Sundance Review #3

This will be my third and final review of films at Sundance. I cannot believe how fast this week has gone. I finally took a nap this afternoon from 2-4 and it was heavenly. My only regret about his week is that I didn’t have more time to do so in the middle of the week. To say that my only regret is that I didn’t sleep enough tells you that this trip has been an absolute blast. I’m thoroughly convinced about the power of storytelling to shape how we think about our own lives, the lives of everyone around us and our entire culture. Stories are the foundation of ministry, and movies are the most popular forms of modern day parables. One of our professors earlier in the week said, “Parables are an affliction to the comfortable, and a comfort to the afflicted.” That pretty much sums up my experience at Sundance.

The Green Prince was the only documentary at Sundance that really fell short of my expectations. It’s an incredible story about the relationship between a secret service agent from the Israeli Shin Bet and his undercover Islamic, Palestinian operative. It’s basically the story of a spy and his handler who come from two completely opposite sides of the conflict in Israel. The spy, also known as the Green Prince, is the son of the leader of the terrorist/activist group called Hamas. He goes to work for the Shin Bet once he realizes that Hamas is not all that it says it stands for and begins suicide bombing many different parts of the Middle East. Eventually the Israeli agent is fired for getting too close to the Green Prince and breaking protocol, so they both end up leaving their original mission of bringing down Hamas. The Green Prince came to America and actually converted to Christianity while the Shin Bet officer became a lawyer. It’s an amazing story, but all the documentary showed was just close ups of the character’s faces while they told the story. There was no action or movement or comedic relief, it was monotone the whole time. It was as if the teacher from Ferris Bueller’s day off told you the story.  This was the only film I would say was “bad” at Sundance.

Son of God is the new Mark Burnett film about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I don’t have much to say about it because it’s just a compilation of the 4 Gospels. I liked what they did with it, even the some of the freedom they took with the film. It opens with John on the island of Patmos looking back on his days with Jesus and how Jesus was there all along throughout history. They did a good job of making Jesus a little tougher than he’s been before, but I would have still liked a bit more fired in his eyes. They did opt to go with a stunningly handsome Jesus (if I may say so myself), which is always slightly off-putting to me because it feels like typical Hollywood. Otherwise, it’s relatively flawless in executing 2 hour, entertaining depiction of the complete life of Jesus. Obviously some stories are missing, but I believe it will be a great tool to start conversations throughout the world with people who aren’t familiar with the details of Jesus’ whole life.

Rudderless this was the last film I saw and my favorite of the festival! It will probably become one of my all time favorite movies, especially as an acoustic guitar playing, singer-songwriter who just got into doing open mic nights.

(WARNING! SPOILERS TO FOLLOW- and this film will be in theatres this year sometime)

The story is about a man named Sam who is a suave businessman who is distant from his wife and son. One day, Sam’s son Josh tragically dies in a school shooting. Sam starts drinking heavily and ends up losing his job and moving into a boat on a lake to escape the community filled with memories of his son. One day Sam’s wife drops off a box of Josh’s stuff, including a guitar and a bunch of CD’s that his son recorded of the songs he wrote. Sam begins learning his dead son’s songs and eventually starts performing them at a local bar’s open mic night where he catches the attention of a squirrely young man named Quentin who dreams of being a musician.  Quentin falls in love with the Sam’s songs and stalks him to his boat to repeatedly beg him to collaborate with him. Eventually he wears Sam down and they start performing together. Quentin slowly starts integrating other local musicians into their group and they form a band called “Rudderless”.

Their band becomes a huge local success and they start headlining at the bar they frequented. Sam’s boldness helps Quentin conquer his stage fright while Quentin’s passion to play more and more helps Sam get to know the son he never had via his songs.

(THIS IS WHERE THE SPOILER HAPPENS)

As Rudderless becomes a local sensation, they get invited to play at a huge festival in town. The morning that they are to perform, Josh’s old girlfriend confronts the band and tells them the truth about where their songs came from. It turns out that Sam’s son was the school shooter who shot 6 college students before ending his own life. Quentin feels betrayed and cancels their appearance at the festival. The dissolution of their band finally forces Sam to confront his feelings about his son and allow himself to grieve properly. Sam then reaches out to Quentin and encourages him to keep going and stop hiding his talents and passions just because he feels betrayed by Sam. Quentin had sold his guitars to a local music shop and Sam found them and returned them to Quentin, but with a twist. Sam bought Quentin his dream guitar that he would visit often throughout the film, and with this peace offering, Quentin starts up the band again and begins playing his own original music.

The movie ends with Sam returning to the open mic night he started at and performs the last song his son ever wrote, but never finished. Sam opens by telling everyone who he is, who his son was, and how the song came to be. In a beautiful finale, Sam plays his son’s last song about finding hope and love in a very broken world and finally stops hiding from who he truly is.

I’m telling you, this soundtrack will be amazing whenever it comes out. They were beautiful anthems filled with symbolic and often comedic imagery. Every time Sam and the band played a new song that his son had written the audience was filled with smiles and sniffles, as we knew where the material really came from. While there is an awful tragedy at the heart of this story, it is ultimately about overcoming the darkest parts of who we are in order to pursue our greatest passions.