Movie Review on Mr. Holmes

Mr Holmes (2015)

In my opinion, Sherlock Holmes (a fictional character created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) is the greatest detective in the world, second only to Batman (another fictional character). Using pure logic, Sherlock Holmes has solved numerous mind boggling mysteries in various medium of books, movies and fanzines. This movie poses the ultimate problem for Sherlock Holmes. Based on Mitch Cullin's 2005 novel A Slight Trick of the Mind, the victim of the crime is Sherlock Holmes himself. The crime is senility or Alzheimer’s Disease. How will Holmes solve a crime that robs him of his logic and his memories and will ultimately his selfhood. This is an existential question that this movie attempts to answer. Who are we as a person when we begin to lose our mental faculties and our memories? Do we still remain ‘us’ or become something or someone else?

Ian McKellan gives a superb performance as an aging 93 years old Sherlock Holmes. The year is 1947. Holmes is living in retirement in a picturesque English country cottage, looked after by a war-widow, Mrs Munro and her son, Roger. Holmes has taken up bee keeping as a hobby. He is fragile, subjects to falls, and is plagued by his inability to remember significant parts of his past. Using his remarkable deductive skills which seems to be intact, Holmes try to remember the details of two cases from the past. One involved the suicide of a young wife and the other, the reason why a young man would abandon his family and disappear. This happens in an atmosphere of growing antagonist between his housekeeper and him as he becomes more and more dependent on her but resenting it, and his growing friendship with Roger, the housekeeper’s precocious son. He uses a technique of recovering memories by writing a fictional story involving himself and allows Roger read it. The story unfolds with numerous flashback showing a younger, smartly dressed Holmes, as the older Holmes recover the pieces of the puzzle that were missing from his memories.

Growing old is a common condition to everyone. Most of us fear growing old. Using the number of years to define old may be relative and cultural bound. Living to the 80s and 90s is relatively new to us Asians and we have yet come to terms with an aging population that live longer than our ancestors. In truth, most of us do not fear aging but what accompanies aging – loss of self-esteem, income and privileges after we retire, our bodies falling apart and we become host to aches and pain, chronic diseases, heart problems and cancers. What is more fearful is the onset of Alzheimer’s  when we first begin to lose our recent memories, then logical thinking, emotional control until we became a chaotic mess of fearful uncontrolled emotions in an aged body. In the Gospel of John, Jesus made a rather cryptic statement to Peter about when Peter was young, he can go wherever he wants. When he became old, people will use his belt to tie his hand and lead him to where he does not want to go. The statement often reminds me of Alzheimer’s.

What happens to us when Alzheimer’s robs us of our memories, our emotional control, our reasoning and finally of our self-awareness. This is where I struggle with my evangelical theology. St. Paul advise us to grow spiritually by not conforming to the world but by renewing our minds. By that I assume using our cognitive abilities to choose a life of discipleship. What happens when we no longer have our minds such as in the late stages of Alzheimer’s? I have seen gracious compassionate pious Christian being transformed to sly nasty Gollum as Alzheimer’s take its toll. I wonder what St.Paul will say to that?

[spoiler alert!] The movie does have a happy ending, if we can call that a happy ending. In recovering his memories, Holmes come to understand is own life more. He even feels regrets for paths not taken. More significantly is that he comes to accept his fate and come to terms with his life situation. Winter is not only coming but is already here. In a symbolic gesture, Holmes writes the names of significant people in his life on stones and places them in a circle around them. He then pays homage to them. In typical Holmesian fashion, Sherlock Holmes, grandmaster detective, defeated his villain Alzheimer’s by escaping into his memories.

My other movie reviews and reflection are here

4 November 2015

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The Attitude Toward Leisure

"February 25,1956... The greatest change between now and seventy years ago is in the attitude toward leisure. Now there is no such thing... In my experience you can have ability without leisure, but ability only, and not creativeness, Real ideas come to me while relaxed, and brooding, meditative, passive. Then the unexpected happens. An illumination, a combination of words, a revelation for which I made no conscious preparation. And seventy years ago one had time for everything, for[open-hearted] reading, for equally [openhearted] discussion, for activities whose only result was to strengthen, refine, and clarify our own selves as works of art, and not as now to be considered only when producing material results."

Sunset and Twilight by Bernard Berenson

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More on Anti-Aging and Cosmetic Surgery

More links to discussions about aging.

The Joy of Aging
What faith looks like when it's dangerous to sing and walk at the same time.
By Don Bastian

Man Up, Christians
Resisting the health and longevity gospel.
By Mark Galli

Always Dying, Always Reborn
Exploring the new horizons—and limits—of our perpetual chase for immortality.
By John Wilson

and the discussion is closely linked to
Cosmetic Surgery

Q: Is Cosmetic Surgery Immoral?

Answer by Mollie Ziegler Hemingway

Should Christian take Anti-Aging Treatments?

Last night I was in a meeting when a Christian brother told me that he wants to live to 120 years old. His former target was 65 years old. I have often wondered about the Christian ethics of the anti-aging movement. Is it permissible for Christians to try to prolong their active lifespans?

Todd Daly, assistant professor of theology and ethics from Urbana Theological Seminary wrote an interesting article in Christianity Today entitled: Chasing Methuselah: Exercise, technology and diet help us to live longer. Should those who look to eternal life care?

In On the Incarnation, the 4th-century bishop Athanasius describes Adam's original state as one in which his soul was submitted to God. Thus, his body was perfectly submitted to his soul. Adam's body was always tending toward decay, but his soul slowed aging so long as his soul was submitted to God. However, when Adam sinned by turning his attention away from God to material creation, his body and soul were thrown into disorder. His bodily desires began to rule his soul. This brought God's pronouncement of death, and hastened the decay of Adam's body. It's this condition, said Athanasius, that Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word, came to rectify.
Based in part on 2 Peter 1:4, which speaks of our participation in the divine nature, Athanasius repeats a well-known formula: "Christ was made man that we might be made God." Athanasius argued that part of this transformation involves the human body. He did not blur the distinction between God and the human creature. Christians hold to the promise that one day we will be like Christ (1 John 3:2). Athanasius, like many in his day, was suspicious of the material and favored the spiritual. Still, he affirmed that the way to redemption, opened up by the Incarnation of Christ, begins by attending to the body.

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