The Book of Eli: Themes and Spoilers
This is the second part of my review of The Book of Eli. The first part is a little more technical and this one delves more into the themes I found in the movie.
Danger: Spoilers lie ahead!
I love a movie with a good twist ending especially when it is one I couldn’t guess. It makes a good movie great and makes subsequent viewings shine all the more as you pick out the foreshadowing to the ending. This only works when the twist is well foreshadowed and adds depth to the rest of the film. The Book of Eli accomplishes this with flying colors.
Throughout the movie we see Eli act like a normal person. He engages in combat and seems very aware of what is going on around him. So when we find out at the end of the movie that Eli is blind it makes you sit up and think. But as you go back and think about situations he was in you realize that it makes sense. For example, how does a blind man engage in a gun fight? Eli has already proven through out the film that he can handle himself in combat and apparently he has been doing this for at least 30 years. In the gun fight he doesn’t shoot anyone until they shoot at him. He uses the sound of their gunshot to locate the person.
Another example of this is the first fight we see Eli engage in. Just before the fight begins he backs into the deep shadows cast by a bridge. On first viewing it seems like just a cool set piece for a fight scene to take place in. In light of the twist we get a deeper meaning to it. Eli doesn’t need light to fight but his attackers do. So he is putting himself at an advantage.
Things like this exist throughout the movie pointing us toward the end so that when we get there and find out that he is blind we can think back on the movie and see how it all makes sense. This is why I want to see the movie again. Incredible!
Now on to the themes of the film. Just to be clear I know that the allegories in this movie are not perfect but they do speak to great spiritual truths.
The Book of Eli does a great job of painting the human soul the way it really is: utterly sinful. A popular notion in today’s society is that people are generally good or that everyone has some good in them. The Book of Eli strips away any notion that people have any good in them. In a way it takes the nice face that society has allowed us to put on and show us who we are under that face. We are all deceptive, ugly, and selfish at heart.
There is one man who is in contrast to this basal state everyone else is in. The difference is the book he carries: the Bible So it is his belief in the Word of God that sets him apart. However he is not portrayed as a perfect man but as a sinful man who is in need of forgiveness.
So what is the importance of the Bible in this movie? After the war that made the world the desolate place it is people burned all the Bibles, blaming it’s teachings for the war and destruction. The one Eli has in his possession is the last one as far as the viewer knows. Eli’s mission is to get that Bible to an unknown destination (even to him). This is where the theme of faith comes in.
Eli explains that God spoke to him, told him where to find the Bible, and then told him to go west and trust that he would make it to his destination. Stepping out in faith, Eli does goes west. For thirty years he goes west and God continually watches over him.
The theme of faith is punctuated at the end when we find out that Eli is blind and has been blind throughout the whole movie. When this twist comes the whole film takes on a deeper meaning of faith. He has been walking for thirty years blindly trusting that God would do what He said. The faith exhibited by Eli is something that every Christian should hope for.
In contrast to Eli is Carnegie. He wants the Bible as much as Eli wants to protect it but for different reasons. He wants to use it as a weapon to gain power over people using belief as a tool to enslave them to his rule. There are people like this in our world who attempt to use faith to secure power and we need to be aware of people like this.
Another spiritual parallel put forth is the idea of missions and discipleship. At the end of the movie after Eli dies, Solara is given the opportunity to stay with the civilized humans. Instead of choosing this easier option she opts to head back to where she came from, presumably to share the good news she learned from Eli.
The importance of scripture memory, or hiding God’s word in your heart, comes across as very important as well. Eli comes to a point when he must part with the book in order to save a life after realizing that he hasn’t been following what the book he carried taught. But in the end he is able to deliver the entire book to its destination because he has memorized the whole thing. This begs the question: what would you do if your Bible was taken from you? We live in a time when this isn’t even a concern for anyone living in America. I have several Bibles in my bookshelves but what would I have if they were taken from me? Only what I had memorized.
Another thing the movie tries to highlight is how much we have. When Eli is asked about the world before the event that destroyed it he responds with something like, “The things that people threw away then we kill for today.” How much do we have and how blessed are we? Sometimes it is a hard thing for me to truly know since this is what I have known my whole life. But this movie is a good reminder and that is a good thing to have every now and again.
There may be people who disagree with me that this movie is worth watching to see the spiritual themes put forth because of the violence and worldliness present. But at the same time we live in a world that is full of evil. Do we ignore it or do we acknowledge that it exists? I think that acknowledging it makes my faith in Christ sweeter. It shows me what he has saved me from. We need a good understanding of sin to see how great our salvation is and how beautiful Christ really is.
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