainly means a sort of End while still being alive. Thus we arrive at the antecedent that to attain Salvation whilst we live shall only drive us to death, or better still, 'Suicide', for there isn't a higher state of existence that one may achieve! It’s the Idealistic! And yet, as happens with Walt, he some how does achieve it. But since, to attain the 'Perfect Calm' of elemental proportions would transcend Man to a height wherein there is no more room to evolve, to change, to twist and turn, and thus he has no other option but to kill himself! And probably, that’s what he does in the end. The Glory, as Aristotle would have remarked, is a cause of Accidence. Death, however, I daresay, is Incidence.
A Word About the Technique:
The dialogues, for their part, and the heavy silences punctuated by Walt’s silent shrieks and grumps play as much an instrument to understand the character as does the screenplay and camera. The strength of this film lies primarily in its script, which stands on the strength of its central character. All that happens in the story, even a ghastly Rape, only enrich and bring out the different shades and manifold depths of Walt’s character. There has been an intertwining of different cultural milieu wherein the Orient has again been represented though its traditions, customs and ‘witch-doctors’, whilst, the West has found face as fractured Father-Son relationships, a conscience wounded by the Korean war, and the final attainment of Meaning through a meaningful death, that makes a fruitless life worthwhile. Ironically, it’s the Orient Witch-doctor who tells Walt the truth about himself! The plot in itself follows the unities of Space, Time and Place; although all of this is relegated to the background as most of the story is told through Walt by his self-impressions, silences and overpoweringly expressive eyes.
Anyways, I shall stop here. For I have a habit to wander off to unknown territories; though most of them are the mothballed, shadowy precincts of my own wandering Mind…
PS. Ironically, if you’d notice, there has been absolutely no mention of a 1952 Green Gran Torino…As they say, Presence maybe Incidence. Absence is always Accidence.
Cheers...
