Being There

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Summary: autism
Review: I saw comedy and a quiet lesson in this movie. The comedy is obvious. The lesson I learned was a bit different from what other reviewers have commented on. One commented on watching this movie as a child. I suppose I relate to that most of all. I saw Seller's performance as eerily autistic, not retarded. His imitation of hand motions, the lack of empthy or emotion... etc. Autism (at least semi functional autism) to me is not lack of intelligence but freedom from those things that impair us. Chance was so simple in a perfect kind of way. His garden and his tv were enought to satisfy him. He made no judgement of anyone around him either. The ending to me, showed him as I've always imagined god to be. Uncomplicated and bereft of those emotions which set us against one another.

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Summary: Heidegger, Dasein & Peter Sellers
Review: Heidegger's Being and Time discusses the idea of Dasein (German for: "there being.") This movie is Existentialist, not Buddhist. When his benefactor dies and he is forced out of the garden we're meant to remember Nietzsche's famous phrase "God is Dead." Without God, we are, like Chance,left to...well, chance, living in the void where we must make our own meaning. The novel/film entertains the conceit that our Reality,like the TV Chance is educated by,is controlled by conventions beyond our control.