investigating cognitive dissonance

Everything is connected. You don't believe me? Well, how come my I &hearts Huckabees dvd arrived through the post the day after a friend referred to it quite by surprise in a talk on Sartre, cinema and the concept of 'engagement'? Ha!

It's easy to dismiss lighthearted, silly-too-clever-by-half films like I &hearts Huckabees. Don't they just raise a bunch of serious issues about self, society, ecology, identity etc. but in an offhand way, giving us an 1 1/2 happy hrs of laughs and farcical situations, kooky characters, 'leftfield indie' stars like Jason Schwartzman, Isabelle Huppert, Naomi Watts, Mark Wahlberg... oh and Jude 'eye-candy' Law (not my cup of tea) and Dustin 'The Graduate' Hoffman...? Don't they just dilute and ridicule philosophy, like the drivel spouted in the Matrix, isn't it all just superficial dumbing down?

Well I'm not so sure. In his talk, my friend pointed out that the film is engaged because it raises contemporary issues without any easy resolutions. The narrative arc may resolve but the discourse on the struggle of existence is left open, with the existential detectives and the nihilist French dominatrix looking almost as bemused as the now-slightly-more-content-with-pain-and-suffering protagonists, Albert and Tommy. It's not entirely clear whether Brad (the corporate slick Jude Law Huckabees guy - and for Huckabees read Walmart) did a good or a bad thing saving the marsh and half the woods in return for letting Huckabees build on the other half of the woods. He betrayed the cause by playing the game... but also undeniably saved the marsh and half the woods (all kind of metaphorical for not being able to see the woods for the trees, of course - this film loves its knowing, almost ironic, symbolism).

The film does kind of mix everything up - and I think that's the point. It's all about how everything is mixed up, however much we'd like to seperate our lives from the hated corporate giants like Walmart & co - we're all in it together whether we like it or not. That doesn't mean we have to work with the bastards, we just have to recognise that and suffer and keep chaining ourselves to bulldozers or doing whatever we have to do...

Or maybe it's all just silly?