sustain:if:able kiwi

Insatiable moon rising: film review

The Insatiable Moon is launched in New Zealand cinema’s today, while the UK premiere is in London screening at Cineworld, Haymarket on the 11th October at 7:30pm. (Tickets from the cinema.)  Do go and see it, it’s a grand mix of life, humour, spirituality and ethical dilemna.  (A list of New Zealand venues is here). Below is my Touchstone review (an interview with screenwriter Mike Riddell is here)

It has taken many a month for the moon to cast its golden glow on this Kiwi film. Mike Riddell, currently writer, and formerly Ponsonby Baptist church minister, wrote his first work of fiction in 1997.

Titled “The Insatiable Moon,” it introduces John, walking the streets of Ponsonby, with a commitment to bless every passing wall and bench and his friend Arthur, who believes he is the second son of God.  With their boarding house under threat from Ponsonby gentrification, Arthur senses a mission from God, first to save his psychiatric haven and second to shower his love on the Queen of Heaven.

Kiwi movies tend to be bred with a dark underbelly, from the haunted hills of “Vigil” to the secrets buried “In My Fathers Den.”  “The Insatiable Moon,” a film dealing with the clash between mental health and urban gentrification, has a similar potential. Happily, the movie demonstrates a simple commitment to bless contemporary life, infusing human pain and suffering with an earthy humour and gentle mystery.

The movie, directed by Mike’s wife Rosemary, includes a number of well-known Kiwi actors, including Rawiri Paratene (best known as Koro in “Whale Rider”) as Arthur and Sara Wiseman (Danielle in “Outrageous Fortune”) as Margaret the Queen of Heaven. However any Kiwi Oscars surely belong to Arthur’s boarding house companions, including Ian Mune, Lee Tuson and Rob McCully.

Two scenes – one pastoral, the other prophetic – remain etched in one’s memory long after the final credits roll. These scenes showcase Mike Riddell’s remarkable talent, the artist’s ability to sketch life, the mystic’s eye for the spiritual in the ordinary.

The first is the funeral of John (Mike Innes) and the pastoral drama created by the open mic and the pain of colliding narratives. It allows a superbly theological reflection on God and the suffering of being human. The scene is a must see for all those who stake allegiance to a God of love in a world of suffering.

The second is the public meeting, another collision of narratives, this time of developer with Ponsonby locals. Arthur’s entrance is superb, a powerful enactment full of strength, oratory and tenderness.  Another must see scene for all those who yearn for prophetic transformation in our urban communities today.

“The Insatiable Moon” debuted in July at the New Zealand Film Festival and becomes a general release at Rialto cinemas throughout New Zealand from October. Pleasingly, it gained commendation from the Mental Health Foundation. Less commendable is the efforts of the New Zealand Film Commission, who pulled their promised funding. This means that credits can only roll for the persistence of Mike and Rosemary and many other believers in the power of story and the potential of human creativity.

Nevertheless, “The Insatiable Moon”, casts a few shadows. Plot purists will point to a proliferation of characters that make for a slow paced beginning. Theologians will expect more evidence than a cold Kiwi pie as proof of resurrection. Ethicists will remain uneasy about the centrality of adultery for human transformation.

Gladly, such shadows seem to grow strangely dim in the light of the magic cast by “The Insatiable Moon” and it’s celebration of people, Ponsonby and human possibilities.

For another Kiwi take, go here.

Interviewing the Insatiable Moon’s Mike Riddell

The Insatiable Moon is due into New Zealand cinema’s this week. In celebration, here’s an interview I did with screenwriter and creative inspirer, Mike Riddell. (An edited version appears in this month’s Touchstone Magazine). I’ll post my review of the film on the day of public release, Thursday, October 7. (Film updates here, while for a list of New Zealand venues, see here).

Mike, it’s such a Kiwi film. What were some of the inspirations for the movie? Not only kiwi, but very local in the sense of emerging from the urban village of Ponsonby. I’ve always believed that the details of geography, culture and human life are more universal the more specifically they’re based. The main inspiration for the film was of course the person Arthur, who used to come and visit me and try to persuade me he was the second son of God. But beyond that it was my encounter with the psychiatric community and other down and outs tucked away in boarding houses in the back streets of Ponsonby. As the area became gentrified, there was a delightful culture clash which provided plenty of humour and pathos. I love the black humour of people who’ve suffered and have nothing to lose. Interestingly, given that it is such a kiwi movie, we’re getting a great reception in the UK (where we have a distribution deal) and the US.

Very few New Zealanders are published fiction writers, let alone find their fiction becoming a movie. Tell us about the journey from book to screen? It’s very unusual for an author of a book to be involved in the adaptation of it for the screen. The main reason for that is that novelists are too precious about their material to allow it to be chopped around in the way that’s necessary for the screen. When I was approached by the UK producers to do the screenplay, I jumped at the chance – but knew very little about screenwriting. It’s a specific form of writing, and I had to learn it from scratch. I was lucky that we spent 8 years in development – it gave me a chance to learn the craft, and put some distance between the novel and the script. A lot of subplots in the novel have disappeared, along with some characters. But I think the story is strengthened by being pared back.

It was a long and difficult journey. What kept you going? To be honest it was a combination of stubbornness and belief in the story. There are a lot of people around the world trying to make films, but not many of them get there because of the constant hurdles to be overcome. But as a long time writer, I’ve learned that if you don’t have confidence and belief in your own work, you’ll never survive the process of getting it into the public domain. The core creative team associated with the film always believed that it would be well received by audiences if we could just get it before them. I personally also felt something of a responsibility to tell Arthur’s story. But it has been a difficult journey. There was a week in September of 2009 when it seemed there was no alternative but to fold the project, and that was a very dark time. We faced the possibility of writing off 7 years of work. In the end we decided damn the torpedoes, we were just going to make it with whatever resources we could pull together.

You once talked about the importance of fiction for your own spiritual journey, including the writing of Graham Greene. What do you see the Insatiable Moon offering to the contemporary Kiwi quest? Immersion in stories is the essence of spiritual growth – they have the power to engage and lead us forward at very deep levels. The Insatiable Moon is a story about people on the margins, and the humanity and insight that exist in their midst. To use a Cohen line – “There’s a crack, a crack, in everything; that’s how the light gets in”. Broken people often have an innate spirituality which is fresh and raw in comparison to institutional religion. I think the film is an affirmation of the very real spirit that exists everywhere in human life – and of course a championing of the divine in the most unlikely places. At the same time it’s an examination of conventional notions of normalcy – what actually is ‘mad’ behaviour? At what points does convention become insanity, and madness full of insight?

In hindsight, do you see the inevitable budget constaints helping, or hindering, the film? With that wonderful instrument, the retroscope, it’s clear to all of us that the film has become something much better because of the constraints we were under when producing it. Losing our big name stars (Timothy Spall, James Nesbitt, John Rhys Davies) and our Scots director (Gillies Mackinnon) meant that we made a truly kiwi film. It also meant that no one was involved who didn’t want to be. The commitment of the cast and crew was a wonder to behold, and the veterans in our midst all said it was the best film set they’ve ever worked on. We also adopted the philosophy of ‘Frugal Filmmaking’ espoused by our Director of Photography Tom Burstyn, with beneficial results. That involved using less gear, making the crew light and mobile, and concentrating on story and performance as being at the heart of the film. So in a strange way, the NZFC did us a huge favour by declining funding – not that any of us felt particularly grateful at the time!

Made to play: Toy Story 3 film review

A (monthly) film review by Steve Taylor (for Touchstone magazine)

In 1995, a bunch of toys started a cinematic innovation. The toys (Toy Story) were to be followed by fish (Finding Nemo), rats (Ratatouille) and robots (WALL-E), all creations of Pixar Animation Studios. The credits began to roll, with eleven films in the next fifteen years garnering twenty four Academy awards and contributing to the sale of Pixar to Disney in 2006 for $7.4 billion. Such creative innovation was based neither on Hollywood star power nor on clever computer technologies. (more…)

alice in wonderland: a theological film review

Alice in Wonderland
A film review by S(hannon) and S(teve) Taylor

It should work. Computer animation should be perfect for bringing to life a masterpiece of literary nonsense, otherwise known as Alice in Wonderland. Especially in the hands of a seasoned Hollywood director (Tim Burton) and a genuine Hollywood star (Johnny Depp).

It should work.

Sadly, it didn’t, not for the twelve year old, nor her accompanying father.

Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland is a playful reinterpretation of themes and characters from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and the sequel, Through the Looking-Glass (written by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym, Lewis Carroll).

Alice, now grown up, faces a marriage proposal. She finds herself caught between family expectation and personal dreams of freedom and adventure. Fleeing the decision, she finds herself falling down her childhood rabbit hole, returning to a wonderland filled with painted roses, competing Queens, a grinning Cheshire Cat and a Mad Hatter. Yet her search for identity continues, for if she is the real Alice, she is fated to fight the fearsome Jaberwockie.

And so, for 108 minutes, Alice struggles to find her true self. The film is thus a mirror of her adult world, her search for the real Alice.

Perhaps this is why the film struggles to work.

It fails to find an audience. If it’s a kids movie, why weight it down with adult themes? If it’s a children’s fantasy, why create scenes that remain too scary for those needing parental guidance? As a kids book, how do you overcome that common cliche in which innocent child falls into a world of fantasy?

The redeeming features are few. They include the acting of Johnny Depp (well known for starring roles in The Pirates of the Caribbean saga, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Chocolat), who is a superbly sinister and clearly Mad Hunter.

Another is the cinematic wonderland of stunning visual effects. (Although audience response to the 3D version remain mixed.) Scenes like the Mad Hatter’s tea party, in which Alice shrinks and expands, all the while surrounded by unchanging characters, are compelling pieces of cinematic creativity.

Yet a film is the sum of more than the stunning effects or the best efforts of acting A-listers. Without a coherent plotline, Alice in Wonderland simply wobbles toward a cinematic rabbithole. It looks fantastic, but ends up tumbling into incoherence.

S’s fantastic facts file:
– The original book has been translated into 125 languages and twenty four times has been made adapted to the big screen.
– The book began life as a story told to bored kids during a punt up the River Thames.
– Kiwi viewers might note the use of a koru, not as a symbol of new life, but amid a dark sinister forest setting.
– Well known “Alice” phrases now in common usage include the lines “Off with his head” and “Curiouser and Curiouser”
– Mathematical concepts are ingrained in the book.
– In Chapter Eight, where three cards paint white roses red, may be a reference to the Wars of the Roses.
– The author was a church minister. So would this make this piece of literature “Christian”?

Rev Dr Steve Taylor is Director of Missiology at Uniting College of Theology and Leadership, Adelaide, Australia. He is the author of The Out of Bounds Church? (Zondervan, 2005) and writes regularly at www.emergentkiwi.org.nz.

Avatar film review

Each month I publish a film review, for Touchstone, which is the New Zealand Methodist magazine. Here is my review for February, on the movie Avatar. (Many more reviews, back to 2005, are here.)

“Avatar” is a blockbuster, set to sink “Titanic” as one of the highest earnings movies of all time. James Cameron, who directed “Titanic” and multiple editions of “Terminator”, is, well, back! (more…)

the state of play: Australian film

Eric Repphun, who graduated last year with a PhD in religious studies and film (a project which I was involved in supervising), is currently writing on Australian film, specifically Balibo, Van Diemens Land and The Proposition (here). He is arguing for a growing genre of film in which he sees Australia film seeking to engage it’s past. He writes:

These two very different films hammer home something that has been increasingly clear in the past few years: Australia, as a nation, is attempting through the cinema to shed the shackles of its national ghosts, or at least bring these spectres into the full, harsh light of day. This is more than simple katharsis, it seems, bridging over into some more elemental; expiation maybe, even exorcism. Australia – or at least Australian art, as the Australian government seems to be committed to continuing its long history of criminal behaviour – is engaged in a collective exorcism. This is true, I suppose, of only those people who make these films or the people who choose to see them instead of Transformers. Perhaps this needs a further clarification, as this exorcism is largely confined to the ghosts of Australia’s European past. The long plight of the Aboriginal peoples is still largely consigned to the darkness, or is subject to well-meaning but ultimately hollow official attempts at apology. Something like Philip Noyce’s film Rabbit-Proof Fence, for all its striving nobility, simply doesn’t pack the emotional punch and the raw sense of wrongness that characterises the film-as-exorcism.

Seeing as I’m doing a paper on Sociology of Ministry in a few weeks, I’d be interested in how Australian’s respond to what Eric names and claims, as I am sure would Eric.

film reviews: topp twins, earth whisperers, blessed, up, an education

The assignment: 500 words, monthly, offering a Christian perspective on contemporary film, paid, for Touchstone (Methodist) denominational magazine. Here are (some more of: Four holidays, Doubt, Gran Torino, Pink Panther 2 already posted here) my 2009 reviews for the year to date.

The Topp Twins. Untouchable Girls. This is a joyous movie, a healthy yodel to life well lived. Centre stage are Jools and Lynda Topp, filmed in concert, singing their songs, reminiscing among friends, telling the stories that have made them one of New Zealand’s most recognisable entertainers … for more

Earth Whisperers/Papatuanuku. Confession time. Watching Earth Whisperers/Papatuanuku increased my global footprint … for more, including film church discussion guide

Blessed. “Blessed” is a gritty exploration of parenting today … for more

Up. Get down to Up. Take your children. Then ask your neighbour’s grandchildren. Whatever you do, do not forget your church leadership team … for more

An education. “An education” is a movie about a moment. It captures a life coming of age, a decade poised on the threshold of sex, drugs and rock and roll and the intellectual struggle between the school classroom and the university of life. The result is a movie so satisfying it is easy to lose sight of what is essentially a sordid tale … for more

kiwi creativity: mike riddell blogs the cinematic journey

I’ve been enjoying recently Mike Riddell’s blog: Interminable moon. It is a neat title, a play on words, the story of his journey to turn his fictional book: The Insatiable Moon, into a film. It’s been a 7 year journey, hence the apt title “interminable.”

At first the blog was simply a narrative of bureaucratic pain, the (losing) battle to secure funding. Mike, never known for taking no for an answer, simply decided to shoot the film himself. Now the blog is much more interesting, the daily journal of the filming in and around the streets of Ponsonby. Mike might have moved from text to screen, but he’s still a great writer and the blog is a delight, as well as a window into the sheer hard slog that is the creative process. I need that reminder: that creativity is 90% perspiration around 10% inspiration, a mix of skill and instinct, management and creativity.

Mike supervised my Masters, at Carey Baptist College, and my PhD, at University of Auckland. Both were the last tasks he would do at either place.

(In fact, every one of my post-graduate supervisors – Mike Riddell, Brian Smith, Gregory McCormick and John Drane – would leave the academy just as I finished my Masters/PhD’s. In my better moments, I’m sure this is coincidence, because it’s not all about me! Is it?)

So Mike calls me into his office at Carey College to tell me that I had better make my planned Masters thesis completion date, because the publication of the Insatiable Moon is the trigger which will see him leave Carey, leave Auckland, and move to Dunedin. Jump? Or push? Or a confluence of circumstances, including family and Rose’s career? Depends who you ask.

Which makes it interesting to then read the following Amazon review:

What makes this whole book more amazing (apart from a really, really good sex scene, covering six full pages) is that, skating right on the very edge of outright blasphemy, it was written by a Baptist Minister – and it hasn’t been decried by the Christian community. It’s accessible to believers and non- believers alike, and explores issues of faith, rather than poking fun at the concept.

Can Christians let people poke fun at them? (Tempted to include a sentence about insatiable “mooning” at Christians) Can we have art that gets us thinking? Where do artists best function in relation to the Christian community – inside or outside?

You, my reader, can ponder the heady questions. Today, I simply pen the following blessing:

May the moon rise above you Mike Riddell
and may the warm winds of Ponsonby blow upon your creative dreams,
May the cinematic gatekeepers rise and call your movie blessed
And the cash registers ring to re-fill your creative investments

film reviews: Four holidays, Doubt, Gran Torino, Pink Panther 2

I’ve fallen badly behind in posting on the blog my film reviews. The assignment: 500 words, monthly, offering a Christian perspective on contemporary film, paid, for Touchstone (Methodist) denominational magazine. Here are my 2009 reviews for the year to date.

Four Holidays. As we light Advent candles, so does Hollywood, trying to dazzle us, not with hope, peace, joy and love, but with Bad Santa (2003), Polar Express (2004), Deck the Halls (2006) or Fred Claus (2007). This year’s Christmas cracker, Four Holidays, gave little bang for its buck … for more.

Doubt. Doubt has always suffered an uneasy existence among people of faith. Even after the resurrection of Jesus, the disciples of Jesus are divided between worship and doubt Matthew 28:17). For Frederick Buechner, “Doubt is the ants in the pants of faith, it keeps it alive and moving.” Yet the space between pants and skin is never for the faint hearted. In this space enters Doubt … for more.

Gran Torino. In the downhill journey to Easter, a central figure is Caiphas, the Jewish high priest, who announces that it is better that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish (John 11:50). Such understandings, of the power of sacrifice to ensure community transformation, are ingrained in Christian faith and make Gran Torino a gritty contemporary exploration of these themes in our world today … for more.

Pink Panther 2. The Pink Panther is back, and the return is welcome … for more.

my 9 year old a film reviewing silver medalist

I’m a pretty proud father of a nine year old who this week won the silver medal at the Australasian Religious Press Association annual awards, for a review of another medium.

Since 2005 I have written a monthly film review for Methodist Touchstone magazine. A number of times I have invited my children to write film reviews with me, believing that this both makes for a much more interesting review and helps them in their development both in faith and critical thinking. Joint father/daughter reviews have included Lion, Witch and Wardrobe, Hannah Montana movie, Golden Compass. And Prince Caspian, which has gained the plaudits of an organisation stretching across Australian and New Zealand. Very cool.

For those interested, here is the Prince Caspian film review. (And yes, I really must get around some time to putting all the other reviews up on my blog.)

get down to up: film spirituality

Took the kids to Up yesterday. Fantastic film.

It’s the plot that makes Up great; that good old-fashioned ability to engage an audience by telling a story, in this case of childhoon dreams lost, the pain of life and the possibility of imagination rekindled.

It’s the little things that make Pixar great; the saliva that drips of the ball the dogs chase, the stubble that grows on the face of the older man. Extraordinary attention to detail.

Take your family and get down to “Up”.

I’d also suggest you take your church leadership team and get down to “Up”. You see, Up is a movie that has lots of connection with leadership and mission in emerging cultures. (I would put it up there with Grow Your Own). Read it alongside Luke 10:1-12 and ask each other:
– what dreams are shaping your imagination? who are your partners in that imagination?
– what adventures is God calling you and your community?
– what must you let go off in order to pursue those dreams?
– how importance is the ordinary and the everyday, the sitting on the curbside of life, in your theology and ministry?

earth whisperers as film church

Earth Whisperers/Papatuanuku is a new movie by Kiwi Kathleen Gallagher, currently showing in selected cinemas around New Zealand. It’s beautifully shot and profiles 10 Kiwi “green” saints. I’ve just sent my monthly Touchstone film review off. My main criticism is that all the saints profiled are “bush” bound”, all living the rural idyll. In contrast the reality is that most humans are urban dwellers. So I wish they had interviewed a few suburban community garden owners, or teachers in local schools pursuing enviro-awards.

In the review, I suggest that Earth Whisperers/Papatuanuku would make a great “film-church” night. It’s available on DVD from the director. All you then need is a spare night, a set of couches, some candle lit tables, a stack of recycled paper on which to print invitations and some well-chosen discussion starter questions.

Here are four questions for starters:
1. Of the ten people interviewed, who did you feel most drawn to?
2. In what ways has the green movement changed your attitudes and behaviours, whether positively or negatively?
3. One way to describe these ten people is as contemporary Kiwi “environmental” saints. Are there any Bible characters, or people in Christian history, that you consider could also be “environmental” saints?
4. Francis of Assissi famously wrote in The Canticle of Creation: “Praise be to You, my Lord, for our Sister, Mother Earth, who sustains and keeps us.” How practically, on a regular basis, might we as humans pay attention to the whispers of the earth in ways that might sustain and keep us?

tweenlight: crossing cultures to the hannah montana party

I’ve just been with youngest Taylor daughter to the Hannah Montana movie.

A cross-cultural experience indeed as she showed me to my seat. Too easy to smirk, I thought as I settled into the “Lets go crazy” teen chatter.

It’s easy to see this as another manifestation of consumer culture. It is.

It is also the music, narratives and characters by which my tweenager, and many others, will sift their values, one expression of the contemporary search for identity, a window onto growing up today and of what it means to juggle and adjust the competing narratives of family, home and being known.

(More considered film review to follow at a later date.)

fixing your Bible when it doesn’t make sense

What do you do when a book doesn’t make sense? Here’s one fairly harsh choice – you rip out the bits that don’t fit. (It’s a scene from the Firefly series).

It’s not a novel solution. Back in the first century, Marcion of Sinope decided the God of the Old Testament did not make sense with the God of the New Testament. (More on the God of Old Testament here). He kept Paul’s letters, ripped out all the Old Testament and cut and pasted together his own Gospel (called the Gospel of Marcion). The logical part of my brain wants to know what Marcion did when Paul quoted various verses from the Old Testament. Surely those should have been deleted, leaving quite a “holey” Bible.

What is interesting is to ask Why? Why does it not make sense? For River, it doesn’t fit her patterns of logic and symbolism. Which strikes me as ultimately quite arrogant. Why should a readers patterns of logic become the judge of the text of another?

Shepherd Book suggests to River another approach. “It’s not about making sense. It’s about believing in something. And letting that belief be real enough to change your life. It’s about faith. You don’t fix faith. It fixes you.” This suggests a certain humility. The reader remains open to mystery, to what is beyond their understanding. It also has the danger of a naive fundamentalism, a simple “The Bible says it and I believe it and that settles it.”

I love the tug of war that begins to develop. “Give me that”, says Shepherd as he tries to tug the Bible away from River. “You hang on to those then” he says as he gives up. Who should “own” the Bible. Shepherd? Or River?

Historically, Christianity has considered the Bible God’s gift to neither River nor Shepherd, but to the church. As Westerners, we like to assume individual ownership, when in reality, the Bible is the book of the community. This provides another way to think about what to do when the Bible makes no sense. It is to seek the wisdom of the community. This alternative does overcome naive fundamentalism, as the “I” decides to enter a conversation with the wisdom and insight of other readers.

The danger is that this notion of being a “gift to the church” becomes a power trip. The history of patriarchy is evidence of how one group in society can assume power over a reading. So this notion of “gift to the church” needs to be applied with care. This for me, is one of the most important insights of postmodernity: the suspicion of how power is used to supress absent voices. (For more on this, see here).

When a text no longer makes sense, frustration is inevitable. We face a range of options: ripping out pages, naive fundamentalism, claiming exclusive ownership, failing to appreciate the interpretative power we have. Which starts to make sense of the following prayer:

Our Friend, who is in heaven,
sacred is Your Word.
Your kingdom come,
Your Words be heard on earth as they are in heaven.
Forgive our neglect of them in the past
as we forgive those who neglect them around us.
Lead us toward an encounter with You
each time we delve into the Scriptures.
That Your presence, Your power,
and Your glory might be ever present among us
now and forever. Amen.