The Dark Phoenix Saga - Chris Claremont (writer) & John Bryne (penciler)
Jean Grey could have lived to become a god. But it was more important to her that she die … a human
X-Men remains one of the most enduring and loved comic book franchises of all time, because in Stan Lee’s words “never in the history of comicdom have there been stories more filled human interest, believable characterization, far-out fantasy combined with stark, shattering realism“. And no story arc epitomizes these words better than the Dark Phoenix Saga, the tale of Jean Grey realizing her ultimate potential and horror of being the Phoenix and choosing to sacrifice herself to save the universe.
Since the time it was first published, Jean Grey has been resurrected many times over as her moniker Phoenix suggests and many others have taken the mantle but nothing matches the sheer shock of seeing Jean Grey, literally the girl next door, turn into the devourer of worlds. Even when she destroys a world and the billions of lives inhabiting it, genocide of a scale that Hitler would flinch at, the reader is still forgiving her for she is not Jean Grey but the Dark Phoenix. But she realizes, much before the reader does, that the Dark Phoenix and Jean Grey are one and the same. It is not possible to let one live and other die. For the safety of the worlds she has to die.
But again in Stan Lee’s words DPS is not only about Jean’s sacrifice; it is also about Cyclops‘ sorrow, Kitty Pryde’s discovery of her powers, the deviousness of Mastermind as Jason Wyngarde and diabolical conniving of the Hellfire club. It is first and foremost a very very well told story; much better than one will find in award winning movies or best selling novels.
Lastly, though the X-Men movies are amongst the reasonably well made comic book movies, X-Men-The Last Stand, which incorporates elements from this story arc, does scarce justice to the Dark Phoenix Saga. It neither brings out the frailty of Jean’s humanity in face of Phoenix’s divinity nor does it show her mental strength in choosing and accepting her fate.
Eastern Promises - David Cronenberg
David Cronenberg is one of my favorite modern day directors. His films showcase his ability to abstract the surreal out of the ordinary, and magnify it making us view the world around us a little differently. With movies such as The Fly, Crash, Videodrome, eXistenZ, Naked Lunch and History of Violence, he brings out the horror in our daily lives. His movies however remained nightmares; dreams from which we woke up shaken but with the knowledge that it was a dream. If to make a film is to create a new world, the primary task of the director then is to build bridges - emotional or otherwise - with the real world. It is not enough to start from the real and descend into the surreal - a film needs to continuously reinforce this connection. It is in this aspect that I felt Cronenberg was not so successful in his earlier ventures. And it is primarily in this aspect that he excels in Eastern Promises.
Like many other Cronenberg movies, violence - real or imagined - remains the central theme here too. But the plot allows him to depict the violence in this world and not in some dream world. The result is that we have a gangster movie that matches Godfather or Goodfellas in it’s depth. Much like the much vaunted Marlon Brando epic, what is seen and heard on the screen is merely the tip of the iceberg. The main action remains unseen and unheard, left to the viewer to imagine. While Cronenberg showed dreams in his earlier movies here he gives the viewer fodder for nightmares. The film captures human depravity when endowed with absolute power, and yet also shows that such depravity will leave a mark that proves to be the perpetrator’s undoing.
However, where it matches Godfather in depth it fails to match in it’s width. Godfather was not about the transition from one era to another, it was also about the era’s themselves. Eastern Promises remains the story of only the transition. But then it probably is not meant to be an epic, but merely a strong reminder of the reality of the world we live in.
