41st Favorite Movie - A River Runs Through It

Make sure you have read the first post in this series ("My 50 Favorite Movies") before you read on...

With most of the movies on this list, I can tell you why I like them and what I think it is that they are "saying".

With A River Runs Through It, I'm really not sure about either.

Why do I like it? Maybe because it is about a minister and his family. Maybe because it is sort of a retelling of the parable of the prodigal son. Maybe because it is beautiful to watch (and I don't mean Brad Pitt... the film won the 1993 Academy Award for Cinematography). I'm not really sure what it is, but this film moves me.

What is the movie "saying"? Well, it seems to be making some sort of comparison between fly-fishing and religion (both invole ritual? both involve waking up early on Sunday mornings to go somewhere?), but other aspects like nature and family play an important role in it as well. Overall, I'm not really sure what it is saying.

But I can tell you what I hear everytime I see it. I hear the words that the minister says in his final sermon:

"Each one of us here today will, at one time in our lives, look upon a loved one in need and ask the same question: We are willing Lord, but what, if anything, is needed? For it is true that we can seldom help those closest to us. Either we don’t know what part of ourselves to give, or more often than not, that part we have to give is not wanted. And so it is that those we live with and should know are those who elude us. But we can still love them. We can love—completely—even without complete understanding."

I think we all probably know someone who is in need who really wish we could somehow help, but we don't know what to do. And I think we all have someone close to us that we just don't understand (sometimes it may be our own spouses!) And this lack of understanding so often leads to conflict, frustration, and separation. But the message of this film is that we do not need to understand in order to love. Maybe it is possible to love completely without complete understanding.

This statement can be true of our relationship with God as well. Last week at youth group one of our high school staff members gave a talk about the question "why, God?" Not understanding God or his plans can lead to these same outcomes: conflict, frustration, and separation. But maybe it is possible to love completely without complete understanding.

Understanding is so naturally a part of love, but it does not need to be. In the most well-known passage about love in the Bible, 1 Corinthians 13, the apostle Paul concludes by talking about the role that understanding plays in love:

"Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." 1 Corinthians 13:12-13

While we will never completely understand God and why he lets some things happen, we can take comfort that there will be further knowledge to come and that love trumps all.

Is this what the film saying? I'm not entirely sure. But this is what I hear.