A Moral Look at "I Heart Huckabees"

            The movie I Heart Huckabees portrays several moral and existentialist questions in a very interesting and entertaining way. The film does have a moral vision in the sense that it portrays moral in a specific way to the viewer, and ultimately transcends a very clear core morality.

            Albert Markovski is an activist trying to protect the marshal and woods of his hometown. As he goes about his life he encounters an African guy at three different occasions. He considers this a meaningful coincidence and after, also coincidentally, finding the card of two existentialist detectives in his jacket, he decides to set up a meeting. Upon awkwardly meeting Vivian for the first time, he declares that he wants to know the meaning of his coincidence with the African guy and also, as a plus, the ultimate truth of the universe. A TOK connection becomes very clear in this initial scene. Vivian asks Albert if he is sure that he wants to know the truth about his perception of reality. She says that most people, upon briefly seeing the truth for the first time, are scared and would rather simply remain in the surface of things. Albert, very determined, says that he wishes to know the truth, even if it’s not consequently a happy ordeal. This reminded me of how we should “go to the swamp” when analysing something with TOK eyes. Albert wanted to, and certainly did, go to the swap in this movie. And boy - What. A. Swamp.

            The idea of infinite interconnectedness is first introduced by Bernard through the blanket analogy. A random blanket symbolizes the infinity of the universe, and the composition of the blanket is meticulously sewed together in the same way that everything in the universe is connected. Albert has an epiphany when shown this and, in a cathartic moment of truth, says: “Everything is the same even if it’s different.”  Well if that was it then the movie could have just ended there and there would be no swamp – but also no self evident and contended truth. In the movie, Albert first recognizes interconnectedness and then severely deviates from it while he spends time with Caterine, a mysterious and dark French existentialist philosopher. However, he comes back to it by the end of the movie.

            The “real life situation” of the movie is that Albert is trying to preserve the marshal and woods while cooperate man Brad is not so willing to support environmental issues. This is technically a moral dilemma but a very straight-forward yes or no dilemma compared to everything else that appears in the movie. The more important dilemma of the movie is: is everything infinite and interconnected, or is everything nothing and meaningless? Existentialist philosophers, and married couple, Vivian and Bernard will argue that there is no nothing because everything if part of the fabric of infinity. Dark French author Caterine will argue that there are moments of connection with the universe but there is always going back to human drama, desire, and deceit. To her, human existence is “chaos, cruelty, and meaninglessness.” She makes this very clear when she, right after Albert has a moment of pure being in which he stops thinking and just feels, engages in sexual relations with Albert.

            Albert was doing fine with Vivian and Bernard at the beginning of the movie. He underwent moments in which he faced his mind and thoughts while in the magical black plastic bag, and also tried to understand what his detectives were saying. However, this all went downhill (or down-swap) when Brad and Tommy (and eventually Caterine) come into play. Brad, in a cooperate move, uses the detectives to drive Albert away from his job. Tommy, after reading Caterine’s book, influences Albert with very dark ideas about the nothingness of being. Albert is now in a very award place. Who is he? What is the meaning of everything? It holds to Albert that in order to learn the truth, he must give up his everyday perceptions and usual identity. However, this gets way out of hand when Albert is presented several different perceptions. He gets lost in the midst of opposing and divergent philosophies, for some time he lands on the confusion of existence because he cannot decide between the philosophies.

            The ultimate moment of epiphany for Albert about his confusion between clashing philosophies is right after he burns down Brad’s house. He probably burns it down in the first place because he’s been sleeping with a woman (Caterine) who says that nothing that anyone does matters because the universe is cruel and chaotic by nature. He and Caterine are standing outside the burning house when Brad gets home, and Caterine takes a Polaroid of Brad crying. As soon as Albert sees that picture he realizes: he is Brad and Bras is he, they are both interconnected and so is everything else. He says that Vivian and Bernard’s philosophy is not dark enough and Caterine’s is too dark. But by placing one on top of each other two partial and meaningful philosophies are created. He realizes that there is cruelty and suffering, but that neither cruelty, suffering, happiness, or identity are actually separate from one another in the infinite fabric of reality. It’s very interesting that his epiphany happens in the form of a photograph, which is considered art. It is when he sees the photo, and not Brad in person, that he understands the meaning of the situation. This shows that art can be moral, and by portraying something real externally, one might be able to identify its meaning more easily. Brad in the picture showed a very isolated and strong image of suffering. Brad in real life was surrounded by other events and people, which did not isolate the meaning of Brad alone. Therefore, could isolating a particular object give it a different meaning that when it is in the context of reality, or does it create a different, but nonetheless real, reality for the object? Looking at different realities helped all the characters in the movie understand new things about existence. Art does exactly this, it places things in different contexts to portray different (and not one pinpointed) emotions. Art should be moral because, as seen in the movie, viewing morality itself and not only life with different perspectives and lenses helps create a more clear vision of the reality of morality for an individual.

I would like to end with a quote by Tommy (Albert’s other): “Why do people only ask themselves deep questions when something bad happens? Then they forget all about it.” In the movie, Albert does not exactly only ask the questions when he sees Brad suffering, but he does attain a new and fresh perspective which leads him to new conclusions. He joined Caterine’s idea of cruelty in the world when he saw Brad crying with the self-evident truth that he felt of interconnectedness. He showed that both opposing philosophies, of Caterine and of the detectives, are true together but none are true separately.