Friday, December 28, 2012

Les Miserables and Lessons in Advent Season

I grew up on Les Miz. I think I was about five years old the first time I heard “Castle on a Cloud” coming from the CD player above my Aunt Theresa’s desk. Perhaps it was only because I felt strong kinship with this girl who also believed in castles on clouds, but I was enamored from the beginning. I listened to the songs over and over again, minus of course, that one song about that one thing that was not really mentioned in the Manby household. My first live performance was at age 13 and, as I sat at in the front row of a small New York theater off Broadway, it took me until ‘Drink with Me’ in the second act to realize that I was silently breathing every word. Simply put, I was in love.

Now, before you get all impressed you should know one thing: it takes me a while to fully understand things. And, thus, fully appreciate them. To be fair, I am not sure the depth of Les Miserables can actually be grasped in the first viewing, or the second, or the third for that matter. And, because I grew up on it, I think in some ways it had become just Les Miz to me. It was that musical my family loved, that we sang on long car rides, that my dad cried to. I knew the story but I didn't fully understand.

It wasn't until my senior year of college, 16 years after my first exposure mind you, that I began to actually realize that the story was another telling of the Gospel. My roommate and dear friend had seen it for the first time while studying abroad the previous semester and we went together when it came to Chicago. Watching it with her reactions beside me was like seeing it afresh. For the first time, I began to see the grace and mercy infused behind the words of the Bishop and Jean Valjean. I saw the fall in Fantine’s demise. And I saw the world’s evil in Javert’s outlook. For the first time, after singing along for years, I began to listen to the words.

And now, Tom Hooper has taken his recently released rendition and hit me, plain and square, on the forehead. Sometimes you have to do that with me… I thank you, Tom. I think I may actually get it now.

Les Miserables is a story of grace, yes. It is a story of redemption. The gospel in the form of a French ex-con. But I am beginning to realize that it is also so much more. It captures, in a beautiful weaving of stories, lives, and relationships, the somewhat mystifying juxtaposition of heartache and hope that comes with a life living in, and waiting for, Christ. In doing so, I believe it also memorializes Advent season.

The movie didn't change from the musical that much. I was amazed, albeit grateful, at how true it was to the original vision, a vision that has been relatively and remarkably untouched since its debut in 1985. At the same time though, choosing film as the media to convey Hugo, Shonberg, and Boublil’s collective message allowed Hooper to provide his audiences with an experience dripping in such an acute intimacy that I found communion with the story, and its actors, almost* inevitable.

Consequently, I believe, the movie allows for a new dynamic somewhat lost in Broadway theaters: one of affinity, empathy, and relation. We see ourselves in characters so refreshingly brought into being in this new perspective and portrayal. We hear our own righteous anger in the frustration of prisoner 24601. We feel Fantine’s deep cries of loss collectively, if not personally. We hope right alongside those college aged revolutionaries, however naïve they were. And, lest we forget poor ‘Ponine’s plight, we all know what it feels like to experience unrequited love**. We have all hoped. We have all lost. The movie, with its intense angles and prolonged shots, conveys this paradox of life in an almost oppressive fashion. Christian or not, you cannot miss the undeniable stench of humanity diffusing throughout the entire film. So much so, that the movie can be a bit off putting. As one critic puts it: “By the grand finale, when tout le monde is waving the French tricolor in victory, you may instead be raising the white flag in exhausted defeat.”

I am not one to quickly avert Christian eyes from cultural mainstreams; I feel the dance between our calling as Christians and our responsibilities as cultured beings is much more intricate and complicated, but that is a story for another day. However, I believe this is an instance where Christians can and should claim a different interpretation. Because within that stench of humanity – the heart wrenching cries of Fantine, the broken hopes of Marius, the continued painful existence of the French poor - arose a sweeter story that we, as believers in a second Advent, must acknowledge, recognize, and proclaim. Things will be made right. This world, with all of its suffering, is not our home. To borrow Paul’s words, we are children of  a promise who, while enduring that which He also endured, can live out of that promise and thus claim our earthly inheritance of peace and joy. Even within the hardest of times.

I have found it interesting that the film version of Les Miserables was released on Christmas. So many Les Miz fans were anxiously waiting for its arrival, their anticipation building as the time grew near, myself included. Is this starting to sound familiar? Perhaps it is the coincidental marriage of my newly found appreciations for the Advent attitude alongside the beautiful story line of Les Miz that produced such a overflowing of understanding for me. But, a brief survey of Facebook statuses is proving I am not the only one. Yay for the connectivity of social media!

I think Les Miserable’s allusion to the Gospel is incredibly powerful; I am not denying that fact. I am simply submitting that there may be even greater power in its beautiful acknowledgement of life’s blaring realities that so deeply coincide with its final proclamation of redemption and restoration. This was wonderfully characterized through incredible performances and artistry, brought to life in a more viable medium; for a girl who always lived in the clouds, this portrayal of life’s many paradoxes was tremendously powerful. Because, as I saw with such authenticity on the screen, we can really only know love with heartbreak. We only know hope with longing. We only know life with death. But our story does not end there. It should not. It cannot. We have a Second Advent on the horizon. For our King is coming to bring salvation into our suffering. A King, it should be added, who also experienced our suffering for our salvation. In Advent season, we remember Christ’s birth and anticipate His second coming. We proclaim, while waving the revolutionizing flag of our Gospel, that Freedom is waiting for us, in the same way we wait for it. Swords will be put away. Chains will be broken. Even the darkest night will end. The sun will rise.

Praise God.

 * I say “almost” primarily because film critics were rather less than enthused with the numerous, and slightly exaggerated, close-up shots of the actors. I have to say that this is a critique with which I somewhat agree: you could pretty much count their pores. And it made me wonder, what if Anne had woken up with a massive zit on her nose the day they were supposed to shoot ‘I Dreamed a Dream’? What then? 


 ** Confession… I have found that Eponine’s story to hit a wee bit too close to home over the years. I defiantly combat this affinity with a mantra along the lines of: 'unrequited love gets you killed, Ryn. Stop it.'