The Road meets 80s Christian Propaganda films.

The Book of Eli is a 2010 Post-Apocalyptic Neo western action film directed by the Hughes brothers and written by Gary Whitta. The film takes place 30 years after a nuclear apocalypse, with our protagonist Eli (Denzel Washington) on a quest given to him by God to take the last remaining King James bible in existence to the west coast, more specifically Alcatraz Island. Along the way, Eli must fight cannibals, biker gangs, and a bible obsessed mayor (Gary Oldman), picking up a companion along the way (Mila Kunis). 

The movie opened third in box office sales behind Avatar and Legion and received mixed reviews from mainstream audiences. Due to the intensely Christian themes of the movie, it was surprisingly well-received by Christian media outlets, CBN touting it as a movie with a “God-fearing” protagonist. 

The writer, Gary Whitta, says that the movie came from his love of old samurai and western movies, tales of wandering nomadic warriors. Whitta goes as far as to cite the Star Wars character Obi-wan Kenobi as an inspiration for Eli, a kind of a monastic cowboy samurai.

In The Book Of Eli, there is an idea of the Apocalypse and the Salvation. The apocalypse is caused by war. There is a chosen one, in Eli, who delivers the piece of knowledge so that the world may start again. The chosen one we have seen in a lot of post-apocalyptic fiction. The Omega Man’s Neville is the chosen one, who gives survivors the possibility of salvation. Eli carries the bible, and its knowledge is powerful enough to save the world. The Water Knife also uses a book as knowledge that can be used to save the world. In both, this knowledge in the wrong hands can do a lot of harm to the survivors of the apocalypse. In line with other post-apocalyptic fiction, there is a struggle for power (power over words and power over civilization), and disrepair ( food and water are scarce, there is a power hierarchy created through control of these resources). Themes explored in the bible are overtly shown in the realities of the world’s setting–the land, the lack of resources, the subjugation of people — it seems literally the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse have done their work. In the end, the restoration of access to the bible through the chosen one’s recollection of its contents promotes further the themes of salvation, and the power of one hero to save everything. In the end, the movie states that there is a way out of the apocalypse. This is unlike what The Water Knife says about the future of humans. In that story, what happens is very realistic. Practically, there’s no way to reverse the apocalypse, even though some will carry that hope. In I am Legend, there is no way to bring humans back, there is no way to go back to how things were, there is only change. In The Book Of Eli, the hero is able to, with the Bible, open a big door to reverse everything and make the world better. 

With this ‘chosen one’ theme, the movie especially emphasizes the religious realm and makes the ultimate purpose of the movie to protect and spread the Bible. Eli, the chosen one here, has a superior martial arts ability with a moral character, which makes him quite suitable to become a biblical hero. However, from another point of view, Eli’s fixation on going West due to some spiritual voice inside can be seen as similar to American settlers justifying their conquest of the land in order to close the Western frontier. In doing so, they killed and took land from natives and ruined the ecosystem. Even if Eli is written as a hero, he’s sort of a lone cowboy in this way.

 

 

Also, it makes the audience curious if the spread of the Bible can be the clear, decisive solution in this post-apocalyptic wasteland. Surely, the strong faith of groups towards religion can be helpful to bind the people together, but it cannot be the fundamental solution to solve the problem realistically – especially when there’s no water, food, shampoo, soap, and you even have to kill and eat a cutie cat to survive.

 

It’s interesting that the place dedicated to rebuilding literature and the arts was formerly one of the most infamous prisons in the United States. As always seems to be the case with post-apocalyptic narratives, this could either be seen as a positive outlook or a negative one. It could be that Alcatraz makes a great fortress. It is both hard to get in and hard to get out of, this ensures for the curator, Lombardi, that these works will stay safe until humanity is ready for them again. His fear is justified with the way we see some characters dismiss Eli’s book while others are willing to kill for it.

 

Yet, there is an understanding that the reason these items are so valuable is because of their scarcity. So why doesn’t Lombardi make these more accessible to the public? If these things become common again there would be less reason to fight over them.  

This movie blended three genres that are action-driven by default: Western, Samurai, and Post-Apocalyptic, yet the narrative failed to immerse the audience into this world. Carnegie is a two-dimensional villain who only wants power but the stakes are low for him. After all, he’s already relatively powerful. Yes, the Bible lends him some credence to justify his power if he gains followers, but it would’ve been more compelling to see his relationship with Christianity since he was exposed to the Bible in the “old days.” Also, the Bible is too familiar of an object. In a funny way, the audience has to convince themselves throughout the movie that something as ordinary as the Bible is as valuable, if not more, than water. If the high-value object was so extraordinary (think light orbs or a fuel source made of a rare crystal), then the audience is immediately sold. The Bible doesn’t trigger the audience’s ability to suspend their disbelief. The same goes for Eli’s blindness. Instead of a satisfying plot twist, the Big Reveal feels more like a betrayal. His blindness was a device to garner shock value. It is borderline exploitative. It is more narratively important that Carnegie not understand the Bible than Eli is blind. You can have a character who happens to be blind and kick ass like Eli, but it shouldn’t feel like that character’s difference is a device for the plot. The visuals of this movie hit all the post-apocalyptic notes we expect but the world-building was underdeveloped and the dialogue and characters were equally devoid of life.