“About two-thirds of the way through the movie, in a scene as gorgeous and transcendent as any I’ve ever seen, Joe, adrift with an unconscious Patricia in the middle of an endless ocean, wasted away by dehydration and exhaustion, lips chapped and limbs shaking, watches the full moon rise above him in the middle of the night and realizes (or perhaps, at last, remembers) the vast enormity of the world around him and the true miracle of his existence within it. He struggles to stand up on his fastened-together life raft—the few square feet he has left to him after a lightning bolt destroyed the ship carrying he and Patricia to the island—and reaches up towards the giant white orb in the dark night sky, with a gratitude and sense of humbled awe that can only come from having every single thing stripped away from one’s self, every fear encountered, and yet continuing to breathe, to dance, to beat on. “Dear God, whose name I do not know,” he says with arms outstretched, “Thank you for my life. I forgot how big… thank you. Thank you for my life.”
“I’ve been miserable so long, years of my life wasted, afraid. Been a long time coming here to meet you – a long time, on a crooked road.”
There are lightning bolts running throughout Joe Versus the Volcano, a recurring visual motif that underscores many of the film’s main themes. It’s part of the logo for the American Panascope Corporation, and the path of the road Joe and his fellow workers walk to get there each day. There’s a lightning-shaped crack on the wall of Joe’s apartment when Mr. Graynamore first visits him. A literal lightning bolt strikes the ship carrying him to Waponi Woo, causing it to sink and leading to his marooned-at-sea struggle for survival and eventual moonrise epiphany. And, when it finally comes time to jump into the volcano, a crooked path leads up to its peak.
While its more obvious interpretations might include danger, confusion, or actual fire, there’s a more subtle—and ultimately more important—meaning to be made of the zig-zag symbol. It represents the crooked road we all must travel in order to find our way to our best selves—to face down the demons of our past and confront all the fears that have locked us in and shut us down. The journey from worried to well is never linear, Joe suggests, but rather a jagged road filled with false starts, poor choices, and bad turns. Eventually, though, if we persevere—if we manage to carry on and struggle forward and right our ships—we can find our way out of fear and into life. To gratitude and awe, to connection and love.”
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Song Of Ajax 