Considering The Salton Sea

The Salton Sea is one of my favorite Val Kilmer movies. It is quirky and an odd sense of humor. In addition to Val Kilmer you find Vincent D’Onofrio, B.D. Wong, Peter Sarsgaard, Anthony LaPaglia, Luis Guzman and more. It is a crime drama that takes place in the midst of the tweaker culture of Southern California. Since I was home alone for a week, I decided it was a good opportunity to enjoy the movie again.

"Look in the mirror and tell me what you see."

One of the central questions of the film is “who am I?”. It is a movie wrestling with the question of identity. The movie begins with Val’s character(s) lying gut shot on the floor of a burning apartment playing the trumpet. “Am I an avenging angel, or a rat who got what he deserved?” The movie tells the story of how he ended up there so you can decide.

After the murder of his wife, Tom Van Allen assumes a new identity in order to discover the identity of her murders. His plan, initially, is to take revenge. To do so, he becomes a police informant, and an addict. Every so often he goes to a locked trunk in his room. Inside is his true identity: papers, pictures, clothes, hat and trumpet. He puts them on, and plays. He’s trying to keep who he is in mind. He’s losing his grip on his identity. He’s losing… himself. In the midst of the lies he tells others, he’s beginning to believe those same lies. The lines between Tom and Danny are beginning to blur. He’s not sure if he’s still Tom or if he’s become Danny. But while Tom seeks revenge, someone else is seeking revenge against Danny the Rat.

Early on the narrator tells us “nothing is as it seems”.  Almost everyone is pretending to be someone else. There are any number of assumed identities. And some of them are losing themselves in the roles they play (just like some actors).

"Am I Danny the Tweaker Rat?"

Identity is an important thing. It dictates what we do. Think about when someone acts “out of character”. They are acting out of step with our understanding of who they are, their perceived identity. But here is the rub, act out of character long enough and you become that person. Your identity changes. Who you are blurs, transitions. This can be for the better, or the worse.

When a person converts and becomes a believer in and follower of Jesus they experience a change of identity. It is not an identity they earn or deserve. It is a gift of grace. The old man has passed away, and we have put on a new man in Christ. We are now sons of God. A whole new identity.

Problem is we still tend to live, more or less, like the old man. Justification and adoption result in a new identity. Sanctification is becoming who that new identity is. Like Danny going into the trunk to remember he’s really Tom, we need to go to the Scriptures to remember that we are no longer sinner but are now saint, we are no longer slave but now son. There we see who this person is, remember who we were created and redeemed to be. The goal is that we become that person. But sometimes we forget who we are, and live like who we were: old fears, old sins, old addictions. Who we were becomes re-entrenched. Our assurance of salvation diminishes because their is an incongruity between our faith and our actions. We are at a crossroads: which identity will win?

"Or am I Tom, avenging angel, widower and trumpet player?"

I’m not talking about God’s decrees, but our existential experience. Christianity is an experiential religion: it affects who you are. You have to live it out. If you don’t, long enough, it reveals you were never really part of it. You were playing a game. You are the rat pretending to be the angel. If you repent, and return it reveals you were the angel slumming as a rat (to use the character’s terminology). Not everyone is as they appear. Some professing Christians aren’t really Christians. You rely on them at your own peril. Some sinning Christians are really Christians, and need to be restored gently. They need to be reminded just who they really are.

Confused yet? You will act in accordance with who you think you are. In a lecture on our Union with Christ by Sinclair Ferguson, he noted (quoting John Stott) that the true progress in experiential Christianity takes place in the mind. You become who you think you are. Think you’re an addict and you’ll act like an addict. Think you are a son, a saint and a Christian and you’ll increasingly act like one. You will live out your identity.

So, who are you?