Alas the Green Dragon

A green flash of light
Oh, how my feet give you strength
Your time was too short

Black Snake Moan and Covenant

I saw Black Snake Moan last night, and I have to say that it was a whole lot better that I expected it to be. I didn't really know what to expect, seeing as how the central plot device is Sam Jackson chaining a crazy white woman to his radiator. As the film goes along, you realize that there's a bit of symbolism going on, and that the film is going to be a bit deeper that initially expected.

You see, the central symbol of the film is the chain, which represents, as the director has said "being fettered to another." This is analogous our Covenant relationship with Jesus, and the Covenant relationship of marriage. The central idea of a Covenant, as opposed to a contractual relationship, is that it is unbreakable and final. We are fettered to Christ utterly and eternally, and our marriages should be wholly undoable except for death and infidelity.

Lazarus (Sam Jackson), is eponymously named after the New Testament figure who rose from death after being called by Christ. In this film he is a Christlike symbol for rebirth and renewal, determined to "fix up" Rae, who is chained to his radiator. Both his dogged determination, "I aint gon' be moved on this", and the unbreakable fixture of the radiator are signs of a covenant. Throughout the movie Lazarus tends to the physical needs (clothing, food, etc) of Rae as well has her personal needs of genuine friendship and fellowship.

Now througout the movie, Rae has like 5 sex scenes and gets crazy trashed on drugs an alcohol. These activities of hers are her way of acting out about her childhood sexual abuse. It's her way of trying to find love in the arms of all these different men, but it always undoes her.

At the end of the movie, there is a scene where she is driving with her recently acquired husband who earlier left for the army. She's wearing a white dress, and a gold chain around her waist. Her husband has a panic attack and she has one of her "attacks." She swoons into her lustful rythym, the familiar images of the past filling her head. She then hold fast to the gold chain around her waist, you then see a cut of the large iron chain pulling against the unmovable radiator, and the attack passes. The Covenant has changed her.