A serious man - On life

Now, wasn't that a bitter ending?

I read the review of A serious man on the Empire on the tube yesterday afternoon, and the same night I went to watch the movie (after the failure of two weeks ago, when it was sold out). Empire's Dan Jolin ended his article like this: "And if we see a more exciting final shot of a movie this year, we'll eat your yarmulke" (skullcap, author's note). Indeed, I must say. I gaped. Literally. I saw the last shot and then the screen went black and the credits appeared and I just gaped. Black irony was a leitmotif throughout, but the very last shot was more than sourly ironical.

A phone call and a tornado approaching, a camera that stays on the back, shyly, at the same height of the kid. Fate and its inescapability. And the attempt of man to make sense out of it. Like Larry, the protagonist of the film itself, a serious, honest professor that, however, seems to be punished by destiny -a reference to the Biblical figure of Job? And nevertheless, he searches for a meaning in his plight, he asks Rabbis for interpretation and advice. The second Rabbi's answer seems particularly interesting. The story of the dentist becomes a metaphor for the life of mankind. Stop asking yourself too many questions, and just live. Just help others. Just make choices.

We'll never know what happens after the credits appear on the screen. We'll never know what the content of the doctor's phone call to Larry was. We'll never know the results of Larry's X-ray. We'll never know whether the tornado cast Danny and his schoolmates away. We'll never know. We'll just gape, as much as I did. We can just appreciate the brevity of the movie. The brevity of life. We can just enjoy, as fully as we can, the experience. Even if we can't make much sense of it.