I've been in Utah for 3 days and I'm just now able sit down and write out my many thoughts about all that I've seen. That's pretty much the best description about how fast this week moves. I saw 2 short films on Monday night, 4 full length films (2 documentaries, 2 features), and one film this morning. So far all of them have been entertaining, enlightening, and challenging to my current perspective on life, culture, and spirituality.
"White Earth" was the first thing I saw when I got here. It was a short film/documentary about the life of families living in North Dakota. The main focus is on the lifestyle of families who are supported by men who spend all their time working in oil fields. The director interviewed a young boy who spends all his days in a motor home playing video games, watching TV, and wandering around the streets of ND. Another perspective is from that of a woman and her young daughter trying to make ends meet while the father is constantly away working in the oil fields as well. The goal of the film was to show the hardships and sacrifices families have made in order to "provide" for their families. Everyone lives in cheap, run down motor homes in the icy tundra that is ND. The bleak nature of the oil towns heavily reflects the desperate and degrading nature of healthy families in the US. Both of the families shown in the film uprooted their lives in search of any kind of employment they could find with the hopes of giving their children a better life. However, the irony of their actions is that their families are going unprovided for when it comes to the true essentials of quality time and loving interactions between children and parents. I definitely felt so thankful for the city I grew up in, a warm place to sleep, and all the opportunities I could ever hope for in the way of education and basic resources like food and clothing.
"The Big House" was a short film about a boy in Yemen who is looking for a place to be free and playful. He ends up breaking into a high profile politicians house so he can run around, stack sofa cushions to climb, jump on the bed and many other playful activities. The boy says at the end that he finally has a "place to breath." It seemed to parallel the story of kids having no place to be kids seen in "White Earth" and having to grow up way too fast due to the hardships of their hometowns. It was a great short story about how all kids have an innate sense of joy, playfulness, and curiosity that must be enabled to grow in healthy environments free of continuous, traumatizing hardships that kill the beauty of their innocence.
Hellion is a story about a man named Hollis who is trying to raise two boys on his own near Galveston, Texas. One boy is in his teens and the other is around 10. The guys recently lost their mother in an unexplained accident of some kind. The movie chooses not to focus on the specifics of her death and rather how the family tries to cope with it. The father turns to rebuilding their dream house that was destroyed in a hurricane and drinking, while the oldest boy Jacob turns to pursuing his dream of being a motocross champion. The youngest boy seems relatively unharmed due to his age and maintains a joyful attitude throughout the film. Eventually, Hollis' neglect of his two boys (whom he loves very much) catches the attention of a social worker who gives custody of the youngest son to Hollis' sister-in-law. Hollis and Jacob soon begin fighting for custody of the last part of their family and chaos ensues. Ultimately, it is a story of battling grief and depression in order to avoid losing sight of what is still around and of true value. The story lagged a bit but there were amazing performances by the whole cast to make up for it. It reminded me of the storyline in "White Earth" as it focuses on fathers who truly love and want to support their families, but don't realize that their absence is harming their families more than anything else ever could.
Little Hope Was Arson is an amazing documentary about two boys in East Texas who burned down 10 churches in the span of a month or so. It is an amazing story about a community of faith's challenge to protect their churches while simultaneous struggling to love and forgive the boys who did it. Basically, two boys Jason and Daniel, had grown up in the church in East Texas but both encountered hardships in their late teens that caused them to abandon their faith. Jason's mom was a crack addict yet was raised by his grandparents who took him to church constantly. He was devoted to the church until he had a terrible break up his senior year of high school that led him to suffer from depression and he eventually got mixed up in the wrong crowd in college, which led him to a life filled with drug abuse. Daniel frequented the church growing up as well until his beloved mother unexpectedly suffered from a stroke and after 2 days of praying, sadly passed away. This broke his whole family and eventually his father tried to commit suicide. Daniel and his sister saw him hanging from a tree and Daniel lifted him up to take pressure off his neck while his sister cut the rope. They saved their father's life but Daniel was shaken to the core. He got into drugs as well and in their early 20's Jason and Daniel (who were childhood best friends) began burning churches in order to shake up the community and faith they resented.
Eventually they were caught through a series of incredible (seemingly divine) circumstances and at the trial they were both sentenced to multiple life sentences. I was most touched by the fact that church leaders stood up at the trial and asked for forgiveness for failing to help the boys and for failing to be a healthy community of support for them when they needed it most. Also, the best twist came at the end when Daniel's father, whom he helped save from his attempted suicide, ended up becoming a follower of Christ and goes to prison to see his son and ends up taking Daniel through a prayer to accept Jesus into his life. It was truly an unforgettable story about faith, forgiveness, community, grace, and love. Oh and the youth pastor who had Daniel and Jason in his Sunday school class ended up feeling so convicted that he quit his job (feeling as though he had been "slapped in the face by his own pride and hypocrisy) in order to become a truck driver sharing the Gospel and his testimony in as many places across the country as possible. This is the reason I love film and appreciate the power of storytelling above all else when it comes to evangelism. "To deny how hard it is to forgive, is to deny how amazing grace is." -Theo Love, Director of Little Hope Was Arson
Hits is a ridiculous satire of pop culture today. It focuses on a father and daughter both seeking attention in different ways. The anal, activist father is trying to get his city council to be more vigilant about fixing things like potholes in his street and stop signs at intersections, and his wild outburst at town hall meetings become a viral success on youtube thanks to a group of New York city hipsters who find Mr. Stuben's struggle against City Council a direct parallel to fighting Hitler's regime in WWII. David Cross (Tobias from Arrested Development) wrote and directed it and he is shameless in his mockery of "hipster activist" culture that takes vigilant stands against all sorts of social injustices all while trying to make vegan friendly baby clothing and organic, homemade cardboard boxes from home. It's over the top in its depiction of hipster slang, wardrobe, and overall cultural attitude but often hilarious as well. While Mr. Stuben is fighting for social justice and slowly becoming a bigger and bigger internet success, his 19 year old daughter is obsess with becoming famous at any cost. She believes she is a fantastic singer when she is actually horrible tone-deaf. She believes she is going to get on to the Voice, become a pop-sensation, and eventually reach her life-long dream of getting on to Ellen. Eventually, she becomes so desperate that she has sex with a lowlife, amateur musician so that he will record her demo to send into the Voice. He ends up making a sex-tape out of it and that is actually what rockets her to her dream of success, which she fights at first but then when she gets an invite to be on Ellen, feels completely fulfilled. Overall, I felt the movie made a humorous critique of how desperate our culture is for attention. We often feel like we are unheard and unfulfilled, as if we have no purpose in life, so we seek to fight for some cause (any cause, even getting potholes fixed) in order to have purpose, identity, and attention. The daughter was the perfect depiction of how my generation feels entitled to fame no matter how little talent we may have. With the advancement of technology, all it takes is one ridiculous youtube clip or sex tape to attain the highest levels of fame. The greatest irony comes at the end when all the diverse groups of hipsters attend a city hall meeting to document their support for Mr. Stuben and he actually ends up going on a tirade against the "jews in Hollywood" and our "N****r president Obama" complete with an analogy about how Barak means "lightening" and in the Bible it says "Satan came down like lightening (Barak)". Ultimately, the befuddled group of hipster activists looks foolish cheering for a man who completely hates everything they stand for and is an accurate representation of how misinformed/misguided our society actually is these days.
Alive Inside has been my favorite thing I've watched so far. It's a documentary about social workers who are trying to get personal music provided for Alzheimer's/Dementia/patients with other mental disorders. What the main guy found was that listening to music from patient's youth helped jog their memory and energy level in ways that no other medication could. It was beautiful to watch people come back to live after deteriorating for years in nursing homes that look more like hospitals than homes. One of the doctors said "All traditional medicine has learned to do is turn the dials. If you have high blood pressure, we turn the dial down with this pill. We haven't done anything to touch the heart and soul of a patient." I was basically in tears the whole movie because it was so beautiful to watch these people who have basically internalized their whole being due to the nature of their medication, environment, and illness become revitalized by the simple power of an iPod. They lit up when they heard tunes like Stand By Me by Ben King, classics from the Beatles, Louis Armstrong, Sinatra, and even some Latin Jazz. One woman who had been confined to a walker began to do the Salsa with her therapist! They could barely remember the names of their families but they could remember all the words to their favorite songs. With those memories brought an aliveness they had been missing for years. It was absolutely beautiful. One neuroscientist noted the parallel between our hearts and music. He said that even 22 days after conception all the cells of our tiny body begin to beat in unison, on that's the formation of our heart. He said "The desire to beat in unison fuels our entire lives." Also, he mentioned that music stimulates several different parts of the brain simultaneously as music is attached to muscle memory, cultural memory, and most importantly emotional memory. One old man said that listening to his favorites from the 40's reminded him of having a girl in his arms. Another old couple rekindled a connection as they both listened to "Can't Keep My Eyes Off of You" and held hands as the husband began to recognize his wife again. I could go on and on but I'm starting to tear up again and I'm in a public place ;) Here are some youtube clips attached below so you can get a taste of it. Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKDXuCE7LeQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sd5S_hADV30
Whiplash is feature film about a college freshman at a prestigious music conservatory pursuing his passion to become the best drummer ever. His music teacher is ruthless, played by J.K. Simmons, and constantly hurdles profane insults at the boys while even slapping the main character Neiman in the face several times in order to teach him how to properly keep tempo. It was a shocking perspective of how hard musicians are pressed to their limits of near perfection in order to attain greatness in a highly competitive field. Neiman eventually sacrifices just about everything to pursue greatness under Fletcher (the gifted yet abusive music teacher). This movie was amazing at creating tension and depicting the brutal discipline of mastering musical technique. It also held the audience in suspense as the Neiman was constantly put in the spotlight and pressured to perform perfectly or loose his prized position in the best band in the best conservatory in the US. Whiplash is one of those movies that looks at the pursuit of greatness and asks "at what cost...?" I loved it and the music was phenomenal as it's all complex jazz music. I have to say, even some of the teachers insults made me laugh out loud on several occasions. My favorite quote from the movie had to be when Fletcher (an old school jazz musician) says "Starbucks killed jazz." I highly recommend it if it ever makes its way to theaters!
That's it for now! I have about 5 more left so I'll do another post as soon as I get a break from the hustle and bustle on Friday morning. Peace and Love to you all!
-Colt
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