Ambiguity is, in a neat mental onomatopoeia, a difficult word to define. But to begin to understand a piece of art like the film Freud’s Last Session, define it we must, and religious artists would do well to try to understand the film.
The film imagines an encounter between the eminent atheist psychologist Sigmund Freud (a mesmerizing Anthony Hopkins) and the rising Christian apologist C.S. Lewis (an unexpectedly sound Matthew Goode) in the early days of World War II. As grainy radio broadcasts track Hitler’s unstoppable advance, Freud and Lewis are locked in their own private war, centering not on who rules Poland but on whether anyone governs existence. Does God exist? is the inciting question of the film, but to understand the two intellectuals’ answers, we must accompany them on a winding journey through both the history of Christian thought and their own personal histories—through Lewis’ territory and through Freud’s, for the historical and the individual are each necessary players in the drama of salvation.
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