Crimes and Misdemeanors

As far as I can tell, this Woody Allen film is the closest thing the US has to an Ingmar Bergman movie, which makes sense because Allen was a big admirer of Bergman and had a similarly morbid disposition. A modern response to Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, Crimes and Misdemeanors is a film where religion, philosophy, art, and love are revealed to be ultimately flawed affectations, incomplete, incapable of dealing with the reality of an arbitrary universe void of any sense of mystical justice or penance. A philosophy teacher who advocates a positive worldview unexpectedly kills himself, an idealistic Rabbi begins going blind both literally and symbolically, and a well-to-do doctor who is plagued with the guilt of an unspeakable crime learns that there is no impending atonement or retribution for his crime. We are all searching for an answer to this life, a light at the end of a stale tunnel, but all that is found is the ineffable void of at the edge of a system that has never rewarded or punished based on merit. There is no real justice, at least not in a supernal sense. All we have is the present moment, the will to carry on, and help lighten the load on those we care about.