sustain:if:able kiwi

spiritualities of magic: theological film review of Now You See Me

Each month I publish a film review, for Touchstone (the New Zealand Methodist magazine). Stretching back to 2005, some 85 plus films later, here is the review for September, of Now you see me and the place of magic in culture today.

Now you see
A film review by Rev Dr Steve Taylor

Recent years have given us a thrilling world of wands, spells and castles. Think Harry Potter (and here), Snow White and the Huntsman, Alice in Wonderland and The Hobbit. All movies recently reviewed in Touchstone, all sprinkling our imagination with fairy dust. Movies seem ideally able to usher in the worlds of once upon a time make believe.

A friend recently told of encountering a six year old, who confided a belief in make believe. Followed by the shocking statement. Adults kill fairies.

The six year old had realised, painfully, that grown up logic would inevitably challenge the childlike world of once upon a time. Adult rationality was hard to work breaking the wands of childhood.

Which is certainly true of a second strand in the magic movie genre. A number of recent movies have sought to expose the magic of the magician. Sherlock Holmes uncovers the dark arts of Moriarty. The Illusionist showcases a magician using his craft to secure love above his station. Prestige pits magician against magician. Each focuses not only on magic, but on the magician, on this worldly pursuits in which logic and rationality triumph over make believe. For truth is surely explainable.

Which brings us to Now You See It. Directed by Louis Leterrier, like many a magic show, the plot relies on multiple suspensions of belief. Partial redemption comes through the lights of Hollywood, an A-list cast that includes Jesse Eisenberg as J Daniel Atlas, Woody Harrelson as Merritt McKinney, Morgan Freeman as Thaddeus Bradley and Michael Caine Arthur Tressler.

Now You See It straddles both magic and magician. We meet the fabled “Eye”, a mysterious collective of elite power, into which four struggling magicians, including J Daniel Atlas and Merritt McKinney, are mysteriously gathered. As the fame of the four grows, they begin to shower their audiences with money.

First, bank notes, robbed from a French Bank. Second, audience bank accounts, magically enhanced by routing dollars from a spendthrift insurance company. Third, the fortune of an investment company.

First, bank notes rain down, robbed from a French Bank. Second, audience bank accounts are magically enhanced by routing dollars from a spendthrift insurance company. Third, the fortune of an investment company, disappears as if by magic, from a guarded vault.

Is their magic real? Or is it simply a modern rehash of an ancient two card trick hiding a “truth is harsher than magic” world of crime?

It remains a challenge to the religious among us. How might one maintain a faith in angels and demons, miracles and resurrection, in a world with no Santa, wizard or wand?

For many, the six year old included, Christianity stands as yet another brand of fairy killer. We have found ourselves trading in a faith so rational that imagination has lost its magic and saints their sparkle.

The Christian tradition is no stranger to magic and magicians. In Acts 8, Philip performs miracles, which attract the attention of a local magician. Much like The Illusionist or Prestige, the complex motives by which power is sought and brought are sifted, if not spent.

Philip will have none of it. He walks a complex line, convinced that miracles are neither make believe nor for sale.

Rev Dr Steve Taylor is Principal at the Uniting College for Leadership and Theology, Adelaide. He writes widely in areas of theology and popular culture, including regularly at www.emergentkiwi.org.nz.

lone ranger: a post-colonial cowboys and indians

Each month I publish a film review, for Touchstone (the New Zealand Methodist magazine). Stretching back to 2005, some 80 plus films later, here is the review for July, of Lone Ranger.

Lone Ranger
A film review by Rev Dr Steve Taylor

I confess to a sheltered childhood. Somehow a masked man and his cry of “Hi-Ho, Silver! Away!” passed me by. Which is strange, given that the Lone Ranger occupies a significant place in contemporary popular culture, including 18 novels, 2,956 radio episodes and 221 half-hour television episodes.

Come 2013, the Disney remake of “The Lone Ranger” is able to draw on an extensive cultural arsenal. But this is the 21st century. Thus the way we tell stories of cowboys and Indians is certainly open to a re-make.

Much of this film deals with stereotype. It begins with a child wandering a theme park. It is a clever plot device, inviting us to cross times and cultures through the eyes of a child.

As we do, we encounter a Western side show, read a sign that says “noble savage,” and find ourselves startled by the appearance of an elderly Tonto (Johnny Depp), with a story to share with us.

The Lone Ranger (Armie Hammer as John Reid) is also battling with stereotype. He is a young city lawyer returning to the wild West. He is living in the shadow of his older brother (James Badge Dale as Dan Reid), a real Ranger living on the dry and dusty borders between railroad expansion and Comanche lands.

In storytelling one way to deal with stereotype is through character development. Take for instance the character of Tonto. He is introduced as Indian, imprisoned both in sideshow and in a railway carriage with convicted outlaw Butch Cassidy (William Fichtner). Rapidly he becomes mystical saviour, escaping prison, then restoring an injured Lone Ranger from a Butch Cassidy ambush in which his older brother is tortured and killed. As the plot twists, Tonto becomes village idiot, damaged as a child by the greed of Western imperialism.

All the time, the cultural gap is immense. In the original 1903‘s radio play, the character of Tonto was introduced so the Lone Ranger would have someone to talk. By 2013, Tonto is a window into a very different world. In Comanche culture, knowledge is treasure, exchange is mutual, while communication is primarily symbolic. In wild Western culture, knowledge is commodified, exchange is earned through gun and greed, while communication is primarily verbal.

Except that Tonto is Johnny Deep. Which cleverly makes obvious yet another stereotype, that of the audience. When we see Johnny Deep, we might be a child, but we are still expecting Captain Jack Sparrow, lawless buffoon from the Pirates of the Caribbean series. Who are we really seeing? What is the real story?

The answer, in “The Lone Ranger,” is partnership, a growing, and increasingly equal discovery of difference between cowboy and Indian. As those very first radio shows used to announce: “a masked man and an Indian rode the plains, searching for truth and justice.”

All of which invites us to consider a final stereotype. The credits of Hollywood roll. And all the time Tonto walks. Away from the sideshow and into his land. Home for Comanche? Or empty desert, waiting to be colonised with greed by gun? One picture. Can it include two peoples. Or must cowboys always end up killing Indians?

Star Trek Into Darkness: to boldly go where no superpower has gone before

Each month I publish a film review, for Touchstone (the New Zealand Methodist magazine). Stretching back to 2005, some 80 plus films later, here is the review for June, of Star Trek Into Darkness.

Star Trek Into Darkness
A film review by Rev Dr Steve Taylor

Into Darkness is entertainment, a high-paced, non-stop journey from space’s final frontier, through earth’s orbit, to probe the darkness we call evil. The result is an adrenaline laden few hours, that combines action, special effects and a complex weaving narrative.

Earth is under threat. Initially it appears to be a lone criminal, masterminding a series of terrorist attacks against the Federation. Enterprise and her crew chase the fugitive into Klingon territory, risking a war, uncovering an evil that is found to lie neither in the lone bomber, nor in an alien species, but within Star Fleet itself.

This is the second installment in a re-fit of the Star Trek cinematic enterprise (puns intended). In reprising Star Trek, director J.J.Abrams (Mission Impossible III and Star Trek (2009)), is able to draw on a long history, a wealth of material, from multiple TV series to eleven full length feature films.

This includes a familiar cast, household names of Kirk, Spock, Sulu, Uhura, Bones and Scotty. They provide a continuity around which new characters – Carol (Alice Eve), her father, Admiral Pike (Bruce Greenwood) and the fleeing criminal (Benedict Cumberbatch) – can be easily introduced. The result is a richer narrative, one that is familiar, faithful, yet fresh.

This history also allows Into Darkness to offer a series of narrative puzzles. It is here that genuine can Trekies linger, pondering the references to the birth of Khan (referencing the Wrath of Khan), the death (also the Wrath of Khan) and resurrection of Spock (The Search for Spock).

Going back to the future requires finding a new cast. We meet a young Kirk (Chris Pine), struggling to understand a young Spock (Zachary Quinto). This provides one theological lens, the potential richness of the cross-cultural journey. Into Darkness explores how relationships can bloom as time is invested and action encountered together. The temptation is always for what is dominant to demand change. Yet Kirk is a much reduced leader without the emotional passion of Bones or the logic of Spock.

Another theological lens is the exploring of terror. Into Darkness allows the Star Trek franchise, which began in 1966, to provide a mirror, a contemporary commentary on the politics of life post-9/11. The Federation response in the movie is typically militaristic, the aggressive embrace of new technology in response to terrorist violence.

Intriguingly, in the off-screen life of director J.J.Abrams another response is being explored. In real life, Abrams, is involved with The Mission Continues, a charity begun to encourage veterans into community service. Into Darkness is dedicated to America’s war veterans and the founder of The Mission Continues, Eric Greitens, appears in the film’s finale.

Imagine if community service rather than military aggression was the response to terror? Might this in fact be humanities ultimate final frontier? A way of moving out of darkness rather than into darkness, a very different way of boldly going where no super power has gone before.

Rev Dr Steve Taylor is Principal, Uniting College, Adelaide. He writes widely in areas of theology and popular culture, including regularly at www.emergentkiwi.org.nz.

a theology of temptations: Goddess film review

Each month I publish a film review, for Touchstone (the New Zealand Methodist magazine). Stretching back to 2005, some 80 plus films later, here is the review for April, of Australian film (Goddess).

Goddess
A film review by Steve Taylor

Goddess is fun.

Elspeth Dickens (Laura Michelle Kelly) is a young mother, raising an energetic child in the farmlands of rural Tasmania. Her husband James (Ronan Keating) is a marine scientist, absent for long periods chasing whales in the Southern Ocean.

Recently moved from London, their downunder dream of the rural idyll is eroded by his increasing absence and the growing isolation of raising children in a foreign land.

Elspeth turns to the internet, having a webcam installed, setting up a website, entering key words in search engines. She uploads her songs, original and quirky, that showcase her domestic realities. Her ditties of raising kids and washing dishes go viral. This attracts the interest of media magnate Cassandra Wolfe (Magda Szubanski), who flies Elspeth to Sydney to be the face of “Goddess,” a laptop – “for all the women you are.”

Directed by Mark Lamprell (Babe: Pig in the City) this Australian film is shot with an international eye. There can be little other explanation for the inclusion of global sing star, Ronan Keating. He acts, passably, yet strangely does not sing until the popcorn is well and truly eaten (the 75th minute to be precise).

Part musical, part comedy, part romance, Goddess seeks to emulate the success last year (reviewed in the October 2012 edition of Touchstone) of Australian musical comedy The Sapphires. While scenes of rural Tasmania are sure to turn international viewers green with envy, at times the movie tries to hard. The use of whale song and melting ice cream to embody shifting human relationships are more banal than funny.

Like Les Miserables (reviewed in the March 2013 edition of Touchstone) Goddess is adapted for the screen from a musical, Sinksongs. Unlike Les Miserables, the songs in Goddess are interspersed between enough dialogue, surrounded by enough comedy, to provide a surprisingly enjoyable movie experience.

In many ways Goddess functions as a contemporary temptation of Christ. Watching with two teenage daughters, the movie offered a thought provoking exploration of growing up female. These include the tensions around raising children, having a career and responding to the relentless sexualised commodification of the female body.

Under the media glare, Elspeth sifts a range of modern challenges. Not the temple, but the splendor of international fame. Not angels, but the persistent attention of the male gaze. Not bread for the body, but the sexualisation essential to modern media.

The film turns the humour of potty training into a serious exploration of being human, being family, being female. The scene in which Elspeth is told that she is simply another in a long line of pretty girls waiting to be discovered (exploited?) is a reminder of the disposability inherent in contemporary culture.

Goddess provides no easy answers, simply a feel good finale, in which faithfulness trumps fame.

Les Miserables – father daughter team review

Each month I publish a film review, for Touchstone (the New Zealand Methodist magazine). Stretching back to 2005, some 80 plus films later, here is the review for March. It’s a team effort with my daughter

Les Miserables
A film review by S(hannon) and S(teve) Taylor.

Les Miserables needs little introduction. It is a book, written by Victor Hugo, set during the French Revolution, a tale of courage, hope and redemptive love amidst poverty and power. It is a film, of at least ten versions, stretching back to 1934. It is a musical, first staged in 1985, now one of the world’s longest running, which has given us the timeless tunes, including “I Dreamed a Dream” and “Do You Hear the People Sing?”

All of this means that Les Miserables (2012) a film of the musical of the book, carries a considerable burden, a weight of expectation carried by both audience and cast.

For the audience, musicals are an acquired taste. Les Miserables (2012) is “sung-through.” No line of dialogue is spoken. Songs allow a long and lengthy story to be woven in ways that offer continuity yet introduce complexity. The opening chorus “Look down” suggests subservience when sung convicts. The same line when latter sung by beggars in Paris becomes a cry for justice. However, such advantages are based on a suspension of reality, a willingness to take seriously a tightly uniformed Javert exercising authority (“You are a thief”) through melody. One S Taylor went hesitant, a musical agnostic. The other S Taylor went expectant, a lover of song.

For the cast, could the Hollywood A-listers, the likes of Russell Crowe (Javert), Anne Hathaway (Fantine) and Hugh Jackman (Valjean), sing as well as they have been seen to act?

The answer is no. Which, apparently is deliberate. Russell Crowe responded to one vocal critic (American Idol runner-up Adam Lambert), that the goal was a performance that was “raw and real”. The cast refused any tweaking at a latter date in the studio editing suite, rejected any offers of overdubbing by professional singers.

At times these flaws, all ‘raw and real’, worked. They pointed to humanity, reminded us of reality, increase the intensity of emotion.

But only sometimes. Some performances deepened the emotional intensity (Marius’ (Eddie Raymond) “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables” a case in point). In other songs the intensity leaked, the arrogant melody of Javert’s “You are a thief” diluted by a voice more ordinary than operatic.

The attempt at the twisting of genre, the filming of a score of songs, has gained mixed critical reception. Well known film critic Anthony Lane, panned it with the memorable line: “I screamed a scream as time went by.” Yet the Academy awarded Anne Hathaway Best Supporting Actress for her heart wrenching rendition of this very song, while the film also achieved Best Makeup and Hairstyling and Best Sound Mixing. 

Those with a theological ear will find a wealth of material in Les Miserables, whether in book, film or musical. God is with the poor. The poor are grace bearers. Prayer is preferable to violence.

These themes remain as radical in the 21st century as in the 19th when Victor Hugo dreamed his final dream: “I leave 50 000 francs to the poor … I believe in God.” (Victor Hugo’s official will).

films that haunt: a tortured Christ and Zero Dark Thirty

Each month I publish a film review, for Touchstone (the New Zealand Methodist magazine). Stretching back to 2005, some 80 plus films later, here is the review for February.

Zero Dark Thirty
A film review by Rev Dr Steve Taylor

This movie explores a dark period in world history. Intelligently acted, tautly scripted superbly directed (by Kathryn Bigelow, Academy Award winning Director), it shines a spotlight on the ethics of being human today.

It begins in darkness, the only action the recorded voices of the dying in the Twin Towers on 9/11.

It concludes in darkness, with a midnight attack by elite troops on a sleeping Osama Bin Laden. At times comic, as suburban streets fill with neighbours woken by helicopters and gunshots, it shows the brutal killing of Osama and his wives. The climax might be predictable, but the suspense is superb, the emotion in the theatre palpable.

It uncovers darkness, the use of torture in black sites hidden across nations. Based on first hand accounts, “Zero Dark Thirty” visualises the systematic abuse of human rights and human persons by the United States post- 9/11.

The descent into this moral abyss proves important, revealing information about the identity of a courier close to Osama Bin Laden. The response to the torture scenes in the movie has been predictably varied. A glorification? A distortion? An honest naming of reality?

What follows torture are the years of dogged leg work. Cell phones are tapped and spotters circle crowded city streets searching for a number plate in a haystack. A building is identified. For over a hundred days, the US military weigh the options.

All the while, the terror continues. Scenes play out against the bombing of the Hotel Marriott in Pakistan or television footage of the London bombings.

Christians have a complex relationship with violence. Central to faith is the Passion, which each year recounts a torture. Sleep deprivation, humiliation and physical violence are inflicted upon the Christ.

This is graphically captured in a common Easter Friday image, “The Tortured Christ,” a sculpture by Brazilian artist Guido Rocha. Christ hangs on the cross as skin and bone, screaming in pain and suffering.

“Zero Dark Thirty” explodes our piety. It is one thing when the tortured are the innocent. It enables a sharing in suffering. For theologian William Cavanaugh, Christians “make the bizarre claim that pain can be shared, precisely because people can be knitted together into one body” (Torture and Eucharist: Theology, Politics, and the Body of Christ, 280).

But what happens when the tortured are not the innocent, but potentially are terrorists. Does Christ share their pain? In communion, should we?

Perhaps these questions are in fact the bitter herbs of Passover? They invite us to face the enormity of Jesus’ invitation to love our enemies. They suggest we swallow an outrageous hope, that love will redeem all dark places, terrorist and torturer, the darkness of all black sites.

It makes the ending of “Zero Dark Thirty” even more poignant, the tears rolling down the face of CIA heroine, Maya (Jessica Chastain). This is a film of lament, an invitation to swallow the bitter herbs of a world in darkness.

Update: For an extended list of Holy week movies :

• On Monday, The Insatiable Moon (2010), while reading Mark 11:15-16.
• On Tuesday, Serenity (2000), while reading Mark 14:3.
• On Wednesday, Gran Torino (2008), while reading John 12:23-14.
• On Thursday, Dark Knight (2008), while reading Mark 14:10.
• On Friday, Never let me go (2011), while reading Mark 15:33.
• On Sunday, Never let me go (again) and Invictus, while reading Mark 16:6-7.

Because –

The fact that popular media culture is an imaginative palette for faith … the church has to take that imaginative palette seriously… if part of the pastoral task of the church is to communicate God’s mercy and God’s freedom in a way that people understand then you have to use the language that they’re using, you have to use the metaphors and forms of experience that are already familiar to them. Tom Beaudoin

the nativity as a theology for the differently abled: film review of Intouchables

Each month I publish a film review, for Touchstone (the New Zealand Methodist magazine). Stretching back to 2005, some 80 plus films later, here is the review for December.

The Intouchables – A film review by Rev Dr Steve Taylor

“That’s what I want. No pity” Philippe from his wheel chair

It is Christmas. In the next weeks many of us will find ourselves contemplating an image of the Nativity, the crib surrounded by adoring angels, bewildered shepherds and a prayerful Mary.

(from Metropolitan Museum , usage based on their fair use policy and from www.metmuseum.org.)

The Adoration of the Christ Child by Jan Joest (1515) is one such depiction. While not sited on contemporary Christmas cards, it has caught the eye of scientists, who have identified one angel and one shepherd as displaying the typical features of Down syndrome.

It raises an important theological question. When the Word became flesh, one with all humanity, how might this be good news for the differently abled? What does disability mean to a Christian understanding of being human?

French movie “The Intouchables,” written and directed by Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano, provides a delightfully comic, yet theologically thoughtful response.

Philippe (Francois Cluzet) is a tetraplegic, sentenced to life in a wheel chair as a result of a hang glider accident. Needing care, he hires Driss (Omar Sy), a Senegalese migrant, from a long list of applicants. They share little in common, separated by age, ethnicity, upbringing and social context.

Yet together this unlikely pairing help each become more fully human. Their journey is a delight. Those around me in the packed cinema found a shared laughter, an enjoyment with, never at, the differently abled.

The film was voted the cultural event of 2011 in France, enjoying number one at the box office for ten consecutive weeks, becoming the highest-grossing movie in a language other than English. It is easy to see why. The dialogue is deft. The acting is superb.

Some critics suggest easy stereotypes in the contrast between rich white man and poor black man. Yet “The Intouchables” uncovers the brokenness in both their worlds. For one, the relational sterility of wealth, for the other, the drug addicted violence of high-rise migrant housing.

Both Philippe and Driss must eventually find healing for disabilities not just physical, but relational.

Suggesting easy stereotypes also overlooks reality. “The Intouchables” is based on truth, the relationship of Philippe Pozzo di Borgo and Algerian Abdel Sellou, spread over ten years. Their story is told in A Second Wind and they remain friends. Together their relationship offers a depth of insight into the task of being human.

“Pity is the last thing you need. Pity is hopeless. Pity is what someone gives you because he is afraid to take care of you. I didn’t need that. But compassion I don’t need also. It comes from Latin and means ‘suffering with’. I don’t want you to be suffering with me. I need consolation, which in Latin means keeping me as a whole person, respecting me as I am.” (Philippe in Daily Telegraph, 5/9/2012)

Christians can get good at pity. At Christmas we can face many calls for compassion. Might it be that Christ, surrounded by disabled angels and shepherds, calls us to neither pity nor compassion? Rather he invites consolation, the God who in Christ so loved the intouchables, all “the least of these.”

Rev Dr Steve Taylor is Principal, Uniting College for Leadership and Theology, Adelaide. He writes widely in areas of theology and popular culture, including regularly at www.emergentkiwi.org.nz.

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Argo: a cinematic theology of peacemaking

Each month I publish a film review, for Touchstone (the New Zealand Methodist magazine). Stretching back to 2005, some 80 plus films later, here is the review for November.

Argo
A film review by Rev Dr Steve Taylor

“We did it peacefully.”

Sometimes truth really is stranger than fiction. In 1979, the US Embassy in Iran was stormed by an angry mob.  While fifty two Americans were taken hostage, six staff escape, hiding in the Canadian ambassadors’ residence.

Enter CIA agent, John Mendez (Ben Affleck). While watching TV with his son (where would popular culture be without “Planet of the Apes”?) he hits upon the idea of smuggling the six out of Iran disguised as a film crew.

Enter Hollywood makeup artist John Chambers (John Goodman) and fading director, Lester Siegel (Alan Arkin). Together they peddle a faux movie, complete with poster, press and launch party.

Enter “Argo,” a science fiction script in which aliens attack Middle Eastern farmers. Mendez enters Iran as a location scout, prepared to navigate the missing diplomats as a Canadian camera and production crew, past Iranian security and into international airspace.

It makes for crackling tension. Real life TV footage of Iranian protests is spliced with the Iranian secret service steadily recreating, out of embassy shredded documents, photos of the missing embassy staff. Meanwhile the Iranian housekeeper, aware of the truth, must face divided loyalties as she encounters a questioning Iranian intelligence officer.

Truth really is stranger than fiction.

Those who appreciate creativity will note the clever use of cartooning, both to introduce a potted history of Western interference in Iranian history and latter to storyboard the “Argo” plot.

No less clever is the use of sound. Angry voices in the bazaar are mixed with the quiet interrogation of housekeeper by Iranian secret service agent, the shouted accusations as sinister as the quiet questions.

Amid this international tension, New Zealand gets a mention. We as a nation are alleged, along with Britain, to have failed to hide the six embassy staff.

The truth really is different. According to the Canadian ambassador (“Our Man in Tehran”), New Zealand embassy staff played an important supporting role. This included providing food, renting a further safe house and transporting the “film crew” to the airport.

“Argo” is film about a film, a Hollywood film in which Hollywood stars. Is the result yet more American hype, another stereotype in which American quick wittedness trumps Middle Eastern mobs?  Not when it reminds us of the grubby side of Hollywood, global exporter of pornographer. Neither when it affirms the American need for international co-operation, their reliance on Canadian partners.  Nor when it celebrates peace.

The last words in “Argo” are left to Jimmy Carter, the United States President at that time. A Nobel Peace Prize winner (2002), his conclusion, as the credits role on “Argo,” provides a distinctly unAmerican approach to conflict resolution.

“We did it peacefully.”

Words which echo those of Jesus, “Blessed are the peacemakers.” So often dismissed by the cynical realist, in “Argo” they capture a truth that really is stranger than fiction.

Rev Dr Steve Taylor is Principal, Uniting College for Leadership and Theology, Adelaide, Australia. He writes widely in areas of theology and popular culture, including regularly at www.emergentkiwi.org.nz.

The Sapphires film review: an expression of ubuntu theology

Each month I publish a film review, for Touchstone (the New Zealand Methodist magazine). Here is the review for October.

The Sapphires
A film review by Rev Dr Steve Taylor

“Without me, there’s no you.”

1968. The year I was born. The year that Martin Luther King was shot. The year four indigenous Aboriginal sisters, from rural Australia, found themselves in the midst of Vietnam.

Based on a true story, “The Sapphires” is an endearing mix of comedy, song and romance. In response to a newspaper advertisement, aided by out of luck Irish DJ Dave Lovelace (Chris O’Dowd) – Gail (Deborah Mailman), Cynthia (Miranda Tapsell), Kay (Shari Sebbens) and Julie (Jessica Mauboy) – sing their way into a war. Travelling through Vietnam, entertaining American soldiers, they discover love and sorrow, dreams and reality.

An indigenous movie demanded an indigenous cast, requiring a scouring through Aboriginal communities around Australia. It is a credit to the emerging indigenous film industry in Australia to find actors as talented as Deborah Mailman. With 11 movies in 2011 and 15 in 2010, it suggests a community both creative and healthy. (In the period 1970-1979, there were 9 indigenous movies, compared with 135 in the period 2000-2009.*) (For more graphs go here).

Indigenous film or films made by indigenous film makers – Australia decadal

The use of black and white archival future – of Martin Luther King, of indigenous Australian campsites – skillfully adds a historical layer to the song and soul. Issues of ethical significance are raised, without the storyline being consumed.

“The Sapphires” began life as a stage musical. Indigenous writer Tony Brigg’s then crafted the song and dance genre for the big screen. He drew on the lives of his mother and three aunts, their love of song which led to and their work in Vietnam in the late 1960s. All four remain alive today, working for health among their indigenous communities.

Kiwi audiences will see similarities with the art of Maori comedian, Billy T James. Both employ the genre of musical comedy. Both share a public story of beginnings in Vietnam and use humour to gently poke at issues ranging from racism to indigenous experience.

Christian audiences will see similarities with the Biblical story of Ruth. First in the sentiments of the handwritten marriage proposal and the display of a sacrificial love willing to embrace “Your people as my people.” Second, in the indigenous smoking experience in which a mother welcomes a long lost daughter, stolen by officials enacting the White Australia policy of the 1950s. It is these scenes that give this movie a real power, the human tragedy made more poignant by the backdrop, including the death of Martin Luther King.

“The Sapphires” offers a poignant reminder of the social, ethical and communal heart of God, through the sacrificial actions of kinsman redeemers who open the way for redemption in community. This is seen most clearly in the Christian tradition through “ubuntu” theology, the concept made famous by Desmond Tutu in which “I am because we are.” The reminder that in God, and thus among God’s people, that indeed “Without me, there’s no you.”

*Source http://www.creativespirits.info/resources/movies/indigenous-film-timeline

Who pulled the trigger? Dark Knight Rises film review

Each month I publish a film review, for Touchstone (the New Zealand Methodist magazine). Here is the review for September, written after, and with reflection upon, the tragic events in Aurora, Colorado on 20 July 2012.

Dark Knight Rises
A film review by Rev Dr Steve Taylor

Who pulled the trigger?

Hollywood block buster “Dark Knight Rises” will be forever defined not by plot, character or artistic sensibility, but by opening night. On 20 July 2012, James Holmes, suited in body armour, armed with a Colt AR-15 Tactical Carbine and .40 caliber Glock handgun, walked into a packed cinema in Aurora, Colorado. Movie goers initially thought it was an opening night party trick.

Holmes opened fire, killing twelve and injuring another fifty eight. A premiere that will go down in history as the occasion of the largest mass shooting in US history.

So was James Holmes mad, mentally unable to see right from wrong? Or was he simply bad, clinically choosing wrong from right, death over life?

Or should we point the finger elsewhere, take aim at United States gun laws and the way that allow such easy access to multiple murder and mayhem?

Who pulled the trigger?

Reports quickly emerged after the arrest of James Holmes of how he had described himself as the Joker, a direct reference to an earlier movie in the Dark Knight trilogy (reviewed in Touchstone September 2008), in which evil was personified in the person of the Joker.

If so, might the movie industry in fact be to blame. To what extent does the media influence us as individuals and ourselves as culture? The debate has raged for years, although never as poignantly as in the aftermath of Dark Knight Rises.

Yet the argument prosecutes the one, while failing to consider the many. Millions of people did see the Joker. More have watched murder enacted in Macbeth or heard it described in the Biblical story. Yet only James Holmes pulled the trigger.

Everyone one of us is daily surrounded by suggestion, by products to purchase, sweets to consume and temptations to pursue. Yet we still expect each other to say when.

Putting aside the moral arguments and opening night tragedy, how should the Dark Knight Rises be reviewed? Despite the glitzy star cat – Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne, Anne Hathaway as Catwoman – the movie is hardly worth watching. Directed by Chris Nolan, the glittering special effects fail to hide a reliance on spoken rather than visual storytelling. The repetitive soundtrack remains a stark reminder of the plodding pace.

Dark Knight Rises continues to explore the moral complexity that is Batman. Police and power are ignored, the wealth of the few purchasing an exclusive set of technologies. Rich boys toys become the plaything of a self-appointed vigilante.

The suspension of belief, so essential to movie making magic, remains a bridge too far. The ending needed an edit, for credits to roll with the entry of Robin, rather than the exit of Batman.

Amid the destruction of opening night, Dark Knight Rises as a poorly made finale to a trilogy of disturbing moral complexity.

indigenous movie making: an emerging growth industry

Recently, I was working on a film review of indigenous movie, The Sapphires. As part of my research, I wanted to get a handle on the extent of the Australian indigenous movie industry.

My conclusion (drawing on figures from this website) – It’s quite a growth industry!

Indigenous film or films made by indigenous film makers – Australia decadal

And here’s the 2000 decade broken down into years – and the growth is most obvious in the last few years – specifically 2007, 2008, 2009.

For another article – A Short History of Indigenous Filmmaking – go here.

21st century feminism: film review of Snow White and the Huntsman

Each month I publish a film review, for Touchstone (the New Zealand Methodist magazine). This one is a bit special, a collaboration with oldest teenage daughter. I’ve done this a number of times now with both the children. We watch together, write together and share the writing fee together. It’s always a very rich experience.

Snow White and the Huntsman
A film review by S and S Taylor

Snow White is a German fairytale, made famous by the Brothers Grimm in 1812. From them we get the magic mirror, poisoned apple and seven dwarfs.

The tale has long been a fascination for movie makers. Snow White first appeared, silent, in 1916. Disney grabbed her in 1937, while in 1961 the story was parodied as “Snow White and the Three Stooges.” In other words, when the tale is well known, give it a twist. Exactly 200 years later, enter “Snow White and the Huntsman,” a dark recasting of the classic tale.

Some things remain – magic mirror, poisoned apple and seven dwarfs. Both focus on the importance of inner beauty, with an Evil Queen preoccupied with her appearance.

But in 2012, the Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) becomes both saviour and fellow fighter, the dwarves are more suspicious, while Snow White saves not only herself, but her entire Kingdom.

While the cast is well known, the acting is uneven. Kristen Stewart (Snow White) struggles to break free from being Bella Swan of the “Twilight” saga. Chris Hemsworth as the Huntsman, struggles to be more than the mysterious strong man. Charlize Theron (featured in “Prometheus,” reviewed in Touchstone last month) is superbly wicked, an Evil Queen of chilling complexity.

Despite being old-fashioned, Snow White is intriguing in the way it places as central two strong female characters, in Snow and the Evil Queen. But this is a twisted tale and so the question is worth exploring. What might it take to be a twenty first century woman?

For the Evil Queen, it is to seek youth and beauty. She lives and dies defined by her mother’s words: “Your beauty is all that can save you.”

For Snow White, her mother’s words are also defining, an inner beauty expressed in honourable actions. (Although a climax in which she leads an armed uprising becomes an intriguing 21st century take on moral purity). Surprisingly for Hollywood, Snow White in 2012 requires no Hollywood love interest, no handsome hero to complete her day.

And to be a man? It means confronting pain and facing grief. For Snow’s father, impulsive decisions result in far reaching negative consequences. For Snow’s childhood friend, boyhood loss generates a lifelong quest. For the Huntsman, adult grief requires facing the pain, taking risks and making right choices.

Being a modern tale, “Snow White and the Huntsman” comes complete with environmental themes. The Evil Queen poisons not only an apple but people and planet. The good fairies emerge from friendly birds, to conjure up a very English creation, complete with cute squirrels and the famed white stag.

The M rating is deserved, a mirror of human wickedness. All fairytales contain a moral. In 1812 it was that beauty comes from the inside but it needs a rescuing Prince to restore Snow White to her rightful place, man at side.

In 2012 beauty remains, but it needs an iron fist, a deadly battle between sword and bow, leaving Snow a woman alone. Such is the feminism of the twenty first century.

Prometheus: a theological film review

Each month I publish a film review, for Touchstone (the New Zealand Methodist magazine). Here is my most recent, a reflection on creation, Prometheus and original sin.

Prometheus
A film review by Rev Dr Steve Taylor
Director Ridley Scott returns to familiar territory, tracing his “Alien” exploration back to the beginning. While cinematic references to other Alien movies are cleverly interwoven, “Prometheus” still works as stand-alone sci-fi horror. The lighting is superb, the soundtrack appropriately haunting, a visual palette of blacks and white providing a rich array of foreboding textures. The acting of Noomi Rapace is a standout, showing that her central role as Lisbeth Salander in The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo was no fluke. The result is a movie for the strong in mind and stomach (obscure “Alien” reference intended).

On a remote mountain, an alien life-form releases DNA into the waters of life. In caves on the Isle of Skye, archaeologists find symbols of alien life-forms coming from distant stars. On the space vessel Prometheus, the crew emerge from hibernation to face an alien planet and their own conflicted agendas.

The narratives are woven together, as tension builds. Rocks ooze a sticky liquid. Water unexpectedly surges. A storm front approaches. Alien life breaks forth from within and without, inflicting a bewildering array of horror on all those sailing the good ship Prometheus.

The movie cracks open an endless series of moral dilemmas. Should science propel the quest for new life on new planets, when science generates weapons of mass destruction? Should business pay for the quest, when economic gain risks reducing people to dollars and cents? Can faith exist amid the rationality of the scientific quest? Should one die to preserve the many?

At one level the Christian narrative is obvious. As the movie concludes, we see Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) reclaiming a cross missing from around her neck, while affirming her belief in faith.

In a beautiful cinematic sequence, David (Michael Fassbender) will dance, almost worshipfully, among projected planets, an affirmation of creation’s beauty and mystery.

Yet throughout the movie, at a molecular level, DNA is portrayed as vulnerable to distortion, destruction and death. Thus the movie becomes a way to conceive the Christian doctrine of original sin. Well-known early church theologian, Augustine of Hippo, suggested that from birth, humans are infested with sin’s destruction. Creation might be created good, but in human time, has become deeply infested with an inbuilt bias toward depravity.

In hindsight, we are now aware that Augustine was working with a mis-translation, a corruption of the Latin text, interpreting “in him all sinned,” as a reference to Adam. More recent translations from the original Greek now suggest a very different reading (for example, the NIV, “ because all sinned”).

Yet the question remains. Are all babies born singing God’s good name? Or is all creation infested by destruction, needing a cross? In the “Prometheus” movie, the destructiveness of DNA is placed alongside a belief in the power of a cross and the need for faith. “If they made us, can they save us?” This concluding question propels Elizabeth Shaw into what will undoubtedly be yet another Alien movie.

“Prometheus” is a beautifully shot, albeit sometimes bewildering cinematic journey into questions foundational to philosophy and faith.

Rev Dr Steve Taylor is Director of Missiology, Uniting College, Adelaide. He writes widely in areas of theology and popular culture, including regularly at www.emergentkiwi.org.nz.

Kony 12: An optimist, a cynic and a theologian ..

Each month I publish a film review, for Touchstone (the New Zealand Methodist magazine). Here is my most recent.

Kony 12
An optimist, a cynic and a theologian sat down to share a latte and change the world.

The optimist wanted to do something…anything. He left the cafe and flew to Africa. His heart broke, bled in a thousand pieces in a country he didn’t understand, among a culture that was never his.

Being a Westerner, he came armed with a video camera. He used it to shoot footage of crying children, dense bush, and men with guns.

He returned to form an organization, and coined it ‘Invisible Children’. He gathered donations – a third for film, a third for expenses, a third for programmes grounded in Africa.*

He began to recruit, drawing together a staff skilled in film-making and media industries. Carefully they edited the video, manipulated the sound bites, added graphics and sourced the emotional background music. And so was born Kony 12.

The cynic snorted when he saw it. A lifetime exposed to world hunger and media manipulation had left a well-practised sneer. He googled ‘Kony 12’ and pressed ‘like’ on all the criticisms.

What is the budget? Who funded this? Where is the conspiracy? What if it fails? Is the US there simply because of oil? Will this simply inoculate people against the next tragedy?

While he complained, ‘Kony 12’ became a media sensation, watched on the Internet by nearly 90 million views.

The theologian’s teenage child suggested she watch the video on YouTube. Pressing play, she smiled at the gospel echoes in the sound bites – ‘the value of all human life’, ‘a bunch of littles could make a huge difference’, ‘the unseen became visible’.

She pondered the difficulty of fitting story, slogan, sound bite into the words ‘nuance’ and ‘complexity’. She recalled the words of challenge from African youth leader Teddy Ruge: “Did I ask you to sell my story for an action kit to make uninformed college students feel good?”

Time went by and later, the optimist, the cynic and the theologian bumped into each other once again on a crowded city.

Proudly, the optimist noted how Kony was now a household name. ‘We’re making the world a better place,’ he said.

The cynic was unconvinced. ‘Surely there must be more to life than making Facebook a better world.’ He mentioned the ‘S’ word – ‘slacktivism’ – the idea that sharing, liking or re-tweeting across the social web will solve a problem.

The theologian pulled a book from her handbag and read from Teresa of Avila. “I particularly notice in certain persons … that the further they advance … the more attentive they are to the needs of their neighbours.”

Which means, suggested the theologian, that Kony serves a purpose. It is a way to pay attention to the needs of our neighbour. Yet Kony must advance. Eyes that watch a video, and hands that ‘like’ a link, need feet that carry them to meet their needy neighbours face to face. Wouldn’t that be a video worth making!

*Publicly available financial accounts of Invisible Children suggest nearly 25 percent of its $8.8m income last year was spent on travel and film-making and about 30 percent went toward programmes in Africa.

Rev Dr Steve Taylor is Director of Missiology, Uniting College, Adelaide. He writes widely in areas of theology and popular culture, including regularly at www.emergentkiwi.org.nz.