The Invention of Lying is set in an imaginary world where humans are incapable of lying. While this world would, in actuality, be a utopia; there is an added twist in this film to make it seem that the truth is destructive: apparently, not only can humans only speak the truth, but they also are incapable of remaining silent. For example: A girl opens the door to meet her blind date and says, "Hi! Oh, I don't find you the least bit attractive and I don't have very high hopes for this evening."
Entrenched in this world is Mark Bellison. Mark is a "loser". While being very smart, he is short, overweight, and recently unemployed. Mark is going to alter the course of human history by inventing the world's first lie. He finds this talent to be very useful, not only for paying his rent, but also for solving the world's problems. His new found power is exaggerated by the fact that everyone believes him due to the cultural disposition to the truth. No one has ever lied before, why should anyone think he is speaking anything but what is true?
Mark's mother is dying and she is afraid. To ease her fears Mark invents a story about an afterlife. A magnificent story that involves the best place you could ever think of, mansions, loved ones, peace, and joy. Of course, everyone believes him and now the world is beating a path to his door to hear more about this wonderful place that somehow only he knows about. Mark spends the entire night concocting the specifics about the afterlife. He creates "The man in the sky," a bad place for bad people, what is and what isn't a bad act, and various other very religious concepts.
This movie does something that is nearly impossible to do: it proves the exact opposite view of the message it is trying to convey.
It was painfully obvious that the people who believed him were ignorant, naive, and foolish. God and heaven, according to this film, is a lie. A fanciful story made up to ease the fear of old people, give others someone to blame for the bad things in their lives, and provide a reason for people to do good.
The "religion" that Mark invents is riddled with inconsistencies. It is elementary in it's concepts, and sophomoric in its arrangement. This intelligent person's inability to create a feasible religion simply goes to show that the complexity of Christianity makes it all the more unlikely that it is not of human origin.
I will give kudos to this film in one aspect: The ability to lie makes the truth more powerful. It is unfortunate that this film felt the need to put this point on a pedestal, rather than trust the intelligence of the audience. The point, however, was clear and poignant, none the less.
I would like to contrast this film and it's viewpoint that lying is not only necessary, but beneficial in all aspects of life with the view that Johnathan Swift presents to us in his masterpiece "Gulliver's Travels." In the fourth book Gulliver visits the land of the "Houyhnhnms;" A race of intelligent horses that are slaves to reason and are so honest they do not even have a word for "lie." They inquire of Gulliver "whether it were the custom in his country to say the thing which was not." Here in the Houyhnhnms we find a (debatable) utopia where laws are created to sustain life rather than control it due to man's tendency toward evil or even destroy it due to the corruption in the system. The Houyhnhnms are contrasted with the Yahoos, a savage race of people devoid of honor or virtue who are slaves to their passions. The Invention of Lying would have us believe that the Yahoos are the race to which we should aspire and not the Houyhnhnms.
I find it somewhat ironic that a faith that admonishes it's followers to "speak the truth in love" so that "the truth might set you free" is lampooned in this comical farce as nothing more than a calculated lie. Sorry, but I don't believe you.
1.5 out of 5 stars.
2 comments:
I did not even finish watching the movie once they started really going down that religous route, not because of any personal religous reasons, but because ,to me at least, it shifted gears to much. It wanted to beat into me exactly what your review says. I was expecting a silly little comedy about the underdog learning to lie and silly people around him doing what he says.
I dont like to be preached at like that. Don't tell me what I should believe, but why YOU believe it. Don't tell me that what I think is wrong or bad, or that I am going to hell for not believing like you, tell we why YOU have such faith. Faith is never blind. There is some reason that you have it. Just because, is not a reason. Most of the time the reason you have faith is insubstantial compared to the size of the thing that you have faith in.
I am stopping now before I turn into people that I don't like and start preaching at you and not to you.
Thanks for bringing up Swift's story of the Houyhnhnms. The Houyhnhnms are one of the best parts of Swift's tale, and the only one of Gulliver's experiences that really alters who he is and how he sees the world. Applause from this corner!
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