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BEYOND THE MOVIE :

Gladiator (2000 - 150 minutes, R for graphic combat)

by Raymond Teague

It's probably a sign of the spiritual awakening of our times when even a movie that, like this one, is staged in an "arena of bloodshed" contains a strong spiritual message. Our critic invites us to discover it, penetrating under the spectacular surface of the film to arrive at its spiritual core.

Looking for the inspirational and the spiritual in movies, I had decided not to see Gladiator.

I have sat through many earlier gladiator epics from the 1950's and 1960's, such as Demetrius and the Gladiators and Spartacus, and had no desire to reenter the arena of bloodshed. But it is my contention that Spirit speaks to us in all sorts of ways and through all types of movies.

So when friends started saying, "Oh, you've got to see Gladiator" and "Yes, it is spiritual," I reluctantly had to join the throng flocking to this Roman epic — the story of a Spaniard named Maximus (Russell Crowe) and his strength and honor in battle, in loyal service to Rome, and in the Colosseum as a gladiator.

Yes, Gladiator is a spiritual movie. Look beyond the battles and the carnage (or away from such scenes and images) and see past the intrigues of those usually slippery and morally challenged caesars and their families, and you'll find a powerful, inspiring message.

Gladiator does for the gladiator genre what The Thin Red Line (1999) does for war movies — it gives us a glimpse of the metaphysical within the challenges of broad-scale human confrontations.

Ultimately and at its core Gladiator is not a revenge movie or even a battle epic: Its principal theme, so obvious in Maximus' visions and dialogue, is strongly spiritual.

After Marcus Aurelius (Richard Harris) chooses Maximus to be protector of Rome after his death rather than his own son Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix) to be emperor, the jealous Commodus has Maximus' beloved wife and son murdered.

As a result, Maximus proves that all-important strength and honor time and again, but great deeds and revenge are never his motives. Maximus wants one thing and one thing only: to join his wife and son. Gladiator, then, is really a movie about faith and the belief in a joyous afterlife.

Throughout all of his ordeals, Maximus never waivers in his faith. He is a devout man who prays and honors his ancestors and who recognizes the value of positive imaging. "Imagine where you will be and it will be so," Maximus tells his soldiers. "What we do in life echoes in eternity."

Before the deaths of his wife and son, Maximus imagines himself at home with his crops and family. After their physical deaths, he still imagines himself with them. He is certain that physical death does not separate loved ones. "My wife and my son are already waiting for me," Maximus tells a fellow gladiator. The friend says that Maximus will meet them again. "Can they hear you, your family in the afterlife?" Maximus is asked. "Oh, yes," he replies with conviction.

Maximus' journey is one that we all make — a return to our spiritual home, or, some say, simply a remembrance of our spiritual unity.

The film also suggests the dreamlike nature of reality. Commodus quotes his father as saying, "It's a dream — a frightful dream — life is." Commodus says he agrees.

The challenges of life — represented on a grand scale by events in Maximus' life — often serve to bring us to a recognition that in some way human life is a dream and that our goal is really to awaken from that dream — as Maximus does, to return home.

Much of the dream seems to revolve around our need for love, which in itself is a desire to remember our wholeness as spiritual beings, one with the Love that is Spirit. This theme is seen most dramatically not only in Maximus' love for his wife and son, but also in Commodus' hunger for his father's love.

Looking at his nephew and thinking about his own unrest, Commodus says, "He sleeps so well because he is loved." Reacting to a lack of love, Commodus seeks satisfaction in harmful ways. How different his life would have been — and the lives of Maximus and his family — if Commodus had received the love he needed as a child.

Copyright © 2000 Raymond Teague - All Rights Reserved