After Hope Despairs: A Reflection on Survival, Violence, and Redemption in Avatar, Fire and Ash

Rating 7/10 on IMDb.

Fire and Ash was a fitting conclusion to the Avatar Trilogy: cinematically beautiful, narratively engaging, and unaware of its irony. There was a lot to love about this film from an uncritical perspective. If you take it at face value without attending to its obvious allegorical work, it is a good story about what survives in the face of overwhelming existential threats and what kind of hope is possible even when hope itself despairs.

As expected, the cinematography and animation were stunning. There were many moments of narrative predictability that were intentional and effective. The technical aspects of the film were done well. It was easy to lose yourself in the world Cameron created on screen.

The overarching question that the film asks: What does survival cost, and what is one willing to pay? This question seems to have three philosophical commitments, each of which attempts to address the central thesis. But it is obvious that Cameron has an answer that the other philosophical commitments must bow down to. What is that answer? Redemptive violence. Even Pandora, the planet itself, participates in this redemptive violence. The only way to meet violence is with more violence. The only time this thesis is not a forgone conclusion is in service to the ideal of family. For the sake of not writing spoilers into my review, I will forgo saying what the other two philosophical commitments are, but they are evident in the film.

In a film that sees itself as an allegorical speech on environmental and ecological ethics, it asks two other big ethical questions: What happens when redemption is not enough, and what does fidelity look like when viewed through different perspectives? Undoubtedly, there are questions around imperialism, colonialism, and indigenaity, but these obvious critiques risk obscuring the more subtle ethical questions at work.

There is one scene that is downright biblical in its interpretation of fidelity. As much as this scene is telegraphed in the lead-up, it still makes you confront the uncomfortable part of yourself that silently bears witness, revealing your own complicity in the spectacle of scapegoat and sacrificial violence.

A narrative question this film raised for me was: Is the new villain, Varang, a victim of the fires that destroyed so much in the first film? Is this a hidden reference to the fire and ash in the title?

I am less interested in leveling critiques at the narrative appropriation and stereotypical treatment of indigenous peoples versus the imperialist colonizers in this film. There are literally hundreds already proliferating on social media. The critique I can offer that is not just heaping on top of an already huge pile is to talk about the cynicism with which this film treats the idea of redemption. This film doesn’t believe that people can actually change or that redemption should be possible. This is not only a film that doubts redemption. It is a film that does not believe grief can be held without being converted into violence. And in this epoch of history, it is a daming indictment that the first film did not believe. This is the fundamental difference that sixteen years of global politics have brought to the narrative imagination of the filmmakers. The film does not believe in people being redeemed, but it does believe that violence is not only necessary, but the only form of true redemption. It is unapologetic in its role as an apologist for redemptive violence.

What is most troubling is not simply that the film argues for redemptive violence, but that it renders alternatives unintelligible. The question is no longer whether violence is justified, but what other option could possibly exist besides death. When a story so thoroughly frames violence as the only viable response to existential threat, the imagination does not wrestle with alternatives; it goes blank. This is the deeper damage the film does to our collective imagination around conflict and survival. It does not merely persuade the viewer that violence is necessary. It teaches the viewer that nothing else is even conceivable.

Overall, this was a satisfying conclusion to the story of Avatar. It was definitely better than the sequel, but far from as good as the first film. It is a film where you will need to suspend belief and judgment in order to enjoy it, but what is cinema if not an invitation to do so?