In 2009, the space saga about blue aliens captivated imaginations with its incredible visual palette, shattered box office records, and generally seemed like the beginning of a monstrous fantasy saga poised to rival “Star Wars,” “The Lord of the Rings,” or even “Harry Potter.” As it turned out, “Avatar” director James Cameron had his own plan for conquering the cinematic world, where speed and meeting audience expectations were clearly low priorities. Thirteen years later, what had seemed like a distant dream has finally materialized – the story of the valiant marine Jake Sully has received its long-awaited continuation.
A Decade Later on Pandora
A good decade has passed since the events of the first “Avatar.” Jake (Sam Worthington), now the new leader of the Na’vi people, lives a happy family life with Neytiri (Zoe Saldana). The couple has three children – two boys and a girl. The Sully family also adopted the child of the deceased Dr. Augustine (Sigourney Weaver), who mysteriously appeared after her death. As often happens, the heroes’ happiness is short-lived: the resurrected Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang) is reborn as an avatar and begins preparing a new invasion of Pandora, this time with the aim of avenging himself on the traitor Sully once and for all.
A scene from “Avatar: The Way of Water”
The Way of Water: Immersion and Meaning
The most important factor in the concept of the second “Avatar,” strangely enough, is its location – the events of the sequel have moved from the surface of Pandora to its seabed. Moreover, water in “Avatar” not only shapes the overall picture but also emphasizes the semantic part of the film, based on the themes of spiritual search, the cyclical nature of life, and energetic balance. Water, as the most esoteric of the world’s elements, teaches the main characters to adapt to the boundless mechanism of the Universe not through rational understanding, but through a sensual symbiotic experience – a complete unity with the world at the level of soul and heart. Considering that the script for the new “Avatar” was written back in the first decade of the 2000s, it can be said with certainty that Cameron somehow looked into the future and predetermined the development of socio-cultural sentiments for the coming years. Now, as magical realism gains a new wave of popularity, a blockbuster about moving away from a pragmatic perception of life to a spiritual one seems more timely and relevant than ever.
A scene from “Avatar: The Way of Water”
Action and Spectacle
But, of course, “Avatar” is primarily an action film, an incredibly large-scale adventure film with a detailed universe, where, in addition to the Na’vi, there are now other alien peoples with their own ancient culture, rich flora and fauna, and an original language that requires great skill to master. In “The Way of Water,” you can see how much the capabilities of technical effects have jumped in recent years, and the dizzying camera flights of Cameron’s constant cinematographer Russell Carpenter can only be admired with awe.
A scene from “Avatar: The Way of Water”
Familiar Themes, New Perspectives
The journey to the bottom of the ocean takes place without any particular surprises – there are no shots of the Mariana Trench itself, for which the director risked his health for a whole five seconds, but perhaps this is for the best. The presence of something familiarly earthly in this picture, perfect in its irreality, seems frankly wrong and even sinful. This is how the fanatical white invaders under the leadership of Colonel Quaritch are perceived, whose imperialistic ambitions no longer seem so cartoonish. However, the colonel’s character himself is still far from the image of a truly developed villain, but his role here is not so important, and the personal growth of the main characters requires a large amount of screen time.
At the same time, despite the extremely high level of pathos in the dialogues, the fictional nature of the events, and the extraterrestrial landscapes, the plot of the second “Avatar” appeals as much as possible to the modern human consciousness, touching on the pain points of our history, which have only become more acute in recent years. There is criticism of colonialism, which works much better than in the recent “Black Panther,” and a rethinking of the global migration crisis, and a clear call to abandon the black-and-white vision that divides the world into “us” and “them.”