No Time to Die
A flawed and stoic but ultimately caring man from Generation X, who has worked hard throughout his life yet somehow, perhaps, had it all handed to him all too easily on a platter, is forced to deal with an emotionally-stunted, highly-resentful male member of the Millennials, or Generation Y, a quasi-son who has been tortured and traumatised by the narcissistic abuses of the ascending generation, and who consequently has no understanding of the real meaning of love, being essentially an overgrown baby.
During the course of this reckoning, the first of these, the representative of Generation X (and, behind that, the Silent Generation and the Baby Boomers, these three generations defining the Age of Bond, with Sean Connery born in 1930, Roger Moore in 1927, Timothy Dalton in 1946, Pierce Brosnan in 1953 and Daniel Craig in 1968), discovers that he has a family of his own, including a small child. More than that, the mother of the child is herself a Millennial, even younger than the quasi-son. And so, at the level of psychosexual relations, it is as if the ruling father of the horde (as Freud would put it) is still insisting on using his physical strength and accumulated power to monopolise access, not just to all the financial and natural resources of the Anthropocene age, but also to all the females of the group, right up to the verge of incest.
But today, as we know, the question of justice is not posed from the viewpoint of the sons, but from that of the daughters. And so, if this tragic intergenerational cycle of injustice and destruction is to be broken, then current, almost ubiquitous Hollywood ideology sets in stone the path that the father of the horde must follow: as an appeasement of the terrifying and violent infantile resentment of those distorted sons, the quasi-father’s life of enjoyment, work and duty is to be re-evaluated and ultimately condemned as amounting to nothing more than a parade of historical and current sins and crimes. James Bond continuing to exist with a family is an ideological impossibility: the “obsolete” form of freedom he represents is incompatible with the dictates of such a re-evaluation, and with the emasculated incarnation of fatherhood such dictates demand on the grounds that new forms of “ethics” are required.
But atonement remains possible, provided he pays for these sins and crimes through an ultimate act of self-sacrifice for the benefit, not of the sons, but of mother and child, and as testament to their status as pure, sacred beings. The lengthy running time is thus a sign indicating that the appearance of the film as an entertainment and a distraction is only a disguise, designed to lure the audience in and prepare them to receive something far more Important and Serious: what this intended culmination of the James Bond series actually amounts to is a ritualised act of endurance befitting an important sermon, a final reckoning and an absolute sanctification.
As for more mundane matters, mediocre use is made of Christoph Waltz, but it cannot be denied that Rami Malek has made an excellent living based on taking maximum advantage of the opportunities afforded to him purely by the fact that he has no bottom lip. Well done Mr Malek.
During the course of this reckoning, the first of these, the representative of Generation X (and, behind that, the Silent Generation and the Baby Boomers, these three generations defining the Age of Bond, with Sean Connery born in 1930, Roger Moore in 1927, Timothy Dalton in 1946, Pierce Brosnan in 1953 and Daniel Craig in 1968), discovers that he has a family of his own, including a small child. More than that, the mother of the child is herself a Millennial, even younger than the quasi-son. And so, at the level of psychosexual relations, it is as if the ruling father of the horde (as Freud would put it) is still insisting on using his physical strength and accumulated power to monopolise access, not just to all the financial and natural resources of the Anthropocene age, but also to all the females of the group, right up to the verge of incest.
But today, as we know, the question of justice is not posed from the viewpoint of the sons, but from that of the daughters. And so, if this tragic intergenerational cycle of injustice and destruction is to be broken, then current, almost ubiquitous Hollywood ideology sets in stone the path that the father of the horde must follow: as an appeasement of the terrifying and violent infantile resentment of those distorted sons, the quasi-father’s life of enjoyment, work and duty is to be re-evaluated and ultimately condemned as amounting to nothing more than a parade of historical and current sins and crimes. James Bond continuing to exist with a family is an ideological impossibility: the “obsolete” form of freedom he represents is incompatible with the dictates of such a re-evaluation, and with the emasculated incarnation of fatherhood such dictates demand on the grounds that new forms of “ethics” are required.
But atonement remains possible, provided he pays for these sins and crimes through an ultimate act of self-sacrifice for the benefit, not of the sons, but of mother and child, and as testament to their status as pure, sacred beings. The lengthy running time is thus a sign indicating that the appearance of the film as an entertainment and a distraction is only a disguise, designed to lure the audience in and prepare them to receive something far more Important and Serious: what this intended culmination of the James Bond series actually amounts to is a ritualised act of endurance befitting an important sermon, a final reckoning and an absolute sanctification.
As for more mundane matters, mediocre use is made of Christoph Waltz, but it cannot be denied that Rami Malek has made an excellent living based on taking maximum advantage of the opportunities afforded to him purely by the fact that he has no bottom lip. Well done Mr Malek.
Mini Review: A flawed and stoic but ultimately caring man from Generation X, who has worked hard throughout his life yet somehow, perhaps, had it all handed to him all too easily on a platter, is forced to deal with an emotionally-stunted, highly-resentful male Millennial, or Generation Y, a quasi-son who has been tortured and traumatised by the narcissistic abuses of the ascending generation, and who consequently has no understanding of the real meaning of love, being essentially an overgrown baby.
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