(Display Name not set)January 2006 Archives

According to a Friend of a Friend, who just happens to be a big-shot Hollywood producer, “Son of Man,” which I blogged about here yesterday, is not the only movie dealing with issues of spirituality and redemption at this year’s Sundance Festival. In fact, he told me yesterday he is fascinated that the majority of films he has screened this week have wrestled with issues of faith in one way or another--a trend that he hasn’t seen in years past. So I thought I would pass along this Friend of a Friend of Mine’s (seriously, if I told you who he was, you’d be impressed) recommendations of the best of Sundance, which may be coming to an art-house theater near you in the coming months.

“Forgiven”: In a modern day Greek tragedy about our country's racial and social divide, writer/director/star Paul Fitzgerald plays Peter Miles, a district attorney running for state senator. On the eve of his campaign launch, the governor pardons Ronald Bradley, a man who Peter had put on death row. When pressed by the media, Peter chooses to stick to his story that Ronald is guilty of the cop killing. However, Ronald--suddenly a free man--knows that Peter has for six years possessed information proving Ronald's innocence and chose to ignore it. Ronald decides that it’s time for a confrontation with Peter, which ends with surprising consequences.

“Stephanie Daley”: Amber Tamblyn ("Joan of Arcadia") plays a high school student who denies knowing that she was pregnant and that she killed the child after giving birth in a ski resort bathroom. Tilda Swinton ("Chronicles of Narnia") is the psychologist hired by the prosecutor to evaluate the girl and find the truth, but in the process the doctor must face her own hidden pain over a loss of her own. In the process, both women confront pain, guilt, and grief.

And if my Friend of a Friend’s recommendations aren’t good enough, check out the Journal of Religion and Film’s glowing reviews of several other faith-based movies at Sundance, including "Adam’s Apples," about a middle-aged neo-Nazi who has been assigned community service at a country church, and "Jewboy," a story about the son of a Hasidic rabbi and his spiritual journey in the wake of his father’s death.

One of the movies causing the biggest buzz this week at the Sundance Film Festival, one of the most prestigious film festivals in the world, just happens to be a movie about Jesus--and Mel Gibson has nothing to do with it. Made in Capetown, South Africa, “Son of Man” turns the life of Christ into an African fable and takes selected events from the Bible and places them into a fictional modern-day African country filled with poverty and strife. In this film, Christ is a black child growing up in a shanty, and his mother, Mary, argues with angels. Later on, some of Christ's 12 disciples are women.

Director Mark Domford-May, in a recent interview with Reuters, explained his choices in portraying the life of Christ this way by saying, "We wanted to look at the gospels as if they were written by spin doctors and to strip that away and look at the truth."

While some in the religious community might not completely appreciate Domford-May’s implication that the gospels were written by a bunch of propagandists selling the latest ideology, I am excited at the discussion this film seems to be sparking. One blogger reports that the person at Sundance who introduced the film said the movie made him realize he was a “closet Christian.” CNN has also been covering the reactions to this film and did a piece on why this movie is speaking to some people in a way that “The Passion of the Christ” didn’t. Hmm... maybe that is in part because, unlike “The Passion” or even “The Last Temptation of Christ,” these filmmakers are relative unknowns and are not carrying the personal and professional “baggage” that Mel Gibson or Martin Scorsese brought with them to their projects about Christ.

Regardless, I hope that many truth seekers, as well as indie film buffs, will give this film a chance and enter into the dialogue about the Christ narrative.

One of the many reasons I enjoy watching Lost week after week is that the show can always be counted on to provide thought-provoking spiritual images that add to the fascinating mythology of the characters as well as the island. Last night’s episode centered around yet another religious image--water as a symbol of being baptized. However, unlike previous episodes, this time I was disappointed to watch the series writers give only the shallowest of treatments to a significant ritual.

Recovering addict and has-been rocker Charlie begins having surreal dreams about fellow survivor Claire’s baby, Aaron. Even as Claire continues to voice her distrust of Charlie after discovering he had been hiding a statue full of heroin, Charlie is increasingly convinced that he must stay close to Aaron because Aaron is about to be placed in some kind of danger and only Charlie can save him. Charlie also becomes fixated on something Mr. Eko said to him about having Aaron baptized. The problem is that in Charlie’s state of mind, baptism means placing Aaron in the raging ocean surf to drown.

Despite Charlie’s odd behavior , Claire does approach the “priest,” Mr. Eko, about baptizing her child in a more traditional way. To my horror, Mr. Eko then gives one of the worst explanations of baptism I have ever heard. Claire asks Eko what would happen if Aaron was baptized and she wasn’t; would Aaron go to heaven and she to hell? Eko responds by telling her that that wouldn’t happen if she simply decides to become baptized too, so she agrees. With no moment of confession, no sign that she believes in baptism as anything other than an insurance policy, Mr. Eko still performs this religious rite for both Claire and Aaron, and the ensuing montage is meant to have us believe all is well with their souls.

While baptism practices vary by religious affiliation, most baptism rituals have something in common--in a pure sense, baptism is meant to be a sign of connecting or identifying with something greater than ourselves in a way that brings significant change to our lives. It is not intended to be treated as a “get out of jail free” card or to be used as coercion to convince someone to convert to something. The fact that we don’t see Eko, a supposedly repentant man of God, explaining the true nature of baptism or encouraging any type of acknowledgment from Claire that she wishes to be spiritually connected or changed in some way before he baptizes her left me feeling that this is one time where the true spiritual meaning of an important religious rite was completely lost and no new insight for us as an audience was gained.

I tuned in last night to NBC’s Scrubs, a quirky sitcom about a group of doctors and residents, and was, to my surprise, treated to one of the best half-hours of television I have watched in a long time. The episode was called "My New God," which led me to expect yet another TV show mocking those of us who actively practice our religious beliefs. Instead, the episode offered a thoughtful and tender look at the struggles we all have with faith and doubt.

The main storyline focused on one doctor, Perry Cox, and his sister, Paige, who comes for a visit to see her baby nephew get baptized--something Perry is against. Perry is less than happy with his sister for another reason: She became a zealous born-again Christian since the last time he saw her. After numerous barbs about the pointlessness of believing in God and a cartoonish portrayal of a Christian by actress Cheryl Hines, the entire episode is suddenly redeemed at the baptismal service. The residents, as well as Dr. Cox himself (standing in the back of the church drinking a beer), attend the service, not necessarily as a sign of support or belief, but as an acknowledgement that while they don’t have all the answers, looking at the miracle of an innocent child as he is baptized is just enough to make them question their disbelief and reconsider the idea of faith in something greater than themselves.

An even-sweeter note of redemption closes the show, as Perry and Paige shoot basketball hoops and Perry admits that his struggle with Paige is not about God after all, but about his struggle with himself and his desire to forget his hurtful childhood. With such smart, fearless treatment of spirituality and human frailty (the second storyline, about a stolen Buddha, was also delightful), I will be checking back into this hospital more often.

I recently complained on this blog about the need to demand better family entertainment at the box office, but I saw a quirky, fun new family movie on a friend’s recommendation: “Hoodwinked,” which ended up being the surprise hit and top grossing flick at the box office this past weekend. “Hoodwinked” is a computer-animated fractured fairytale that retells the story of Little Red Riding Hood with a fresh twist, a la “Shrek,” by turning it into a comical detective story.

The movie begins where the original story leaves off. Chief Grizzly and Detective Bill Stork investigate a domestic disturbance at Granny's cottage, involving a girl, a wolf, and an axe. The charges are many: breaking and entering, disturbing the peace, intent to eat, and wielding an axe without a license. Taking a page from famous Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa’s classic film “Rashomon,” the movie’s events are also told from the viewpoint of various characters (Anne Hathaway, Glenn Close, and Jim Belushi all lend their voices to the project) in an effort to find out what really happened at Granny’s cottage that fateful day. While the movie is not quite as sassy as Shrek, and the animation is not quite up to the level of the Pixar films it is being compared to (unfairly, as this movie was made for much less), "Hoodwinked" is still smart, witty, and has enough in it to keep younger children as well as adults entertained.

An interesting side note is that the one of the directors of the project, Cory Edwards, is a Christian, and his story caught the eye of the L.A. Times, which profiled him and his partners recently. I find it extremely encouraging to know that in the ever-increasing dialogue between Hollywood and the religious community, Hollywood execs can find evidence of a filmmaker’s faith not only in overtly evangelistic movies about martyred missionaries or the end of the world, but also in movies about a little girl in a red cape with a wicked sense of humor.

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