Wounds and Woundedness in The Smashing Machine

Spoiler alert: This article contains spoilers. smashing machine.

During orientation at Vanderbilt Theological School, I heard a lecture about hermeneutics and the different interpretive frameworks that each person brings to the Bible. We started not with the text at hand, but with a famous oil painting inspired by it, a work by Caravaggio. St. Thomas’ Distrust. Classmates noticed various aspects of this masterpiece, including the intimacy of the painting, the realism of Thomas’s wrinkled face, the fleshiness of Christ’s wounded side, and the warmth of the scene’s color palette. Two comments stand out in my mind. First, Thomas dirt Being under the fingernails, modern viewers would be frightened by the risk of infection. Second, Christ brings Thomas to his side and with his loving hand erases the disciple’s doubts.

Historian Edwin David Aponte I will write As for Thomas’s shock, “Perhaps his surprise had something to do with his unbelief, and perhaps he was surprised by the realization that he too was being stung. In fact, St. Thomas appears to be clutching his side, as if realizing that there is also a wound in his side. And as we wince at this rough depiction, we too feel the wound in our side.”

Caravaggio’s work is certainly wince-inducing, and this masterpiece left its mark on me as I understood my own vulnerability and Christ’s intimate, saving embrace. However, I was surprised to find myself returning to a piece of work that was so great that I found myself returning to it. different visual spectacle.

benny safdie’s smashing machine (2025) follows the career of mixed martial arts legend Mark Carr, played by wrestler-turned-actor Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. This biographical sports drama, set in the late 1990s, depicts Kerr’s dominant early days in the UFC and his jump to Japan’s PRIDE Martial Arts Championship. As the film progresses, Safdie details Carr’s struggles with addiction, his turbulent relationship with girlfriend Dawn Staples (Emily Blunt), and his friendship with fellow fighter Mark Coleman (Ryan Bader).

Safdie deftly documents the mental and physical suffering caused by Kerr’s pursuit of greatness, but not in the way other sports biopics do. Brian Talerico phone Safdie’s approach is an “anti-biographical” one that avoids clichés and generally keeps the viewer at arm’s length. Fight scenes are personal, but rarely in the ring. Viewers feel like front-row fans, but nothing more. There’s only one long training montage, but it ends with Kerr’s trainer succumbing to a torn tendon. Even music like Muzak, which is a fusion of jazz and pop, takes the viewer out of a pivotal scene in the genre. Perhaps the more appealing aspects of the film are the additional footage cut from the film, including: creed– Small talk in the doctor’s waiting room and a quiet morning in Carr’s kitchen.

The film begins with Kerr’s debut tournament in Brazil. The scene, which includes interviews and narration from Kerr, shows Johnson’s massive frame brutally slamming his bloody opponent into the mat. each Thud The opponent’s stupidity is even worse than last time. Kerr told the interviewer about his fighting philosophy.

If you look at the people at the moment the bell rings, you can see that they are scared to death. You can see it in their eyes and smell their sweat.

It’s simple, am I going to hurt him before he hurts me?

To physically impose my will on you…is pretty powerful.

What stuck with me most were Carr’s last words. “You have to ask yourself, would you stick your finger in your opponent’s cut and spread it a little more just to win and make him feel the pain? Would you do that? Of course you would! You know why? Because winning is the best feeling.”

For a movie that alienates audiences, this is what viewers need to know about Carr’s mindset during his meteoric rise. All that matters is maintaining a sense of domination in the ring from tournament to tournament. “At the end, you feel like a god.”

Granted, Carr is being a bit cynical. He is soft-spoken, quite personable, and a gentle giant. But when he’s in the ring, he’s in name only. crusher. Johnson gives an unforgettable performance as a man caught up in a sport where men turn their bodies into weapons. There’s a jarring scene in which Kerr converses with his opponent after a tournament in Japan, laughing and comparing the cuts and bruises each has sustained.

Still, Carr cannot escape human vulnerability. To ease the physical demands of the sport, he turns to drug abuse, eventually causing an overdose that jeopardizes his career. One photo shows a comically large Carr sobbing in a small hospital bed in a gown, a sign of her weakened physical strength due to mental frailty.

He is also a perfectionist. Early in the film, Carr scolds Dawn for using the wrong milk in her smoothie, a scene that recurs in various forms throughout the film. But his biggest draw is winning. After losing a fight in Japan to an illegal knee to the head, Kerr begged for a no-contest, and despite receiving that request, he is troubled by the idea that his undefeated record is on the rocks.

His obsession with winning shines through in his relationship with Dawn. Mr Kerr’s scathing remarks towards her escalated into domestic violence, including a scene where he broke down a door. The pair grew closer as Kerr recovered from his drug abuse, but Kerr soon returned to his competitive spirit. This final spiral forces Dawn to attempt suicide, and Kaa once again destroys the door to restrain her. I found this aspect of the movie a little problematic. Blunt’s impeccable acting skills don’t seem to lift Dawn above her rather static character. Still, it shows a sense of victimhood caused by a mindset that is fixated on self-congratulation and conquest. The MMA mantra repeated throughout the film says it all: “Pain is temporary, pride is forever.”

After watching Safdie’s filmography, good time and uncut gems (both co-directed with his brother Josh), I expected smashing machine It gets even more confusing. Surprisingly, he provides some pretty beautiful moments and ends the film on a moving but uplifting note. Despite his great talent in the ring, Kerr is a kind and gentle person. Early in the film, he signs autographs for a child in a doctor’s waiting room. He keeps referring to his stomach as “my stomach.” He and Dawn share some tender scenes at a demolition derby and at an amusement park (Carr has a stomach ache so he can’t ride the roller coaster with Dawn).

The most moving aspect of the film is Kerr’s relationship with Mark Coleman, his friend, former trainer, and eventual fellow competitor. When Carr overdosed, Coleman immediately went to see a friend to cheer him up, and Coleman consistently acted as a shoulder for Carr to lean on. Naturally, the movie revolves around the two friends putting their friendship on the line at the 2000 PRIDE Grand Prix.

Except it doesn’t happen! As an “anti-bio movie” smashing machine Maintain anticlimax. Before fighting Coleman, Kerr, plagued by his broken relationship with Dawn, loses the tournament. While viewers watched Coleman accept the award, Mark prepared to receive stitches. The story’s penultimate scene juxtaposes Coleman, alone with his championship belt after a huge celebration, to Kerr, also alone in the shower and laughing.

For a film depicting a championship, some people may be disappointed by this modest result. But I respect this conclusion by Safdie more than any other aspect of the film. Although not overtly religious, smashing machine refers to Caravaggio’s work St. Thomas’ Distrustwhere faith comes from touching, rather than denying, the wounds of Christ. “Why?” you may ask. What lingers is the film’s anti-climax, the combatants choosing to heal rather than triumph. Far from being a fighter who sticks his finger in his opponent’s side for some fleeting glory, Kerr knows what’s good for him. Reallyand decided to tap out.

The leitmotif of this film is Kintsugi bowl. Kintsugi The Japanese art of repairing broken pottery, repairing cracks with lacquer sprinkled with gold powder. The result is a piece that is beautiful, unique, and even stronger than before it was broken. The car buys Kintsugi The bowl in Japan for Dawn was later destroyed by her, but was repaired again.

The biggest concept for me is Kintsugi The scratches on the pottery will remain, but I will tell you that it has turned into something wonderful. This captures a paradoxical truth at the heart of the Christian faith. Our resurrection in Christ does not erase our wounds, but transforms them. Consider Nancy Island god with disabilities:

In the resurrected Jesus Christ, [the disciples] Instead of a suffering servant whose last and most important words were tragedy and sin, he saw a crippled God with crippled arms and legs, a stab wound in his side, and the embodiment of the imago Dei. [or image of God]. Paradoxically, in the very act commonly understood as the transcendence of physical life, God is revealed as concrete, bearing the expression of a body reshaped by injustice and sin into full divinity.

At the end of the film, the real-life Mark Carr pushes a shopping cart through a grocery store, joyful in his virtual anonymity. Here Safdie paints a picture of a man who chose healing over victory, and asks us to remember his name.

Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and look at my hand.” Reach out and place your hand at my side. Don’t doubt, believe. ” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:27-28 NRSV).

I argue that Mr. Carr’s choice to acknowledge his scars invites Christians to seek the ultimate physician. Completely contrary to Carr’s original idea, faith comes from asking us to reach out to the wounds of Christ’s resurrection. Like Thomas, let us also proclaim the name of Christ.