Drawing Straight with Crooked Lines
Just watched the movie Gattaca again (with daughter Olivia). It begins with a couple of quotes, one of them being:
“Consider the work of God; For who can make straight what He has made crooked?” Ecclesiastes 7:13
This is one of those movies that delivers more upon repeated viewings.
This time I noticed the double helix in the plotline: natural born (“God-child”) Vincent and his genetically-engineered brother circling each other like boxers in a ring at the beginning; Vincent’s and Jerome’s lives entwined in the middle (the invalid and the genetically IN-VALID who is “borrowing” his bodily functions); and finally Vincent and his brother repeating their brinkmanship at the climax (completing the chiasm).
There is also the brilliant visual point of the spiral staircase explained when “perfect DNA” Jerome has to haul himself to the top using his hands to — quite literally this time — save Vincent’s skin.
I wondered about the purpose of the (quite difficult to achieve) aerial shots of the brothers’ swim challenges. They look like competing male gametes. This ties in with the repeated “ejaculations” of the rocket launches to the mysterious Titan.
In Gattaca, it’s not flesh that wins the day, but spirit. As Doug Wilson says, as we look at our imperfect lives, and observe the biblical histories, we must remind ourselves that God draws straight with crooked lines.
James Jordan has a review of the movie here, and Joel Garver here.
