Bond, James Bond. 007. A very
successful and long-lasting movie franchise, in spite of or because of there
being so many long action-scenes in the films. Bond’s relationships with M,
Moneypenny, and Q-branch can be meaningful for viewers, even though the spy’s
relationships with women are superficial and of short duration. So, the scenes of
No Time to Die (2021)
prior to the opening credits stand out because they provide more than a glimpse
of Bond in an emotionally intimate, substantive romantic relationship that is
to be longstanding, at least until Bond discovers that the woman has betrayed
him. That even such a film that is so action-oriented would start out so very
deep from the standpoint of human relationships is important because technological
special-effects can be so seductive to filmmakers of action films that deep
narrative can easily be left out.
The film begins when Madeleine,
who will be Bond’s girlfriend, is a young girl. Her druggie mother is shot in
the family home by a villain whose family was shot by Madeleine’s father, who
is not at home. The villain decides to save Madeleine from drowning rather than
kill her too, and presumably takes her under his wing. Decades later, in the scenes
that follow, she and Bond are a couple, albeit not married. Related to her
past, which she has not divulged to her retired-spy boyfriend, she sets him up
to be killed when he visits the grave of a woman he had fallen for in an
earlier film. Madeleine knows that Bond has not let that woman go, mentally, so
James and Madeleine make a deal wherein Bond is to finally let the dead woman
go and Madeleine is to tell Bond her secrets. Bond visits the grave to finally
let the former girlfriend go, and Madeleine’s still-kept secrets catch up with
him when the grave-site explodes, throwing him violently backward.
Even for a psychologically-detached
person such as Bond, the very concept of finality that must be faced head-on in
letting a loved one go is difficult to accept, let along grasp. For practical
purposes, it makes no difference whether the beloved is dead or has moved on,
having rejected the love by embracing the finality of ending a relationship; it
can still be very difficult to let go, mentally. Even in cases in which two
people were misaligned, such as in the case of having conflicting values, coming
to terms with the utter coldness of finality can be difficult, especially if
that follows the cold slap of rejection. In short, the inexorability of facing
finality in finally admitting to oneself of having been wrong about a person
and in having to move on, mentally, by letting the person go forever, can be
difficult to face. To be sure, forgetfulness can kick in with time, so
dysthymic rumination does not go on forever.
In lighting a piece of paper
with his prior beloved’s name on it at the grave site just before the bomb
explodes, James Bond presumably is letting go of the dead woman. He has no
choice, for she is dead, though there is some choice in willing to end thinking
about a person by removing the very concept of the person from one’s current
thoughts. I doubt that just symbolically letting go of something mental by
lighting a piece of paper does the trick, for a person does not fall in love
everyday so it takes time to pave over such depth. Even so, Bond makes a valid
attempt to keep his end of the deal. Madeleine’s end, however, in divulging her
secrets, becomes moot when James discovers that she is the person who notified
the villain of Bond’s whereabouts so he could be killed. The villain even calls
Madeleine while she is sitting next to James in his car! Even though the two
are occupied with driving away from the villains who are shooting at the car, Bond
finds time to drop her off at the train station. “When will I see you again?”
she asks him from the train. “You will never see me again,” he deadpans. He is
utterly without emotion, having been so deeply hurt by her betrayal. In
rejecting her, he has no problem whatsoever with the finality of never. He
is extremely hurt, and has expunged emotion itself from his consciousness.
Generally speaking, a person
who represses emotion due to past emotional trauma has no trouble at all with cutting
people off as though slicing a tomato with a sharpened knife. It is very easy
for such a person to part ways forever without any temptation whatsoever to reconcile.
When Madeleine is standing after having boarded the train, while she is looking
at James as he tells her that she will never see him again, it is clear from
her facial expression that she is still in love with him and perhaps that she
regrets her mistake. The night before, she could have confided in him by
sharing the secret, and, moreover, why would she be willing to have the man she
loves killed, even if she feels she has no choice?
In any case, Bond has had
enough and he reverts back to his emotionless killer-persona that had served
him so well as a British agent. In the James Bond books, the character is a psychopath—like
a machine with neither a conscience nor compassion. So, it is surprising that he
fell in love with the dead woman and then with Madeleine. Given the latter’s
betrayal, it is easy to surmise that Bond will never trust enough again so to
be able to fall deeply in love with another person. The deep and important
relationship between trust and emotional intimacy in a romantic relationship is
the leitmotif in the scenes of the film prior to the opening credits.
The film's beginning, which is in a
way an ending, struck me because when I watched the film, I was in the process
of letting someone go whom I had deeply loved because trust had been
eviscerated to the point that I had no choice but to embrace the finality of never
even though I was deeply in love at the time of the break-up. I could not “train”
the other to radically change values and embrace rather than fear emotional
intimacy; I had been repeatedly sidelined, lied to, and emotionally betrayed too
many times in unashamed, inexorable coldness. Intimate relationships hardly
ever resurrect from such an explosion of trust, and it is rare that both parties
are motivated to put in the grueling effort to restore the relationship as a
priority. More often than not, one of the parties is just fine with the
finality of never seeing the other party again, and may even “aww” the other
person in pitiful pity for having fallen in love in the first place. Such
coldness does not deserve being the object of love. So, Bond’s position
resonated with me when he realizes that he has to let Madeleine go even though
he still loves her. Madeleine’s position resonated with me because of the pain
she will have to endure in having to accept never.
In an action film, such an emotionally-grabbing beginning as is capable of stirring emotions is surprising; No Time to Die demonstrates that even the action genre of the medium can support deep narrative so as to engage an audience emotionally rather than just to titillate by bells and whistles, crashes and explosions. In other words, even action films can touch the human condition, as painful as being human, all too human, can be. Even if James and Madeleine are praying that morning for the end of time, it is no time to die.
