When the story opens, we find Geoffrey living in a small village in Mexico on the eve of WWII. He had been working there as a diplomat, but he quit. Geoffrey is aware that the world is about to be plunged into chaos despite all the best efforts of people such as himself, so he has given up. The turmoil that looms over Europe, much like the volcano that looms over the village, reflects the turmoil in Geoffrey’s personal life. At some point in the recent past, Geoffrey discovered that his wife Yvonne and his half-brother Hugh were having an affair, and although it seems to have only been short-lived and that Yvonne and Geoffrey were truly in love, Geoffrey couldn’t bring himself to forgive them, so he and Yvonne divorced, and Hugh went off to fight the Fascists in Spain. But Hugh returns, followed by Yvonne as the Mexican villagers celebrate the Day of the Dead. There seems to be a chance for the three to make peace with what happened and to become a family again, but even though Geoffrey wants this more than anything, he has lost his faith and he has become a hopeless alcoholic. Geoffrey no longer believes in happy endings. He no longer believes that hard work or the best intentions pay off. Geoffrey has come to believe that we all live under the volcano and it’s only a matter of time before we’ll be destroyed. So he drinks himself into a stupor, behaves erratically, and at the end of the film, he is killed by thuggish Nazi sympathizers.
While watching this film, I couldn’t help but think of Trayvon Marin, the young man who was gunned down in the streets while walking home after buying himself a treat at a local store. He was shot by a paranoid lunatic whom our society believes has a right to not only own a gun but to carry it around. And the state of Florida has seen fit to provide such paranoid lunatics with a law that protects them from prosecution when they kill with their guns if they merely feel threatened.
I also thought of the story I read recently about a man who grew up in Morocco. He was an effeminate boy, and because of this, the men who knew him felt it was their right to rape him once he reached puberty. Not even his family was willing to stand up for him. And I’m sure the men rationalized their actions by telling themselves that if the boy didn’t want it, he wouldn’t have been effeminate. Morocco is the country where Matthew Sheppard was gang rapped when he visited the country as a teenager. How can the idea that it’s okay to rape small, effeminate teenage boys get passed down in a society from one generation to the next without that idea being challenged? How can these men who brutalize these boys not realize that what they’re doing is wrong?
As much as I want to believe that people are basically good and that life is beautiful, I often find myself sympathizing with Geoffrey’s point of view. We can put forth our best diplomatic efforts, as Geoffrey did before he gave up, and maybe we’ll see some positive change here and there, but it’s like trying to hold back the flow of lava with a soup ladle. With every small victory comes the news chaos and destruction have popped up somewhere else.
I suppose that despite this, one can try to live as if all is not lost. And maybe this can give a person’s life meaning and purpose. Most of the time I manage to believe this on some level, but like Geoffrey, I often find myself in full retreat, too. I may not be a drunkard, and it’s not like me to go out in the world and pick fights with thugs, but I do hide in my little cave, and at least once a day I find myself waiting for the inevitable.
Under The Volcano trailer
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