Discussing
The curious agnosticism of ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’

According to this movie also, youth is not wasted on the young.

I was surprised there was no celebration of life (much less an afterlife) in that this "old" man had the body of a "young" man.

He was just a man and their wasn't really anything curious about it...

My my my. I thought this movie has more biblical implications than many might think. I personally believe that it was a movie full of a celebration of life. It was a depiction of the beauty of life, even in the face of death.

I'm reminded of Ecclesiastes where it says, "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die ... a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace ... He has made everything beautiful in its time."

I believe this is the basic message of the "Curious Case of Benjamin Button." Yes, there are things in this world that don't make sense. Death of loved ones. Hurricanes that kill masses of people. Death of a man who saved every penny for his family. Death of a son that was the pride and joy of his father. Permanent injury of a woman who would never have the gift of dancing like she did ever again.

But it all happened in God's timing. His beautiful timing. The movie's right. Nothing does last, not on this earth. Vanity of vanities. But there is beauty in the life that is here. And there is beauty in the death that is here.

Yeah. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was a strange film. I felt like the film started with some humor and imagination. But eventually Brad Pitt’s emotionally flat delivery and the plot’s inevitability as it plodded to the end drug it down. Two thirds of the way through, my friend wanted to leave the film from boredom, but I had this morbid curiosity about seeing Brad Pitt burped by his aging girlfriend. Which happens, dontcha know! I’d like to say it was poignant, but the premise was so bizarre and silly and Pitt’s acting was so flat that I had a hard time feeling sympathy for the characters. I agree that the absence of any reference to the afterlife was odd and sad. In your list of movies about the afterlife tow other films that I thought were interesting in the way they dealt with the subject were Albert Brooks and Meryl Streep’s defending your life (a comedy which I enjoyed immensly) and Flatliners, a 1990 film which dealt with Heaven and Hell.

I think "Places in the Heart" comes to mind regarding a film that resonates with a biblical picture of the New Heavens and Earth. It's remarkably simple: Restoration and communion in creation the way it's supposed to be. Go see it again!

I'd heard nothing really about this film, but now I'm definitely going to have to see it.

What an absolute abomination of a premise, this rebellious 'case of Benjamin Button'! For, what is life but a vapour that appeareth for a short time and then vanisheth??? AND WHY IS THAT? Because Adam sinned and death entered the world. We grow old and die because of sin. God killed every breathing flesh, save 8, because of human wickedness! To pervert the truth by pretending a man can go forward in his sin but reverse its effects is absolute balderdash! What manner of spinsters and hucksters have we in our west coast Sodom? Children of wrath, indeed! Do they really not fear the wrath of the Almighty? Sodom will look like a tropical paradise compared to the Judgement we are inviting, lest we turn as the Ninevites to God with broken spirits, with dashed and contrite of hearts. Only Jesus can save the repentent sinner.

So, is there life after birth? I mean, after before birth? After uterine disintegration? What if after he entered the womb, he was aborted? Would he grow old again? My real, serious point is, there isn't any really great symbolism in this story line, just a movie. And no, movies are not good for showing us the after life, because, all they can photograph is this life. Try to imagine a color you have never seen. Not a new mix of the three primaries, a whole new unique primary. You can't, because you've never seen it. Think of heaven the same way, and don't expect to find it in movies.

Very interesting - I like the idea of a new primary color. So would you say all art is incapable of imagining heaven, or specifically the movies?

As Christians I think we sometimes go to a movie and then try to find a spiritual message in it because it's our way of justifying that we spent our money and time watching it? There usually isn't a spiritual/Christian message in most films because there aren't too many Christian filmmakers out there trying to draw us closer to God.

All art. I believe that every description of heaven in the Bible is metaphor, a necessary method of communication, since God, and everything about God, is on an utterly different plane from human existence. A movie could, in the same sense that scripture does, provide symbolic expression of that which we cannot know, but nothing more. Rabbis who have studied the Talmud for decades explain that everything in the physical world is a counterpart to something in the metaphysical, but they are not the same. When the Bible says "God moved with a mighty hand" it doesn't mean that God has a physical hand, like you or I, but that God has a capacity to which our hand is analogous, which is what it means that we are made in the image of God. So, I don't expect to see streets paved with gold, but I expect that I will feel something like what I would feel now if I found the streets here on earth were paved with gold... no, come to think of it, that might not make me happy. But the author of the song thought it would.

i think its impossible to separate the spiritual from anything. Who can say God isn't moving in and with everyone?

and just because a movie doesn't have a christian message, why does that mean its unimportant? I think its true what they say: All truth really is God's truth. Aren't there things we as Christians can learn? Even from (gasp) non-Christians? Sure, I think we need more talented Christians working to show their faith in through the film industry, but that doesn't mean there aren't things we can learn from other images of God.

I think there are plenty of movies that are not only relatable to culture, but have Christian themes in it they are very powerful: Sacrifice, Love, Trust, the list is endless.

I just think its okay to go to a movie like "Benjamin Button" and take something out of it, even if it doesn't really talk about the after-life. Is that really what the present about? Getting to heaven? Or is it bringing heaven here, on earth as it is in heaven?

And done :)

I have seen the previews of the movie. I do think life is precious in any stage your in.

However, going back to a movie I enjoy every year It's a wonderful life we can believe life has purpose because God made us with a purpose and our will is yet still our own.
So our choices still make our future. So let us choose wisely.

"Who can say God isn't moving in and with everyone?"

Indeed, think of how the banal and rapacious lusts of Henry VIII had the long term effect of making the world safe for the Protestant Reformation.

it was a little weird to see an old version of Brad Pitt's face pasted onto a kid's body, but i guess that's why they call it a "curious case"

I'm sorry, I said that quote with little context.

My point is that I feel that as Christians we are all too quick to judge non-Christians instead of love them. Many people have the viewpoint that as Christians we should be "missionaries" wherever we are and bring Christ to the pagan person that sins and watches movies like "Benjamin Button."

But I feel like this perspective is problematic. God seeks that all should find Him, that all should be saved and come to repentance.

Here's the thing, we're not "bringing" Christ to people as much as we're showing people how Christ has been working in and around them all along. I believe the Bible when it says that God seeks that all should come to find Him. I think yes, God does make Himself known to each and every person. So much so, that all people are without excuse, for God's attributes of power and divinity can even be seen and acknowledged in His creation.

My point is that we can't just dismiss people, even filmmakers, because they're not Christian and/or their work isn't Christian. God is working even in these images of God. Who are we to ignore them? Or not love them? Or not listen to them?

I just felt that the previous posts had an overwhelming emphasis of how we couldn't take any real usefulness out of "Benjamin Button" because it wasn't Christian. I just don't think that's true. Why, I'm sure even Henry VII's actions have taught us something about the history of Christianity and the Church, for better or for worse.

Surely, even bad things can teach us useful lessons.

And even "bad" people can do/produce good things.

To these kind and wise words, I will simply say, Amen.