21 Grams
21 grams is the weight of a hummingbird, a chocolate bar and (roughly) a £2 coin. It's also, according to urban legend, the weight of the soul: the measure of essence issued by our last gasp; the difference in body mass, pre and post mortem.
It's also the name of a current film which explores issues of death, life and re-birth to ask, 'How much does the soul truly weigh?'
The question is explored through the intersection of the lives of three central characters: Sean Penn's ill professor, Naomi Watts' suburban mum who has a background of narcotics abuse, and Benicio del Toro's 'born again' ex-con, ex-alcoholic.
A fatal car accident brings them together and, as a result, all three undergo emotional torture, presenting what one critic described as 'a compelling triptych of human pain'. The actors are at the height of their powers and the weighty issues their characters wrestle with contrast deliberately with the seemingly insignificant weight of the title.
As the Guardian's film critic Pete Bradshaw notes, there is a sense of uneasy redemption as they struggle to recover from their collision. 'Recovery' he writes 'is the nearest thing to a clear spiritual purpose they have, and in a 21st-century society in which there is said to be a God-shaped hole, the language of addiction and recovery plugs the gap as much as possible, but the chill wind of loneliness still howls through.'
Ultimately, hope comes from the film's curious narrative structure. The action unfolds through a series of jumbled fragments from the past and the present of all three characters. This provides an excellent hook - in having to piece the narrative segments together, the viewer becomes deeply connected to the story. And so the film is about not just the interconnectedness of the story's characters, but of our lives with theirs.
For good or for worse, our actions affect those around us. And therein lies a sense of hope, as the film's director Alejandro González Iñárritu explains: 'I think we are very interconnected and that we can affect other people's lives by doing just one thing.'
Fittingly, this week, Mel Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ goes on general release; a film about a God who chose to enter the complex world of human suffering in order to perform one central act of loving sacrifice, the repercussions of which will be felt throughout eternity.
Jason Gardner
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