The Word of 'Na: Across the Universe, Right Here and Now

When I first considered Across the Universe, I put the film on hold in my movie-to-do queue. But the other day, a colleague brought his 2-disc collectible DVD to work, and I snatched it up for one night’s loan. And though I knew this would be an untimely review, I had no choice but to let my heart bleed, for all the blogging world to see, and say: Across the Universe is to die for. I’d heard as much. But no matter how devotedly I love the Beatles, these days I’ve pledged my priorities to the present day arts and events. I didn’t expect to be moved quite so far by a film so burdened with the past. You see, for a moment there, I forgot that the era of the Beatles is now, not past at all. The film could not be more important in any other day than today.

Protesting the war in Vietnam, young adults raised their voices, swarmed the nation’s capital for a revolution, bombarded public awareness with opinion papers, political rallies, and most importantly, music and art. We can hardly get our youth today to vote. So if ever there was a time for this film, I tell you, there ought to be time made for it in your schedule. Julie Taymor brings to life a story, co-written by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, that not only pays homage to a comprehensive number of Beatles’ hits, but also pays great respect and attention to the sociopolitical circumstances of the time. And then, to top their artistic and sociopo agendas, together these filmmakers accomplished an intricately beautiful love story to shine over the entire work like the proper icing on a cake. Just as the Beatles would have liked. For isn’t it the truth: all you need is love.

Jim Sturgess delivers a smashing performance as Jude, the restless young lover/immigrant to America. Having seen 21 out of sequence with this prerequisite, I already knew I admired Sturgess, but in Across the Universe, I was surprised and delighted to find that he can not only act but sing as well. Which may easily be said of his co-star too, Evan Rachael Wood. Together they sparked enough fire to earn the drama and artistry that went into scenes like that in which “Strawberry Fields” became tangible. Born well outside the years of hippie drug persuasion, I listened to the Beatles with a naïve appreciation for their “creativity.” I had nothing to identify with in their later hits, but felt strangely attached to the Beatles’ haunting melodies and bleeding hearts, weeping guitars, etc. But it was all to easy as a kid to love their less ambiguous triumphs, (“She Loves You, Yeah Yeah Yeah,” etc.)

“Strawberry Fields” happened to be one of the ambiguous wonders that flew over my head and out of my consciousness. It wasn’t until the film that I understood a world in which that song made sense. Through the lens of cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel, and with art direction by Peter Rogness, Jude’s heart breaks simultaneously as limbs fly and blood bursts through peculiar little holes in men’s army uniforms, as strawberries bleed, dripping on a stark white canvas. Every color, every twitch, every word, every muscle, every blink, every fruit, every look, every frame of film is shrouded in metaphor. And so it goes with each hit in film clip. Taymor, Clement, and La Frenais reinvent the genius of the Beatles by giving the songs new context for old content.

Across the Universe is so heavily layered. I can only describe it as an earth-shatteringly beautiful burden of hope. The film hurts you, seizes your very gut with the grotesque and absurd, boggles your brain with outlandish images and impossible events, throws you so out of focus that you have no choice but to feel as these youth felt, to see as they saw, to burn as they burned, and to hope and love and pray and cry as they did. It is a burden of a film if you choose to bear it, to see it in that light, and love that burden for freeing you. Apathy is a game for idiots, it is time we recognize that.