Meet Joe Black, a 1990’s movie starring Brad Pitt, centers around the life of William Parrish, a successful self-made millionaire who, at the age of 64, receives a visit from Death himself. But before taking him to the other life, Death offered him a deal, William shall be his guide while Death is on vacation on Earth and in exchange, William could live a few more days, weeks or even months until Death gets tired of living on Earth. That sounds quite Bergman-like doesn’t it?
In a bizarre turn of events, Death acquires a human body and even without knowing the name of the person he took the corpse of William decides to name him Joe Black and both start their journey through the New York lifestyle of a businessman.
In the process, Joe Black falls in love with William Parrish's youngest daughter, Susan Parrish. They both seem to be in love but Joe Black doesn't realize he's being delusional as he never reveals his true identity due to the risk of compromising his stay on Earth.
Nevertheless, Joe wants to stay with Susan for the rest of eternity but that would require killing her, to which William is completely against since they made a promise to not include their family in their agreement. William, not being in a position to fight against Death himself, decides to try dialogue with Joe by telling him that Susan would never love him even if she knew his true identity.
The movie comes to an end as the party reaches its end. Joe and William depart to the afterlife and there are a ton of lessons to be learned from this movie.
I believe this is a compelling movie, it´s the type of movie that in spite of giving a clear end with no room to imagine a different outcome still leaves you thinking for hours and hours about the true meaning of life.
The whole concept of the figure of Death trying to feel human emotions and having to suffer as we all humans do it´s completely mind-blowing for me. It also gives us a closer look at a job we all think about at some point of our life and as Joe himself describes as “I´ve met every single person that has touched the face of earth and still I feel the loneliest of them all”.
Also, something that struck me a lot was when Joe was trying to explain to Joe how he did his job as Death, reinforcing how he (death) is so present in our fragile existence: “To do my job you don't have to be physically at one place. When you go for a walk, your mind can be in any place doing another thing. That's basically how it is, I´m here talking to you and at the same time I am everywhere”.
In conclusion, I think this movie as a concept evidence that being human and dealing with emotions is difficult and that dying is a difficult thing (as they explore this topic throughout the whole movie) but still you have to come to terms with yourself and accept that the end is inevitable and that you should make the best out of your short time on Earth.
And that´s the end!
Joaquin Bello
Comments