Ocean Waves

There are so many reasons I love One Battle After Another--Paul Thomas Anderson's latest movie--it's hard to mention them all. So I'll keep it to one--the sensei.

That would be Sergio St. Carlos, the character played by Benicio del Toro, who's called the sensei and not just cause he runs a dojo and teaches karate.

But also because he's a teacher in the most metaphorical of ways—a wise man, who counsels people in their most vulnerable conditions. When they feel otherwise overwhelmed by chaos and catastrophe.  

In addition to running that dojo, he oversees an underground railroad in which he's cooly and calmly moving undocumented people from south of the border in and out of the country.

Or as he puts it--a "Latino Harriet Tubman situation."

I love his unruffled demeanor. And I enjoy those moments where he's counseling Bob--the frenetic character played by Leonardo DiCaprio--to calm down and breathe.

Or to find his "ocean waves," as the sensei puts it.

So he can find a way to escape the predicament he's confronting before it destroys him.

Since seeing that movie--twice--I've been counseling many people in my life to find their ocean waves.  Which is funny cause I'm usually the guy one step away from losing my mind. 

For instance...Tony with a T, my dear friend and bowling teammate.

Nice legs, Tony...

Tony has a tendency to approach every shot as though his life depended on getting a strike. Or at least a spare.

And so as Tony walks to the lane, I pull him aside and whisper...

"Ocean waves, Tony--ocean waves."

Alas, Tony has no idea what I'm talking about. He's still not seen One Battle After Another--barely heard about it until I started obsessively talking about it. Probably won't see it cause he has two young children at home. And will not leave his house to see a movie until, oh, 2035. Give or take a year or two.

The bowling reference is apt because in many ways One Battle After Another is a direct descendent of The Big Lebowski, which was set in a bowling alley.

And the relation between del Toro and DiCaprio's characters is similar to the one between Jeff Bridges and John Goodman's characters in Lebowski.  In many ways, I suspect the sensei is patterned after the Dude.

But there is this distinction...

The Coen brothers made Lebowski in 1998, during the Clinton years--when the country, for all its flaws, was more or less a democracy whose leaders followed the rule of law and the constitution.

As opposed to the lawlessness of our current president, who defies congress, laws and federal judges.

In Battle, Bob and the sensei are fending off heavily armed troopers, who have invaded their city and are rounding up people without cause.

Sound familiar?

Actually, Anderson was remarkably prescient--he made his movie a year before Trump invaded Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.

In short, Bob and the sensei are trapped in the nightmare of an authoritarian state much like the one that's ensnared us. It's comforting to think someone like the sensei could exist--a man so cool and calm and collected that he has the composure to redirect his fears and anxieties into a positive force.

Man, we could use a sensei or two (or three) right now--on my bowling team and in America. Especially America.

Ocean waves for all, till we break on through to the other side.