L’Osservatore Romano underscores defense of life, hope and humanism in movie “Wall-E”

Vatican City, Oct 22, 2008 / 08:35 am

In an interesting article published by the L’Osservatore Romano, reporter Andrea Piersanti emphasized how Eve, the robot star of the movie “Wall-E,” creates a revolution by inspiring a reflection on the defense of life and hope for humanity.

Piersanti notes that the character Eve “looks like a machine designed by Apple and carries within her the seed of life.”

“The new woman, Eve, is not only beautiful and perfect but also has time to fall in love, save the world and restore the life of her boyfriend: an absolute revolution in Hollywood’s imaginary cinematography,” he added.

The male character in the movie is left with the task of finding a place for poetry and beauty in a world “without life, covered in trash and awaiting the return of humans who wander in a giant spaceship to again repopulate the earth,” Piersanti wrote. “The robotic Adam and Eve have the task of restoring to man the place that awaits him.”

While the film does not present an openly religious perspective, he continued, Wall-E does inspire reflection.  This robot, “in his own way, loves and seeks out beauty.  He is moved upon observing the stars. Eve and the other rebel robots disobey orders in light of a higher morality, one that is unique and not relative [to them]: the salvation of life.”

Piersanti notes that in the film, mankind hopes that Eve will bring meaning back to life because “they are prisoners of the technology that surrounds every detail of their lives. They have become obese and cannot walk with their own legs, and they have lost contact with those around them.”

“This is the real reason for the fascination with this movie,” he stressed.  “In a world that is cold and covered with the trash of our technological gods, we can only re-encounter dignity and beauty by following the heart, only by seeking out beauty. While seeing this film one cannot help but think of the Scripture passage that says: ‘If the Lord does not build the house, in vane do its builders labor. If the Lord does not watch over the city, in vain does the watchman keep vigil.”

“This is what we are seeing as the third millennium dawns. Locked in a hyper-technological society,” Piersanti said, “we look to the future with anxiety, or worse, with indifference.  The little robot Eve speaks to our hearts and makes us open our eyes again. She makes us think again about our whole lives with a light of hope that we thought we had lost,” he said.