POWDER

 

THREE STARS – Thought-provoking

 

 

        Handicaps have a way of scaring us all.  The fear seems to come from not only our identification with the painful isolation of a handicapped person, but from the anxious sense of our own vulnerability.  Although “Powder” is the film of a young man with a handicap which makes him superior in intelligence and in interpersonal relations, the consequences are the same.  Except for a few enlightened people, Jeremy (Sean Patrick Flannery) is hated and feared for his differences.

        Written and directed by convicted child molester Victor Salva, “Powder”  is explained as an “allegory about being different.”  Perhaps as a partial justification of his own painful life, Salva creates a film in which  the leading character is both admired and pitied, feared and sought after.  Into this complexity Salva also interjects some shallow science fiction, confused new age spirituality and tired social commentary.

        But even with these obvious agendas and weaknesses, “Powder” presents a thoughtful study of the lives of people who are different.  Jeremy’s life began when his mother was fatally struck by lightening when she was on her way to the hospital for his birth. 

        This event caused him to be mutated into a powdery albino person whose brain was not only highly charged with computer-like recall, but he also has the ability to read the thoughts of people around him.  Though he is proclaimed to be the next evolution of humanity by the science teacher played by Jeff Goldblum, the world into which he is born cannot accept him.

        Having been reared by his grandparents due to his father’s rejection, his only experiences beyong his grandparent’s farm are the books he reads.  Because of his albino sensitivity to the sun, his grandparents keep him in the basement of their home until their deaths.  This isolation and loneliness is the central message of the film. 

        When the county officials come and take custody of Jeremy and place him in a boy’s reform school, he experiences the prejudice of society toward the people who are different.   Stared at, whispered about, physically abused and socially ignored, Jeremy experiences the worst side of humanity.  Though presented in a shallow and stereotyped manner, the truth of his experience cannot be easily dismissed.

        People who are different scare us.   Unsure of what made them the way they are, we can respond with unusual fear and insensitivity which borders on hatred.  An example of this is when Jeremy tries to reach out and create a relationship with a female classmate at the local high school.  The repulsive reaction of the girl’s father is irrational and cruel.

        This hateful reaction to people who are different is morally wrong.  Regardless of the difference, whether powdery skin or sexual dysfunction, neither are helped by the hatred and irrational cruelty of others.  What is needed is the Biblical concepts of compassion  and grace. 

        Compassion is the ability to feel what another is feeling - to enter into their pain and join with them in their journey toward wholeness.  Compassion does not confuse disease with being well, nor does it excuse the wrong and call it right,  but neither does the compassionate person hate the one diseased or reject the one living in sin.

        Grace is the gift God gives to each of us to enable us to change.  It is a supernatural action in which God reaches into our pain and sets us free.  This truth is symbolically portrayed in the concluding scenes of “Powder.”  Having been taught by his grandfather  that lightning was God, Jeremy is set free from the pain of this world by being literally taken away by the lightening in the end.  Although lightning is not a manifestation of God, the truth that God’s grace can set us free is a message both for those who are different and for those who fear them.             

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