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#2059 -
Nondual Cinema
This lengthy issue features posts about
the movies that have appeared in the Highlights over the
years. If there are movies you have appreciated for their nondual
message, please let me know. And if you can quote specific
passages from the movies, that would be even better. You may
comment on the movies listed below and on others:
The Last Wave
American Beauty
Breakfast of Champions
Fast Runner
Phenomenon
Logan's Run
Jacob's Ladder
Pleasantville
The Addiction
Blade Runner
Life is Beautiful
Prince of Darkness
Split
Why did Bodhi-Dharma Leave for the West
Life on a String
Rikyu
Fight Club
2001
Dark City
Memento
Waking Life
21 Grams
Decasia
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter ... and Spring
Talk to Her
Aimee & Jaguar
Holy Smoke
Samasara
The Void
Songs from the Second Floor
Santa-Santita
Winged Migration
Amelie
The Meaning of Life
Groundhog Day
and others
(notably absent are The Matrix, The Thin Red Line, Fearless,
various anime titles, The Wizard of Oz, and many others, There
are web pages on nonduality.com for those and other titles and
genres.)
I am pleased to declare that there
is now the genre known as nondual cinema. It
is distinct from spiritual cinema, which simply isn't always
nondual, but tends toward New Age sentiment. However it could be
said that there is nondual cinema to be found within much that is
more broadly termed spiritual cinema.
who are you?
Charlie, the aboriginal elder in Peter Weir's film, "The
Last Wave," chants to the
are you? Who are you? Who are you? Who are you?" The lawyer
doesn't know what to say. The life he has lived as a lawyer
has left him with no answer, no language to give voice a
reply to the elder's chant. Charlie repeats this over and
over hypnotically and then chants so that the lawyer, played
by Richard Chamberlain, is in a trance state. Charlie, the
owl, asks Chamberlain if he is a fish, a snake, a man---and
he says no to these choices. He then is asked if he is
"mulcrew" and he nods yes. Charlie then shows him the
axe
and warns him: "Don't speak in the court."
This lawyer's representation of the young aboriginal men
charged with ritual murder becomes a maddening search for
an answer and a voice. What he learns along the way about
aboriginal culture, and himself, will take him far beyond
the ready assumptions about his life as a lawyer and the
reality he has fashioned for himself.
Tomas Diaz de Villegas:
I got another one for the nonduality movie list- just saw it this
weekend-
"American Beauty" and, it was
beautiful. I give it two thumbs up.
go out and see it- have fun!
Petros:
Yes, it was excellent.
I also recommend "Breakfast of Champions,"
with Bruce Willis. It's based
on the Kurt Vonnegut novel about a car dealer and small-town
celebrity
who suffers a crisis of identity (early in the film he asks
himself "Who
Am I?") and basically goes wacko until he encounters a
science fiction
writer whose novel (in the form of a letter written from God to
humanity) explains the mystery of the universe, viz., "I put
you here as
a test to see how much you can take."
It is getting lousy reviews, but I enjoyed the concept of the
film. I
presume Vonnegut's book is far more complex and I plan to read
it.
Michael Read reports on the Taos Talking Picture Film Festival,
held
Here's what I saw:
Off The Map with Laud Weiner (a very funny
short) Off The Map is the best movie to come along in a long
time. The people are real, the acting superb and the story
touches your heart. It will be released sometime this Fall. See
it and you will thank me. Yup. I was on the set construction
crew. Who knew that foam and sticks could look so real?
The Wild Dogs
A dark convoluted story set in
Ah, I can't begin to describe this film. It won't get the
recognition it deserves because so much of it is hard to watch.
For example, the character Sour Grapes a beggar and slave whose
legs were deliberately broken by his parents when he was a baby.
His legs are so twisted that he is forced to walk on all fours.
There is the pornographer sent to
There are about five story lines going on.
The film was funded by a Canadian grant. The director went to
The 200,000 dogs are the legacy of the former communist regime.
Who, decided that the proletariat should not have pets. The dogs
were simply turned out onto the street. Now, the people of
Imitations of Life
See this film. Here's a line, "Though infinity surrounds us,
we percieve it through the window of our personality."
Short Stories 3
A collection of shorts starting with one about a Canadian hockey
goalie who trys out for American baseball only because hocky has
an off season. Yes, he plays baseball in his goalie uniform. Too
damn funny!
The shorts end with a disturbing look at the drug smuggling
industry when an 18 year old high school boy is recurited to
smuggle heroin into
Stoneraft
A delightful film wherein the
A stupid/funny mocumentry on the American obsession with the
small time crooks who somehow become legends. There is a lot of
Fred Ward in this film who plays a sheriff obsessed with the
kidnaping of a Swiss national in the States without a visa. This
is the first effort of two young directors, one Swiss one
American. They had a great run in Swiss-land but are still trying
to get picked-up in the States.
Vera with the short Rokunga.
Both these films come from
Vera is a most intruiging study of death and symbolism. Shot in
the caves of the
The Fast Runner
This film wasn't open to the general public and was only
available to the
This film was funded by a Canadian grant. Shot in the NorthWest
Territories by an all Inuit crew and written and directed by an
Inuit film-maker, you at first may think you are about to see yet
another documentary on indigenous people. As the story unfolds
you brought into the lives of people who live thier spiritual
understanding. You begin to see that the characters are not only
people involved in a story of intruige and murder, they also each
represent an icon, a spiritual principle embodied and acting out
the drama of life.
------------------
THE FAST RUNNER
now on dvd
"The Fast Runner is a masterpiece. It is, by any standard,
an extraordinary film, a work of narrative sweep and
visual beauty that honors the history of the art form
even as it extends its perspective. The Fast Runner also
abounds with humor and sensuality. The combination of
dramatic realism and archaic grandeur is irresistibly
powerful. The Fast Runner includes some unforgettable
sequences. The most astonishing scene has already become
something of a classic, a word that will quickly be
bestowed on the film as a whole."
A.O. Scott
The New York Times
http://lot47.com/thefastrunner/
-----------------
Just returned from seeing the film "Memento."
An interesting
meditation on memory, and the questions "Who am I?" and
"Where am
I?" A really good film (highly unusual and well crafted)
with a
completely open ending, recommended. Jerry could file this under
the 'nonduality and movies' category.
Namaste,
Tim
Phenomenon is an excellent movie... all things
being
dual once expressed, I would also recommend the movie 'Powder'
about a child
that was born an albino (sp?) and was locked away in the basement
in his
grandparents farm with the works of the greatest scolars, poets,
and scientists
of our time.... it is an excellent movie that shows another side
of the same
concept in Phenonmenon. These movies set up nicely against each
other. The stars
are the guy from Millenium, Jeff Goldbloom, Mary Steinburgen
(sp?.. Ted Danson's
wife).... it is also on video... I would be interested in seeing
what some of
you think about it.
--Tim Harris
Most here have probably seen the Sci-Fi movie Logan's Run
(1976). I see
some nondual parallels in this movie. Here is a very interesting
website:
http://www.transparencynow.com/logtable.htm
Enjoy,
Tim Gerchmez
I'd like to add another - the movie "Jacob's
Ladder." This movie deals
with dream vs. reality, attachment to "the world,"
death, and various other
interesting things. Another good "nondual appetizer." I
remember first
seeing this movie in the theater, and when it was over half the
audience
sat unmoving through the credits, their mouths hanging wide open
in literal
shock.
--Tim Gerchmez
fully intending to watch jacob's ladder again, prompted by tim's
discussion
of it, i instead have broken my vcr.
this is not an unusual occurance in my home. electronics just go
haywire
here. go figure.
i was a bit disappointed, but turned to my last resort, the
dreaded
television. jacob's ladder was on the starz channel, and just
starting. i
think i shall use above mentioned vcr as a door stop, and start
watching the
"chance movies!"
it occured to me, upon a third viewing of this film that a
similar
exploration of consciousness is explored in Ambrose Bierce's
short story, "An
Occurance at Owl Creek Bridge." A beautifully haunting film
was made of
this-- a man is being hanged, and a mixture of real/unreal goes
through his
mind in the instant. older film-- i saw it at school in the
seventh grade:)
but here's a link to the Bierce story:
http://www.litrix.com/owlcreek/owlcr001.htm
Tomas contributed:
I recently saw the movie "Pleasantville"-
a brother and sister get
zapped into one of those 50's black and white father knows best
kinda
worlds. It's a cooky backdrop but it was good- the brother and
sister
end up completely changing their universe with possibilities they
never
considered and soon color begins appearing in their black and
white
world!
I think the reactions to the changes in the
"Pleasantville", as well as
the effect of these changes on the people, had metaphorical
depth-
enough for me to say it had nondual appetizer taste to it.
while I'm on the subject and becuase I saw Tim provide an oldy
and a
goody (Altered States), I'de like to offer a few other
interesting
video's that I have enjoyed at one time or another (I actually
had these
writen on a list I keep):
-Lost Highway (try to figure it out- it's a dark zen koan of
movie)
-In the Mouth of Madness (a little cheezy but has some
interesting
moments- dark Reality twisting with some cheezy horror thrown
in-)
-The Big Labowski (I loved this one- great fun, great characters-
laughed my ass off- it had a jestfull and sweet nondual flavor)
-Event Horizon- (This really freaked me out at the time- I saw
this as a
big metaphor for the drama surrounding the fear that must be
faced)
Movie: "The Addiction"
This is ostentibly a vampire movie, where a girl studying
philosophy in
school is bitten by a vampire and becomes a vampire. The film
(1996)
starring Christopher Walken and Annabella Sciorra, is shot
entirely in
black and white. This movie explores the nature of addiction and
attachment. At the end of the film, the girl reaches this
philosophical
conclusion (after accepting the blessings of a priest and
renouncing her
vampirism): Self-realization consists of the annihilation of self
(quoted
verbatim).
You HAVE to see this movie! At the end, I shut off the VCR and
chills were
running up and down my spine. I was thanking Grace again and
again for
what this movie revealed. Please see it! Please
--Tim Gerchmez
Tim Gerchmez contributes:
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships
on fire
off the shoulder of Orion. I've watched c-beams glitter in the
dark
near the Tannhauser Gate. All those... moments... will be lost in
time...
like tears in rain. Time... to die."
... Rutger Hauer, from "Blade Runner"
(partly improvised line)
Bruce Morgen responds:
"Blade Runner" was derived
from the P.K. Dick novel
"Do Androids Dream Of
Electric Sheep?" Good
movie, good book, good
question.
Anyone see that Italian movie that came out earlier this year, "Life
is
Beautiful?" It was a
comedy-drama about an Italian Jew and his young son
who are forced into a concentration camp. The father helps his
son to cope
with the horror by telling him that it is all a game, and that if
they
behave themselves properly and do what they're supposed to they
get points,
and if they get enough points the son gets a real tank at the end
of the
game. It's quite hilarious, and alternately tragic, to watch how
convoluted
the father's story becomes as life in the camp continues to
deteriorate.
Yet through it all, he keeps up a good face for his son's sake
and the kid
never suspects that the horrors are anything but an elaborate
"game" staged
for his benefit. The father is a goofy, Chaplinesque character
who manages
to bumble his way through some close calls. I won't give away the
ending if
anyone hasn't seen the movie yet, but it's bittersweet.
--Petros
Saw "American Beauty" for the third
time tonight, and this time was aware
of the nondual "elements" in the film. I pretty much
missed these elements
on the first viewing, at least intellectually (I was too
enraptured by the
film) and the second viewing was a flop, the day after the first
(couldn't
sit through it, it was too soon).
Wowowowowowowowowowowow!!!!!! What a screenplay!! Still #6 on the
Internet Movie Database, an ASTOUNDING achievement (The Matrix is
still in
the top 40, as well, for anyone who cares -- also quite an
achievement
after being out so long).
For those who aren't familiar with the Internet Movie Database,
the ratings
consist purely of the "popular vote," not any
professional reviewer's vote.
It's the ultimate democratic rating system.
I urge anyone to watch this film and look for the nondual
perspective.
It's there. It emerges as the story progresses.
The main character, "Lester Burnham" (Kevin Spacey)
discovers it in the
last few moments of his life. His daughter's boyfriend
"Ricky Fitts" (Wes
Bentley) always knew it. He's the "Realized One" in the
film. And his
daughter discovers she always knew it, through her relationship
with Ricky
Fitts (at least, I *think* that's what's going on).
These are the focal characters in the film, and the rest consist
of the
whirlwind surrounding this "Trinity."
There's so much happening behind the scenes and between the lines
of this
film, it's unbelievable. The movie isn't even about what it
professes to
be about ("suburban angst" and such). It's about
beauty. That's what the
movie is about. Everything else is icing.
--Tim Gerchmez
Recommended Movies, by Gene Poole
I wonder how many NDSers have ever seen the 'horror movie'
entitled
"Prince Of Darkness"?
There is a very interesting plot, in which when a person sleeps
in a
certain old church, a dream occurs, and everyone who sleeps
there,
has the same dream, every night, over and over.
As the movie progresses, you get to see and hear ever-larger
snippets
of this mysteriously shared dream. The audio portion of the dream
says, over and over:
"This is not a dream!"
Wierdly, nobody asks themself, "What does it mean to have a
dream, in
which, I am told that the dream I am having, is not a
dream?"
I have watched this movie a few times, and the dream sequences
always
really grab me.
There is a major "Uh-Oh!" moment near the end, which is
quite well done.
You can find this movie on videotape, if you are interested.
Major 'B'-movie genre fan,
==Gene Poole==
"The Cannibal Women of the Avacado Jungle of
Death"
"Mars Needs Women"
"Split" (very nondual, if you can find
it)
Last night I rented "Why did Bodhi-Dharma Leave for
the West". It instantly
jumps onto my all-time best list, along with Mayakovsky's "Solaris",
and de
Sica's "The Bicycle Thief".
This movie is "about" Zen, meditation, the search for
enlightenment. A
young man leaves his ailing mother to go study with an elderly
Zen monk in
the mountains. There, he finds that the monk has adopted a little
orphan
boy. Together, the three of them form an unlikely household. The
elderly
monk teaches the young man with koans and sayings that form the
spiritual
background of the lush imagery. The young boy becomes a complex
character
in his own right as, left alone for hours by the two meditating
men who
care for him, he has adventures with birds, other small children,
and an
escaped cow that mature him until, at the end, he almost seems to
be a
replica, in miniature, of the old monk.
The movie is long, slow, unbelievably poetic, beautifully
photographed.
This movie has the best visual metaphors for spiritual experience
I have
ever seen. The ending is incredible but I won't give it away.
Warning: this movie requires patience, especially the first hour
when you
are not quite sure what is going on. But it rewards your
attention and by
the end it is completely riveting.
A Reviews of Why Has Bodhi-Dharma Left for the East? is here:
http://www.epinions.com/mvie_mu-1066282
David Hodges
GREG GOODE AND GLORIA LEE
from NoDoer list
GREG:
One of the best depictions I've ever seen was in a Chinese
film, _LIFE ON A STRING_. A man was born blind,
and for many
years studied the banjo with his teacher. Before the teacher
died, one of the last things he told the blind youth was that
when he played the banjo enough to break 1000 strings, he
would be able to see. So he travelled the countryside,
playing for villages and became sort of a psychic seer as he
got older and broke more and more strings in the course of
playing. There is great dramatic tension around the time of
the 100th string. And "seeing" is played with in the
film,
both as ocular vision and also as enlightenment.
The film's end brought tears of sweetness and joy to my eyes!
I highly recommend it!
There's also Keanu Reeves' LITTLE BUDDHA but LIFE
ON A STRING
is much better!
Love,
--Greg
GLORIA:
Wow, I hope to find that movie, thanks Greg. I found a
description of one of those Japanese "worlds of
meaning"
evoked by one word, like they do in haikus. This is from Alan
Watts, embedded within a huge talk he gave on emptiness. With
the untranslatable word yugen, you see how its suggested best
by images.
Somehow, you know, it's so well-said that it's not so bad
after all. The poet has got the intuition that things are
always running out, that things are always disappearing, has
some hidden marvel in it. I was discussing with someone
during the lunch intermission, the Japanese have a word
_yugen_, which has no English equivalent whatsoever. Yugen is
in a way digging change. It's described poetically, you have
the feeling of yugen when you see out in the distant water
some ships hidden behind a far-off island. You have the
feeling of yugen when you watch wild geese suddenly seen and
then lost in the clouds. You have the feeling of yugen when
you look across Mt Tamapeis, and you've never been to the
other side, and you see the sky beyond. You don't go over
there to look and see what's on the other side, that wouldn't
be yugen. You let the other side be the other side, and it
invokes something in your imagination, but you don't attempt
to define it to pin it down. Yugen. So in the same way, the
coming and going of things in the world is marvelous. They
go. Where do they go? Don't answer, because that would spoil
the mystery. They vanish into the mystery. But if you try to
persue them, you destroy yugen. That's a very curious thing,
but that idea of yugen, which in Chinese characters means, as
it were, kind of 'the deep mystery of the valley.' There's a
poem in Chinese which says 'The wind drops, but the petals
keep falling. The bird calls, and the mountain becomes more
mysterious.' Isn't that strange? There's no wind anymore, and
yet petals are dropping. And a bird in the canyon cries, and
that one sound in the mountains brings out the silence with a
wallop.
I remember when I was almost a child in the Pyrenees in the
southwest of France. We went way up in this gorgeous silence
of the mountains, but in the distance we could hear the bells
on the cows clanking. And somehow those tiny sounds brought
out the silence. And so in the same way, slight permanances
bring out change. And they give you this very strange sense.
Yugen. The mystery of change. You know, in Elliot's poem,
'The Four Quartets,' where he says 'The dark, dark, dark.
They all go into the dark, distinguished families, members of
the book of the director of directors, everybody, they all go
into the dark.' Life IS life, you see, because, just because
it's always disappearing.
http://www.deoxy.org/w_world.htm
----------------
I cried tears of bittersweet joy when I saw these!
"Rikyu" (1989, Japan). About an
elderly tea master who shows the way of tea to an ambitious,
aggressive warlord. He lives it too. Beautiful in story and
style.
Plot summary: http://imdb.com/title/tt0098204/plotsummary
"Life on a String" (China, 1991). About a blind banjo
player whose master told him that he would be able to see after
he breaks the 1000th string playing the banjo. It takes him 60
years to get that far. The best movie treatment of
"enlightenment" I've ever seen.
Plot summary: http://imdb.com/title/tt0101440/plotsummary
- Contributed to NondualPhil by Greg Goode
BRUCE JOEL RUBIN
Screenwriter of Jacob's Ladder
from the documentary on the Jacob's Ladder DVD
This movie is about the dissolution of a man who is
dying. And in that, ... the whole of existence is at
play in his mind and you are watching one story.
...what happens in that journey is the mind goes
thorugh this extraordinary kind of dissolution and
attempt at discovery of what is going on.
And I really believe that in this death process there is
enormous need at the final moment of one's existence to
know what it was, what your life was, what it meant,
how did it come to its conclusion... .
Jacobs Ladder began as a dream, and in the dream I was
on a subway in New York City, and I was travelling
rather rapidly through the bowels of New York, and the
train comes into a station and I get off and I go to
the exit and the exit is chained closed. The ultimate
trap of that dream is that there was no way out. The
only way out was through it and that I had to go down
into the darkness of my own existence in order to find
a way to some kind of freedom and liberation. The great
adventures of all time take you into the underworld,
into the unseen, into the place you can't go. When
you're in the dark what you see is not outside you, it's
inside you, and that the images that start to arise
within you are from somewhere deep within your own
psyche.
...
The movie is really a movie of Jacob holding on. it's
Jacob holding onto what he remembers, holding onto his
guilts, holding onto his pleasures, his desires.
Everything that makes us hold onto life and everyday
experience, holding onto your breath, holding onto your
identity, to your sense of self: these are the things
that keep us here. And as that starts to be taken away
from him, and as it's unravelled and he's watching the
unravelling of that, what he experiences is the end of
his being. And that end is something you can fight, or
you can finally say 'yes' to, and because it is so
inevitable in his case, as it will ultimately be in
every one of our cases, we all have to, at some moment,
learn that the release from the struggle is the letting
go.
from the screenplay: "If you're frightened of dying and
you're holding on, you'll see devils tearing your life
away. But if you've made your peace, the devils are
really angels freeing you from the earth. It's just a
matter of how you look at it, that's all."
...
It is everyman's journey that we all go through, this
extraordinary process of dissolution in which we are
compelled to hold onto everything dear to us. We're
compelled to hold onto our children, we're compelled to
hold onto to those we love, we feel guilt about the
things we didn't do, we feel the pull of this dark force
coming at us and we don't want to go to it. There's
great denial in our struggle, in our death struggle, in
our movement out of our bodies, out of our familiarity,
out of our breath, out of our mind, out of our
personality. It's a hard leap to make.
Director Adrian Lynes:
"I've had a lot of people write to me about the film. I
had somebody with an AIDS society saying can I use
imagery from within the film because they thought that
the film had helped friends of theirs during the dying
process and that's immensely rewarding I think, if
that's the case, because I hope that the movie helps you
deal with that in some little way."
Petros: movie review, The Fight Club
This is another one of those weird reality-twisting movies that
does
have something to say about getting to a deeper experience of
life through
trauma and danger. There are some strong mystical undertones here
for anyone
who pays attention. (There is a *very* esoteric plot twist
towards the end
of the film which is quite startling, but I won't give it away
here!)
The movie is basically about an (unnamed) geeky, nine-to-five
kind of
guy (Edward Norton) who is beginning to feel the meaninglessness
of his
mundane existence until he "accidentally" runs into a
psychotic, socially
marginalized guy named Tyler (Brad Pitt.) Tyler is really some
sort of
crazy-wise guru or trickster who intends to awaken people by
destroying
their mundane lives. He does this quite successfully in the film
through the creation of a "Fight Club" and later a
"Project Mayhem."
There's one very interesting scene where Tyler and Norton's
character
are sitting at the kitchen table and Tyler grabs Norton's hand
and pours lye
over it, causing the flesh to sear and burn. Norton's character
tries
frantically to numb the pain with new-age visualization
techniques while
Tyler slaps him repeatedly, holds him tighter and calls him to
experience the pain in the present moment instead of trying to
escape from it.
"When you lose everything, you learn that you can do
everything" is Tyler's
message to the guy.
There's another cool scene where Tyler tries to teach his
reluctant
student about trusting the will of the universe (surrender) by
stealing a
limosine and going the wrong way down the street towards oncoming
traffic.
Norton's character tries to grab the steering wheel a few times
while Tyler
insists on asking him -- "If you died right now, would you
have any regrets?"
and demanding an answer. The student finally surrenders and
admits that his
life has been a waste up until now. He relaxes, while Tyler
floors the
accelerator and keeps his hands off the wheel while the car veers
to the
side of the road, smashes into another car and goes rolling off
the
embankment sending the occupants sprawling -- severely banged up
but
much more enlightened.
For some reason the film also reminds me of "The
Matrix" or "Jacob's
Ladder." There's a lot of what could only be called
"psychological
special effects," strange manipulations of the film designed
to create a
reality-warping sensation. Some of these tweaks last only a
single frame
and you might easily mistake them for problems with the projector
but they
are not. The funky psychological twist near the end of the film
practically
reverses the movie's whole meaning and I think it would make a
second
viewing very rewarding. I'll find out!
A Taoist take on the film:
http://strykerxbase.tripod.com/writings/taoism.htm
And some heavy psychosocial grokking for the metacritic in all of
us:
"'Enjoy your fight!' Fight Club as a symptom of the Network
Society"
http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/sociology/soc080bd.html
Interesting though lengthy article on Kubrick's 2001:
excerpts:
Bowman's ultimate realization that he is trapped is made
symbolically by Kubrick with the breaking of the wine glass.
Even after all that he has been through Bowman still makes
mistakes. The wine glass is like a zen koan that illuminates the
mind in a flash. His own fallibility thrusts the scene towards
it's climax as the old man dies on the bed and sees the monolith
for the last time. The Great Work of the stone is complete.
There is now a man, a human, who understands the greater
universe. This man also understands that he is trapped in a jail
that his own consciousness has designed. With the realization of
his own fallibility, and his own trapped spirit, he is finally
liberated from the realm of the hotel prison, or the world of
illusion. In that instant he understands what the book of stone
is trying to tell him. He lifts his hand in a gesture of
understanding. And in that moment he is transformed - without
dying - into the Starchild.
...........
There is a monolith that appears right after the opening
sequence with the magical, lunar eclipse. But where is it? It is
right in front of the viewer's eyes! The film is the monolith.
In a secret that seems to never have been seen by anyone - the
monolith in the film has the same exact dimensions as the
Cinerama movie screen on which 2001 was projected in 1968. This
can only be seen if one sees the film in it's wide-screen
format. Completely hidden, from critic and fan alike, is the
fact that Kubrick consciously designed his film to be the
monolith, the stone that transforms. Like the monolith, the film
projects images into our heads that make us consider wider
possibilities and ideas. Like the monolith, the film ultimately
presents an initiation, not just of the actor on the screen, but
also of the audience viewing the film. That is Kubrick's
ultimate trick. He slyly shows here that he knows what he is
doing at every step in the process. The monolith and the movie
are the same thing.
ALCHEMICAL KUBRICK
by Jay Weidner
http://www.vincentbridges.com/highweirdness/weidner/kubrick.html
However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.'
- Stanley Kubrick
Ironically, two months into 1998, my top three films to date (Sliding
Doors, Open Your Eyes, and Dark City) all question the
nature of identity and reality. Dark City is much like Open Your
Eyes (which was shown at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival and will
open theatrically later this year in North America) -- both are
meditations on the importance of memory to an individual, and how
everyone's personality is comprised of the sum total of his or
her remembrances. In the way Dark City tinkers with the
boundaries of what's real and what isn't, it recalls The Game.
Some viewers may also be reminded of Total Recall, although
Proyas' film plunges deep into issues that the Schwarzenegger
vehicle used as icing for an action-laden cake.
James Berardinelli http://movie-reviews.colossus.net/movies/d/dark_city.html
David Hodges:
Last night I rented a new DVD called "Waking
Life"
Waking Life is a movie that explores the nature of
dream and reality. I had heard it described to me as a
"Jungian" movie but it isn't that. It is a NonDual
movie. It pushes and pushes towards the dissolving of
boundaries. At one point the lead character - who is
dreaming - is in a theater, watching a movie in which
the two characters discuss the nature of film and
reality and then turn into clouds!
Explore the website here:
http://www.wakinglifemovie.com/
The question the main character pursues throughout the
movie is, "How can I wake up?" He discovers, you see,
that he is in a dream and every time he wakes up he is
dreaming that he woke up.
Oh yes, this film is an animated movie. Watching the
sheer beauty of the animation always gives us something
wonderful to look at and gives the film maker a great
deal of creative license to illustrate the ideas the
characters are presenting. The film was shot on a
digital video camera, then animators converted every
frame to animation, preserving the sound track but
having a great deal of fun with the images themselves.
At the end, the main character encounters a man playing
pinball who, it turns out, is the director of the film.
The director starts to tell a story from the life of
P.K. Dick and then the director says, "Well, if you
really want to wake up, why don't you?" At which point
the hero find himself outside his childhood home where
he slowly, gently lifts into the sky and floats off,
higher and higher.
Waking Life is a movie that stays with you.
This morning I woke up and lay in bed for a while. It
was Monday. I thought of all I had to do: get up, wash
face, take vitamins, make coffee, defrost bagel, go
downstairs and get paper, eat breakfast and read paper,
shower, shave, get dressed, and meet the workday. It
seemed infinitely wearisome. But then I finally did get
up and the day started to unreel on its own accord.
Surprises kept happening. I had cereal instead of a
bagel. I did last night's dishes before getting the
paper. I found time to do a bit of yoga to stretch my
aching back.
In other words, the day unreeled just like a dream,
beyond volition. This is waking life. Things just keep
happening. There is no need to keep up an illusion of
control, nor is there a need to keep up an illusion that
it is happening to anyone in particular. Yes, you
continue to feel emotions and experience things like
pain and pleasure, loneliness and happiness, backaches
and heartaches, but these are just happening too and
will keep on unreeling with everything else. If you
watch long enough they all turn into clouds in the end.
Film review. 21 Grams.
"I believe in interior journeys, and that's why I love the
characters' journey" in "21 Grams," Inarritu said.
"That's why this film is about finding hope (when)
confronting such extraordinary losses. "Want it or not, life
is a string of losses. We lost, everyday, something. We lost
childhood, innocence, our hair, our faith, our beliefs, our
health and, at the end, our life. And how we deal with that
everyday, and how we can make meaning or give meaning or sense to
our lives through hope, I'm a true believer in that." http://www.jsonline.com/onwisconsin/movies/dec03/194596.asp
Jerry Katz NDS
"DECASIA is a beautiful, challenging and
mesmerizing meditation on time, mortality and
man's longing to transcend his physical existence."
Go to http://www.nytimes..com/library/magazine/home/(link may no
longer be current) and scroll down to "Clips from
"Decasia," a film profiled in the magazine."
First see the video clips, then read the article.
David Hodges NDS
I saw Decasia when it was shown on the Sundance
Channel. The name is a combination
of "Decay" and "Fantasia". I think what this
writer wrote is somewhat grandiose, actually,
especially the part about "man's longing to transcend his
physical existence."
The filmmaker took old film stock that was in various states of
decomposition and editted
it together with meditative music. The blotches and spotches in
the film, combined with
the varying states of recognizability of the images, do create a
very dreamy, hynotic
effect. The visual effect of the movie is quite compelling,
whether or not it "means"
anything.
I think writers who review things are quick to put in
"meaning" into art. Art can stand on
its own without injections of "meaning" from the
outside.
But yes, do see the movie. It is beautiful.
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0413/atkinson.php
Now and Zen: Meditative quasi-Buddhist parable inspires the sound
of two hands clapping
Celestial Seasons
by Michael Atkinson
March 29th, 2004 2:20 PM
Is there such a thing as a Buddhist film, and if there were,
could you watch it without tumbling into a stupor? For all of
cinema's meditative potential in the right hands, it's safe to
say that having your eyeballs Rolfed and your attention targeted
by movies is the antithesis of authentic transcendental
experience—by the same token, enlightenment isn't something
you can photograph. This doesn't stop Korean filmmakers from
occasionally trying to express the struggle toward inner purity:
Bae Yong-kyun's Why Has Bodhi-Dharma Left for the East? (1989),
for one, achieved a kind of soporific beauty. Kim Ki-duk, known
here for the symbolic-fishhook stomach-flipper The Isle, grabs
this ironic disconnect with both hands in Spring, Summer,
Fall, Winter . . . and Spring, and ends up with a
meta-Buddhist fable, entirely concerned with the quotidian of
work and human vice, and in total thrall to the philosophy's
poetic juxtapositions.
All the same, this utterly lovely film hard-sells an audiovisual
ideal of meditational tranquility that could produce some
converts as well as tourists to Kyungsang; the hackles of the
devout might also stiffen once they learn that Kim invented most
of the rituals and totems himself. (He was, he says, raised as a
Christian.) Like The Isle, the film focuses entirely on a shelter
floating on a lake—in this case, a hermitage on man-made
Jusan Pond, surrounded by lush woodland. The shrine is inhabited
by a wizened monk (Oh Young-soo) and his grade-school-age
protégé (Kim Jong-ho); with each of the five seasonal chapters,
anywhere between 10 to 15 years pass.
The arc belongs to the boy (embodied in the last, grown-up
chapters by the director himself), for whom everything turns out
to be a koan-esque metaphor for human folly and life's resulting
tribulations. After the tyke impishly tortures small forest
creatures by tying stones to them, his mentor ties a rock to the
boy's torso, a physical trial that recurs and, as in Dogville's
penultimate affront, suggests both self-destructive burden and
entrapment. As the years pass, the ordeals escalate, but neither
the old man nor the filmmaker passes judgment.
Buddhist slummery this might be—the characters obey
decorative doorways, including an often flooded gate at the
lake's entrance, as if there were walls around them, another
parallel to the von Trier film—but the brutal tension
between spiritual righteousness and impulsive gratification is
clear and affecting. Name a Christian film that does as much.
(All right, Diary of a Country Priest and The Last Temptation of
Christ. That's about it.) Of course, Spring, Summer . . . is
decadently gorgeous, and its cyclical construction is fearsomely
neat. But Kim's tone has an ancient simplicity, something like
the fundamental eloquence of a silent film or an enduring
children's book. And his images have a surrealist integrity: the
swimming frog dragging a stone, the monk painting sutras with a
mewling cat's tail, the prodigal monk chopping through a frozen
waterfall, the Magritte-like woman masked by a scarf arriving to
abandon a baby, that same infant crawling across the ice
searching for his mother. Far from a maxim-expounding sermon, the
film is a fresh spring of irrational visual pleasure.
The Movie website is very rich and descriptive: http://www.sonyclassics.com/spring/shell.html
Mary Bianco
NDS
The movie Talk To Her
I just watched Talk To Her. Has anyone else
seen it? --Marcia
Hi Marcia, I saw the movie when it first opened. It was
recommended by Armand diMele from WBAI. For me, the movie was
most profound and beautifully passionate. I still want to
purchase the sound track. I've worked in healthcare for many
years and have come to understand the importance of communication
with a coma patient. But, as you know, the movie was much more
than just about that. This is the best synopsis I could find:
Talk To Her is a story about the friendship between two men,
about loneliness and the long convalescence of the wounds
provoked by passion. It is also a film about incommunication
between couples, and about communication. About cinema as a
subject of conversation. About how monologues before a silent
person can be an effective form of dialogue. About silence as
"eloquence of the body", about film as an ideal vehicle
in relationships between people, about how a film told in words
can bring time to a standstill and install itself in the lives of
the person telling it and the person listening.
Talk To Her is a film about the joy of narration and about words
as a weapon against solitude, disease, death and madness. It is
also a film about madness, about a type of madness so close to
tenderness and common sense that it does not diverge from
normality.
GLORIA:
If you live anywhere that you can see foreign films, this one is
a
must see! The brief description given here can barely begin to
describe the power of
this movie. I find it significant also that such movies are now
being made
in Germany by Germans.
"Aimee & Jaguar"
A true story based on Lilly Wust's memoirs, "Aimee &
Jaguar" in a lush
epic that captures the eerie atmosphere of Berlin in the first
years of World
War 11, where a lively nightlife raged on even as the bombs fell
and well
dressed Germans stepped over corpses on their way to the
symphony. It was in
this chaos that Felice Schragenheim led a secret life. Although a
Jew and a
communist, she used an assumed name and worked for the Nazi
ministry of propaganda,
passing along information to the resistance. Pretty and
gregarious, she was
just 21 when she saw a photograph of Lilly Wust and fell in
love with a woman she
had never met.
Wust was the wife of a Nazi officer, away on active duty. The
mother
of four, she so epitomized the Aryan ideal that she had been
given the bronze
"Mother Cross" medal. Introduced by a mutual
acquaintance, Lilly and Felice
lived a two-year love story until Felice was captured by the
Gestapo and
disappeared.
When "Aimee & Jaguar" premiered at the Berlin Film
Festival in 1999,
Maria Schrader and Juliane Kohler were co-winners of the Best
Actress Award
for their brilliant performances as the doomed lovers Aimee and
Jaguar, their
nicknames for each other. Wust later divorced her husband and
raised her
children as Jews.
In 1981 she was honored by the German government for her efforts
to
shelter other Jews after Felice's capture, and last year she
joined Oskar
Schindler as one of the few non-Jews to receive Israel's
"Righteous Among the
Nations" honor.
Now 87, Wust still keeps a candle lit beneath a photo of Felice
on her
wall. Unrated, 125 minutes.
PETROS: 'HOLY SMOKE' AND OTHER
MOVIES
This is a really cool movie which should be opening in wider
release this month. It stars Kate Winslet as a young
Australian girl who gets brainwashed by an Indian guru
(obviously modelled on Rajneesh from his Poona era), and is
kidnapped by her family and forced to undergo deprogramming
by a misogynistic American exit counsellor played by Harvel
Keitel. Three days in a desert hideaway turns into an
existential battle of the sexes, and the tables are turned
. . .
I saw this movie twice. The first time around I found
myself identifying with Keitel's character. The second time
I saw the story through the eyes of Winslet's character, and
it was like watching a whole different movie. (Kinda like
'Fight Club,' which seems like a different movie the second
time through.)
The film is not primarily about spirituality or cults, but
focuses on the contrasting attitudes of men and women and
how society forces gender roles upon us. Emotionally it's a
very complex movie and there is no "good guy" and
"bad
guy." I won't give away any plot twists, but it turns out
that the super-macho deprogrammer has a soft side, and the
'spiritual conversion' of Winslet's character is eventually
shown to be little more than a superficial defense covering
up her selfishness.
--------------------------
Excerpts from Interviews with Harvey Keitel
On Acting and Art
Acting is a storytelling process, and to play those stories, we
must invest ourselves profoundly in the place of the story.
Perhaps it's not so much acting as it is being. Without that
being, there's no way to convey the importance of being a human
being.
The idea of art is to reveal, to let us know an experience we
didn't have a moment ago. The experience to struggle to
understand. Given a choice between a soul and a Mercedes, people
will generally choose what they can feel. My challenge has always
been not to sell my soul for that Mercedes, although now that I
own one, I hope that I retain my soul.
http://desires.com/2.4/Performance/Harvey/Docs/intro.html
------------
H.K.: ... nine out of 10 Hollywood directors do not know how to
rehearse. And most actors do not know how to rehearse. The
rehearsal process is a very important part of the creation. And
it will do directors and actors a lot of good to study the craft
to learn how to rehearse. To learn how to do their homework. To
learn what to do as homework.
TR: Specifically, how does one rehearse?
HK: ... Well I cannot teach a class here now on acting. ...They
have to immerse themselves into it. I can tell you that if you do
not take the training that a Marine takes, and you are thrown
into the jungle, you're probably going to die. If you do not take
the training an actor needs to take when you are put into that
human jungle of cement and palm trees, you are going to die. You
need your craft to support you, to guide you, to sustain you. I
can only advise your directors to study acting. And your actors
to study acting.
---------
So what was the initial driving force that took you into acting?
Was there an epiphany at some point: 'I could become an ACTOR!'?
No, no.
Or was it simply something you thought you were good at and could
take further?
No, I didn't think I was particularly good at it but I wanted to
be, I had a strong will to be good at it. And it was my need to
know, my need to draw my pictures on the cave walls about what my
fears were, what my needs were. Somewhere in there. I was in a
cave and I needed to draw some pictures on the wall about what my
journey was, and that drive, that need, led me to acting. I
wasn't good at it, but I had a deep, intense desire to be good at
it, and all my failings didn't stop me. I had that will to learn
that kept me going through all my effort, through all of my
struggle. ------------ When we were talking about your part for
the Jane Campion film, (The Piano) I remembered that sparkle in
your eyes when you were describing the gestation of this
character. When did you first see that sparkle, that mystery that
you described, coming from within yourself?
Probably when I met this girl once upon a time and I looked into
her eyes, and what was in her eyes somehow moved me in such a
way, that I couldn't understand it, and I put together these
boxes that were strewn about, and she was walking down the street
and I jumped over these boxes to try and impress her. But there
was snow on the ground and I slipped and I fell on my ass. I was
probably about five years old then! ---------
They weren't living the life of actors, they were just playing
the part?
Yes, that's why I'm trying to say. Because if you really want to
be an actor you have to live the life of it, as you say, which
means doing things. It doesn't just mean giving yourself a title,
a star, success. All success is in the struggle, and in the work
itself, not in the result. The result's wonderful, I don't want
young actors getting it wrong reading this, but the real success
is in the struggle.
Have there been instances where you were satisfied with the
struggle and not with the final result?
[Laughs] Yes! In other words I'm thinking about creating a role,
or creating a play, and struggling very hard in the work, maybe
coming up short of answers that I felt were right. But consider
the interweaving of feeling success in the struggle and realizing
you didn't get the result that you perhaps hoped to get, and yet
you feel very good about the struggle, very successful about the
struggle.
Somehow it strikes me, and I'm still exploring, that if I could
commit myself to the doing, free of results, and accept what
occurs in the doing, then that's the place I think I want to be
in. When I become more proficient at this, come back and ask me
the question again.
What do you mean by more proficient?
Being able to stand there on the stage in my own place. In me. Be
able to paint bamboo.
Did I tell you the story about the bamboo? I was reading in some
book of Zen philosophy about a painter, and in this Zen artist's
way of work, he was describing that before feeling he could paint
bamboo, he had to look at the bamboo and touch the bamboo and eat
the bamboo and sleep with the bamboo and then he felt that he
could paint the bamboo. -------
Even if some of those notes are raw, I think the music is strong
enough to overcome a wrong note. I think the positive nature of
things will always overcome the less positive nature of things.
If the music is on, the music is beautiful; it will be heard I
think no matter what the interference is. It's like if I'm
looking at a Van Gogh, and there's some jackhammer going off
outside the place, I think I'm still going to get the music of
the Van Gogh – and hear the jackhammer at the same time.
With a string of acclaimed performances, Keitel has become
recognized as one of the most celebrated (and busiest) actors in
recent years, in both Hollywood and independent film, including
THE PIANO, BAD LIEUTENANT, RESERVOIR DOGS, PULP FICTION, SMOKE
and BLUE IN THE FACE.
http://members.aol.com/morgands1/closeup/text/keitel.htm
"Acting is like trying to get at some certain truth, some
common denominator, some exchange, some connection, that makes us
feel a certain truth in ourselves. The way of acting that you
really try to finally learn is how not to act. That's where it's
at. Acting is not acting."
- Al Pacino
Samasara: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0196069/
Nondual Movies
NDS
David: And who is writing or is going to write the great NonDual
story/narrative/myth? Does anyone have any examples of NonDual
stories?
Gyan: Greetings David,
The one movie that comes to mind is the Richard Linklater's "Waking
Life ".
This film is foremost a series of dialogues served through
different
vignettes having truth and illusion as main topics.
This animated feature may feel like a koan quest or a satsang
supper.
You get 'stuff' ;-)
Ben Hassine: American Beauty
Michael Bowes: THE VOID
Mark Otter: Treasure of the Sierra Madres?
Love, Bogie We non-dualists don't need no stinking badges....(
momentary identification
for sake of joke)
Love, John
Greg Goode: I vote for "Life on a String" Dir. Kaige
Chen (1991). Look it up on www.imdb.com. It was great!
David Hodges: I guess my top vote would be for "Why
Has Bodhi-darma Left for the East",
written and directed by Yong-Kyun Bae. It casts a spell (unless
you fall
asleep first!)
Imdb.com says: "Three people live in a remote Buddhist
monastery near Mount
Chonan: Hyegok, the old master; Yong Nan, a young man who has
left his
extended family in the city to seek enlightenment - Hyegok calls
him
Kibong!; and, an orphan lad Haejin, whom Hyegok has brought to
the
monastery to raise as a monk. The story is mostly Yong Nan's,
told in
flashbacks: how he came to the monastery, his brief return to the
city, his
vacillation between the turbulence of the world and his hope to
overcome
passions and escape the idea of self. We also see Hyegok as a
teacher, a
protector, and a father figure, and we watch Haejin make his way
as a
curious and nearly self-sufficient child."
Gyan:
Yes ! This is a film I have purchased on DVD and gathered some
meditators
friend for an evening of zen seventh art quality time; definitely
not a
blockbuster in the usual sense of the word but sure can bust a
block. This
movie is quite a meditation.
While we're on this topic, maybe Alejandro Jodorowski's 'El
Topo' is a
classic when it comes to initiatory movie.
'Songs From The Second Floor' by Roy Andersson
had me quite intellectually
stimulated; has anyone else seen this movie ? Some strong
messages neatly
portrayed.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120263/
Sam: I vote for "King of Hearts"...
Michael Bowes: Has anyone seen "The Void"?
Greg Goode: No, but I did see The Black Hole,
Disney.
diane: Wait. Is this a trick question?
Greg: No, it's a real movie. Check out:
http://imdb.com/title/tt0289605/
'SANTA-SANTITA'
In the tradition of all memorable storytelling
http://news.inq7.net/entertainment/index.php?index=1&story_id=19562
WITH "Alexander," "National Treasure" and
"The Polar Express" currently competing for the
precious
pesos of local moviegoers, homegrown bet
"Santa-santita" would most likely fade away.
But if it's
still in theaters, you might want to see it. It would be a shame
to miss this movie.
"Santa-santita" delivers all that one could ever hope
for in a movie, whether foreign or local, and that makes it well
worth squeezing in between the smorgasbord of Hollywood
blockbusters I mentioned. In fact, if your budget can accommodate
only a couple of movies from among those now showing, make this
one of them.
What "Santa-santita" lacks in physical size and scale,
it more than makes up for on an emotional and spiritual level.
This is a movie that's as true to its own heart as any you're
likely to see.
The movie is set in present-day Quiapo, where the everyday human
carnival is immersed in a zesty Roman Catholic sense of sin and
redemption. As the movie opens we are introduced to Chayong
(Hilda Koronel), a single mother who makes a living praying for
others inside Quiapo church. She prefers to call it a panata or
devotion but nevertheless accepts monetary donations for it.
Fire in her eyes
Chayong's only child, Malen (Angelica Panganiban), tries to help
out by selling rosaries and scapulars outside the church but it's
obvious she isn't exactly thrilled about the job. She's a
soon-to-be woman who has set her sights outside the world of
Quiapo.
We can read so much from the way Malen walks, how she talks, how
she gets castigated for the way she dresses by Chayong and she
doesn't even care. There's that light, or maybe fire, in her eyes
that says she's desperate for something to happen to her life.
She knows that her self-belief and native street smarts can take
her someplace else, somewhere her mother's zealot friends can't
frown upon her and where there are no stupid boys to make lewd
remarks every time she passes-which the boys in her neighborhood
do, if they're not gaping open-mouthed at her heaving torso.
One day Malen meets Mike (Jericho Rosales), a tourist driver who
uses his job to hustle for other things and who is not above
prostituting himself in the process.
Mike is hustling for a better life, maybe for his sick son who's
in the care of his uncle (Berting Labra), but also maybe because
he knows essentially he's just strong enough and unscrupulous
enough to earn it. Mike may share the same yearnings of Malen but
it is clear he's operating out of a different dynamic altogether.
He's a guy who's used to running the show, accustomed to wielding
his grassroots toughness to get what he wants. Early on in the
movie he also shows subtle, startling glints of poisonous
malevolence that tells you his descent, in time, would be
inevitable.
A living out of praying
What Malen sees in Mike, though, is a kindred soul, someone who
can give her a glimpse of that other world she dreams about. When
she goes against Chayong's admonitions and runs away from home to
be with Mike, she literally breaks her mother's heart, and
causing her mother's death.
Left alone to fend for herself and knowing no other way to make a
living, Malen takes over her mother's prayer practice inside
Quiapo church, much to the dismay of her mothers' colleagues in
the so-called devotion. But she begins to mysteriously fulfill
the needs of everyone with whom she comes into contact, even
though she doesn't really pray for them seriously. And before
long, there's a long line of salvation-hungry faces pleading for
her intercession.
Malen doesn't know what's happening and is scared, even more so
when she starts dreaming of herself
receiving stigmata, the wounds suffered by Jesus when he was
crucified.
In the tradition of all memorable storytelling,
"Santa-santita" entertains, illuminates and
inspires.
Unlike many of the movies that deal with religion and
spirituality (there is a difference), it does
not patronize or satirize. The movie is not preaching to the
choir, although it did have something
to say about the slavery of some Catholics to dogmatic thought
and about the forces that make
religion more into institutionalized bigotry and less as a path
to healing and understanding.
Gifted and courageous
There aren't many people in the local film industry gifted enough
to make a movie like this, and
fewer still with the courage to deal honestly with a subject both
spiritual and complex. Laurice
Guillen is one of them. She and her writers-the screenplay was
written by husband Johnny Delgado,
Michiko Yamamoto and Jerry Gracio, who also wrote the story-have
done a fine job of putting
onscreen the solid substance of "Santa-santita." And
cinematographer Lee Meily's impressive camera
work and the musical scoring by Vincent de Jesus provide a
starkly realistic backdrop against which
the story can unfold.
Guillen wonderfully accomplished not only a graphic fleshing of
the movie's theme but also got a
truly brilliant and engrossing display of acting from her cast.
As the movie's santa-santita, Panganiban gives us a protagonist
we could watch without ever losing
interest. She goes from being the subject of autoerotic pasttimes
to somebody who shares the
stigmata experience of Francis of Assisi and Padre Pio without
ever quite transcending the nuances
of her true nature. She doesn't take the usual sinner-to-saint
route but struggles throughout, thus
making her character more believable.
The movie also showcases Jericho Rosales in incendiary form. He
gives us a performance here that is
both acting and being. There isn't a scene in
"Santa-santita" that isn't watchable, but the best
one for me is the one Rosales shares with Delgado, an actor so
unaffectedly good it has become
redundant to say so.
Delgado creates yet another quietly unforgettable character in
Fr. Tony, a Catholic priest who's
become something of a flimflam artist because of his alcoholism.
In the scene I mentioned, Rosales'
Mike goes from being Delgado's tentative drinking partner to
become somewhat his diabolical
seducer, tempting and taunting the man of the cloth, indeed
questioning the very cloth from which
the priest is cut. It's a scene that is not easily forgotten, and
when the nominations of local
film award-giving bodies are announced, I suspect Delgado and
Rosales won't be either.
Movie reviews and comments:
Freyja Harsha Satsangh
Winged Migration - a film by Jacques Perrin
A tremendous heart-opener,
simply awe-inspiring depiction of innate intelligence
and tremendous variety of genetic combinations
and behaviors among birds and other species.
Cinematography is absolutely heavenly.
This film places you right THERE.
Freyja
http://www.sonyclassics.com/wingedmigration/home.html
(please copy and paste url)
'Winged Migration' a stunning global journey
By Matt Soergel
Winged Migration is as close as we'll ever get to flying with the
birds. This French documentary of mind-blowing beauty puts you
right there with migratory birds, so close there on the big
screen that you can see the close-up ruffling of individual
feathers in flight, hear the actual beating of their wings.And
down below us, zooming by, is the natural and man-made of the
Earth: the desert, the tundra, the Arctic, the sea pounding
against the coast of Antarctica, the Eiffel Tower, the Great Wall
of China, the skyline of New York (with the World Trade Center
towers still standing).
That vicarious thrill is what separates Winged Migration from the
various nature shows you can catch on cable. It's almost
impossible to overstate how breathtaking much of it is: Many
movies hope to build to a couple of mind-boggling visual moments
that make your jaw drop. This film is packed with them, so many
that it can just sprinkle them almost willy-nilly throughout. And
then, as if that's not enough, the filmmakers just casually slip
in, oh, say, a huge avalanche or an iceberg breaking apart --
just because they can.
Winged Migration Credits: Directed by Jacques Perrin.Running
time: 1 hour, 31 minutes.Family guide: G.
Winged Migration is a four-year project for French filmmaker
Jacques Perrin and his huge crew, which included pilots in
gliders and hot-air balloons who helped him get those rapturous
fly-with-the-bird shots.That commitment of time and resources led
to all those astounding moments:
Watch for a captured tropical bird trying to escape from a cage
on the Amazon. Watch how crabs on the African shoreline attack a
doomed, broken-winged bird. Watch how the sky turns black with
birds.That's just a start -- almost any scene, any image, could
be singled out.
A couple of quibbles: The music might be too New Agey for some
(the visuals alone are inspiring enough). And the skimpy
narration, by Perrin himself, feels a bit trite; it can't match
the power of the visuals. Truth be told, though, what could?
Gloria
This movie review is a forward, but I did see it myself recently,
and I heartily second the recommendation. Seeing it is a unique
opportunity to be one with the birds.
Memento
David:
I saw a great movie last night - Memento. Like
The Matrix, it calls into question all the viewer's
notions about reality. The hero is trying to solve
and revenge the murder of his wife. The only
problem is, he has a memory disorder where
his short-term memory only lasts about 15
minutes. So he has an elaborate system of notes
and reminders to keep himself informed about what
is going on.
And there's another catch: the story is presented
backwards, from the end to the beginning. So we,
the audience, know only as much as the hero knows.
We, like him, don't have the benefit of the memory of
what has gone before.
It is extremely well done - and highly entertaining to
boot - and leaves you guessing as to what is really
going on right until the final scene. Even then, I walked
out of the theater with questions, but, thanks to the
Internet, found a good discussion of the movie on
rec.arts.movies.current-films that clarified a lot for me.
The movie is a meditation on memory, identity, and
trust. The question of "who can you trust" receives a
very surprising answer at the end, as does the question
of "How do you construct your own personal reality".
I think the answer to this latter question is more subtle
than in the Matrix, and equally disturbing. Like most
Philip K. Dick novels, this movie keeps surprising you
with the way the basic reality of the story keeps shifting
under your feet.
I think people on this list who enjoy such movies
would like this one. And if anyone has seen it I'd love
to discuss it with you.
David
American Beauty...
Hello friends,
On the front page of this website last year, there was a request
for
people's opinions of this wonderful movie. I have really been
looking forward to a page devoted to some of the responses as
there
was on the Matrix.
Was that project abandoned? Is there anywhere else on the web
where
the non-duality of American Beauty has been mentioned? Everytime
i
watch AB i am touched even deeper. I feel there is even more to
it
than i am catching.
I think Ricky's camera symbolized the Impersonal Witness. What
else
did anyone notice?
Thanks
RW
The scene where Ricky describes his experience when taping the
red
bag is the most lucid expression of realization ever committed to
celluloid, imo.
...It's the scene where Ricky is showing Lester the video of the
red
plastic grocery bag blowing in circles. Ricky describes his
experience
of the taping of the bag, how he saw the inherent beauty in all
things,
and how he found he *never* had to be afraid again.
--jody.
Another cinematic realization scene that was exquisitely sweet
imo was in
LIFE ON A STRING (1991), a Chinese movie directed by Kaige Chen.
It's the
story of a blind banjo player who was told by his master that
when he broke
the 100th string on his banjo, he would be able to see. At a very
late
age, he did get to the 1000th string, and *what* he saw actually
made me
weep for joy for about 20 minutes!
--Greg
My favorite line from the movie came at the end.
"I'm grateful for every moment of my stupid little
life."
Smiling Quietly
Peace - Gratitude - Michael
Ahh, indeed, a tremendous, tremendous movie. Absolutely deserving
of
every award and nomination it received. I didn't think it
particularly "nondual" as compared to many other movies
(any movie
may be viewed from a "nondual" standpoint of one sort
of another),
but your mileage may vary.
For my review on the IMDB, go here:
http://comment.imdb.com/CommentsShow?169547-1080
Tim
Thanks for bringing this up, Rick. I have to see American
Beauty again. The last lines of the movie were most nondual,
I recall.
Speaking of movies, I saw 'Being John Malkovitch'
on video
last night. It was fun and interesting, but missed all kinds
of opportunity to demonstrate nondual perspective. It
settled for being surreal, arty and humorous.
Also saw Boys Don't Cry. Based on a true story,
it is very
much worth seeing for its excellent acting and social
statement.
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring
(2004)
This movie tells (in Korean) the story of an old monk who lives
in a remote hermitage along with a small boy whom he has somehow
become obliged to rear. The boy goes bad, and the old monk is
forced to resort to radical measures to save him. An outstanding
film in every way: story, images, photography, acting.
The exquisitely beautiful and very human drama SPRING,
SUMMER, FALL, WINTER… AND SPRING, starring director KIM
Ki-duk, is entirely set on and around a tree-lined lake where a
tiny Buddhist monastery floats on a raft amidst a breath-taking
landscape. The film is divided into five segments with each
season representing a stage in a man’s life. Under the
vigilant
eyes of Old Monk (wonderful veteran theatre actor OH
Young-soo), Child Monk learns a hard lesson about the nature of
sorrow when some of his childish games turn cruel. In the
intensity and lushness of summer, the monk, now a young man,
experiences the power of lust, a desire that will ultimately lead
him, as an adult, to dark deeds. With winter, strikingly set on
the
ice and snow-covered lake, the man atones for his past actions,
and spring starts the cycle anew… With an extraordinary
attention to visual details, such as using a different animal
(dog,
rooster, cat, snake) as a motif for each section,
writer/director/editor KIM Ki-duk has crafted a totally original
yet
universal story about the human spirit, moving from Innocence,
through Love and Evil, to Enlightenment and finally Rebirth.
more: http://movieweb.com/movies/synopsis.php2388
New York Magazine / Peter Rainer:
http://www.newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/movies/reviews/n_10130/
CINEMA:
from NDS
CAUTION: SPOILERS FOR THE MOVIE 'AMELIE'
Anyone see Amelie? Did you see a teaching about the nature of
reality and an enlightenment moment in it? In any case, it was a
very good and enjoyable movie. --Jerry
Amelie is a delightfully sweet movie. I saw it twice. Since I was
born in Italy, the European nuances in the movie brought back
fond memories of my childhood. When Amelie found the box, she
found her life's purpose (enlightenment?) and then charmingly
played with reality to make people happy. I'm all smiley, mushy
and teary-eyed again just thinking of it. Go see it everyone. I
recently saw the video "The Search for Signs of Intelligent
Life in the Universe" written by Jane Wagner and starring
Lily Tomlin. See it for the 'goose bumps'. -- Mary
I am too, but perhaps for a different reason...
It is a delightful movie. Amelie also discovered a rational
explanation of a mystery that she considered mystical (regarding
the
photo booth) and she realized, with a bit of prodding, that she
could
dare to love for her own joy. That's the enlightenment moment in
my
opinion. It's certainly a lesson for this frightened body-mind.
Go see it.
Love, Mark
When her boyfriend realized the guy who'd been dropping all the
photos was
only the photo booth repairman, he gave an 'aha' kind of laugh.
That the
repairman harshly opened the curtain between the boyfriend and
himself was a
symbol of a veil being torn away. For me the movie was about
moments of
surprise or resolution which remove a veil and bring one closer
to something
called reality. It's also interesting to see how it's not
necessary to deal
directly with situations, that a person can be themself and that
can add
charm to the universe. At this time almost every online guru is
very big on
getting to the point and dismissing everything everyone does.
Landmark and
all that. It's really sad. I say, hey, be yourself. Be indirect,
be
whatever. Be yourself. You already know your own teaching.
--Jerry
"The everyday practice is simply to develop a complete
acceptance and openness to all situations and
emotions, and to all people, experiencing everything
totally with out mental reservations and blockages, so
that one never withdraws or centralizes into oneself."
~Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche (from Daily Dharma)
M : Your life of purity and peace will enrich the world a
hundred-
fold more than you can even imagine you would be able to do
through a worldwide
marshalling of the forces of the states towards organized
philanthropy and material aid to needy humanity.
Hari Aum !!! --SVCS (the I Am list)
Dear Gloria and list,
As my mind is distracted by silly funny things most of the time,
this true saying from the Buddha only reminds me of my own
welfare and my favorite Monty Python Quote. I apologize in
advance if this is seen as off-topic here on this list, where a
serious tone is preferred, but I can not restrain from posting
it. Even Bhagavan was found reading Mickey-Mouse comics and
laughing cheerfully (see U.G Krishnamurti http://www.realization.org/page/doc0/doc0031.htm
) My quote is from a scene from Monty Python's movie "The
Meaning of Life". Interesting enough, although this
is the scene which gave the movie its title, it usually goes by
unnoticed by most of the viewers ...
_________
Script:
Three people at an office are discussing the meeting-agenda
see: http://tinyurl.com/646pw
CHAIRMAN:
.... Item six on the agenda: the meaning of life. Now, uh, Harry,
you've had some thoughts on this.
HARRY:
That's right. Yeah, I've had a team working on this over the past
few
weeks, and, uh, what we've come up with can be reduced to two
fundamental concepts. One: people are not wearing enough hats.
Two:
matter is energy. In the universe, there are many energy fields
which
we cannot normally perceive. Some energies have a spiritual
source
which act upon a person's soul. However, this soul does not exist
ab
initio, as orthodox Christianity teaches. It has to be brought
into
existence by a process of guided self-observation. However, this
is
rarely achieved, owing to man's unique ability to be distracted
from
spiritual matters by everyday trivia.
[pause]
BERT:
What was that about hats, again?
HARRY:
Oh, uh, people aren't wearing enough.
CHAIRMAN:
Is this true?
EDMUND:
Certainly. Hat sales have increased, but not pari passu, as our
research initially--
BERT:
But when you say 'enough', enough for what purpose?
GUNTHER:
Can I just ask, with reference to your second point, when you say
souls don't develop because people become distracted,...
[rumble]
...has anyone noticed that building there before?
see: http://tinyurl.com/6q2v8
> I am just watching the movie Groundhog Day. It really is
very much
> like what we do in life. We just have to do it over and over
and over
> until we get it right; otherwise we are stuck in time.
>
> Seems like this list would be useful for us to work on
getting
> ourselves right.
>
> Love, neo
The point was
That when you _can_ see your own shadow
You notice the light.
==GP==
You just summed up the whole justification for spiritual
psychotherapy
Gene. Thanks.
--jody.