falling in love with death

Losing someone close to you can be one of the most painful experiences any of us will ever go through. The pain of finding a home in someone and then having to continue going through the world without them, can be excruciatingly unbearable.

Despite how long we’ve existed, humanity has always struggled to comprehend the inevitable fact that one day we will all die and leave this world, in fact we fear this one certainty in life and have a hard time making peace with this inevitability.

In the movie, Meet Joe Black, sexy ass Brad Pitt plays Death, who grows curious about humanity and  decides to steal himself a body and take a vacation on earth. Death meets Hannibal Lecter and asks him to be his tour guide, with reoccurring heart attacks it’s clear he doesn’t have much time left,  in exchange for helping Death he’ll be given some extra time to live. For the first time death begins mingling with humans as equals, learning about the joys of business, taxes, love and peanut butter.

The innocent man who death stole the body from, had a romantic meet cue with a female doctor at a cafe before he was hit by a car, and this woman turns out to be Death’s new tour guides daughter, who assumes he is still the charming guy she flirted with at the coffee shop.

The movie explores first love and we watch as death rapidly falls for Susan. Despite being one of the oldest beings in this world, he begins forming an attachment to Susan in a way he has never experienced before, and he begins deluding himself into believing it will last.

In this specific scene, Joe goes to the hospital and visits an elderly Jamaican lady. Despite being scared of him at first, they soon became unlikely friends as she instantly recognizes him as Death. The reason why she can see him is never explained, but it’s clear that she’s in terrible pain and close to dying. Upon meeting him, she pleads with death to end her pain and asks to be taken to that next place. He refuses but gives her a small glimpse of the painless heaven that awaits her on the other side.

Later on in the movie, Death comes to visit the hospital and confides to this lady,  he admits that he’s in love with Susan, like a school boy he blushes, and it’s clear he’s wrapped up in the warm cocoon of romance, without giving much thought to the consequences. The older lady gives him a brutal reminder that he doesn’t belong there.

Death shows vulnerability as he confesses he would be lonely if he went back, at least somebody wanted him here. The elderly lady gives Death some beautiful hard truths about living and dying from the perspective of someone that’s lived a full life. Despite still trying to convince him to take her and return back where he belongs, she offers him a bitter-sweet metaphor for dying.

In this scene, she compares the human experience to a beautiful holiday in the islands, great weather and a nice sun tan, but now that his time is coming to a end he should take all the nice pictures in his head home with him instead of overstaying.

Within this special scene, we learn that the key to falling in love with Death is honouring the memories we were giving the opportunity to make, by celebrating the moments we got to experience, so it’s important to spend your life creating as many of these memories as possible.

In Harry Potter Deathly Hallows, we hear the Tale of the Three Brothers, and this moment in Meet Joe Black has a similar message to the third brother that got to a great age and removed the cloak of invisibility, handing it to his son and then greeted death as an old friend, parting this world as equals.

The elderly Jamaican lady had reached contentment, she looked death in the eyes and told him confidently that she had taken enough nice pictures in her life and had done all she needed to do here. This revelation is only achieved by looking upon life like an opportunity to do everything, make mistakes and create as many memories as possible so you can leave knowing that it wasn’t perfect but you did enough living to feel content when you got to the end.

It seems that the secret to falling in love with Death, is tied to falling in love with life, it’s using all the time you’re given to have new experiences, fall in love, make mistakes, make friends, make enemies and lose them along the way. It’s spending your time collecting memories and placing them in the archives, so when your time comes, you can say confidently that you’ve taken enough precious life pictures.

Death comes for us all at some point, so until that day comes, have some fun with the time you’ve been given, love boldly, live fearlessly and make every effort to create those everlasting memories with the ones you love the most.

Thank you for watching Movie Misfits, stay different and we’ll see you in our next video.