Duality of Water

           Water comes in all forms; its purest, its hardest, its saltiest, and its clearest.  Rain. ice and tears; all forms of water, different in their own way.  Each creates a duality between life and death, two opposites that collide.  It is through water that life is given through baptism, yet through water life can be taken in an instant.  Water flows with time, it moves forward, occasionally running over and around rocks, but never ceasing and never traveling backwards.  Analogous to life, it is constantly moving in the direction it was intended, often full of obstacles, but impossible to rivert against its inevitable fate.  As much as Ben Thomas wants to rewind his life, he has no choice but to continue living with the mistake of his past.  Seven Pounds is a film about a man, Ben Thomas, who realizes just how quickly life can turn into death.  In a horrific car accident, Ben Thomas accidentally kills a total of seven people.  He becomes a man living in the dark shadows of his mistake and decides to, in return, save seven lives by taking his own.  Water is constantly used to represent the duality between life and death, purity, the constant struggle in life, and overcoming seemingly impossible obstacles. 

            Water symbolizes purity and rebirth, and gives a parallel meaning to life.  The film Seven Pounds begins with a scene of Ben Thomas, the main character, swimming in the ocean.  Ben is a character who once had his life together, but in just seven seconds his world is shattered.  He transitions states, like water, from a fluid world full of life to frozen in the shadow of his accident, unable to find his way back to the light.  He swims swiftly through the beautiful, blue ocean, with light above him (Seven Pounds).  The shot begins as Ben swims above the camera, a light shining at the top of the ocean.  As he begins to swim upwards towards the light, the camera quickly changes to a God’s eye view of Ben and the large, deserted ocean.  Ben so badly wants to see the light in his life once again, but he cannot find a way to forgive himself for the tragedy and sadness he caused to so many, and himself.  In a life once expansive and full of light, he is isolated and alone.  At the beginning of the film Ben says, “God created the world in seven days, and in seven seconds I shattered mine” (Seven Pounds).  From a young age, Ben became intrigued by a box jellyfish, a deadly but amazing animal, which later would become his source of death.  As he is standing, hands on the glass of the tank, next to his brother and father, he stares at the jellyfish, fascinated by its every move (Seven Pounds).  The deep blue water illuminates the bright pink jellyfish as he inches closer to the glass, and closer to his death.  The water and jellyfish represent innocence in Ben, a lack of knowledge of the power of the jellyfish and death.  A duality is created between life and death.  How could something that moves with absolute grace in pure blue water be so deadly?  As Ben moves along through each stop of his eventful journey, the jellyfish is constantly with him.  It is one of the few constants in his life, his nearness to death.  Even in the most obscure of places, Ben’s jellyfish serves as a constant reminder of death.  For a period of time, Ben lives in a hotel room, and yet his jellyfish is once again in his presence, lurking, as he ponders the rest of his short life (Seven Pounds).  Each shot containing Ben and his jellyfish foreshadows his impending death. The lighting and costumes set a dark, somber mood, showcasing a lack of life within Ben.  Water represents not only death, but life, and the inevitable transition between the two states.  Ben is on a mission to save seven lives to make up for the ones he took.  One life to which he brings hope to is that of Connie and her two children.  Connie was tragically abused by her boyfriend and scared for her life.  Ben came to her rescue by generously giving them his beach house.  Connie stands in front of the ocean as the sun sets, amidst the beautiful, colorful flowers in a life she never imagined (Seven Pounds).  The ocean gave her a sense of peace, purity, and calm in a life that once had an unknown, dark future.  The ocean is the dichotomous visual analogy  for both the beauty and light, darkness and depth of life and death. 

            Ice creates a cold chilling feeling, yet from ice can stem enormous amounts of passion.  He killed seven, yet is on a mission to save seven lives.  Ben Thomas is approaching the end of his journey and his life.  Although he is leaving behind so much, including Emily, the woman he has recently fallen in love with, he knows that he is doing the right thing.  In this scene, Ben is pouring bags of ice into the hotel bathtub (Seven Pounds).  As he is pouring out the ice, he attempts to release his burdens.  The pouring of the ice symbolizes the outpouring out of his soul.  Along with this, Ben uses ice to preserve his organs.  His plan is timed out down to the second. He seeks to save as many lives as possible, though he intends to take his own.  Ben lies in the bathtub of ice, slowly submerging himself.  Soon after he pours the jellyfish into the tub, which tightly wraps around his arm, killing him.  This scene alternates between Ben and Emily, each in their own bathtub, one dying and one full of life (Seven Pounds).  The smooth ice in Ben’s bathtub looks like tiny crushed up pieces of glass, like the glass flying from the windshield during the accident that shattered Ben’s life.  The scene represents opposites, Ben dying in the ice cold bathtub, Emily lying in a tub symbolizing a halo.  Soon after, Emily is given a heart…from Ben.  Although ice can often be associated with cold bitterness, it can mean so much more.  As Ben journeys to save seven lives, he donates his kidney to an inspiring hockey coach.  The hockey coach is a source of hope to many underprivileged kids who could only dream of playing hockey, but did not have the money to play as they wished.  He is also a figure that the young boys look up to.  This scene shows Ben looking onto one of the hockey practices, watching the boys look up to the coach not only as a coach, but also as a role model (Seven Pounds).  Ice represents the coach’s passion, his passion for skating, passion for kindness, passion for doing something nice and an opportunity to change the world.  Through the hockey coach the kids are given heaven in midst of the horrible hell in which they’re living.  Ice, once again, creates a duality between life and death, passion and bitterness. 

            Water exists everywhere, the ocean, as glaciers, but many times forgotten is water in its purest form, rain and tears.  Ben quickly comes to the realization that Emily will not live much longer with with her rare heart condition and blood type.  There is an extremely slim chance a donor will ever be found with her same blood type.   Ben realizes she is his last source of life and happiness, and that losing her would be devastating.  At this moment Ben realizes that it is time for him to go.  He urgently sprints down the streets in the pouring rain towards the hospital (Seven Pounds).  Rain symbolizes washing away the dark and making way for the new.  By taking his life, Ben takes away the dark he is living in and paves the way for Emily to live the life she has always dreamed.  Emily invites Ben over for a beautiful, candle-lit dinner on her back patio, and from the start Ben and Emily understand one another.  After an amazing night, the rain begins to pour down onto the light green table cloth, dishes, and faint light of the burning candle (Seven Pounds).  Even though the rain is pouring down, the candle stays lit.  The rain represents sadness, yet the light represents hope.  The candle is continually burning, representing a hope for the future.  There is a duality amongst the rain and the flame, a duality between hope and sadness.  After the passing of Ben, the impact he makes shows up through many people.  Ben, once was full of darkness, became Emily’s true source of life as she lives on thanks to Ben’s heart.  Emily begins to search for a man named Ezra, who once was blind until Ben saved his life.  After a choir concert in which Ezra is the director, Emily finds Ezra and is speechless as she begins to cry (Seven Pounds).  Emily sees the impact that a man she loved so dearly had on many people.  She lives through the pain of losing Ben, but is comforted by the knowledge of the life his altruism bestowed upon others.  Her tears show a duality between her sadness and happiness, between the lives of those Ben saved and the sadness of his death.  The same inanimate agent, rain, renders both life and death. 

            Water takes on many forms, each with its own meaning, yet each with a central purpose of purity and cleansing.  Each state breeds both life and death. The ocean is colossal and makes one feel small, yet when within brings one a sense of peace.  Ice is bitter and cold, yet can stem an immense amount of passion from the soul.  Rain and tears brings sadness, yet purifies the mind and soul, creating life anew.  Through Ben and Emily in the film Seven Pounds, the duality of life and death is expressed with the ocean, ice, rain, and tears.  Emily brings light into the life of a man that sees only darkness.  However, among the heart condition Emily is living with, Ben brings her life by giving her his heart.  Not only is a duality created between life and death, but the duality created between light and dark is shared between two people whose lives are inevitably intertwined, like the various states of water.  Water creates in one a clean heart, a rebirth, and an opportunity to live in the midst of mistakes.  Life can not exist without water, it is the essential element to both our anatomy, and our humanity.