‘Monkey Man’ (2024) And ‘The Hero with a Thousand Faces’ (1949)
Dev Patel smashes it. Literally.
“A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.”
— Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces
I watched Monkey Man (2024) directed, written, and starring Dev Patel with a few preconceptions that were completely blown away during the film. I was expecting a human to transform into a monkey in the same way that Spiderman gains his superpowers or Venom becomes the hybrid he is through a laboratory experiment by a deranged scientist.
Nothing as narratively simplistic takes place in Dev Patel’s mighty film but there is a transformation and it is one that will become as iconic as any movie transformation scene in cinema. I also see a profound connection between the monomythic idea in the film and a famous and iconic book by Joseph Campbell — The Hero with a Thousand Faces. We now have a monkey man to add to Campbell’s theory.
The title of the film refers to the ancient Hindu mythological story of Hanuman, a simian demigod who features in the Ramayana. The stories of Hanuman…
