To me, there is a sense of being deeply moved by a thing which, though about loathsome ideas and inhumanity, is as immovable as a mountain, as subtle as a breeze, as pure as mountain water. And yes, devastating – deeply devastating.

I doubt I’ll read the book – despite feeling quite attached to the characters, I don’t feel a need to delve more deeply right now. I need to decompress.

I can try. The message of the film, as I see it, is that our sense of justice in the world is only what we individual humans make of it. God isn’t judging us. No one is. We’re alone, and when we face other humans who do terrible things, the only justice is what we’re willing or able to inflict upon each other. And, that as we fool ourselves into thinking that justice is a thing larger than us, we will find age and disappointment, inevitably.

It strikes me as a particularly atheistic movie, and in a way that doesn’t condemn atheism but rather requires us to confront the emotionally painful consequences of that philosophy.

That may be my particular take on the movie, and that’s ok. I’ve already heard a couple convincing arguments that the movie is actually Biblical in the tradition of Ecclesiastes.

Can you go into a little more detail into how it hit home with you?