Les Misérables at last

Kevin Moss - Guest Contributor | 08:00, 15 April 2013

We had missed previous screenings, partly because of other commitments, and partly because of my own lack of motivation, following an anodyne performance of the musical in London.

The film is, of course, overwhelming.  Before you go, friends helpfully hint that one should take an ample supply of Kleenex.  Thankfully, the intimacy of a smallish cinema is a sufficient incentive to avoid histrionics.  The final scene, where Valjean departs to be with Fantine, was something of a challenge.

Having now seen the film, I was struck afresh by the sheer clarity and unequivocal nature of the distinctively Christian concepts that get played out before us.  Both Valjean and Javert are recipients of grace (undeserved favour), and the plot provides us with an extended meditation on the two quite different responses to grace that they exhibit.  The Wikipedia article on the book speaks of it “Examining the nature of law and grace."

Hugo himself provides an explanation of his narrative, towards the end of the book:

"The book which the reader has before him at this moment is, from one end to the other, in its entirety and details … a progress from evil to good, from injustice to justice, from falsehood to truth, from night to day, from appetite to conscience, from corruption to life; from bestiality to duty, from hell to heaven, from nothingness to God. The starting point: matter, destination: the soul. The hydra at the beginning, the angel at the end."

These are concepts which are now almost entirely foreign to the modern mind, blighted so remorselessly by the twin epidemics of postmodernism and secularism.  It is therefore all the more intriguing how these themes have, in some inexplicable way, gripped us – although the secular media do their best to distract us from the metanarrative.  They focus on the visuals, on Anne Hathaway’s heart-wrenching performance to camera, on the insoluble question of Russell Crowe’s singing abilities, on the prospects for Oscars. It could be that such digressive attention might simply be a feature of the modern age, with its complacent satisfaction with form over substance.  Or, contrarily, the sheer scale of subversion attempted by secularists in respect of historically understood truths and concepts, leads one to regard this as more than just an omission.

Clearly, the film and musical are very different exercises to the novel, which is one of the longest ever written, comprising 365 chapters.  It is, however, intriguing that these more digestible renditions have preserved the kernel of Hugo’s grand focus – the reality of moral evil, the availability of grace and, ultimately, the transformative power of redemption.  Whilst materialism may continue to vociferously deny the truth of such concepts, it seems that, at a visceral, fundamental level, we still hunger for this reality.