Captain Fantastic
the vulnerable softness of urban living
Each auteur uses the medium of film differently. Kubrick, for example, could not have conveyed his art through any other medium other than film. Tarantino’s dialogue is so effective that his scripts can be performed as plays. Nolan is the master of the spectacle, high concept and dramatically revealing a layered story.
Whatever the purpose of a film, when achieved, brings immense, gratifying satisfaction to the audience (the kind of satisfaction we were denied in the last episode of The Game of Thrones). The fullness of a perfectly executed film brims and fills the viewer, so much so that they can’t stop thinking about it or talking about it or being haunted by it.
Captain Fantastic, which was one of the best independent films to come out in 2016, and is now available on Netflix Canada, set out to achieve a specific purpose: to show us, in brilliant, no uncertain terms, the shallow and mindbogglingly underwhelming lives we North Americans live today.
The director, Matt Ross, uses every tool in his cinematic arsenal to convey his ideology. Whether it’s the esoteric quality of life in the forest, the effective use of silence and music to enhance emotion, the tartness of the dialogue, or the vibrant use of colour in every frame, the film is a visual treat.
However, it is the story at the heart of this visually relaxing film that is the most compelling. The film sets out to answer perhaps the most important question my generation faces today: what values to raise children with, and what is the right way to live. What do they need and what do they want and which of those must be prioritized? This question is answered in every beat of every scene of the film in wonderfully heartbreaking and heartwarming scenes.
On the road, when Ben Cash and his six children are stopped by a suspicious white, Christian cop, he tells them — we’ve prepared for this moment. Just as you’re wondering how they’re going to get out of this pickle, the oldest, Bo, starts singing carols, and the rest of the children join in, smothering the cop with their overly pleasant ‘Christian’ values. What a way to turn the scene! (The best part is — you’re left wondering why and how a Christian family with six carolling children is normal, but a parent living with his kids in the boonies isn’t.)
Or when they’re celebrating Noam Chomsky Day, and one of the children asks Ben why they can’t celebrate Christmas. Instead of dismissing religion outright or dictating what they should or shouldn’t do, Ben, in a manner so quintessentially fraternal, replies, instead, with a question, “Well, why don’t you make a case for celebrating Christmas, and we’ll hear you out?”
The dinner table scene with Ben’s sister’s family, a “normal” American family complete with two average, clueless teenagers, is when the contrast between the ‘uncivilized’ forest dwellers and normal ‘civilized’ citizens is starkest. We’ve already seen what Ben’s children are capable of in both thought and action. At this point in the movie, we’re already rooting for them to win the emotional argument. So when Ben is being truthful and straightforward about the taboo things children shouldn’t learn about (depression, suicide, drugs, sex), you're pleasantly surprised, but you’re also thinking, well, yes, this is how parents should be. Let’s keep it raw. And then, while providing social commentary of what crack cocaine is, Ben explains that people kill each other over Nikes, when his children ask, “They killed each other over Nike? The Greek winged-goddess of victory?”
That his children are sheltered from the most ubiquitous thing in American culture — a pair of Nike sneakers — immediately and superbly subverts your perspective. Now, you see the absurdity of it, the hollowness of it, the unimaginative blindness of the American way of life — video games and capitalism and junk food and comfort. How much we lose by gaining comfort. And you mourn for that loss even as you rejoice in the raw innocence of the children’s responses.
Before watching Captain Fantastic, my primary concerns about how I would raise my children had to do with conveying the rich cultural and spiritual traditions of my heritage that provided me anchor and solid footing in this quagmire of a world. I would wonder about how I’d teach the Ramayana or the Mahabharata, or how my child would learn Kannada from my parents.
But Captain Fantastic has forced me to reflect on the vulnerable softness of urban living: the endless Amazon orders, the pile of takeout boxes, the growing collection of subscriptions to different streaming services, the intolerable heat waves, money I never see that lives on my Apple Watch and my iPhone — our every interaction mediated by devices…
It’s fair to say that the lives you can’t live and the things you can’t do, you create or consume, as art. Captain Fantastic is one such indulgence. The first day after watching it, you roll over the scenes in your mind like you’d roll over candy in your mouth. You’re still revelling from the satisfaction of having watched and lived the stories of the characters in the film.
Then, the next day, as moments from your regular every day life fill you up, and replace the memories of the film, you can see the parallels — the 2D screens of your life coalesce with the 3D world of the children’s, and you wonder, are you duping yourself about being one with nature by going on hikes every weekend?
On the third day, you start thinking: how do I use this movie in my life? How do I carry it over to the next generation? You start wanting for the knowledge, courage and endurance to raise your own children in a forest, away from the influences and inadequacies of our quasi-intelligent way of living.
Then you wonder how to talk about climate change and survival to your kids, how you can teach them to understand society without subscribing to its rules. As you go through the motions of life, you internalize the film so it is no longer the other; it is the self. This is the true enchantment of a philosophically powerful film.
Captain Fantastic not only satisfies you philosophically, visually and cathartically, it also awakens you to yourself.
PS: Ben Cash is played by Viggo Mortensen who is also Aragorn from the Lord of the Rings movies. The movie feels like Aragorn’s afterlife with Arwen playing out in our world (instead of Middle Earth).