Literary Movie Review: A grand tour through Gran Torino

My take on the film, Grad Torino:

It’s funny how one of the themes, explicitly touched upon in the film, was life and death. It’s funny because just yesterday, I didn’t know if I wanted to write a blog about what the deaths of two fish have taught me. Instead I wrote about something else. But now that the subject has declared its presence, shall we say, not once but twice, I feel as though it’s telling us to expatiate more about it.

So what can we say about it as it pertains to the film? In my opinion, this theme was almost inscrutably enmeshed in the conversations between the priest and Walt. The priest asked to talk about it that night at the bar, with Walt. And Walt certainly had something to say. He drew ever so rightly from experience rather than a handbook, as he put it to the priest. He taught him a thing or two that they don’t teach future priests in the seminary or priest school. He taught him that death comes and goes and comes back again, but killing stains the soul. How does death come and go and come again? Take his resilient reaction to the death of his wife as a cold, red brick of evidence, for example. He just moves on, all alone in the house, hating the world the same way he did when his wife was alive – at least according to his sons. The film starts and ends in a church for a funeral, to be more general about it. Obviously death never stays forever. It only seeps in and out of the lives of others. How does killing stain the soul? Walt locks Thao up in the basement. He doesn’t want Thao to live with the guilt of killing another person, just as he has had to do his whole life, after the Korean war. If anything, I think everyone can learn something from Walt – he is or seems to be the most experienced after all. He is the most unselfish person in the film. But I’ll save that discussion for later in this blog. What has Walt learned and taught about life? Well you gotta enjoy it – what else is it there for, right? Actually a great deal more than that, according to Walt. You got to do good in it, for others too. I don’t mean do well, I mean good deeds. He teaches Thao to do this, just as he himself does this. He teaches Thao to help around the neighborhood, just as he helped save Thao and Sue’s family from the Hmong gang. As for enjoying life, let’s just say that Thao’s going to be enjoying that Gran Torino for some time, after a brief test ride during his date with Daisy – “you gotta do it in style, don’t you?” I think that’s what he said.

The next theme I want to cover, is what I think is the main moral of this film and it has to do with our protagonist, Walt. For him, vengeance – his sacrifice – was his salvation. Early on in the film, the priest persistently visits Walt, at the request of Walt’s wife, before she died. He talked to him about Walt’s confession and how he hasn’t gone to confession in a long, long time – “since forever,” in fact. The reason one goes to confession is to be forgiven for sin(s) that he or she committed, so that he or she may repent and gain salvation. By the end of the film, this reason of persistence has had the chance to materialize, as Walt finally goes to confession, confessing minor things. He wanted vengeance on the gang and Thao knew it and he too also wanted it. But how should he go about it? Being a Korean war veteran has taught him some lessons on strategy. Yes, that and the fact that Sue and Thao’s family were seriously threatened (physically) because of his quick reaction to what they did to Thao (he beat up one of the gang members). Don’t react quickly because then you’ll make mistakes; instead, stay calm and plan it out. His vengeance became his ultimate sacrifice though, when he sacrifices himself to get rid of the gang that’s been attacking and threatening his Hmong neighbors. You see, that’s why he’s so selfless! And as he stands there preparing to get a lighter, preparing for that thing that comes and goes and comes again – death – he says his hail marys and finally achieves salvation with the knowledge that the gang won’t bother his friends, his Hmong neighbors, anymore.

One last theme I would like to expound on is family. This film redefines family, as it has been redefined in other forms of entertainment and literary art many times before. What is family? It is more than blood. It is a bond, a unit, a strong friendship built on care and respect. So while Walt may have a real “family” that entails his children and grandchildren, his real family is his Hmong neighbors. Simply put, they are closer to him than his real “family” are – which by the way are characterized overtly as the superficial American type. Speaking of characterization, let’s have a looksie more up closie at Walt.

Walt is the old school kind of guy who demands and expects respect, as well as discipline. That’s why he was drawn to Thao in the first place, when he saw Thao helping the elderly women in front of his house. Many times in the film, he has ordered, as an experienced veteran deserving respect would, others to do things for him. Little things like getting him another beer or . . . fixing the roof of someone’s house. He is the kind of guy who sees the world as a bundle of dirtiness in the expectations of how people of different races should act when encountering people of a different race. He said to Sue’s boyfriend, “Stop calling him (the black guy) bro.” Not only that, he also sees the wold as a dumpload of new found disrespect in younger generations (excuse the inappropriate language, appropriate only for the younger generations in Walt’s eyes). I like Walt. There’s a reason why he is the way he is. The world and life made him that way.

Before I finish analyzing Gran Torino, I must tell you about the pervasive theme – racism/discrimination. Perhaps one of the most aspects of the film that caught my attention almost instantly was racism/discrimination. And it’s inevitable that they should encase such a neighborhood in this imperfect world. With America being a melting pot of different cultures, the neighborhood that Walt lives in is the epitome of America. I may go so far as to saying that his neighborhood symbolizes America. The film uses white people, Hmong people, Hispanics, and blacks – and they don’t get along with each other. But of course Walt is a different case and so is the priest (for obvious reasons). Walt is the one who tears down the walls. He would have wanted revenge even if the people who hurt Sue, Thao and their family were his own race. He is the man who knows and does not deny that there is racism, but also the man who does not partake in racism.

This film has it all. And I thought Gran Torino was a car film.