Avatar: The Way of the Water – James Cameron – review

Summary : Jake Sully and Ney’tiri have formed a family and do everything to stay as close together as possible. However, they are forced to leave their homes and explore the different still mysterious regions of Pandora. When an old threat resurfaces, Jake will have to fight an uphill war against the humans.

Critical : After thirteen years of absence surveying the universe ofAvatar and designing no less than four sequels around the planet Pandora and beyond, James Cameron returns with a second opus whose mission was to extend both the themes initiated in the first Avatar while pushing the boundaries of the universe towards new new uncharted terrain. We had left Sully and Neytiri safe and sound after a heavy carnage and the destruction of the house tree by a dying human civilization, whose conquest of Pandora was a reflection of their own barbarism. The candor of the Na’Vi people, close to nature, connected in their essence to Eywa, the earthly divinity of Pandora, contrasted with a humanity denying itself, transforming itself into a technological nation where the distinction between man and the machine became insoluble. James Cameron continues this spiritual journey in this sequel which shows two facets of the notion of transcendence, one as a form of unnatural degeneration, represented by Colonel Miles Quaritch; the other as a means of sublimation of being, embodied by the character of Kiri, a thinly veiled reincarnation of the character of Grace Augustine, played by Sigourney Weaver, who died in the first part. The notion of transhumanism has always been significant in the filmography of James Cameron, his first obsession. The universe of Avatar allowed him to multiply this obsession through a skilfully constructed network of characters. It even seems that the nerve center of this network crystallizes through Eywa, this divinity who safeguards the ecosystem of Pandora and unites all living beings to each other like so many neurotransmissions in a human brain. While the first opus ended with Jake Sully leaving his human body to definitively integrate that of his Avatar, The Way of the Water plunges us into the deepest recesses of our subconscious.

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Enhanced by the experience of HFR, a real cinematic revolution in the making, increasing the frame rate per second from 24 to 60, The Way of the Water benefits from a technology that fully embraces the movements of bodies and natural elements to better immerse us in the turquoise waters of Pandora. We feel Cameron’s passion for underwater environments as well as his frustration at not having been able to exploit it earlier in Avatar, for lack of a performance capture still in its infancy. Today, the sensory experience is in fact increased tenfold in this sequel showing that the salvation of humanity will only pass through an evolution towards new bodies, new perceptions, new looks. As said before, transhumanism has always been the nerve center of James Cameron’s filmography. The Way of the Water admirably pursues the filmmaker’s philosophical quest through the character of Kiri, Jake’s adopted daughter, embodied in a performance captured by Sigourney Weaver. Cameron seems to use the actress as the symbolic thread of his universe. The final showdown between Ellen Ripley, physically augmented with her mechanical exoskeleton, and the Alien Queen in Aliens already announced the premises of the world of Avatar regarding the question of transhumanism. The character of Kiri then appears as the mirror of the advent of this new humanity capable of becoming one with the fauna and flora of Pandora, like the figure of Gaia, reaching a level of spirituality exceeding the tangibility. However, Cameron has the intelligence to show the danger of such a change when humans are at the heart of the equation. Colonel Miles Quaritch, coming back from the dead in a brand new Avatar body, proves to be a real counter-power to this risky fusion between the immortal soul and the perishable body, and vice versa. Prisoner of his firm belief in the integrity of the individual, Quaritch envisions his transcendence as another step towards chaos, a way to defy the gods in one and the same motion. The sequence where he grabs his own human skull in a jungle by the sheer force of his hand, the bone of which is naturally increased in carbon fiber, demonstrates all the pride of a humanity denying its own mortality.

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Avatar: The Waterway crystallizes like never before the obsessions of a filmmaker, among one of the greatest authors in the history of contemporary cinema, in an avenging and unifying quest at the heart of the planet Pandora, Eldorado par excellence of the future of cinema where everything seems possible, where technological frontiers cannot confront the mad ambition of James Cameron and the unshakable faith he gives to his Creation. This second opus defies all expectations and succeeds in the feat of combining several layers of philosophical readings with pure mainstream entertainment for a unique and unforgettable experience which, once placed in the context of the complete saga, will only be stronger. Cameron is back!

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Avatar: The Way of the Water – James Cameron – review


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