Of Nazis and Grace – Adam's Apples
Danish director Anders Thomas Jensen's
Adam's Apples probably could
not have succeeded with admittedly talented directors such as Quentin
Tarantino and the Coen brothers (even though Jensen seems at times to
be channeling their respective muses).
Adam
Pedersen (Ulrich Thomsen) is a neo-Nazi released from prison to a
Lutheran parish serving both as a small community of faith and
halfway house. His tattoos, demeanor, and especially his framed
picture of Adolf Hitler demonstrate to the world that this “egg-head”
(the derisive term applied to him by the gas station-robbing-Saudi,
Khalid) has no use for Jesus, Jews or Muslims. Adam wants to finish
his sentence with as little bother as possible so he can get back to
the various sorts of business that European skinheads presumably attend to.
Fate
or God or the Devil intervene with Adam's simple plan and he soon
finds himself on a kind of quest to destroy the faith of the
ultra-optimistic pastor, Ivan (Mads Mikkelsen). For Ivan, the glass
is not merely half-full, but brimming over. Every difficulty and
misfortune is shown in an impossibly positive light: the drunken
Gunnar (Nicolas Bro) is “a reformed alcoholic,” Khalid no longer
robs gas stations although he still does, and Ivan's son who is bound
to a wheel-chair with palsy is constantly active and playing in the yard. Adam
sees this obvious disconnect between what Ivan sees and what really exists
and it enrages him.
There
is a subtle irony here as the Nazis were famous (or infamous) for
their inability to see the humanity of their victims even when
face-to-face with them or as their remains fell like snow from the
crematoria.
Nevertheless,
Adam makes it his mission to destroy Ivan. The method seems to be
suggested by the Devil who is off-stage throughout the film but quite
active. The method is one familiar to readers of the New Testament:
Adam will use the, word of God to tempt Ivan to give up his faith. On
several occassions the Bible which Ivan has given Adam falls open to
the Book of Job. Adam finally takes Lucifer's none too subtle
suggestion to read Job and from this Old Testament tale of loss and
temptation Adam cobbles a plan to bring down Ivan.
The
plan is startlingly simple: to convince Ivan that all of his
misfortunes are the fault not of the Devil but of God Himself “who
hates you.” Adams relentlessness finally breaks Adam who begins
bleeding from his ears and falls into a coma. If only to avoid a
charge of homicide, Adam takes Ivan to the local medical clinic. Ivan
recovers from the physical trauma but the spiritual damage is
infinitely great: Ivan has completely lost his faith in God and
suddenly has no use for the image of God either. And he has a
meddlesome brain tumor to contend with, which is on the verge of
killing him.
Ivan's
change is so radical that it deeply disturbs Adam. He sees that
Gunnar and Khalid – whom he has no use for according to the tenets
of Nazism for one is a useless drunkard and complete moral degenerate, and the other a
subhuman “Paki” Muslim – are distraught and disoriented. His
plan has worked too well: he sought to teach Ivan a lesson but
suddenly Adam finds his own world is being destroyed as well. Ivan's
faith was not reasonable but it was the bedrock of a community of
misfits. A community in which Adam too was accepted and loved.
Deciding
that he might as well bake the cake that was his community service
project, Adam heads to the scorched apple tree that was struck by
lightning. He and Khalid attempt to salvage enough apples for a
modest pie. Just then Adam's old pals arrive and unleash a train of
insults at Adam and question why he would be in the presence of a
“sand nigger.” Khalid, who we learned earlier in the film is a
decent marksman has no patience with this racists and the gang leaves
wounded and angry and humiliated. Later Ivan confronts the same group of neo-Nazis
who are causing a ruckus. He says he doesn't care who they kill as
long as they give him peace and quiet. In a struggle for one of the
Nazi's pistols, Ivan takes a bullet through the eye.
As a
result, Ivan does not die but the pistol round instead removes the
tumor completely. They don't ALL live
happily ever after: the cynical Doctor Kohlberg (who egged-on the
egghead Adam to mock Ivan's faith) finds himself leaving his practice
at the hospital. He raves:
I am a man of science, I believe in
numbers and charts. Goddamnit, I wanna go someplace, where people die
when they are sick, and don't sit in the yard eating cowboy toast
when they have been shot through the head.
This is not film that helps one understand the relationship between faith and reason, but it does illustrate that God can take our worst intentions and motives, and transform them into something beautiful. If this Adam can become a new Adam, why not us?
