WARNING: SPOILERS! This is an astonishing film. I sat through 'Being There' chuckling at Seller's wonderful 'Zen-like' performance, enjoying its gently satirical look at the vacuous nature of political debate, safe in the knowledge that I was in on the joke: Chance is an idiot but the real idiots are almost everyone else in the film who see profundity when they're given pap.
And then, in a scene that completely flips the film on its head, Chance walks on water! That scene is the cinematographic equivalent of staring at one of those stereograms when the hidden 3D image suddenly leaps out at you. It's a shocking moment, beautifully handled, and you're immediately forced to question everything you've seen in the film and your assumptions about it: why does Chance have no concept of time? Is it because an eternal being wouldn't need one? When Eve makes a pass at Chance is he being tempted by, and tested against, original sin? Was the Washington Cop who, we assume, is calling in a report of a simpleton on the loose, actually compelled to do exactly what Chance told him to do? Does Chance speak Russian? How? Is this because all the tongues of man are as one to him? Does Chance have the power to decide when the time is right for Ben to die? Did the 'old man' meet a similar fate, and does Chance lay his hand on the old man's forehead to see if he is cold or to bless him?
If we accept that Chance has indeed revealed his divinity to us then the whole film flips once more and takes on a far darker aspect. Is the decline in the Presidents powers linked to the rise of Chance? Is his TV broadcast the modern equivalent of the 'sermon on the mount'? And, crucially, is all his talk of gardening a chilling metaphor for the immanent fate of mankind?
A shepherd might be content to tend his flock, but Chance is a gardener, and he might have a great deal of pruning and weeding to do before Eden his garden - is restored to its former glory. A great film that fully deserves its high ranking. 9/10.
And then, in a scene that completely flips the film on its head, Chance walks on water! That scene is the cinematographic equivalent of staring at one of those stereograms when the hidden 3D image suddenly leaps out at you. It's a shocking moment, beautifully handled, and you're immediately forced to question everything you've seen in the film and your assumptions about it: why does Chance have no concept of time? Is it because an eternal being wouldn't need one? When Eve makes a pass at Chance is he being tempted by, and tested against, original sin? Was the Washington Cop who, we assume, is calling in a report of a simpleton on the loose, actually compelled to do exactly what Chance told him to do? Does Chance speak Russian? How? Is this because all the tongues of man are as one to him? Does Chance have the power to decide when the time is right for Ben to die? Did the 'old man' meet a similar fate, and does Chance lay his hand on the old man's forehead to see if he is cold or to bless him?
If we accept that Chance has indeed revealed his divinity to us then the whole film flips once more and takes on a far darker aspect. Is the decline in the Presidents powers linked to the rise of Chance? Is his TV broadcast the modern equivalent of the 'sermon on the mount'? And, crucially, is all his talk of gardening a chilling metaphor for the immanent fate of mankind?
A shepherd might be content to tend his flock, but Chance is a gardener, and he might have a great deal of pruning and weeding to do before Eden his garden - is restored to its former glory. A great film that fully deserves its high ranking. 9/10.