Buried in the Snow and world view

I just received this email from a friend who read Buried in the Snow and after watched the movie Cast Away. I think you will find his comments worth reading:

Dear Mark:

BURIED IN THE SNOW vs. CAST AWAY: after I read Buried in the Snow, which I greatly enjoyed, I watched the movie Cast Away staring Tom Hanks. I had seen the movie before but watched it this time to contrast it to Buried in the Snow. It is a very powerful and interesting contrast. Both stories are about individual survival under desperate circumstances but the world view between them is diametrically opposed. In Buried in the Snow, Jacques Lopraz becomes completely dependent on Jesus as the story develops. He learns from his terrible trials and is obviously made stronger by the experience. Through his grandfather’s instruction and through his faith, he has the ability to deal with the grandfather’s death and burial, receiving solace in the fact that his grandfather goes knowingly and willingly to a better place. Contrast this to the absolutely godless movie Cast Away in which Tom Hanks repeatedly demonstrates the atheist view that self is all there is—we only have our personal faculties on which to survive. Hanks never even alludes to a “higher power”. While the hero of Buried in the Snow is raised to bring his concerns to a loving Christ, the Hanks character is reduced to conversing with a soccer ball. When the body of a dead pilot washes up on shore, Hanks buries the body, then steps back and you assume he is about to give some type of blessing (“Lord receive this sole and grant comfort to his loved ones”); but no, he simply brushes the sand from his hands and says, “well, that’s that”. Wow! Life is tough and then you die—that’s that—the atheist world view. At the end of the movie Hank’s character is in confusion. He has Buried the woman he loves, doesn’t know what he wants to do with his life and is completely alone. In the last scene the audience is given “hope” in that he has just spotted a good looking new woman who he might pursue. How utterly pathetic. I had never noticed how intentionally atheist and worldly this movie is, until I read Buried in the Snow. Insight is the power of well written Christian literature, always confirming that Jesus Christ is the difference between light and dark, hope and despair, truth and falsehood, life and death—just as he told us. Thank you, Jesus.