The Lost City of Atlantis Is In Viggo's Chin

I'm a big fan of Viggo Mortenson. He was great in the "Lord of the Ring" movies and he did a great job with a difficult, complicated character in the new "A History of Violence." He was even great in that horrible Gus Van Sant remake of "Psycho." He's also a photographer, poet, painter and a father. The man, quite simply, is cool. But while I was watching "A History of Violence," I noticed something about him that I never noticed before.

In certain lighting...

At certain angles...

From the right viewpoint...

Viggo Mortenson has the biggest chin dimple in the history of mankind.

Don't get me wrong, he's a great-looking guy. But if people ever want to know where Jimmy Hoffa was buried, I suggest they start with Viggo's chin. You could lose anything down there. It's like a black hole framed by perfect cheekbones. It easily out-chin-dimples both Kirk and Michael Douglas' chin dimples and theirs are massive. Hell, you could fit both Kirk and Michael Douglas into Viggo's chin dimple.

I've never really understood the chin dimple. It's like God fixed a button to the middle of a man's chin. And it only appears on men, right? Have you ever seen a woman with a chin dimple? I sure haven't.

Chin dimples freak me out. What's their point? Why are they there? What evolutionary purpose do they serve? Do they make a man more attractive? And doesn't it seem that only men who are considered attractive have them?

A well-defined jaw on a man is attractive, sure, but a chin dimple caves in so much that the immediately surrounding flesh juts out into a skin donut that looks positively menacing. In "A History of Violence," Viggo plays a small town guy who is mysteriously graceful at killing two thugs who are about to kill his diner's customers. He smashes a pot of hot coffee into one of the thug's faces, and now I wonder: why not just butt him with your chin? If it doesn't kill him upon impact, the bad guy would just fall into Viggo's chin and be lost forever, which is just as effective.

The movie is pretty good (some scenes are great, others don't quite work), and it did stick with me long after it was over. But now that I'm done pondering the values of the film, all I'm left with is Viggo - laying down on a staircase after a fascinating, complex sexual encounter with his wife - as he stares up at the ceiling and the light perfectly outlines his chin-dimple. And then, in the next scene, you barely notice it.

Which now, as I write this, strikes me as a perfect metaphor for Viggo's character: a man's dominant personality traits become crystal clear under certain circumstances but are not as noticeable when he's trying to be normal.

So that's the conclusion that I've reached:

Viggo Mortenson's chin-dimple is the perfect metaphor for the Darwinian violent tendencies in man. Let's see some graduate student write a thesis on that.