Last night I watched the film, Repo Men, with a new friend from Patrick Henry College. It is an incredibly dark film that will provoke deep and disquieting questions and conflicts. The cast, particularly Jude Law and Forest Whitaker, contribute to the depth and dark beauty of this film through their raw, resonant, and occasionally electrifying performance. While perhaps best described as a thriller, the morbid tone and excessive blood, gore, and violence nearly make it a horror film. Though this film contains several objectionable elements, the depth and importance of the questions it creates make it a film I would definitely recommend.
The film centers around a moral dilemma, a moral dilemma not seen by Jude Law’s character, Remy, until about halfway through the film. Remy works for the Union – a company that produces bio-mechanical organs for transplant patients. These transplants cost an exorbitant amount of money and sales associates are expected to encourage the customers to purchase the organs on credit in order to maximize the company’s profits. Should the patient fail to make his payment on the organ, he is given a grace period of three months before a “repo man” stuns him, cuts him open, and repossesses the organ.
Remy begins the film with no moral qualms about his job as a repo man. He says, "My job is simple. Can't pay for your car, the bank takes it back. Can't pay for your house, the bank takes it back. Can't pay for your liver, well, that's where I come in." Remy literally jabs knives into barely anesthetized living people removing the bio-mechanical organs that keep them alive. It is assumed that these patients will die, if not from the "surgery" then because their credit rating will prevent them from receiving a new organ.
Thus the moral dilemma - does a company have the moral right to take back a product clearly belonging to them when the inexorable affect is the death of a former customer? Remy begins the film without a concern, an attitude I (and I hope the average viewer) was completely unable to understand. When circumstances change, Remy begins to see things from the other perspective; he then does everything in his power to prevent the Union from repossessing organs.
The protection of private property is one of the main purposes for the existence of government. Private property ownership is clearly established in Biblical morality; what happens, however, when this "last metaphysical right" comes into conflict with the Biblical command not to murder? If an individual steals another's property and incorporates it into his body in such a way that removal results in his death, to what extent does the property owner's right give him power over the thief's life? The Union is not a governmental power such as those given authority under Romans 13; it is merely a private company interested in protecting its property interests; does it have the right or authority to execute (savagely) those withholding its property? Can a fellow human qua human make a demand for the preservation of his life that transcends one's right to property? These questions, left unanswered by the film, are deeply troubling.
Perhaps the more important question, one not addressed but implied by the film, is the question of the inherent value of life. While every person, absent certain crimes, has a right to life given by God, modern technology has enabled us to preserve life well beyond the wildest dreams of individuals a mere hundred years ago. Does this increase in technological ability carry with it a duty to preserve life always and by any means possible? This is a discussion divorced completely from discussions of abortion or euthanasia - there is a difference between actively ending a life and not using ever resource at one's disposal to artificially preserve life. This question is engendered by the film - is it worthwhile to live a slave to the Union while living off an artificial organ that one cannot hope to finally pay off in order to attain a few more years of life? Does society, or companies like the Union, have some sort of duty to use such technological advances to benefit as many people as possible? I think the answer to both questions is a cautious and reluctant "no."
Luke 9:24 states, "For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it." This verse argues that life is itself not more valuable than living well. In pursuing long (or maybe even merely longer) life in se, one runs the risk of losing any true sort of valuable existence in his life and the possibility of making it worth the living. Remy notes this: "At the end, a job is not just a job, it is who you are, and if you wanna [sic] change who you are, you have to change what you do...." Remy changes his focus, chooses to pursue living well (at least better than he was before) rather than merely living longer. Given the eternal nature of the soul's existence, this perspective on life seems to be the most logical. One's focus in life should be to align one's soul as closely as possible to God, glorifying him in the process and reaching one's fellow men. "We live in the shadowlands." The longest life is less than a molecule in an ocean when compared to eternity; one needs to live one's life in preparation for eternity.
This summer I had a part time job writing for a neo-conservative PAC and I decided to work from my home in the beautiful and peaceful Upper Peninsula of Michigan. In between writing, working outside, visiting with family, and swimming in the Great Lakes I did some reading. A lot of what I read were works I had heard about at Patrick Henry College, but just had not had the time to read during the school year. So here are ninety-four books comprising 30,064 pages of reading. I had a blast.
