[Lee Jong-gil's Film Reading] Even If Life Deceives You, Do Not Be Sad or Go Mad

Director Sam Raimi's 'Doctor Strange: The Multiverse of Madness'

※ This article contains many spoilers for the movie.

Sam Raimi’s film Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness ends with a humorous post-credits scene. The street vendor who was cursed after demanding pizza money from Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) reappears. When the hand that was slapping his own face returns to normal, he breathes a sigh of relief and smiles brightly. "It’s all over." This character was played by Bruce Campbell, an actor famous for portraying Ash in Raimi’s breakout Evil Dead series. Ash suffers a similar magical ordeal in Evil Dead 2 (1987). His girlfriend Linda (Denise Bixler) bites his hand, which becomes possessed by an evil spirit. The hand detaches as an independent entity and mercilessly attacks Ash. He cuts it off with a chainsaw and collapses to the floor, laughing maniacally, consumed by madness.

The madness born from fighting oneself is a central theme in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen), a member of the Avengers, tries to kill a girl named America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez) to steal her ability to travel across the multiverse. Wanda believes that her two children, whom she created through imagination, exist somewhere in a parallel universe. When her friend Strange refuses to hand over Chavez, she transforms into the Scarlet Witch, filled with malevolent energy, and confronts him. The root of her madness cannot be simply defined as maternal love. Wanda has already experienced countless frustrations beyond her control. She lost her parents and twin brother in a bombing and was unable to protect her lover Vision (Paul Bettany). Endless grief and anger led to extreme pessimism and selfishness.

Wanda acquires the Darkhold, a book of black magic, gaining the power to resist her given fate. Director Raimi portrays this as a descent into dark madness. French philosopher Michel Foucault defined madness in his book History of Madness as reason gone blind. He argued that the void of error is filled with unreal images of dreams, continuing hallucinations and falsehoods. In the drama WandaVision, Wanda artificially created a world resembling an American family sitcom to find comfort. As uniformity arises in this domain, images, hallucinations, dreams, and judgment become jumbled together. Even after facing the bleak reality, the madness does not disappear. Entranced by a new temptation (the Darkhold), she cannot abandon negativity and seeks another escape.

This is not a forced plot development. Humans are both rational and highly irrational. The latter is clearly seen in crowd psychology, groupthink, and herd behavior. History is full of examples where rational and wise individuals engage in irrational actions as part of group behavior. Entire nations have been swept up in fanatic atmospheres, committing impulsive acts. It is a trap anyone can fall into. Strange himself is on a dangerous edge in this film. Known as the Supreme, he uses the Darkhold to find a way to defeat Thanos but causes collisions between parallel universes. He is purged for the crime of destroying a specific dimension’s world.

The Strange of the current world also breaks taboos. However, he chooses a different path within that and creates a new history. The turning point comes through self-reflection. He is repeatedly asked, "Are you happy now?" Each time he answers affirmatively, but his expression is dark. He has lost himself while playing the hero. From the wedding of his former lover Palmer (Rachel McAdams) at the beginning of the film, he struggles to hide his true feelings. Yet he does not succumb to madness. He faces another version of himself and Palmer from a different dimension and reflects on the past.

Thus, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness serves as a user manual for fate, offered to modern people who have lost themselves amid civilization’s runaway pace. Friedrich Nietzsche wrote in On the Genealogy of Morality that "everyone is the furthest being from themselves." One cannot get closer by despairing or submitting to incomprehensible misfortune. Strange shows this with a wristwatch bearing painful memories. He replaces the broken glass and carefully stores it in a drawer. He believes that embracing sadness and anxiety is necessary to open a new world.