Prodigal Kiwi(s) Blog

Terrence Malick: To The Wonder

The Guardian, in February this year reviewed Terrence Malick’s latest film To The Wonder. Like his earlier The Tree of Life it get’s mixed reviews (a lot of reviewers strongly dislike it).  I really appreciated The Tree of Life (see here), and so I’m looking forward to seeing To the Wonder, as much for it’s style – the way Malick structures his films; the way they work – as for it’s content, and for the ways it explores some universal human themes. 

Here’s how The Guardian reviewer closed his review. 

“…The absence of God and the presence of love are the two poles of this created world; a world perceived in a trance or delirium, and in which the problem of God gives an inexpressibly painful kind of meaning to the immediate, agonised problem of finding a complete knowledge of another human being. Both Paris and the mid-American heartland look like something from another planet, something witnessed, in delirious detail, under the influence of a powerful drug. There is a rich excess in this movie, and the sensual profusion is not completely absorbed into its texture. Yet only a film-maker as intelligent and idealistic as Malick could have created this kind of surplus value…” 

You can read the complete review here, and if you do so, there’s also an 8 minute filmed conversation about the film. See also Jonny Baker (here) who alerted me to the film. Thanks Jonny. 

Ruby Sparks

I recently discovered the blog of British Catholic priest Fr. Stephen Wang, and looking back through his posts discovered his reflection on the great little film Ruby Sparks. I’d meant to see it on the BIG screen, but screening times and more important commitments didn’t make that possible. Then a friend saw it and found it a significant and insightful movie. So, I waited, and grabbed a copy of the DVD as soon as it was released; trusting the perspective of others whose insights I value. I wasn’t disappointed. It is a fascinating, oftentimes painful, but always thought provoking film. 

Stephen Wang describes the film well. Here’s his opening paragraph:

“Go and see Ruby Sparks. I nearly walked out after fifteen minutes, because it seemed like the most saccharine and cliché-ridden romantic comedy. But then she appears – the writer’s dream becomes his reality – and you realise that under the guise of a good-natured rom-com there lies a dark and disturbing psycho-drama and a clever philosophical meditation on love, power, freedom and identity. It’s one of the most thought-provoking films I’ve seen this year…”

You can read his complete reflection and watch the trailer here. 

2012 Filmography.

Films released in 2012 via IMDb, including their IMDb ratings out of 10, can be found here. It’s interesting to look back over the year’s films and be reminded on ones seen and ones still to see.

Thanks to friend Jason Clark for drawing my attention to it.

Favourite Films of 2012

I know it’s not quite the end of the year, but my custom around this time is to publish a list of my favourite films of each year – this time 2012. All are movies I watched in 2012, even if some may have been produced in 2011 or earlier.

 

 

1. Take this Waltz
2. Hugo
3. Extremely Loud, Incredibly Close
4. A Separation
5. Amour
6. My Week with Marilyn.
7. Monsieur Lazhar.
8. Moonrise Kingdom.
9. (For escapism & the "little boy" in many of us) The Amazing Spiderman / The Dark Knight Rises / Skyfall.
10. Café de Flore.
11. The Artist.
12. The Descendents.
13. Chinese Take-Away.
14. Moneyball.
15. The Intouchables.

Documentaries 

• How Far is Heaven.
• A Celtic Pilgrimage with John O’Donohue.
• Senna. 

Insatiable Moon: For Kiwi Viewers

For more information go here.

Café de Flore and Chinese Takeaway

Over the last month or so I’ve watched a couple of films, films I didn’t know much about when I saw them at the cinema, but films that have continued to journey with me: Chinese Take-Away (2011 / Argentinean)and Café De Flore (2011 / Canadian) 

In Café De Flore the film cuts between and ultimately weaves together two seemingly unrelated stories. One, set in present-day Montreal, where Antoine, a successful club DJ is torn between his new girlfriend Rose and his still-complicated relationship with his ex-wife Carole; the other story is set in 1960s Paris where Jacqueline, the fiercely protective single mother of Laurent, a child with Down syndrome. The title refers not to a café (the famous Boulevard St-Germain café), but to a soundtrack, a musical theme woven through the story of Jacqueline & Laurent, which connects the characters of 1960’s Paris to those of present-day Montreal – two cities I’ve had the delight of visiting.   

In Chinese Take-Away we are similarly drawn into two seemingly unrelated stories; one which begins in modern China (Jun’s story), while the other begins in Argentina (Roberto’s story). Roberto, a former soldier and hardware store owner holds unswervingly to the importance of structure, routine, orderliness as a means of making do. Ultimately these are the means of hiding himself away from, or protecting himself from life lest he gets hurt, until life intervenes and his world is turned upside down by Jun whose life in China had similarly been turned upside down by what for me has to be one of the most outrageous and tragically funny opening scenes I’ve ever scene. 

Roberto’s is the life of a man stunted, one which is buttoned-down and ‘lived’ under the stern hand of “control”, self-control, and the control of a mother long dead (watch for this theme in Café de Flore too as it’s played out by Jacqueline & Laurent).   

Both films are character and story driven; both are superbly filmed and scored. Both films are focused on the heart (and our sense of “self”), on loss, on heart-break, and on love (obsessive /controlling & over-protective love, love as a source of deep pain, love as mystery, and love as a source of healing). Café De Flore has added dimensions around the importance of the unconscious, music, of dreams, the torment of hallucinations, the struggle to make sense of events in ones life, the difficulties of making peace with oneself and others when life isn’t fair, and the struggle of trying to hold onto reality in the midst of darkness. Also in this film we see and feel the pain and the difficulty of healing a broken heart. 

Both films too are about seeing with new eyes and new understanding, and ultimately they’re about opening oneself to life, hope and new beginnings. As Yorkshire poet David Whyte has so beautifully observed: 

“…Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn

anything or anyone

that does not bring you alive is too small for you…” 

While in another poem he reflects: 

“…Sometimes it takes
a great sky
to find that

small, bright
and indescribable
wedge of freedom
in your own heart.

Sometimes with
the bones of the black
sticks left when the fire
has gone out

someone has written
something new
in the ashes of your life.

You are not leaving
you are arriving.”

Both excerpts ring true as one lives into and feels the stories of Café de Flore and Chinese Take-Away. Both are films I’d highly recommend, although both take some work and perseverance on the part of the viewer. In particular around allowing yourself to be drawn into the stories and their characters lives, a reality which is made difficult by both the non-linear timelines and multiple storylines (especially in Café de Flore). 

“You must Love in Order to be Happy!”: The Tree of Life

I recently had the delight of watching Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life for the first time. Given it’s theatrical release was some time ago, I’d had plenty of feedback on the movie from friends and such like, so I must say I went into it with mixed feelings. I was however pleasantly surprised – yes, you could say it was self-indulgent, pretentious, lacking as an attempt at story-telling, and I must say I was frustrated by not being able to hear a number if the voice-over reflections. But, negatives aside, you could also say a lot more about The Tree of Life. At one level it’s a film about spiritual-searching; a reckoning with the nature of God, and the perennial relationship between God and suffering. 

The story is set in 1950’s Waco, Texas, one of the cities in which Malick himself lived in his earlier life. Indeed there is a strongly autobiographical dimension to this film if you know a little about Malick and family and upbringing. 

It was evocative at so many levels. As one friend reminded me, and this was my experience as I watched it, “its very meditative”, i.e. there’s something wonderfully rich to be gained from engaging this film contemplatively – a kind of film-divina – a kind of divine seeing; a way of engaging what was most alive in me; most in need of being held by me; of being opened by me – of being entered into. Malick’s fusion of visual image, sound, movement, symbol, narrative, and humanity deeply nourished the journey, particularly once I was able to sink beneath the surface of my life and sit with its deeper and altogether frail realities. In this sense my experience of The Tree of Life was a deeply sacramental one; an experience enriched by the wonderful film score. 

A number of commentators have described it as a “mytho-poetic” work. Others have rightly commented on the fact that Jack’s character(s) (played by Hunter McCracken & Sean Penn as the adult Jack) grows along classic Oedipal lines, i.e. a strong attachment to his mother, and conflict with his father which is eventually resolved, both as Jack makes peace with his Father (whom he’s more alike than he imagines) and with himself in midlife. The central narrative / visual-symbolic thread that tied it together was the altogether natural human instinct to create a polarity between grace and (human)nature / natur(al) law. Or perhaps between love and law – “you must love in order to be happy!” These dualisms are embodied in the characters of Mr and Mrs O’Brien. Yet, against the backdrop of creation these polarities need to be understood as two sides of the same reality. There is an intrinsic unity between grace and nature. 

Key themes: 

• Grief and death.
• Grace.
• Love.
• Healing and meaning-making, and the importance of nature in the healing process.
• Relational and family dynamics.
• Disappointment and the loss of dreams.
• Crisis & awakening. The personal invitations to face into reality, the invitations to change and to growth, especially directed at males (cf. Mr O’Brien – who by the way falls within very normal limits as a father, particularly one in the 1950’s, but equally likely he’d fit in respect of some of his behaviours in the 21^st century as well. For me the film highlighted very natural and acceptable differences between males and females and the ways in which they embody and enact their various roles. As one commentator has written, and I read myself into his words, the portrayal of Mr O’Brien is “less the stuff of Dickensian nightmare than a portrait of a well-intentioned but all-too-human man who falls short of his own standards in any number of departments” (PDF of the review here). Mr O’Brien’s is a journey into a deepening sense of his humanity, both its brokenness and its profundity. His is no less a journey than any of ours, and he appears no less open to that than anyone else; perhaps his experience of crisis and grief predisposes him more than others? As a male I both cringed at and delighted in his character, played so well by Brad Pitt, and ultimately I found him a misunderstood (by Jack in particular) but ultimately hopeful character). His, like all of our humanity was a broken and wounded one, but they were realities he appeared willing to face into redemptively and transformatively. 
• The role Mystery in human living and relating.
• The importance of Beauty in human living.
• The importance of Nature and Creation / reverence and awe. 

The Descendent: The Unconscious Death of a Marriage, Infidelity & Betrayal.

I recently got the opportunity to watch 2011 American comedy / drama The Descendents which is directed by Alexander Payne (Sideways, About Schmidt) and is based on the novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings. In January 2012, The Descendants won two Golden Globe Awards and earned five nominations at the forthcoming 84th Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor for Clooney. 

It is a very good film; one of those very human, very ordinary stories that Payne is very good at translating into film. In that sense it makes for a moving film, one that touches the heart and moves the emotions; albeit different people will bring different life experiences to it; people will identify with all or only one of the characters (husband, wife, children, relatives, friends, or the object of an affair, i.e. the “other person”). Some will find it very uncomfortable, difficult and/or painful to watch. Some with undoubtedly find it therapeutic. Some tears will be shed. Others will just go to see George Clooney. 

I recommend it, as I do those rare films that are able to touch and move us; that are somehow able to partner us in becoming more fully and deeply human. 

Key themes: 

• Marriage.
• The slow unconscious death of a marriage.
• Infidelity and betrayal.
• The downstream consequences, costs, and impacts – in every direction – of infidelity.
• Hope and life post-the end of a relationship.
• The possibilities of relational restoration when both partners are truly awake and can truly see.
• Relational and family dynamics.
• Crisis & awakening. The personal invitations to face into reality; the invitations to change and growth.
• Grief and loss (“loss” and “endings” can be ‘read’ on a number of levels, not just in the sense of “death” as the ultimate loss and ending) 

“…For all of us, there’s a distance between how we are seen and how we see ourselves. ‘T think [The Descendents] is a coming-of-age film, but the guys who’s coming of age is a 50-year-old guy,’ says Clooney… ‘He’s woken up to the fact that all of these betrayals that he feels – from his wife, to his children not really being great kids, to the fact that he’s the only adult in terms of his family – he’s as responsible as anyone else for being there. Then it comes down to forgiving yourself…” Empire Magazine, February 2012, p. 15. 

 

Alan Roxburgh - Moneyball: Adaptive Change at the Movies

Al Roxburgh’s latest newsletter (1-2^nd Feb 2012) offers some useful reflections on adaptive change in response to the invitation to mission and the “great ‘unravelling’ of church life.” 

He offers two questions that are well worth reflecting on: 

• How do we function in disruptive new spaces?
• What do pastors and denominational leaders do in this strange, disorienting new space into which the Spirit has brought us? 

He continues: 

“… I find myself continually searching for metaphors that capture the experience of congregations, denominational systems and leaders in being in a new land. The metaphor of unravelling is one people find helpful. It captures the sense of things coming apart at the seams and, no matter how hard we try to fix things with our existing skills and capacities the unravelling continues. The other helpful thing about this metaphor is that it doesn’t have hidden in it implicit solutions or hints about the where the Spirit is taking all this. It just seems to us that the work of God at this moment is to move us out into these unravelling spaces that disorient us but without providing, for now, solutions or directions. Language such as emergence too often carries an unintentional element of solution. 

One of our primary defaults as well trained North American church leaders [very true of NZ Church Leaders too!] is to quickly look for solutions. We really do want to know what the plan is or what the next steps are going to be so we can apply our expertise and fix this unravelling. But there are bigger issues at stake for churches just now. Solutions can quickly turn to technique, even among the best intentioned of leaders. Technique will generally take us away from the key questions we need to be asking as leaders in this new space. The question we have to start with isn’t what do we do? As important as that is; rather, the critical question is: What is God up to among us in creating this great unravelling? It’s the God questions that are key not the techniques and solutions. This is why metaphors of desert and exile are so critical in the Scriptures - they are not places of technique or solution but places for discerning what God is up to in strange, difficult places.  

Once leaders begin to see this question and get a sense it’s the right one to be asking, they struggle with how this is done when existing skill sets and habits keep defaulting to solutions and fixes…” 

You read the whole reflection here. The film starts in Hamilton (NZ) later this month (Feb 16th).

A Wounded Prophet, Arthur, and the Visionary-Prophetic.

When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him [Jesus], for they said, “He is out of his mind.” Mark 20-22. 

Mike Riddell over on The Insatiable Moon blog recently featured a fascinating essay, The Wounded Prophet, by Sally Clay. When I read the title I must say I thought of Henri Nouwen, specifically the biography with the very similar title A Wounded Prophet: A Portrait of Henri JM. Nouwen by Michael Ford. Nouwen suffered from debilitating depression (see also the excellent Henri Nouwen: A Spirituality of Imperfection (pub. 2006) by Wil Hernandez). You might also think of Nouwen’s own title The Wounded Healer. Think too of John the Baptist! Picture him in a contemporary urban Western context! 

Anyway, Sally Clay’s essay is well worth a read, and if you’ve had the opportunity to see my favourite movie of 2010 The Insatiable Moon then Clay’s essay will likely bring to mind some of the central themes of that movie, especially as they coalesce around the themes in Clay’s essay. Indeed, reflect on Arthur’s role as a “wounded prophet” (that's Arthur up there on the left). 

Here’s some excerpts from Clay’s essay: 

…I found psychology presented as part of a spiritual process, a psychology of the heart (Freemantle, 1975; Govinda, 1969; Trungpa, 1972). Finally I could admit openly that my experiences were, and always had been, a spiritual journey -- not sick, shameful, or evil. I was already a worthwhile person, right from the start, and there was a way to work with my own mind to transform fearful mental states to peaceful ones… 

…If mental illness is a disease of the mind, what is the nature of the mind? If altered states have value, what is there to recover from? What is our model of wellness? Is it true, as some say, that spiritual realization is the highest aspiration of the human race? If it is, should not that be our model of wellness? How do we recover to that state of wellness? Is recovery for a mental patient something different from the wellness of any other person?

Why do people in mania consistently experience an urgent call to save the world, and call themselves messiah or savior? Is this merely grandiose, or do such people truly hear a call to help others?

We know that people called schizophrenic hear voices. But why do they listen to them? Why in this culture are some forms of mental illness so excruciatingly painful and so interminable? Is illness the reason, or is there a tragic misunderstanding of global proportions? Who is ill -- is it the visionary or is it the society itself? 

… Until recent times, altered states of the kind I have described were an integral -- and integrated -- part of human experience. Among the ways they were incorporated into society were the shamanistic/healing way, the contemplative/teaching way, and the prophetic/leadership way. It is only recently that altered states have been medicalized and stigmatized. It is only recently that powerful drugs have been used to suppress the altered states that once produced our prophets and our saints.

Not surprisingly, it is also recently that society has fallen into a spiritual crisis of unprecedented proportions. In case you had not noticed, we no longer have any shamans or prophets. There may be those who go by those names, but somehow the mental experience that shapes such people is missing. This lack is sorely felt. We are lost now, lost on a global scale. Our world has lost its meaning, and our religions have lost their authority.

Not surprisingly, millions of people today are seeking to reach an altered state in the only way that they know how -- through the use of mind -- altering drugs. We may try with all our might to get rid of the drugs, but as long as we are human, we will not get rid of the need for altered states…”

You can read Sally Clay’s full essay here. I highly recommend it as a meditation written around the core question: what does it mean to be human, to be truly human…?