|
By Peter T. Chattaway
FESTIVAL season is upon us once again, and films that tackle themes near and
dear to the heart of the Christian moviegoer are making the rounds from Toronto
to Telluride.
Alas, only a few of those films will be coming to this year’s Vancouver International Film Festival, which runs October 1 –16. Titles like Agora, Vision, Creation, Tsar, Hadewijch and Cleanflix have piqued my interest ever since reviews began trickling in from around the
world – but they won’t be coming to our corner of the Pacific Northwest just yet.
That being said, with more than 350 movies on this year’s schedule, the festival cannot help but feature a number of noteworthy films
that touch on spiritual themes.
The only film I was able to see in advance that put Christian themes front and
centre was, admittedly, one of the more negative specimens. The Spanish film Camino (October 9, 11, 14) concerns a terminally ill girl whose mother is a devout
member of Opus Dei, the conservative Catholic group that was cast as the
villain in Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code.
As the girl lies dying in the hospital, she has vivid fantasies of being an
actress and playing with her boyfriend, among other things. But her mother, who
believes the girl’s suffering is a gift from God, interprets nearly everything her daughter says
and does as a sign of religious devotion – the better to improve the girl’s chances of canonization.
Other films, which I did not see in advance, sound a bit more promising.
Letters to Father Jacob (October 1, 11, 15), for example, concerns a tough, skeptical female ex-con who
helps a blind, elderly pastor answer his mail.
The film, which hails from Finland, is being billed as a story about “redemption and self-forgiveness”.
I am also intrigued by the Australian film My Year Without Sex (October 10, 13), which concerns a woman who has to abstain from marital
relations after a brain aneurysm almost kills her. Along the way, she meets a
former pop star who has since become an Anglican minister. One critic wrote
that “even non-believers will likely warm to this sweet survivor, who helps Natalie
approach the many meaning-of-life issues arising from her brush with death.”
Turning to other faiths, I did get to see a documentary called Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam (October 3, 5), which offers a fascinating look at young North American Muslims – most significantly a convert named Michael Muhammad Knight – whose rebellion against both mainstream culture and the pieties of their fellow
Muslims might ring a bell or two for anyone familiar with the fringes of the
Christian rock scene.
It should be noted that these musicians are not out to promote the faith, per
se; and indeed, for some of them, being Muslim is more a matter of ethnicity or
politics than religion – so their songs tend to be, shall we say, earthier than the Christian-rock
analogy might suggest.
As Knight puts it, “In the so-called war of civilizations, we’re giving the finger in both directions.” But Knight and others depicted in the film do genuinely wrestle with how to
balance their faith and their culture.
Also worth a look is Defamation (October 1, 4, 5), Israeli director Yoav Shamir’s search for signs of anti-Semitism around the world.
Continue article >>
|
Shamir, who says he has never experienced any prejudice himself, suggests that
Jews both in Israel and abroad have exaggerated the threat of anti-Semitism in
ways that are not healthy; but he also stumbles across examples of it in some
rather unexpected places. Definitely a provocative conversation-starter.
I hope to see plenty of other films in the next few weeks. I will be posting
brief notes on the festival and the films I see at the Christianity Today Movies Blog.
* * *
Ricky Gervais is an atheist, so it makes sense that his co-directorial debut, The Invention of Lying, would take a few digs at religion. But there’s a little more to it than that.
The film takes place in a world where nobody has ever told a lie, and people
frequently say mean things to each other because they feel no need to hide
their true feelings. When a down-on-his-luck loser named Mark (Gervais)
suddenly develops the ability to lie, he is able to cheat his way to fame and
fortune because everyone believes everything he says.
But Mark does not merely cater to his own selfish wants; he also uses his
newfound ability to make other people feel better about themselves – and along the way, he invents stories about heaven, hell and a “man in the sky” that everyone takes very literally.
Most of the jabs at religion are actually fairly mild. The deeper point here
seems to be, if anything, a dissatisfaction with the “selfish gene” brand of atheism pushed by Richard Dawkins and the like. In some ways, the film’s view of human nature is pretty bleak – but it also yearns for something better. That, at least, is something we can
engage with.
– filmchatblog.blogspot.com
October 2009
|
