Pirates of the Caribbean:

At World’s End

2 Stars – Disturbing

2007 is the summer of the trilogies.  From “SpiderMan 3” to “Shrek the Third” and now “Pirates of the Caribbean: at World’s End,” the theatres have hooked us into the continuing tales of familiar characters.  This is both a joy and a disappointment.  The joy comes from our desire to see the continuing adventures of characters we’ve come to love, but the magic of the first films is seldom matched by their sequels, and it is easy for our artists to perform caricatures of their original creations.  This is true of Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) in this third film of Pirates of the Caribbean.  Where his eccentric mannerisms and serendipitous genius caught us delightfully off-guard in the first film, he must now become multiple clones of himself in order to try unsuccessfully to achieve the same effect.  And his former genius is not only expected but also makes his present capers hard to exceed his previous schemes.

The story left us at the end of the second film with a deceased Capt. Jack Sparrow.  Having been sacrificed to the leviathan creature Kraken by the beautiful Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightly) whose kiss sealed his fate, her guilt has now driven her to attempt his rescue from a place of limbo beyond death but not yet dead.

This is the major theme of this increasingly dark trilogy of films.  The films rests on archetypal fears and beliefs. These are seen in the quasi-eternal Davey Jones (Bill Nighly) who is to care for those who die at sea but instead offers a purgatorial service on his ghostly ship, the mythical goddess Calypso (Naomi Harris) who has become imprisoned in physical form by the pirate lords, and the incantations of dark magic which can bring a person back from the dead.  Central to both the second and third films is the symbolic and literal encasement of a heart in a chest, locked away from pain and danger.  In this third film, we see that if we kill that heart, then we will have to give our own heart in return.

Different from the Christian concept of a sinless heart given so our sinful, broken hearts can be eternally healed, in this tale the evil heart can be replaced by anyone’s heart, whatever the motive to do so.  This expresses a more mechanistic belief of a heart for a heart, like that of black magic religions.

One of the discoveries of Capt. Sparrow in this third film is that “down is up.”  This specific statement understood as a solution to their particular predicament explains the world of the pirate tale in general.  The looting, betraying, scheming, self-advancing, mutinous, murderous world of the pirate is “UP” in these films, when in reality such behavior creates a chaos and a destruction that even the “Pirate’s Code” cannot stop.  It is this inverted morality that makes these films both intriguing and injurious.

 

Discussion:      

1.       The explanations that Tia Dalma (Naomie Harris) gives about why it is possible to bring back Capt. Sparrow but not Elizabeth’s father is that Jack and his ship, the Black Pearl, were swallowed whole - soul and all - by Kraken, but Governor Swann’s (Jonathan Pryce) soul was separated from his body at death.  In what way do you believe our souls and our bodies are whole?  Do you think it is possible to go somewhere with both our bodies and our souls and be able to return to this life?

 

2.       The obvious need for a Pirate’s Code to keep “honor among thieves” is seen in this film.  How do you believe moral written laws work or do not work to keep pirate-like people from hurting one another?  What do you think is more effective?

 

3.       What is it in all of us that causes us to be intrigued with pirates, who we should be repulsed by if they rape, pillage and kill us and the people we love?  Are these really our suppressed desires, or shadowed motives that we wish we could express, or is there some other force at work that makes pirates so engaging?

 

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Cinema In Focus is a social and spiritual movie commentary.  Hal Conklin is former mayor of Santa Barbara and Denny Wayman is pastor of the Free Methodist Church. For more reviews: http://www.cinemainfocus.com.