Upfront and to say it right away, I enjoyed Avatar. I was mesmerized for the better part of three hours, drawn thoroughly into a world so vividly rendered. Furthermore, the 3-D—about which I was more skeptical than not beforehand, expecting at worst to have to dodge crap flying at my face and at best a gimmick the novelty of which would wear off quickly—was kind of beautiful, underwriting the lushness of the film with an almost minimal elegance, a new aesthetic. The world had a depth which made immersion that much more effortless, and the varying planes of depth brought to mind those staggered dioramas, or those animations where everything takes place on two or three discrete fields of action.
It is a testament to the success of the world created by the film that I found the story within it compelling more often than not, a triumph of technique that emerges as artistic. That said, it’s a shame it wasn’t a better movie. If it was as awesome as it was with a narrative as lousy as it had, it makes me wish to see the movie that could have been made if the graphics weren’t the only thing doing the heavy lifting. And though it’s beside the point to say that if Avatar were rendered as a stage script with a minimal set it would be nigh-unwatchable, it’s worth saying once anyway if only to get it out of your system. What happens in its world is oddly, inexplicably compelling (I almost said subtly, but say what you will about it, Avatar is not a subtle movie), but that stems not from anything exceptional in its plot or characters or all that jazz, but the need to stay in its world for just a few minutes longer. That need could have been tied to virtually any motivation and be rendered nearly as urgent, as its environs would still demanded to be lived in, breathed in and stared at longingly through surprisingly cool glasses in wave-of-the-future 3D.
That its narrative is one of the most self-congratulatorily tolerant and fundamentally imperialistic narratives in the cultural lexicon is a matter of convenience rather than any deep-seated malice on the film’s part. The natives in this film—a mashup of virtually every quote-unquote indigenous or primitive cultural stereotype the film could get its hands on (real and fictional both)—are, as usual, in tune with nature and love one another and in really good shape and stuff. As the story dictates, their worth is uncountable as compared with the malignancy of what is corporate, and they deeply deserve to be left in peace after the friendly imperialist shows them the way to war, salvation, and their need for an enlightened leader.
But this is (rather unfortunately) nothing unusual; these convictions are skin-deep at best, because apparently that’s all three dimensions are good for. After we cast aside any noun to which the modifier “nominal” can apply, what are we left with? With what is still an engrossing world, a thoroughly awesome film. I admire the work’s dedication to that childish joy of creation and fantasy, and its success in reinvigorating the experience so thoroughly that to complain seems almost beside the point. I truly fell into the scope of its world, and there is also the critic’s satisfaction to be had of a pop-cultural phenomenon that can be legitimately got behind. But now, after having had some time to let it mull and stew in my head, it turns out the film was perhaps shallower than it seemed, that the resonance that comes from true depth was lacking. So while it was awesome, I wish it were better.
