The medium of film has an
amazing ability to trigger emotions, even very strong ones, through dialogue,
narrative, cinematography and sound. The suspension of disbelief, if achieved,
renders the impact all the more complete. Dread, for example, can be conjured
up even with another yet different emotion, such as joy, even in the same song.
The medium is also capable of stimulating thought not only as viewers attempt
to figure out unnecessarily convoluted plots, but also thinking more abstractly
in philosophical or theological terms. Such abstractions, besides being implicitly
or explicitly treated in the narrative, extend beyond the confines of a
narrative and its story-world. “Life and death” is such a theme, as is whether the
human soul is immortal. Less tantalizing, though arguably just as important for
typically being overlooked, philosophy of mind (and philosophy of psychology),
for which a strange, incomprehensible plotline is by no means requisite or even
constructive, stands as a rich reservoir for filmmakers. Even though the
question of life and death is central to the film, Silent
Night (2021), which interestingly was made during the
global coronavirus pandemic—there is even a “Covid Supervisor” listed in the
credits!—a seldom-recognized vulnerability innate to the human mind may deserve
top billing in that film. The group-think evinced by the group of friends at
the house on Christmas Eve and perhaps a wider mass-hysteria only touches the
surface of the problem in terms of the human mind. I contend that the
star-attraction in the Christmas film rightly goes to the human mind’s vulnerability
to presumption to the assumption of infallibility (and susceptibility to
group-think cognitively and as in terms of power). In the context of a group’s suicide pact, critical
thinking in the sense of critiquing whatever assumptions are being held is so
very important, yet it is only evinced by Art, a young boy, who is under
unrelenting pressure especially from his parents to take a fatal pill before a “cloud”
of toxic, climate-changed gases hits.
As for the film’s plot,
Nell and Simon, who have three boys, including Art, invite friends that they
have known since school over for Christmas in Nell's mother's upscale house. Everyone
is trying to celebrate Christmas, so they resist turning the subject to their
impending self-inflicted, albeit presumably necessary, deaths. Death is assumed
as certain and very painful for anyone who does not take the “exit” suicide
pills that the government has made available to British citizens, but not to the
homeless and illegal immigrants—a moral problem really only bothers Art. The
assumption that suicide, or an “exit,” as in “Brexit,” is necessary presupposes
that death from the toxic ground-level “cloud” is certain. Art’s mother, Nell,
makes this assumption; so too does her husband, Simon. They are determined to
force Art to take the pill rather than to allow their eldest son to hold out
with James’ fiancée, Sophie, who is pregnant and does not want to kill her baby.
James even tells Art that the scientists all agree with the government that
failure to take the pill would result in intolerable suffering from inhaling
the inevitable and long-lasting poisonous gases. As it turns out, Art is
correct, and they are all wrong, because he wakes up the next morning, alive,
after the “cloud” has passed by and snowfall has cleared the air. His parents
had not given him a pill when they took theirs because they assumed that he was
already dead merely because he had blood on his face. That Simon and
Nell make this assumption without even checking for breathing or a pulse and
yet somehow know that survival inside the house post-cloud will not be
possible just because the scientists and governments say so belies the validity
of the parents’ claim to be so confident in their reasoning and conclusion.
That suicide is involved means that the stakes are high, and yet unchecked
assumptions are allowed to preempt even holding off on the pill until such time
as active poisoning is taking place.
Only Art insists on that
strategy of wait-and-see, and his parents promptly veto it. Nell assumes that
her son would be suffering alone—another unfounded assumption. Only Art questions
the critical assumptions being made by the adults. He even subjects the adults’
suicide “pact” as well as a government policy of issuing suicide pills (only) to
citizens to moral critique. He even points to his parents’ stupidity in giving
him Christmas toys that night, which of course he will not be alive for long to
use! “Your mom is a bit daft,” Simon admits to his son in a touching scene on
the stairs. At least Nell recognizes that Art is intelligent, for at the
Christmas dinner, she tells him, “You clever, clever boy!” He has just scolded all
of the adults at the table, “You all should be ashamed of yourselves!”, for not
having done enough politically—such as in voting Green rather than Conservative,
as Bella and Sandra lament later—to reduce carbon emissions so the atmosphere
would not throw air-borne toxins back and kill at least half of the human
population (so far). Even during the dinner, a toxic brown “cloud” of poisonous
gases and fierce winds traveling at ground-level is sweeping through the land
and will hit the house sometime after midnight, hence on Christmas. Besides having
taken climate toxicity too lightly for decades, the adults at the table are
apparently unaware of the Christmas line, and a child shall lead them. Nell
admits to everyone that Art is clever and yet she dismisses his very reasonable
arguments in favor of “wait and see” rather than preemptively taking suicide
pills under the assumption that doing so before the “cloud” arrives is necessary
to obviate what is sure to be intolerable suffering. Instead of considering
Art’s arguments, Simon and Nell, as well as James, their physician friend, are
oriented to refuting Art’s objections to suicide as preventative rather than as
a last resort in a worse case scenerio.
To the adults in the house,
the government, scientists, and even the adults themselves could not be wrong,
and yet no one except Art realizes that the toxins might pass with the passing “cloud”
rather than stick around for, as Nell supposes without any evidence, a hundred
years. She may be thinking of a thermo-nuclear winter, though for that a
hundred years may be too optimistic. Such a mistake is indeed possible for Nell;
after someone says at dinner that the Queen could be in a bunker with beans and
dog food, Nell states how bad it would be to have to eat dog food for a hundred
years even though it is obvious to everyone else at the table that Queen
Elizabeth II had several small dogs throughout her life and would include them,
and their food, in a bunker. Therefore, we can be skeptical of Nell’s
explanation to Art that suicide is necessary beforehand because the
airborne poisonous gases can go through water pipes and glass windows and thus reach
throughout the house. In fact, the belief that the Queen is probably in a
bunker implies that suicide as preventative rather than as a last resort is de
facto refuted in action at a high station to which even the government is due
loyalty. With so much on the line—literally life and death—it is significant
that no one at the table suggested that they go to the basement when the “cloud”
arrives and come out the next morning to see if the danger has passed or else
whether there really is no alternative to suicide other than dying a painful death.
Moreover, the lack of
questioning and debate regarding the assumptions being made is itself a red flag
concerning the human mind. At one point, Sandra (whose beauty, I might say,
steals the show) tells Bella in a hallway that the news reports of the gruesome
deaths from around the world cannot be wrong. True enough, but it is possible
that all such deaths took place in the “cloud” rather than after its
passing, especially if rain or snow ensued. Even James’ medical assumption that
no one can survive the gas is undone by Art ingesting some of it in a
mini-twister outside that night and yet waking up the next morning. He has breathed
in some of the toxin and yet survives it!
Not even what the physician is assuming medically is correct!
Not even Sophie, who
initially does not want to commit suicide, questions the reigning assumption
that the toxic gas will kill everyone in its path. Art’s willingness to stand
by Sophie rather than take the pill is quickly shot down by his mother, Nell, and
both of his parents go into hyperdrive in conveying to their eldest son that he
will take the pill because, “We are your parents.” Who in growing up has
not heard that line! With his life on the line, Art emotionally distances
himself from his “protective” parents whom he says love him but are “trying to
kill me.” It is not that Simon and Nell are bad people; in fact, they are
trying to keep all of their boys from suffering extremely painful deaths. However,
the eventuating of snow falling overnight, which likely cleanses the air of the
poison, demonstrates that especially Simon, Nell, James, and Bella “leapt to conclusions”
in supposing the inevitability of the worst-case scenario quite erroneously. At
the very least, everyone should have been open to holding off from taking the
pills until clear indications of poisoning could be seen either upon the “cloud’s”
arrival or the next morning. Had Bella not stabbed Alex after she threw up the
pill that Bella had stuffed in her sleeping mouth, Alex would wake up the next
morning and presumably find Art lying in his parent’s bed alongside his dead
family. Sophie would wake up and presumably go on to give birth had James not
insisted that she take a pill with him. Generally speaking, were the
group-think “pact” pushed less severely, more people could wake up in the house
the next morning—Christmas morning—and be stunned and grateful for the falling,
cleansing snow. Minds are closed to the possibility that the “cloud” could be
like a passing thunderstorm in that people could safely wait out the passing
storm deep inside the house, and it dawns on nobody that falling snow overnight
could cleanse the morning air of the poison, so taking the pill would most
prudently be at least held off. When
suicide is an option, it is dangerous to have a mind that does not counter its
own values, beliefs, and “findings,” and thus assumptions and conclusions; such
minds are particularly susceptible to group-think, in which a group of people
hold a narrow view and fight off any challenges or objections to it; dissent,
in other words, is subject to vitriol and exclusion.
Art, a young boy, is the
only person in the house who questions the “group-think” party-line and its
assumptions. Only he survives, at least to the next morning, which the adults
had insisted over and over again would not be possible. He wakes in a house whose
beds are laid upon by the bodies of his brothers, parents, and their parents’ friends.
As the credits roll, the closing instrumental version of the song, “Silent
Night,” masterfully juxtaposes the holiness of Christmas Eve with the dread of impending
mass suicide.
The film may lead
audiences to question not only mankind's ignorance and culpability in having
let climate change get so out of control, but also, from Art's questioning
of the assumption of certain death, the human tendency not to question the
assumptions that we make and to take precautions in case an assumption is
wrong. We are too liable to assume that we are infallible creatures, even
though the fact is, we are human, all too human. Having caused climate change
to the extent that a toxic cloud circles the globe and then to needlessly
commit suicide makes our species look very bad. We have done it to
ourselves is the lesson from the film. In at least implicitly assuming
that we know more than we actually do, and thus avoiding criticism of our
assumptions and conclusions as unnecessary and even a waste of time, the vulnerability
of the human mind is laid bare. It would be a profound human service of film if
it would lay bare the vulnerability to a presumptuousness of de facto
infallibility, which in turn preempts the activation of critical thinking in
the sense of questioning one’s own beliefs, assumptions, values (and thus
ideologies), and conclusions. The human mind is not as logical innately as we
may perceive it to be; at least a semester of logic should be required of any
college student. In the film, Nell’s reasoning is atrocious, and yet she comes
down hard on Art’s very reasonable argument.
Nell thinks the Queen
would be eating dog food in a bunker for 100 years. That the dog food would
obviously be for the queen’s dogs is a more reasonable assumption than that the
queen would eat dog food for a century, and yet in stating how bad that would
be, Nell has no recognition of how faulty her reasoning is. This means that it is
nothing short of dangerous for her to turn to Art and insist that he will take a
pill rather than wait and see in case the gases are airborne only as the “cloud”
is passing. Forget the queen and her pets; the emperor (and what parent is not
an emperor?) is proverbially not wearing any clothes! That a power that is
presumably clothed is actually bare is precisely the attitude toward one’s own
mind—one’s own assumptions, theories, and conclusions—that I suggest the film implicitly
advocates. This is done by showing just how damaging group-think, perhaps even
a global hysteria, and especially a failure or refusal to critique one’s own thinking
and assumptions can be.
Besides the distortive
impact of its unconscious, the human mind does not ratiocinate nearly as well
as we suppose. As the impact of our species on the planet increases, whether by
igniting nuclear war or burning fossil fuels, questioning our own thinking and
that of others becomes more crucial. The adults in the film may be in the midst
of a suicide-pact doomsday hysteria that has gripped the world, or they could merely
be too intolerant to dissent in a sort of group-think mentality within the
house. Either way, they are not thinking clearly enough to warrant the
assumption of infallibility, especially considering the myriad of factors that
are involved in climate, including whether a heavy snowfall will clear the air.
