Don't be afraid
the Grey is a gritty survival film starring Liam Neeson as Ottway,
a marksman for an oil company somewhere in Alaska.
When his planes crashes,
he and a small group of survivors find themselves hunted by a pack of wolves in an unforgiving wilderness.
At the time of its release,
the film received mixed reactions which I think was mostly due to marketing issues.
The trailer seemed to promise a more action-packed film,
even including some images of a climactic fight that wasn't even in the eventual film,
leading to some false interpretations that it was going to be 'Taken with Wolves'.
The film was also criticized for its inaccurate portrayal of the canine creatures,
even though it offers some narrative reasons on why they are more violent than usual.
I thought wolves were scared of people.
Not if we're near their den.
They're not scared of anything then.
And they'll come after us.
More importantly,
I think these criticisms failed to see the film was never really about being chased by wolves,
it was about the human will in the face of desperation,
about finding meaning in a time of suffering
I think few authors can relate to this as Viktor Frankl does.
As a Holocaust survivor,
He discovered like no other the meaning behind Nietzsche's statement;
"He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how."
His experiences in the concentration camps confirmed many of his ideas
which later became the foundation of his Logotherapy;
a form of existential analysis that assumes life is primarily a quest for meaning.
78% of these American youngsters
were concerned as they expressed it themselves
with finding a meaning and purpose in their lives.
We can find the basics of his work in many survival films,
but I think the gray stands out for its explicit emphasis on the importance of finding meaning in desperate situations,
which I want to explore today in more detail.
When Viktor Frankl talks about finding meaning in life,
he isn't so much concerned with the meaning of life in general,
but rather, the specific meaning of a person's life at a given moment.
He writes:
Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is.
but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked.
In a word, each man is questioned by life;
and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life.
Two major sources for this kind of meaning are found
in doing something significant or achieving a task.
and in experiencing something of beauty, which extends to loving another human being.
In many survival films this is what motivates the protagonist through hardship.
In the Revenant for example; Leonardo DiCaprio's character Hugh Glass
is motivated by getting revenge on the man who left him for dead.
In Cast Away; Tom Hanks' character Chuck Noland struggles to survive on a desert island
for the sake of his fiancee who he longs to return home to.
The Grey too acknowledges the importance of having something to fight for:
Those things from your life..
Whatever they might be.
Make you want that next minute more than the last.
Make you fight for it.
Each survivor has his own reasons to keep struggling,
but what all their motivations have in common is that they are external,
they are found in the future, outside of their current situation.
But what if someone fails to find this kind of meaning?
I just had a clearest thought.
I'm done.
Towards the end of the Grey,
one of the survivors no longer sees the point in surviving and simply gives up.
His motivation to keep struggling no longer outweighs his suffering.
Is that it? You're just gonna sit there? Is that what you want?
Yeah.
After what we survived?
That's exactly why.
What I got waiting for me back there?
One can wonder why the same fate did not befall Ottway.
When we are introduced to him in the beginning of the film he is on the brink of suicide,
unable to see any meaning in his life.
I've stopped doing this world any real good.
Later we also learn his wife has passed away.
So without his loved one and without a clear purpose in his life,
it seems there's little reason for him to keep fighting like he does.
this is where I believe the Grey really differentiates itself from other survival films;
it explores the will to live in a man who has nothing to live for.
Although Viktor Frankl had plenty to live for,
he did ask himself a similar question during his time in the concentration camps.
Realizing how likely it was that he would never get out of alive,
he searched for meaning not only in the potential outcome of his suffering, but also in the suffering itself.
Because for Frankl, having the meaning of his life largely depending on the small chance of surviving the camp,
was not a life worth living.
And so he wrote:
We must never forget that we may also find meaning in life even when confronted with a hopeless situation,
when facing a fate that cannot be changed.
For what then matters is to bear witness to the uniquely human potential at its best,
which is to transform a personal tragedy into a triumph,
to turn one's predicament into a human achievement.
When we are no longer able to change a situation we are challenged to change ourselves.
As the last remaining survivor, Ottway finds himself in true desperation,
calling out to God for help and perhaps also, for a justification.
Come on!
Prove it!
Show me something real!
Of course, the universe stays silent, emphasizing how as Viktor Frankl points out;
It is we ourselves who must answer the questions that life asks of us,
and to these questions we can respond only by being responsible for our existence.
In other words;
Fuck it. I'll do it myself.
In the conclusion of Ottway's journey,
he finds himself at the very threshold of death that has been stalking him through the wilderness,
and we bear witness to this ability to change a personal tragedy into a triumph
as Ottway finds meaning in a hopeless situation by facing it with courage.
It's a final resort but for Viktor Frankl it's enough to show that although the meaning of life always changes,
it never ceases to be, and;
In accepting this challenge to suffer bravely,
life has a meaning up to the last moment,
and it retains this meaning literally to the end.
It's a philosophy of heroic suffering,
which Ottway, in what are very likely his final moments, gives voice to with four lines of poetry:
Once more into the fray...
Into the last good fight I'll ever know.
Live and die on this day...
you