The Believer

Just saw The Believer and that was something. It’s about a Jewish boy who rejects his upbringing and embraces Naziism and hate. It’s a shame to describe the movie in such simple terms, because it is a nuanced and thought provoking look at hypocrisy, hate and the truth. As I watched it I felt myself trying to classify the characters in nice boxes and that just doesn’t work for this movie. Ryan Gosling’s performance as Danny is intense and rich with layers of meaning. You can’t help but get wrapped up in his heated polemic about how part of the Jewish faith rests upon Abraham submitting to God to sacrifice his son Isaac and how this one act has created a race of weaklings.

It’s a little disappointing that the movie will be seen by many and reduced to a story of love and redemption. I believe the movie is really about Danny’s search for absolute truth. It’s a movie that has made me wonder if we can throw out the entire DSM-IV, with all its rules about who’s crazy and who’s not. The only crazy person anymore is the one who tries to see through all the bullshit and look for structure and order in a chaotic world. If everyone just took their soma and followed the holy book we wouldn’t have these insane people mucking it up.

I should have just submitted a long time ago. Truth doesn’t exist. It’s merely more or less of a lie. Order doesn’t exist. It’s more or less chaos. Whether God exists or not is irrelevant because the Command to submit does.