Easter 2024: The Matrix Resurrection

The Joy of the Risen One be with you! Welcome to Easter at Between The Stools 2024 – a birthday, for us, and our topic today.

This day – 31^st March – marks the 25^th anniversary of the US release of cult sci-fi film, The Matrix. In 1999 it was also Easter, which seemed not to be an accident, for the film and its follow ups have many christological elements (and coded messages).

https://play.acast.com/s/between-the-stools/

Tthe recording transfer made it faster, so slowing is recommended

Our title comes from the 4th movie. Today we think of THE Resurrection through the lens of this universe.

Even if you’re not that into science fiction, or even movies, you’ll likely have heard of the Matrix films and also of the central challenge: whether to take the red or blue pill. The red pill will awaken you to a shocking reality, but you can begin to publicly uncover it and fight it; whereas swallowing the blue will keep you in unknowing servitude. As I watched the first film in a concrete Odeon in Norwich, a companion said, “Why didn’t he take the blue pill, then we could all have gone huum [home]”!!

Even with such un-engaged co-watchers, I sensed that The Matrix had something real to say.

The films were near the truth for many in the New Age, Ascensionist circles. There is a still active website of that ilk called “How To Exit The Matrix” listing most aspects of our world as ways The Unseen Powers manipulate us, from tax to institutions, and yes, movies. One 2018 article begins: “Among those who have already woken up, the movie The Matrix has become like an icon. As a movie it is a fictional story, but as a myth it shows exactly what is, and reflects the changes that are going on with humanity’s consciousness and its connection to the Earth energy grids.”

There’s more than one YouTube video called “The Matrix was a documentary” – misunderstanding docs once again, which is a filmmaking genre and style, not truth – but I take their intended point. I’ve heard from more than once source that The Matrix is oft discussed in churches; I’ve read online Christian forums on it – this isn’t the first sermon on it. That Theology Teacher has a video subtitled “How the Matrix is a modern retelling of the Gospel”, referencing the 2003 book The Gospel Reloaded by Chris Seay. It is not the only such tome. But one Christian videographer sees it as Satanic and Gnostic (the same in his eyes); other evangelicals are critical of the Eastern philosophy.

I am disappointed in that; I hope we’re a community that doesn’t sweepingly dismiss and see things that are strange or opposite as being evil, especially before we’ve taken time to understand them.

The Matrix is also understood in secular circles as referencing societal truth. Popular philosophy book series quickly chose the franchise for its own; one was entitled “Taking the Red Pill”. The Huffington Post had an article in 2016 about The Matrix and the capitalist work rat race. Reviewers said of the 2010 book 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism that author Ha-Joon Chang “has likened free-market capitalism to that of the brainwashed characters in the film The Matrix, unwitting pawns in a fake reality.”

Comedian JP Sears made a sketch in 2020 about “Blue Pill People” regarding covid. In March that year, just as shops closed, I sought out these films as intuitively, as they felt apposite to whatever was really happening. Indeed, with rise of artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, and talk of transhumanism (being part machine, and remotely controllable), The Matrix felt as apt to me as the Wachowskis’ later work V For Vendetta did (hence I preached on it).

There is huge analysis of the canon which includes a computer game and Animatrix prequel series; clearly it is a rich topic, and one I hope we can enjoy exploring together and feel is relevant to now.

SPOILER ALERT

PRAYER AND MUSIC: opening theme of The Matrix by Don Davis (as is all music today)

Some of you might feel a leap of heart at those now iconic brass dissonant chords; I’ve even heard them analysed musically (although I think wrongly) but it’s interesting that some claim that message and symbolism begins whilst still on the film studio’s emblem. I hear those horns like storm warnings: two realities signified in the pairs of chords. The ensuing rush of strings sounds like resurrection; the lines of code show it visually.

It repays close (re)watching, with colours of rooms and clothing reflecting the two famous pills, the green of the Matrix and its code (also referenced in rain) and the as yet uninitiated ‘copper tops’; the names of people, places and space ships infer underlying motifs and philosophies, as do numbers.

I’m noting the numerology in the dates of the release of the 1st film, 31.3.1999 (reduces to 8), the 4^th film (22.12.2021 reduces to 3) and when I saw it (6/6/2022 = 666, reduces to 9).

The screenplays have some beautiful ‘black stuff’ – the industry word for the descriptions between dialogue. The Wachowskis find ways to make even a screen of computer code come to life:

“A blinding cursor pulses in the electric darkness like a heart coursing with phosphorous light, burning beneath the derma of black-neon glass”. Later, they describe black clouds as “obsidian” and speak of Neo’s victory as “a brilliant cacophony of light” using one sense to explain another.

I recognise the love and respect for these films and that some listeners may know them far better than I. I hope I won’t alienate and disappoint when I admit that I struggled whilst preparing this, and I don’t mean intellectually.

What had appealed to me when I made not just Easter but the whole of this year based on a theme set by this quarter century anniversary?

I did so on intuition two years ago, but (like in the 2^nd film), it was a choice that I didn’t yet understand but felt that I should stay committed to. Some of that choice and draw, connected to the date of the anniversary, is a personal matter, and not all of that will be revealed here; but I’m trusting that my guidance to The Matrix at this time will be.

I’ll be honest that this isn’t often the kind of film I see: I’m not wowed by action or effects, don’t find sunglasses and flying fights cool, but do find the high octane antics and horror hard to watch. (Recall what I said in Lent about how movies make us feel). I realised too that the Matrix world view didn’t really fit with mine, and that I feel more limited preaching on it on Easter Sunday.

I found myself asking: what truly is Easter about? What should be its message? What is appropriate for this high holy day? I even found myself asking why I defended the notion of the One Saviour, against the prevalent tide that we are our own and should not give our power away to external Others. Why is death and sacrifice so important to any story, but especially to the Christian one?

Will you take a deep dive to uncode these with me?

——

There are many philosophies in The Matrix, but there is a 1981 book which is explicitly referenced twice [in scenes 12 and 39], and is rumoured to have been required reading for those on set. Simulacra and Simulation by Jean Paul Baudrillard – which I read – is based on nihilism, and felt convoluted assertions that conveyed little meaning for me, in either sense. I wonder if The Matrix is trying to be the new kind of science fiction of pages p119-24? Hence I soon realised that if this book was so integral to the Matrix films, that I was going to not acquiesce.

——-

What is the human condition?

Do the Matrix films literally try to tell us we’re enslaved by machines – or could be? Or is it the ‘programming’ and being unaware and the invisible slavery and manipulation by others?

The Matrix for the New Age is about conscience, not computers, but eons old clandestine control. Their tenets clash with Christian teaching and scripture: that we’ve been taken over by alien entities, seemingly leaving any God and angels helpless. I don’t like where this idea of aliens leaves God as Creator, for that’s a huge part of my theology and understanding of my self: that I was deliberately and lovingly created by a loving and powerful and good God.

I soon saw that there are difficulties in paralleling this film with the life and work of Jesus:

-No fall of humanity; rather, the rise of the machines; the human-built entities rebel against us

I don’t think The Matrix series explains where life on Earth came from: that Creator is missing

-Neo, the hero of The Matrix is grown by machines, whilst Jesus was born of God and a woman

-Neo is told and needs persuading that he’s the One; whilst Jesus knew…possibly even as a boy

-Jesus, unlike Neo, is never ‘asleep’. He doesn’t need a mentor to find, rescue and train him

-Jesus calls disciples to him; but Neo is called to an existing group headed by another

-Christ rescues and awakens Mary Magdalene, but in The Matrix, she (as Trinity) finds and awakens him, removing the ‘demon’ of the embedded tracer [a horrific couple of scenes]

-The Prophesied One in The Matrix was a foretold reincarnation of a human born inside the Matrix; he is in fact the 6^th ‘One’. Some posit Jesus in a line of the dying and rising saviour trope, but traditional Christian theology is that Jesus is unique. There is a Christian exploration of the pre-existence of Christ; this can simply mean that his spirit had already come into being, but some say he was in Melchizedek, Enoch and Elijah of the Old Testament, while he is more conventionally seen as being foreshadowed by Moses, Boaz, perhaps David, and even in Job.

-Much of what Neo does is inside a computer simulation, swinging unconscious in a hammock!

-Neo doesn’t do miracles which benefit the public, as Jesus did

-Neo fights physically, although Jesus is not recorded to have done a single kung fu move

-Jesus overcomes the world is through seeming submission to violence; Neo battles literally

However, I did wonder if the philosophy behind The Matrix’s signature “Bullet Time” – bending away from attack rather than returning it – was closer to the way in which Jesus overcame

-Neo has a mission to awaken the world after he’s resurrected (the first time) – Jesus teaches before

-There is a betrayer in The Matrix – Cypher; in the 4^th instalment, there’s a Jude. But Cypher betrays Morpheus, the awakener, anointer, father-ish figure, not Neo the Christed one.

-Judas betrays the One with a kiss; Trinity resurrects him (but see my Judas piece of 3 years ago)

-Can The Matrix main 3 characters be a trinity: Morpheus, Neo and Trinity, rather than just the last?

That Theology Teacher video I mentioned calls her the Holy Spirit, which is feminine in Greek; she does enter Neo as the Spirit enters Jesus and us, but I see Carrie-Anne Moss’s character as more Mary Magdalene, but not the Church’s view! I have more to say on Carrie-Anne’s character.

-No-one in The Matrix fits the Christian God: Morpheus, who is clearly mortal, is mistaken (regarding his power to create ones by anointing them); the ‘mother’ Oracle is a program who is swallowed by an evil character; and the Analyst and Architect are cold, egotistical, and ultimately malevolent: the first is proudly ‘efficient’ at destroying his creation, and the second manipulates humans for misery and energy. The Deus Ex Machina is huge, trying to overwhelm with its presence, speaking in capitals, spewing rage, and telling Neo “WE DON’T NEED YOU!”, recalling traditional Christian theology teaching that God is not contingent on humans for anything. These are the typically bad gods of prevalent understanding, which also appear in The Brand New Testament and Good Omens

-Neo’s work isn’t about bringing the world back to God, or out of sin, overcoming death and the devil. There is no fear of eternal punishment for not believing in the Matrix and following Neo; only a human life cycle in a pod, followed by recycling your remains.

One may point out that the Gospels don’t spell this out of Jesus: this is how he’s understood later.

I want us to pause here: Both narratives involve horror, but only in traditional Christianity does the Creator God inflict it on humanity as punishment. I’d like you to think on how strange that teaching is: that Jesus isn’t saving us from malevolent machinations, but his own Father, our father…doesn’t that sound like a trick of an Agent in Machine City?

-Could forgiveness – so central to Christianity – even be said to feature in The Matrix?

-Neo isn’t publicly executed on false charges

He’s only dead for moments (the first time) and then preserved comatose for over 60 years at the behest of a malevolent character in IV, via machines; Jesus was raised on the 3^rd day by God’s power

-Neo doesn’t die fully in the first film; I have rejected that about Jesus (see a post on Sylvia Browne)

-Neo becomes the One when he is rebooted. Jesus’ teaching and miracles indicate he was Christed before crucifixion….but might there be something to consider about the New, pre-ascension Jesus?

-I did see a parallel between the final city in Matrix Revolution and that of Revelation 22; but all futuristic cities I’ve seen are ugly and high rise (cf my Pom Poko post) and lacking in nature. I’d like to think the New Jerusalem has more in common with old cities.

I decided that it was more comfortable to see the Matrix as a superhero myth, informed by various philosophies (in names alone, there’s Hindu, ancient Greek, Egypt as well as the Bible and early European kings). The makers are purposefully silent on their work and wish to allow discussion without imposition.

I note that Matrix green is close to the colour of grass. Here, in spring, it’s lush and verdant, embodying the new life of Easter. And green is for growth; and the Matrix is about personal growth.

It’s also like the green screen technology that the cast will have spent a long time in front of. They have to hold in their heads a vision of something as yet unseen, or perhaps to act without full understanding, in trust. Is there any lesson there?

That green is The Green Lantern’s titular lamp and Superman’s kryptonite. The Green Lantern is told by other guardians that it’s the colour of will, which is key to his story. Isn’t The Matrix also about will?…will and the mind. We hear little about will in Christianity except God’s, and subduing ours. Can we seek God’s will and strengthen our own?

—-

When I looked at the first film as a myth, it felt classical more than original.

I noted the use of horror shock to awaken Neo in real world – is that fair or necessary in ours?

I was shocked to take in that the much lauded red pill is merely “a tracing program”. That hardly felt like what SARK might call an ‘alive choice’, or a call to adventure or taking up the gauntlet.

I am alarmed by the amount of tracing being done in our world!

Note that the manumission involves making the machines work against themselves (is that like The Art of War?)

Central to all the film is discerning who is true and truth telling.

Neo is told – especially regarding the Oracle – that’s he’s told what he needs to hear. That phrase is usually regarding tough love (which I’ve critiqued), but in The Matrix, it is the information that drives you to the next post and to fulfil your mission…which ultimately Neo and Trinity do.

In the fourth instalment, they meet old friends and foes in different formats, as if their soul’s development needs to encounter them again. The yin to his mission is separated and obfuscated, yet there was a draw to each other that went beyond ordinary sense.

It was that point which most interested me

I have spoken before of Twin Flames. I see Trinity and Neo as fitting this concept. Jesus and Mary can be viewed thus, although I have issues with Jesus being part of a couple. My understanding is that twin relationships don’t have to be conventionally romantic.

I have heard the male-energy unawakened twin called the “matrix twin”. Neo, the biological male, is literally asleep at the beginning of the first film, and the female (with much male energy) is integral to his awakening: she writes the message on his computer and talks to him at the party she persuades him to; she is also the enabler of his fulfilment.

I believe that like the parts actors play, we’re drawn to stories at particular times to help us heal things and learn things. Carrie-Anne Moss, who plays Trinity, said this in an interview (with Lewis Hows, posted Jan 2022). She said she looks at life ‘as an ongoing exploration of my soul’…and the things which get in the way. She accepted that The Matrix role would be hers if it was her destiny, and not if it was someone else’s. Carrie-Anne is clearly a spiritual, grounded person, and who facilitates others on their spiritual journey.

I noted how much her all black leather costumes recall that of Sarah Douglas as Ursa in the 70s/80s Superman movies (we’ll be with those in December). Ursa (who is part of a triad) and Trinity both have the same powers as the hero. Ursa is pure villain. Yet, twenty years on, the same outfit is that of a heroine.

I note how much Neo’s outfit looks like a priest’s cassock. Doesn’t this picture recall a priest, doing the ‘magic’ over mass? And yet many would suggest that organised religion, especially big chain churches, are all about keeping masses in the Matrix…in fact, the capital C churches probably designed it!

In the Matrix, characters emerge as grey from the second movie; unlike code, they are not binary. But there are still those who are evil, posing as helpers and confidantes. They appear when Trinity and Neo get near the truth or each other, pretending to rescue when it actually sabotages. Neo is fed blue pills and told he is mentally ill whilst Trinity is wrapped in a family life too busy for her to ask many questions. (I think the analyst is the husband). It’s revealed that Trinity and Neo have been kept alive to balance and power a new Matrix, and that their suffering and yearning but not sating is useful energy. Hence they may meet, even recognise each other – although both are given different faces – but not able to connect. The powers that be are frightened of what will happen if they do.

I wondered about this translating to our world. It’s not that I think we’re often steered with malicious intent. I believe that we have multiple important people in our lives, and not just one supreme beloved. But I have sat with the possible implications of the above.

I’d foreseen that Trinity is an ‘anomaly’ and thus jointly The One; at the very start, she can use a kind of bullet time in fighting that Neo learns to attain. She fuses with Neo by the end of the franchise, and breaks out of the controlling illusion put upon her via flying. The threat (of a helicopter trying to kill them on the roof of a tall building) actually facilitates Trinity and Neo learning to fly in the Real World, ascending as Jesus did, building a new Heaven and Earth.

I want us to spend some moments with that scene in Resurrections: in a world where the sun has been scorched into permanent darkness, Trinity witnesses a sun rise. It’s that sun rise that helps them have power; the power to turn the helicopter’s attack back on itself – is that what Easter victory is?

MUSIC from that scene

Play from 2.22m – no horror        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3H4tIwIo1uU

(I don’t like signposting to YouTube)

from 56 sec

——-

The Easter Eggs of the Matrix

The first gift of The Matrix was making me reconsider what I actually believe and what its basis is, and whether the traditional teaching of the Gospel is good news. This is valuable and ongoing: I would love to be about to discuss this over a meal with you. (Write and tell me, until we meet).

My usual idea of an Easter message is one of hope and victory that we can relate to our world. It is about a unique, superlative long-expected saviour overcoming an evil enemy; a singular event and life that affects all life, including ours now. It is a story about freedom. It is about awakening, being called, living apart, spreading a message – although that all fits both The Matrix and Christianity, can The Matrix fit with Christianity?

I’m left with the question regarding the clash of the traditional Easter message, and the very different terminology and focus of other circles that I at least partly move in. I literally find myself between the stools.

What are we being saved from and awakened to?

Is salvation about personal growth and freedom?

I love that love is so central to fulfilment and salvation in the Matrix

and that in order to conquer, you have to break the rules; rules hamper

The popularity of the Matrix series means that people are thinking about deeper issues, and even if Neo isn’t exactly Christlike, it can point to the One who Is.

I’m intrigued by those of varying beliefs who see the film series as messages from the divine to us. Movies can be like mirrors in the film, a way to see and break out. I think that God has been sending us several quite similar mirrors – we may look at some this year together.

The films encourage us to exit the Matrix, to question, to support others living outside, to rebuild.

Might we consider to what extent we live in the Matrix, controlled by others, and how we might unplug and live differently? The Matrix as a real world concept resonates. Faith isn’t the full journey to being awake; there are, in my opinion and experience, other layers. I believe with many others that it is true that all aspects of our society are designed to control and numb us. I hope I help raise awareness of that here. I believe that energy is essential and can be used to power others. This is not in the Bible…but could that too be compromised? I also wonder if the films have been, and the pro-machine message worries me. I consider that AI is like the atomic bomb and I do not support the use of either.

For Neo, who talks to camera at the end of the first film (as much as us as the machines):

“I can’t tell you how to get there, but if you free your mind you’ll find the way”.

I’ll put his full speech below.

That’s quite different from orthodox Christianity, but I too don’t feel I can tell you; like the Wachowskis, I don’t want to dictate. I am still assimilating some new ideas.

I can say that there is need to awaken and be free. Unlike in The Matrix, it’s not too late, you’re not too old, nor is there only one chance (in fact he has two, the second in his mature years).

It might seem that with Jesus too, the accomplishment was short lived: why is the world at least as bad since his death and victory? Yet it has inspired working towards a greater, permanent time of peace.

I do think that is descriptive of these extraordinary times.

Despite efforts to stop them, Trinity and Neo do ‘remember us’ and complete their work.

I’d like to leave you with the words that they do. It’s clearly an invitation to a joint and corporate (and  I don’t mean company but concerted) rebuilding effort.

Free your mind – but also body, heart and soul

We’re back on April 26^th with Shakespeare in Love

Do let me know where you are, who you are and what you think

Blessings and love to you

and thank you for joining me

Elspeth betweenthestools@hotmail.co.uk

Neo’s words at end of 1^st Matrix:

Hi. It’s me. I know you’re out there. I can feel you now.

I imagine you can also feel me
You won’t have to search for me anymore. I’m done running. Done hiding. Whether I’m done fighting, I suppose, is up to you

I believe deep down, we both want this world to change. I believe that the Matrix can remain our cage or it can become our chrysalis, that’s what you helped me to understand.

That to be free, you cannot change your cage.
You have to change yourself. I DON’T AGREE
When I used to look out at this world, all I could see was its edges, its boundaries, its rules and controls, its leaders and laws.

But now, I see another world. A different world where all things are possible.

A world of hope. Of peace.
I can’t tell you how to get there,
but I know if you can free your mind, you’ll find the way.

Good Friday 2024

Usually, today is a crunch point in a story we’ve been following for some time.

We’ve perhaps, like Anna and Simeon, been watching for signs of the prophesies in the Scriptures. We’ve celebrated Jesus’ birth, his avoidance of the slaughter of infants, fast forwarded to the snippet of his childhood at the temple, and jumped twice as long again to the start of his ministry. We’ve witnessed him be baptised, begin preaching, calling disciples, doing miracles. We’ve seen him slowly reveal who he is and waited for the disciples to catch up. Meanwhile, a plot against Jesus begins. What is the turning point that made the so-called authorities come after him? And then, this week, Holy Week, has almost daily incidents. We waved palms at Jesus’s entry to Jerusalem, knowing that his public lauding will soon turn. We’ve eaten a final supper with him and our friends. We’ve seen Judas sneak out and receive payment. We kept watch last night in the garden and witnessed that insidious kiss and the arrest. And some of us have followed Jesus’ final day, almost in real time. We may have enacted it in a public square. We may have sat at the foot of the cross this afternoon, or even lain at one, literally, until Jesus’ final breath – for now.

And now it is eventide, and the Son goes down with the sun, and so here is my 7 Sayings.

In Between The Stools, now celebrating our 5th Easter, we’ve looked at that fulcrum of our faith through the lens of a worldly story. In my first Easter sermon, I mentioned Xena Warrior Princess: that Holy Week, I gorged on the 4th season where there are flashes of Roman soldiers putting our heroines on crosses, and we didn’t know if this would come to pass. Would they actually die thus? Was this the end? Or could they be resurrected? It was the most moving and deepest drama I’d seen.

It was also set against the first lockdowns, and includes material also relevant to this year’s theme.

All through our first Lent in 2021, we took bites of Chocolat, so that when Easter weekend came, it was the high point of a 7 week old story culminating at that festival, with the clash of freedom and a dark man’s attempts to control. Men in black feature again in this year’s Easter. Chocolat had different controlling codes – not source codes of computers, but moral ones.

Both Chocolat and Xena involve acts of forgiveness at the climax

I began the Titanic journey with you in January the next year, casting it as a fable with similar hidden forces, so that we watched with those on board overnight in 2022 as she sank on the 110th anniversary.

Last year, our History Year, we spent Lent with Henry VIII’s wives, ending with Anne Boleyn. Thus we also had someone to watch with, alongside Jesus, as we thought of their impending execution, but also what their life and death meant.

This Year of Wonders we’re with film and television as our theme, but not a single story.

I led into Holy Week with another mind-bending Keanu Reeves film. I knew that I felt should do The Matrix this year with you (I’ll explain why on Sunday) but I didn’t feel that there was enough relevant run up material to fill Holy Week, let alone Lent. But Sunday is the wonderful final act of a series we’re supposed to have been watching for 3 or 4 months at least. Sunday’s power comes from this week’s episodes especially, and so I need to set The Matrix up with you to be able to enjoy Sunday and make my, our, Easter service meaningful.

The Matrix is about a man who is The One; it is the story of how he learns this, learns the hidden truth about the world, and how he saves it, risking his own life to do so, and comes back to life.

Thomas Anderson, aka Neo, is a computer whizz with a secret second job. He’s had a feeling his whole life that something’s not right about the world. And in the shadowy world of computer hacking, he’s being watched by fellow hackers who do something and know something more extraordinary. He’s about to be invited to join them.

The world as he knows it has been enslaved with the majority never realising that their ‘real life’ is a computer simulation, whilst they asleep lie in pods, being drained of energy to power their self serving keepers.

As The One’s time comes to its first climax, he’s told that to save the world, he will need to choose between sacrificing his life or another’s. In a dramatic scene, a betrayer among them (I mistyped and the spell checker suggested ‘cyberthreat’!) who delivers into the enemy’s hands.

This One faces death twice during the four film franchise. In part 1, a kiss from a loved one will have a contrasting effect to that which Judas gave Jesus. In part 3, the visual above clearly invokes a cross. The hero, the son of man, has told a god that he will singlehandedly take on a mission and be willing to die to save the world.

In the movies, it was left open as to whether this son of man would return: it was more likely to be a second coming, rather than a resurrection, although resurrection there was – almost 20 years later for us, but 60 for him. As Christians we wait 3 days for the resurrection, which has already happened.

Friday is oft a day for reflection, for being; for music and silence; perhaps a few reflective words may be offered. Today, here, is the latter. There’ll be many more words on Sunday evening.

You may wonder why we’re not following Easter through one of the many biblically inspired films; it’s a valid question, but I find the crucifixion hard to watch, and felt drawn to this. It’s also a question I’ve wondered myself during my preparations. I also asked:

What is suitable for Easter? What would we expect a sermon or service to include?

Why is today so important?

Why do so many heroes need death and sacrifice to be worthy of the title?

Why do so many stories about invented heroes also follow this theme?

You may wish to just sit with these; to watch Gospel movies to help your devotions at this time; and if able or inclined, to revisit the Matrix series (since Sunday will involve spoilers). I recommend the 4the.

I trust that however you spend today, that it will be meaningful and God will draw nigh

and that we likewise experience that as we draw nigh to each other again on Sunday at 8pm BST

(note the clock change and that it’s not live due to practical issues – I so wish it were! So just look at this blog on Sunday)

I’ll take you deeper into that story and critique it, analyse how well this christologically themed franchise does in fact match with Jesus, and how it’s relevant to us on Sunday

The typeface I wrote this in is called Liberation!

Lent 2024 6: An Excellent Adventure

Bill and Ted Face the Music

This is a time where I needed my spiritual specs on, for as a movie in itself, this 2020 2^nd follow up to a zany time travelling buddy movie might not have appealed, or been memorable. But the soon leaving Netflix date made me watch it that day, and I realised that it fitted into my Lenten theme.

Bill and Ted were great music stars, but 3 decades on, their hopeful beginning has waned. They play to smaller and smaller audiences, and their fan base is all but depleted. I immediately was interested as an artist, musician and author as yet without the audience I’d like. Worse, their father in law criticises the man-boys for not having real jobs, like his police one, and the years of non ‘success’ and searching are tolling on their marriage (it does seem to be a singular partnership of 4 people). Now middle-aged, the duo are painted as potentially pathetic and puerile, needing to grow out of their pairing and that their incredible adventures as adolescents are neither believed nor suitable. They were called a poor rolemodel to their daughters, who were also music loving but unemployed.

Yet I sensed that by the end of the film, an alternative would be presented.

I hoped and needed it to be.

It seemed to initially go away from that: meeting their future selves, Bill and Ted are told they will become estranged from their exasperated wives, sport pescod bellies, or be ridiculously muscled but in prison. Called by The Great Leader of all worlds via a time machine, Bill and Ted have to create a hit song within a very short time limit, or the world will explode.

It seemed that even in the amazing realm that I hoped would exonerate them, that the dudes were being pressured and judged out of inactivity into compliance. Would they end up giving up on their musical dreams and excellent adventures?

It became apparent that the Great Leader was not living up to her name, for she was cold and closed hearted. She secretly believed that the eradication of this pair was key to saving the implosion of all things. She set a robot terminator to chase them and destroy them. However, this robot develops human emotions and is turned from his mission against them to become an ally.

Death, an old enemy of the duo, is sought out in desperation, but ends by hugging them and playing wicked bass together. I noted how a crisis facilitates healing. I also viewed another 80s film, The Karate Kid, and its recent sequel series, Kai Cobra. I have read that our issues of one era can be revisited in a cycle 30 years later; hence these middle aged men are confronting people from their late teens and twenties. Rather than desperate money-motivated rehashes, I find the popularity of later years follow ups as apposite and veracious. We are with one of those also featuring Keanu Reeves over Easter.

I loved how the daughters supported their fathers: their articulate and insightful praise that showed that the are as deeply informed about music as the understood their fathers; the innovative scheme to save them and the world (time travelling and collecting famous musicians to join the band).

I didn’t like that the daughters took over, as if to say by 50, faith and focus is on the next generation. I love to see support for the amazing young people in our world, but we only hand over the rei(g)ns when we die; I’m concerned that others step back into too early retirement (and I’m not speaking about dayjobs and pensions) to assume that their role is simply advisory and adjunctive hereon.

If we’re alive, we still have a job from God. You have a role that is vital and just for you.

The Great Leader’s daughter conversely worked against her, for her plan was not from Love.

The predictions from Bill and Ted’s future selves did not come to pass; their wives bore with them rather than criticising and leaving them. The police father ended by affirming them and joined forces, realising that there is work not just on the earthly plain

The song itself was less important than everyone playing it; it was about collaboration rather than the heroism of the few.

Curiously, I came across another science fiction film with Keanu in that deals with that theme of saviours vs universal pariticipation. To what extent do we participate in or have agency in our salvation? And what is it that we need saving from?

Lent 2024 5: Water Beasts INCLUDES DOCUMENTARY REVIEWS

I have done a Nessie length piece on the not so wee Bèiste and her kind, and I’d like to update that with the lens of some new (to me) films.

Loch Ness, Nessie, and The Sea Beast augmented the familiar tropes in children’s films about water dwelling monsters. In contrast to the several horror films, family films feature a lonesome misunderstood child who bonds with the beastie, and their single parent. Those seeking glory, money and capture, and who don’t care for nature, are villainous. The skeptics morph into believers through interaction with the child, the beast, and an attuned but outsider adult. New love, family, and openness ensue; thus encounter with the Beiste is transformative. As Loch Ness (1996) makes explicit, it is about believing in order to see. In young children’s TV show Jessie and Nessie, the urban dwelling child needs glasses to be able to perceive Nessie’s presence, who is available just outside her flat. Like with The Family Ness (note the Elspeth!), the beasties give the child a special device that helps connect them and call them up. All this can easily be adapted to faith.

Previously, I twisted with Nessie’s neck about what (never if) she is, and if she is a good creature. I realised that by spending time with horror, including nonfiction documentaries and books, that the language as well as images used easily lend themselves to steer the audience into seeing a diabolic denizen of the deep. I realised that I could choose how I looked and place it against the above children’s films and what I’m about to relate. I believe that whatever Nessie et al are, that by seeing fun and joy in them creates a light around them that diminishes any darkness which exists.

Nessie is a great topic to demonstrate documentary on. The best new example is something less than Lent-worthy, so I’ll review that at the bottom. The 2013 TV series Bogeymen – Monsters Among Us repeated information as much as its funky theme tune. Despite its title, ‘horror’,16+ rating, and scary screengrabs, the episodes I saw were fear free. It included various cryptological creatures from different countries, but I watched some lake monsters of North America and Europe. Although it tried to show different points of view and leave some mystery open, I felt that the filmmakers were with the skeptics as they gave them more screen time and often first and last words. These skeptics were always those with some kind of conventional kudos – academic, scientific training and a position. But the people who touched me in this series – mainly talking heads interposed with water shots – were not those. I noted that the aboriginal, spiritual point of view was largely excluded, except in Canada’s Okanagan, where First Nations have kind of copyrighted Ogopogo (whom they call N’ha-a-itk.) In Scandinavia, there is openness to the ancient and unknown, as their public watching station showed; in Austria, the Tadzelwurm is part of Klagenfurt’s town’s arms with a central statue (and misogynistic warning message, even for today’s young women), but how Britain dealt with its beasties was notable.

In Scotland – Loch Morar – locals were reluctant to speak of Morag, and a known professional skeptic dominated this episode. In NW England, Bownessie, despite only a few reported sightings starting from 2006, has a large, juvenile industry around her and yet locals were filmed as saying that none of them believed in her. (Then two locals reported seeing her in the next frame).

I observe that despite a continued Pagan tradition, and many other spiritual people, that Britain doesn’t have a First Nation equivalent; our Druids were apparently slaughtered by the Romans, and then the Normans tried to finish off any ‘heathen’ practices that the early waive of Christianisation hadn’t caught. I feel that this connects to the prevalent (but by no means entirely representative) depiction. These episodes felt the most disbelieving and least respectful and open to otherness.

In Argentina, that openness was apparent, although attempts to squash came via fake news of captured a plesiosaur who became a carnival feature. But a senior resident who had seen her town set up by Lake Nahuel Huapi in Patagonia was the most attuned and the one who had three long full body sightings. There was no fear in Carolina, but a joyful privileged memory in a clearly gentle, spiritual woman. I could understand why Nahuelito had chosen to appear to her.

The Sea Beast seemed set to be an animated, toned down version of those creature features like The Loch Ness Terror and Loch Ness Horror: catch and kill the terrible murderous creature. I became engaged when I realised that the story was going away from the glory of the royally discharged monster hunters to say something else about the awesome beasts, and the royals themselves. Carefully set in a timeless historic setting, with amazing architecture like none in existence, I saw a clear parallel to war. The ‘expendable’ lower classes were sent out to fight under the impetus of honour carried through families, which meant many lost lives. But the hero, son of an illustrious captain, realises that the fearsome creature can be a friend and that the enmity is of human making. Worse, that the source of this enmity – a record of the monsters’ terrible deeds – was untrue. This myth was put about by the king and queen, who are publicly exposed by a child; the hero breaks his harpoon in front of Red Bluster the beast, his new honorary daughter, and the whole kingdom. In a scene redolent of Evan Almighty where the Ark crashes into central Washington DC, Red smashes into the forecourt of the palace and he and his kind are hitherto left in peace.

I felt that this summer of 2022 Netflix release hinted at the end of an era, end of war, end of hatred based on deliberately pedalled untruth (who do the beasts represent?), and questioning of long running leaderships.

I’m wondering why and how this creature and their many international cousins, fresh and seawater, keep being reinvented. Despite more loch-down supposed factual films that she’s disproven, and another documentary feature last year, the Bèistes* rise up again to unite families, welcome outsiders, protect nature, question power and truth sources, and most of all: believe.

The parallel between faith in God and the attempt to posit scientists as minigods is clear, and it’s something I’ll take up again, perhaps as a full creative project.

*I’m aware that bèiste is Scottish Gaelic and that its real plural is Bèistean

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Less than Lently: my thoughts on Loch Ness: They Created a Monster and The Man Who Captured Nessie

These two documentaries, like the synoptic gospels, clearly share sources since there were large overlaps of material. The message was – with a tiny semblance at balance – that long time monster hunter and photographer Frank Searle was bad – in fact, his epitaph was rather like that of Byron.

If ever one needed a lesson in how documentaries mislead, are biased, and potentially make things up and invite libel, this pair is recommended. I wondered who sponsored them.

Although there’s a little vintage footage of Frank, who lived by the loch from 1969-c1984, he doesn’t get to speak: the person who seems to be him is an actor, it’s revealed (much in the same tone as My Old School, another attacking Scots documentary). I’ve been interested in Loch Ness for some years but I don’t recall Frank’s name, yet these documentaries suggest he is infamous. I did recall someone part of the establishment who had been part of ‘exposing’ him after Frank’s own exposures seemed to garner him better luck and fame than they, and independently of them.

I make clear that I’ve no personal connection with either party, and nor am I necessarily championing Frank Searle; but I am saying that the very angled axe to grind was very obvious and that it made me more likely to take the opposite view.

My dislike and judgement was reserved for those who stood to camera and said, “I am happy to call this man a liar”, a charlatan…and that he was a “disturbed individual” who shouldn’t have come to Loch Ness,­ and other insults which could easily echo back. They publicly accused him of a serious crime, for which there was only a hunch of suspicion, not evidence. Might the graffiti, which would be hard for him to have done with his lost foot, actually contain a truthful message?

It occurs to me that the Molotov cocktail incident – if it really happened – could have been a staged attack by their own to remove and discredit this clear rival, especially if he was on the cusp of exposing them. (Frank claimed this). The documentary said that the police were called – very early in the morning – to his lone caravan, but not that he wasn’t charged, as clearly they were unable to. The accusations were poor: the kind of boat was wrong, the bomb was in a plastic bottle which wouldn’t work; and Frank with long military experience would be able to do far better. His accuser was not a firsthand witness; unlike his watchers, he wasn’t camping but sleeping indoors elsewhere. (Searle states that these workers were paying to camp, and were lured on false advertising.)

These detractors used legal force and their influence with Frank’s publishers to withdraw his books. One teacher (who weirdly just took his class to the loch on a road trip) claimed plagiarism (from a school newsletter!) but the book isn’t available for anyone to verify this. The third book was stopped by an opposing Nessie watch leader, without having seen it, assuming it was about him.

This prevalent preacher of skeptical science, who states Frank’s approach was not suitably scientific to be allowed to go on, began as an ‘amateur naturalist’ who has not achieved academic titles.

The hoaxes were asserted rather than proven: it is possible to have doctored his Nessie pictures to make them more like the objects they claimed; the campaign from 1975 seems systematic. Frank’s books were halted partly due to potential libel, but those that destroyed his reputation were not.

It may be that Frank was able to attain better photographs because he worked alone and without technology other than his camera; perhaps groups and flashes and sonar put Nessie off.

I read his newsletters and heard his hour long tape; I didn’t see in them that which he was accused, although he does clearly speak against the rival crew, what he knew of them and what he was going to let out…just before the petrol bomb, and then a death threat note in his donations box.

Most worrying – and a show of just how much documentaries can manipulate – is the more recent film’s claim that Frank had disappeared in the mid 80s, never heard of again, presumed dead… maybe even in the loch. There was an implication of suicide or that his precious monster got him.

They gleefully reported that Frank had said Loch Ness doesn’t give up its dead. They showed his posters and caravan resting at the bottom of it in invented footage (one can’t see in the peaty waters), saying that now a monster really does reside in the loch. Such a statement was repeated by the perky Scots tour guide to an apparently rapt coach.

Even if Frank had done all he was accused of, I didn’t see that he was a monster. (The petrol bomb is horrible but I question if he did it – and why; no-one and nothing was hurt).

I wondered if this wasn’t evidence that they had attacked him and sent him to those depths. I took the film as a j’accuse with fingers pointing at themselves. Was the title actually about them?

A confession is enough to convict.

But the earlier documentary claimed to have traced Frank, just after he died, in Lancashire. His life had been ‘quiet’ and although apparently alone (we never are really) he had not done anything that could be critiqued, as far as the filmmaker could show. Yet reports such as highly biased Wikipedia and disreputable newspapers had tried to make out that his aloneness made him odd, and several attempts at swiping at Frank’s mental state had been attempted, including on user forums. That is as suspicious as it is wrong.

What could have happened to an ebullient man who welcomed people to his caravan and enjoyed limelight, to make him live so quietly? That is also another potential charge to answer.

Also, why had They Created A Monster (clearly suggesting Frank in the ogral role) ended with him being mysteriously disappeared, when the earlier documentary claimed that it knew 18 years previously that he’d died in quite an ordinary way, far from the loch? And that the source of that – quite dubious and intrusive research – clearly informed much of their own material?

Why has that 2005 filmmaker got to write Frank’s public obituary and influence other articles (whilst self advertising for his Channel 4 work)?

Why has Paul Harrison’s interview with Frank which asserted that he was threatened, beaten and his caravan pushed in the loch never been published? Is it not suspicious that around the time that book was due out, author Paul was also ‘exposed’ and went quiet?

I found Frank’s own words, and the images – added on to the audio – ended with a different gravestone, death date and lifestory.

The assertion that Frank disappeared after the petrol bomb incident is untrue: it occured apparently on 21^st August 1983, but he sent out newletters in Sept and Dec that year, citing sightings at Loch Ness. He was able to be contacted by witnesses and to send these out – or I’d not have seen them.

He’d said in June that year that he may run his Loch Ness project down and in Dec says he is leaving, and not because of the events he describes, to take up landbased treasure hunting.

Along with the unwatchable grainy footage, this was an angering experience for me and one I’m glad I didn’t rent or go to the cinema for.

It has set off a deeper enquiry, but I couldn’t help but see a parallel with the end of the Sea Beast and this beastly tale.

It also reminded me of Wicked Little Letters

Lent 2024 4: Moral messages of a different kind

To presumably celebrate its 30th anniversary, the Japanese animated film Pom Poko has appeared on Netflix and is listed as a top pick.

I’d heard of this legendary anime and the rather surprising antics – for a children’s film – of raccoons. Yes, I refer to the frequent sight and mention of testicles, which become huge mats and weapons, and something to sing about like the Seven Dwarfs sing of work. They seem to be a resource and source of power for the initiated master, which would correspond to what I’ve frequently heard about women’s counterparts. And yet this is still rated here as PG for parental guidance, mentioning ‘crude humour’, but although I think the t-mats are meant to be humorous, I also think there’s a lack of sordidness and discomfort on the subject, which I commend.

I am not sure if I commend the other aspects of this beautifully drawn film. I gave it a thumbs up at the end, but I am wondering if I wish to reverse the direction of those thumbs.

Is this film really saying that most humans should die?

It’s a sentiment that’s being propounded in various forms, and I’m noting that this film was doing so long before the more current climate.

Pom Poko – which refers to an era – doesn’t speak of climate change (which was still known as global warming in 1994) but of taking the natural habitat of animals. Raccoons, along with foxes, seem to be a spokes-species for all creatures. Japan’s capital is expanding at an incredible rate, looking as contrasting to the woodland and meadow it replaces as is possible. My idea of a beautiful city is fairly low rise – save for the odd special steeple – and made from natural things: bricks come from mud and straw; timber and thatch from trees and reeds; and stone is hewn rock. Old fashioned paving is also direct from nature – stones and bricks, which although not good for our current tyres (why make such tyres then) make cars slow in these parts of the city.

The World Heritage centre in Bath tells me that when Georgian Bath was conceived, they left the countryside in. Greenery was part of the design, with squares and crescents and parks. Those cities which give joy to me include lungs within them – gardens and squares, marshes and woodlands – AND have easy access to the country.

Of course, some of us prefer the country – small towns, villages, and even being outside of a built up area at all.

I commended Pom Poko for drawing our attention to the ugliness of expansion and the thoughtlessness for other creatures. I liked that a different kind of conurbation is built in Tokyo, thanks to the raccoons’ effort, which is less abrasive, more aesthetic and includes spaces for green. The film also says that these attempts – not unlike John Wood the Elder’s Somerset city two centuries earlier – are not enough for their kind to thrive in.

What I wasn’t sure was what Pom Poko is saying about humans and population. Humans are a vile selfish nuisance, a pest to control and wish away. The raccoons use trickery and fear to thwart humans. The raccoons plot to kill us, and are considered heroes when they send lorry drivers into rivers and to their death.

I wondered if this wasn’t a kind of Japanese answer to Animal Farm, and if some of the leaders were also becoming as warped as the beings they overthrew.

There was an interesting comment: that if this situation had occurred in another Japanese city, the human residents’ response would have been more favourable. These humans would have understood that raccoons are behind the disruptions and that shrine offerings in temples dedicated to the bushy beasties would have increased. Instead, in Tokyo, as is oft the way in our largest cities, there is rationalisation and disbelief.

The key part of the film is Operation Spectre. Raccoons have the ability in this film to shapeshift. They are far more intelligent and human-like than we give them credit – they even look different when we’re not around. And they bring over wise master raccoons of Methuselah-type age [Biblical reference] to teach them how to be more adept at this art. They then put on an incredible show for the humans one night, changing into flying ghouls and boobies, which no human is able to film. (How very Loch Ness Monster). But a company takes credit – I’m sure they were asked to – for the stunts. The raccoons feel deflated: their huge show hasn’t had the effect of scaring the humans away, nor giving them a platform on which to share.

Perhaps the cartoon was saying: your most powerful voice is not your disruptions, your violence, your fear, however clever and spectacular; it’s when you came out of the woods and spoke to camera, making a heartfelt plea that your target audience listened.

Is this a message to activists?

In contrast I think of All The Beauty And The Bloodshed, a documentary last year about Nan Goldman and her fight against the dangerous drug pedalling Sackler family. She too knew how to organise a spectacle – ‘prescriptions’ and medicine bottles falling into atria and ponds at major museums who’d been sponsored by this dynasty. And she got results, although not the lives back of those who died through the prescriptions of oxycontin. This might be the best documentary I’ve seen – I wished to whoop in the cinema. (I bet filmmaker Laura Poitras didn’t expect to be likened to these raccoons!)

What I took from Pom Poko that was entertaining and positive – apart from the sheer balls! – was that it made us question our violent responses, our disbelief, our arrogance that we’re the most important creature…and just maybe, animals are cleverer and more powerful than we can imagine.

I was disappointed in lack of Great Spirit, and that the creatures assumed that they themselves should be worshipped. Like many demi-deities, they wanted adulation and presents. Again, I think of the Loch Ness family, and how the Canadian First Nations say that Ogopogo (whom they call N’ha-a-itk) needs offerings to cross Lake Okanagan safely, or else. Even if that is a past myth rather than present advice, it shows a god that’s not worthy of the name – self serving, capricious…much like some versions of the Christian god. And none of these are like the God I believe in, although we may think he needs placating, at Lent especially, by deeds of sacrifice and all leading up to his ultimate sacrifice. It’s a concept that I continue to question.

There are some aspects of Japanese culture which I would love to understand – so if anyone Japanese is reading this, please get in touch.

Are raccoons sacred to you? Are there shrines and temples to such creatures? Are there myths of raccoons’ and foxes’ ability to shape shift – and why these animals?

Next time, we’ll be thinking of a shapeshifting creature that is both sacred and denigrated.

Lent 2024 3: How movies make you feel

This equally could be: how music makes you feel as that is a major factor in mood inducing in film and television. And not only does that tell you how to feel, but what to think. Thus movies are potential mood inducers, with loud white noise or astringent strings, calming music, or exaggerated sounds that are part of the film (known as diagetic) – the clumping clock or foot steps of Foley artists. There can be repeated gunshots, screams, flashes and fast cuts; constant adrenaline or ennui, constant stress in shouting as well as chasing. It can be found in nature programmes as well as horror.

I realised that the mood making is deliberate and perhaps not just as part of story telling.

I have often resisted that mood – reducing sound, turning away or even off, certainly internally.

Last week, I resisted what is thought of as a modern classic love film, which I didn’t consider very romantic. When I first saw cinema, I thought that films were telling you how life is, or should be. Then, as I came to study and write films, I felt that was not so: writing advice says not to give yours in the film. However, I do see that media has messages alongside story arcs.

As I wrote in my first Lenten post this year, there’s: what the story’s about,

what the story’s really about,

and then the third layer of the underlying but perhaps more coded messages.

I will say that romantic comedies, like many mainstream films, have a good end. Whether we’ve cried, laughed, shrieked, tapped or thrilled, we leave the cinema in a good mood. That was a good experience; and it’s been a cathartic piece of escapism. We may have felt helped by the film, which brought us hope when some was lacking. We do still believe in love. We can be in a loving family; our dreams and ambitions can be realised. The last children’s film I saw – Slumberland, featuring Jason Momoa – ended with the message that we can be whatever we want. I sadly heard a parent try to deny that – although their own kids had already become high achievers. Why not believe and encourage that it’s possible? Or did they mean that there are barriers yet to remove for that to be true? We see many films about removing those barriers, and I applaud that.

I’ve long been a supporter of arthouse cinema, but sometimes, I get fed up with them as the denier of hope and joy in favour of ‘reality’, which is another word for dreamstealing.

Reality is a choice we can influence. Why choose the miserable path and call that highbrow?!

I recall seeing Garage when I was unemployed about an unemployed person. Instead of leaving with hope, I watched a slow film about a lonely man who ultimately took his life, and the only hint of freedom and resolution was the horse walking out of the field. No, films don’t directly tell you what to do, and I’m a little cautious of the nanny state around that subject in fiction, but it felt a harsh hit, when a Hollywood version would have seen that man find some meaningful work, or perhaps peace in his nonworking. (I’ll be mentioning this subject in our last Lenten piece).

Arthouse cinema can eschew dialogue and make the viewer guess what is happening – but one can guess wrongly. I question that as a mark of a more intelligent film. An example of ‘watch my face and work it out’ is The Golden Door: a very different take on immigration to America. Instead of Italians finding the Land of the Free that they were promised, they are subjected to physical humiliating intrusions, and one older woman chooses to go home and be truly free rather than enter this Canaan at that price.

I noted that despite my joy at the older woman’s rebellion, that I felt oppressed watching it, as I have so many arty films. I felt it in Remains of the Day, which is such a contrast to a romantic comedy. I got frustrated with the lack of communication and emotion, and wondered what a Japanese author was saying of English culture. I also noted the political background and that an American buys up a long held family home that he has assisted in, shall we say, making available, and in his speech about ‘real’ politicians – like himself – running someone else’s country. The fact it was repeated and called right made me think that this could be the filmmaker’s message or at least belief, rather than a character’s. I was annoyed at waiting for the end of this long film, when the only journey taken is by a bus – nothing emotional or personal is resolved.

In Slumberland, the protagonist faces her deepest nightmares and losses, and comes through. Using the interesting trope of another persona (which I’ve seen in Fightclub) she and her new family are able to live as they wish…. although it didn’t follow through the statement that schools are unhealthy stifling places, as is mainstream work.

I know which sort of story I prefer, and which I think is ultimately healthier to partake in.

We vicariously take on the feelings of the characters, and I urge some caution as we pick up on the energy and it’s not all good for us, all of the time. I like to wind down with something pleasant, especially if a film has been challenging.

As I say of my own, I’m OK with being taken to the depths, but I won’t leave you there, and I don’t want to be left by other writers. Rather than a waste of time, TV and film watching, along with all the arts, can be such balm and catharsis, even therapeutic.

Hence I spend my life engaging, creating, and see them as intrinsic – not something to cut funds of.

But as much as I never want our funders – especially governments – to tell us what kind of films we can make and how they should end, I can choose where I put my focus and in what I fund by buying a film (or to watch it). I don’t want a world where we’re told that it’s grown-up and literary to have films with negative ultimate messages and which make us take on negativity. Unless the message is: don’t let us live in this world, then I don’t want to live in the world of those films.

I love the heart swell of a life-buoying film that has lifted me and been a timely reminder, when I’ve literally felt divinely guided to view. And those are the ones I’ll seek out more often, including during this year.