The battles are too long and the farewells too sentimental

Rating: 9/10 (11 January 2007)

It is not the best episode though it is the crowning piece. Not the best because there are by far too many and too long battles which are quite repetitive in effects. But it is an essential episode to understand or extract some meaning in this fantasy. The vanity of the human king is turning criminal since he tries to burn his surviving son, who he does not like, alive. The hobbit Frodo who has been entrusted with the mission of carrying the ring back into the pit of hell is also shown as being vain somewhere in his mission. Vain because he believes he has been entrusted with this mission because he is special, though in fact it is the mission that is going to make him in the future somewhat special. Vain too because he does not understand he cannot succeed alone. And there the help of Sam is dramatically shown as essential to fulfill his mission, not to betray it, not to let some kind of disgusting being and a giant spider of the deep caves of earth distract him and rob him of the ring, which it actually does, and not to fall into the pit himself along with the underground traitor and the ring. But the lesson is more for us than for the hobbit himself since he does not seem to learn his simple lesson very easily. The main lesson is that a battle can only be won when everyone, including the dead come up and fight. This inclusion of the dead into the fight makes it slightly spectacular and is an allusion to Jesus and other Saviors who had to go down into the limbos or hell to do some salvaging with Adam and Eve or Euridyce. But the meaning  of the film  comes from some strong imagery used with a fair level of insistence. The world is cut in two. The dark forces of evil on one side to whom the ring has to be returned in order to be destroyed, and all the others representing light. Contrast between light and darkness, between underground traps, caves and tunnels and open air and countryside, between blue sky and very dark grey if not black sky, between the more or less civilized use of fire on the good side and its evil use on the bad side. The final battle is in front of the black gate that looks like a wall that finally crumbles and sinks into the ground at the end like some other wall fell in 1989. That can only be a modern vision since when the books were written the wall in question did not even stand. Since then this image has been turned around since two walls are being built but no longer by the forces of the east or the north, but by the forces of the west, one in Palestine and the other along Mexico's northern border (in that case the north is not supposed to be the bad side, and yet). History is twisty at times. The books were written during the Cold War and they represent this vision of the time of a world cut in two, black and white, etc. This today has changed too and this simple splitting of reality in two does not correspond to reality though it is still very active in the minds of people who still think a lot on an either/or line. So today, what used to be the reflection of cold war fear becomes rather simplistic and we experience everyday how this approach of the world and life leads to catastrophes and other swampy situations. The end of this third episode with the return of peace and quiet turns slightly emotional not to say sentimental or even sentimentalese. Too much crying indeed and too much sadness compensated by the joy of peace, love and a couple of weddings. Altogether it brings the tale to an end but it does not reach the height of the second episode, though we can see some of the inspiration of another recent series in the field of fantasy, Harry Potter who links the modern world with this underground fantasy world like Stephen King in the Dark Tower Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University of Paris Dauphine & University of Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne