There are some classic scenes in the Monty Python movie
"The Meaning of Life" where life's big questions are "answered" in a series of comic sketches. It looks at the various stages of life from childbirth, to growing up and then getting older as well as bigger issues like sex, politics and religion.
The parody of the movie "The meaning of life" is in its endeavour to answer life's fundamental and enduring question using humour by mocking life with all its paradoxes while at a more profound level posing the question well what is the meaning of life, and is there a deeper meaning to all of this, or is life just one big comic skit and one big contradiction with seemingly no answers and no direction?
Throughout the history of film making numerous films have attempted through humour, drama, metaphor, true stories or shock reality to look at the question of the meaning of life. Examples of some films that make you stop and think about life at a deeper level for a moment include The Truman Show, Being John Malkovich, American Beauty, Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
One could argue it comes down to our own individual lives and what gives our own life meaning and purpose. What some find meaning in, others may not relate to. However an individual liking a movie like "Ferris Buellers Day Off" or "Forest Gump" and relating to disliking school or driving fast cars or dreaming of real love through romancing, is more an expression of our human nature and desires, than a philosophical imprint. They are really just feel good distraction from the hustle and bustle and confusion of our lives. They take us away from things for a while.
This is a lot different to a deeper vein running through a movie about the very essence of our existence about who we are as humans and our place in the world as a species. This type of movie has an interpretation more far reaching once you get in behind the superficial surface of the picture. It leaves an imprint on the viewer for the viewer to interpret at a depth they are comfortable.
In Lord of The Rings for example the deeper vein was good and evil - a fundamental issue in human life, are we fundamentally good or bad, and that ultimately good will win out over evil.
Or take American Beauty. Philosopher George T. Hole says the film "does more than entertain us with yet another story of a man going through a mid-life crisis. It offers us a philosophical challenge, not simply to intellectualize about the meaning of the movie, but to examine our assumptions about the meaning of our own lives".
At a more poignant and human encompassing level is that the underlying theme to all of human life is our ongoing search for the meaning of life. That is why this question has been discussed since time immemorial and has obsessed deep thinkers, philosophers, great writers, musicians, religions and has also been tackled by movie writers and directors, albeit in a more superficial and metaphorical way.
Albert Camus said "The meaning of life is the most urgent of questions", and it is one that is discussed, debated and approached from all parts of society, one that we obviously yearn to fully understand and make sense of, that will bring understanding to all the paradoxes of our own lives as well as to us as a species. It will make sense of why have we the capacity for such love and compassion in our society and paradoxically live in a world ravaged with wars, famine and horrific acts of inhumanity.
It is a question that has endured throughout time and throughout all walks of life with the ultimate aim to be finally able to explain the meaning of life. So in ending I want to share with you the name of a website I visited for an organisation called The World Transformation Movement. I believe this organisation finally answers this question of questions; what is the meaning of life.
