Zebra Crossing and the Salt of the Earth

 

 

Watching last night's Zebra Crossing on Film4 was an uncomfortable experience. The film is full of violence, swearing, drug-taking and sex, and as such I would not recommend it to any who are adverse to the portrayals of such behaviors on film or stage.

The film chronicles the lives of a gang of friends on a south London housing estate for whom physical aggression is a normal part of everyday life. Violence is not only between other gangs and drug dealers, but also family members and the local police, who are portrayed as cruel and corrupt. One member of the group, Justin, becomes increasingly aware of his need to escape the hectic lifestyle of hatred and fighting that he has grown up with. But he lacks the knowledge of how to achieve a way out.

Justin's only hope lies in his contact with a black man Marcus who he meets in a church that Justin wanders into. Marcus (Michael Maris) appears to be some kind of community outreach worker. The fact is that he does not say a lot to Justin during the film. Not a gang member, not a drug-taker, Marcus is an alternative role model and a human contact who may be a steadying influence as Justin tries the difficult path of trying to break free from his lifestyle.  

Although Zebra Crossing - filmed in black and white and winner of the Audience Award at the Raindance Film Festival in 2008 - is as sickening in parts as A Clockwork Orange or American History X, its fast-paced and foul-mouthed violence is not gratuitous but essential. The story is about that way of life and the near-impossibility for the 18-year-old protagonist to break away from it.  

Marcus symbolises for me one aspect of the church's role in such a broken-down society. Although I half-expected Marcus to preach to Justin, his actual role as listener, example and human contact enables a safe relationship to be formed, which may offer Justin the possibility of starting to change. Marcus was analogous to the role that salt plays in traditional societies - a preservative, a restrainer of decay, a savouring presence and a medicine. I was also struck by the role that the physical church building played in the story. It was literally the only environment in the film in which acts of violence would not break out at any moment. 

There is nothing sentimental about the film. And the apparent Christological element in the film's final scene in no way jars with the gritty realism of the portrayal of the lives of the young men caught up in the nihilism that they have become conditioned to. Instead, it made me think that the director Sam Holland in his debut film may have something to say to the church about its role in the world and to the world about the peaceable kingdom that exists, often out of sight, on its fringes.  

The official trailer to Zebra Crossing can be viewed here.











If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.

Hurricane Sandy and the Prophetic Nature of Films

Am I alone in seeing parrells between Hurricane Sandy and the movie The Day After Tomorrow? Recent images of sea water coursing though lower Manhattan compare at least superficially with the scene in the film when a massive wave surges onto the New York island as three storm systems collide over the east coast of North America.

The ability of script writers to imagine future scenarios is, of course, central to their craft. I'm interested, however, in the extent to which such imaginative work draws upon the possibility of scenarios which are both contingently possible while also being sufficiently unusual to fulfil their role as vehicles for fantasy and escapism.

Other examples include

• the election of a black President in episode one of TV series 24, seven years before Barack Obama's successful election campaign
• the creation of an all-encompassing television environment in The Truman Show, in anticipation of the Big Brother TV phenomenon
• two aspects of the film Minority Report seem relevant: one is the use of targeted individualised advertising (in the mall scene) which anticipates the current fusion of data mining with mobile technology to focus personal product promotion; the second is the concept of pre-crime, which perhaps highlights some of the ethical difficulties with entrapment-based models of crime surveillance and prevention in an increasingly autocratic age.
• the prediction of artificial intelligence in the form of the HAL 9000 super-computer in the 1968 science fiction classic 2001: A Space Odyssey
• the presence of hand-held tablets and computers in Star Trek episodes as early as the 1960s

    

 

It was, apparently, in recognition, of the ability of some creative individuals to "see" possible future scenarios that the CIA toyed with the idea of forming collaborative working relationships with Hollywood in an attempt to draw on a different strand of intelligence to complement their more traditional information-gathering techniques. This experiment, however, did not survive the overhaul of the CIA following 9-11.

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.

No Country for Old Men: an Old Testament Parable?

Being a bit behind the times with all things cinema-graphic,  I only got round to watching No Country last week.

What a brutal film - and yet despite the bloodletting, there is an interesting tale with a spiritual dimension. At least, that's how I saw it.

The film touches on a number of religious themes - not least of all that of death itself, which wraps itself around the action like an omnipresent shroud.

The story is unremittingly bleak and portrays a vision of life that is, to borrow a well-worn existentialist phrase, absurd.

The harsh Texas landscape combines with the portrayal of the lives of the ordinary and powerless, whose existence is shown to be meaningless and insignificant - the more so when confronted with the cruelty of amoral killers seeking money, revenge or, perversely, mere self-actualization. The brutality metered out on many of the cast is, in this context,  equally meaningless. Nondescript lives, ending in random and violent deaths.

Indeed the theme of randomness is central to the narrative, supremely illustrated  by the psychopathic Anton Chiqurh, menacingly played by Javier Bardem, who tosses a coin before deciding whether strangers live or die at his hands.

In this sense, the film is acutely realistic, and consistent with many of the  most profound questions posed by the writers of the biblical Psalms and other Wisdom literature. The observation that life often appears brutal, meaningless and that the innocent are frequently carried away in apparently random acts of violence is, indeed, a Biblical observation:

An unplowed field produces food for the poor, but injustice sweeps it away.
(Proverbs 13:23)

 Or, consider  the political "realism" of "the preacher":

Again I looked and saw all the oppression that was taking place under the sun:
   I saw the tears of the oppressed—
   and they have no comforter;
power was on the side of their oppressors—
   and they have no comforter.
And I declared that the dead,
   who had already died,
are happier than the living,
   who are still alive.
(Ecclesiastes 4:1-2)

The Biblical realism of these passages is evident to anyone who takes the time to look. Even as this blog is being read, this very day, innocent civilians are being butchered in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and in Pakistan, children are being orphaned by American drones.

The religious person is forced to ask the uncomfortable question: "Why?"

The fact that the Biblical writers observed these injustices through the perspective of belief in a Supreme God made their attempts to find meaning in these brutal acts more difficult than would be true for the atheist, who would not attempt to find any grand design or meaning behind such events.  

Job, described as a man who "feared God and shunned evil" seems to even accuse God of injustice in the face of the pain suffered by the innocent:

It is all the same; that is why I say,
   ‘He destroys both the blameless and the wicked.’
 When a scourge brings sudden death,
   he mocks the despair of the innocent.
 (Job 9:22-24)

The psalmist puts the problem even more bluntly:

Why, LORD, do you stand far off?
   Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?

From the perspective of the New Testament, Paul of Tarsus makes a historic evaluation which is also full of theological meaning:

"Death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses" (Romans 5:14)

Although No Country For Old Men is located in modern America, theologically, it is located in this epoch when "death reigned". The absence of hope in the film underlines this spiritual reality - Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) is rebuked by his Uncle Ellis for assuming he can change anything. "Thinking it's all waiting on you, that's vanity" spews out the ex-lawman.

In this sense, the finely-crafted film is a parable that fits with the time before the Answer to death is revealed. It portrays the reality and shows the problem, but is unable to provide meaning or hope.

In Biblical terms, the film is B.C.

Its resolution would await another bloody death of an Innocent and His destruction of death itself.

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.

The War Your Don't See

The War You Don't See trailer from John Pilger on Vimeo.

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.

Inception: Emotional Hit

Having only just got round to seeing Inception, I loved the intensity of the film and was genuinely entertained by its energy, imagination and visual power. It was a treat to watch a film that was so "seeable" as well as to follow a storyline that was gripping and original.

Although writer-director Christopher Nolan has come up with an original and well-worked concept film I appreciated the deferential nods to Matrix (in the zero gravity fight scene in the hotel corridor) and 2001 (such as when Fischer finally meets his dying father in the sanitized, green-tiled room). Production values also resonate in parts, unsurprisingly, with Nolan's earlier Batman Begins. The white-clad soldiers shooting each other in the snow scene, of course, is straight out of On Her Majesty's Secret Service.

Personally, I don't see the film as masterpiece, but do agree with Mark Kermode that it is "brilliant".

Beyond the core idea (that, through technology, people can enter other people's dreams), there was a limited development of the philosophy and ethics of the concept (a contrast in this regard with 2001). Dom and Mal Cobb's experience of life in limbo should, however, be a warning to other lovey-dovey couples of the risks involved in being too hippy-trippy, especially when there are children who need looking after!

A great film. Get the DVD. And watch out for trains next time you're in a car chase.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Inception, Part II: A Psychologically "Real" Dream World (psychologytoday.com)
• Movie Review: Inception - Eye Candy, or Mind Candy? (slashfilm.com)

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.

Life in the River

Watching A River Runs Through It for the first time this evening, I was struck by the idea of finding meaning in the mundane in Robert Redford's Oscar winning film.

The relative pace of the film left me waiting for "something" to happen - I found myself wondering when the "event" was about to take place that would upset the serene tone and pace of the film's beautiful Montana backdrop.

The fact is that, although there is action and tragedy in the film (no spoilers here), much of the plot focuses on the everyday and the ordinary. In this sense, the film is realistic, and a welcome change from the usual diet of bombs, car chases and aliens.

What sets the film apart, though, is the way that the mundane is infused with meaning. Unlike the writings of Camus, for instance, where the ordinary is a motif for the absurd, the semi-autobiographical novella by American professor Norman Maclean which is the basis for the 1992 film reflects a worldview that assumes that life's everyday events are rich in meaning.

This is a worldview consistent with the Christian faith of Maclean's father in real life (and in the film), who was a church minister. The Biblical mind assumes that, since God is creator and Lord of all, that the whole of life is to be lived for the glory of God, and derives its meaning from that orientation.

The motif of the river that flows through the film also resonates with Biblical imagery:

"Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, 'If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.

Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.'"

John 7:37-39

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.

Not so Funny People

In case we needed any proof that it is not only authoritarian governments that practice aggressive censorship of journalists, spare a thought for Brazilian journalist Fernanda Ezabella who has been blacklisted by the local representative of Universal Studios for asking director Judd Apatow an awkward question during a press conference about Universal's new film Funny People.

The story is as follows: Ezabella is attending the press conference on behalf of the magazine Folha de S. Paulo when, in the press pack handed out to journalists, she discovers a copy of a receipt for $1,375 for a limousine hired to bring the director the 9 miles from his home to the press conference.

Obviously, the receipt was not meant to be included, but in fact copies of it had made their way into each press pack due to an administrative error.

The observant Fernanda therefore asked a question of Judd Apatow along the lines of whether it could be justified in the present financial crisis, when staff are being laid off by studios, to pay nearly $1,400 for a limo to travel such a short distance.

Barely had the words left her mouth when Ezabella found the mocrophone hastily removed from her and attempts to ask a follow up question blocked by press officers. Her press pack was removed and, later, she found she had been blacklisted from future Universal press conferences.

I guess many of us have known for some time that there is an insanity at the heart of much of the corporate world and, perhaps it would be helpful for Universal if people with a concern for free speech and the integrity of the press took a break from paying any money to watch any Universal movies for a while until they have cleared up this nasty over-reaction. What do you think?

Current releases from Universal include A Perfect Getaway, Bruno and Public Enemies. Future releases include Funny People, Love Happens and The Wolfman. Were you so inclined, you could always contact Universal and let them know why you're watching something else instead.

Fernanda Ezabella's account of the incident (in Portugeuse) is here and my source for the story is here.

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.

Broadband, Bandwidth and Video

Some thoughts going round my head this week were sparked by the interesting Radio Four In Business show on Sunday night on the BBC.

Peter Day asks whether the growth of video online is outstripping the capacity of the infrastructure of the web to cope. His conclusion - we'll probably muddle through thanks to fibre optics.

Introduced through the show to Next New Networks a New York-based micro-television company narrowcasting over the Internet for targeted communities. User contributed, ultra niche, NNN's co-founder Herb Scannell describes the fact that half a dozen of his staff don't own TV's and represent the "Internet First" generation of video viewers.

A few loosely related sites I like that may point the way to how the bandwidth will be used up in the coming years:

• Daily Motion I like the fact you can embed videos directly from here to your blog and that you don't get a YouTube logo in the corner.
• UStream TV Live, interactive narrowcasting (without the same quality control as Next New networks!). Hamster Live is a personal favourite.
  
• Open Source Movies Mostly oldies but lots of goodies. Vintage Woodie Woodpecker included below.

If you like to create as well as watch, the following may be of interest:

• Eyejot Free Video Mail with nothing to install.
• Cover it Live Live blogging software with loads of extras, including video. Not open source, unfortunately.
  

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.

350

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.

The World's First Climate Refugees are on the Move

While some continue the luxury of mulling over whether human activity is contributing to global warming in any significant way, over 3,000 residents of the Cateret Islands in the Pacific are already being described as the world's first "climate refugees."

Despite years of effort, islanders have been unable to counter the rising sea levels around their island community (part of Papua New Guinea) which have finally rendered their land and homes uninhabitable. Over 3,000 have already been already relocated to Bougainville Island 50 miles to the south west.

The community appears to have the dubious privilege of becoming the first people group to be moved in their entirety due to environmental degradation of their homeland.

Independent film maker Pip Starr has documented the move, below. Ursula Rakova, a Cateret resident, tells her personal story of becoming an environmental refugee here.

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.

Ethanol News

Several Ethanol stories have been breaking this week:

• 15-year targets to produce ethanol from waste products will not be met in the US, according to the US Energy Information Administration. Current legislation requires companies to produce 6 billion gallons of biofuels a year by 2022 as an alternative to gasoline.
• the US Department of Agriculture has signed agreements with US companies worth $55 million to help develop the ethanol industry in the Philippines.
  
• President Bush - who famously described America as "addicted to oil" has expressed concern over the rising price of corn and other food stuffs as crops are increasingly being used for ethanol production and their value rises.
• The UN World Food Program has urged Europe to give more thought to its biofuels policy and targets. As previously reported, EU targets on biofeuls are said to be generating land grabs in parts of Asia and Africa, along with human rights abuses and the emergence of large monocultures that are damaging local food production in developing countries.
  
• Meanwhile, supporters of biofuel are busy promoting Fields of Fuel, a new film extolling biofuels as the answer to American energy security. An alternative view can be found here.

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by email or RSS.

The Bourne Ultimatum - a Christian Parable?

Parables - secular or spiritual - are often confused with allegories. The latter are less frequently heard and harder to create due to the fact that every element in them has symbolic meaning.

Parables, on the other hand, can have several layers of meaning but essentially make one main point and they make it through a story. The Bourne Ultimatum, in my humble opinion, is a fine example of a parable - and a Christian one at that.

Here's why.

The film - shot on location in London, New York and Tangier - follows Bourne's quest for answers. Who is he? Why is he as he is? How did he become this way?

Strip away the CIA context and these are fundamental philosophical - indeed religious - questions.

Bourne's search leads him back on a journey. Painful though it is, this path involves uncovering his past crimes and, as far as he can, apologizing for them. The Christian concept is confession of sin and repentance - a change of mind. Like the lost son in the gospels, we see Bourne literally coming to his senses and turning back to the point at which he went astray.

Whereas the first two installments of the Bourne saga portray Jason as a victim, this final episode gives us the other side of the story. Although brainwashed by the powers, Bourne also chose this path initially. Sin is both a thing that takes us over, and at the same time is a personal choice. Mankind in sin is both a rebel and a slave.

Bourne's journey ends with this recognition - dramatically re-enacted in the basement of the secret CIA training facility where he first agreed to learn to kill. Increasingly choosing mercy over judgment as he fights his would-be captors, Bourne's freedom from this prison is through water - his desperate jump into New York's East River being perhaps an oblique nod in the direction of baptism "This water," wrote the apostle Peter 2000 years earlier, "symbolizes baptism that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a good conscience toward God."

As the re-born David Webb, the participant-victim is now free to start a new life. Whatever script writer Tony Gilroy's intentions, viewed as a parable about conversion, the script ticks the right boxes. As an allegory, it would leave you confused!

Meanwhile, enjoy the clip.

Wilberforce's Unfinished Work

This year marks the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade in the British Empire. Two hundred years ago, British politician William Wilberforce and a small group of friends took on the most powerful forces of their day to end the slave trade. His mentor was John Newton, the slave-trader-turned-songwriter who wrote the world’s most popular hymn, "Amazing Grace."

Today, it is estimated that 27 million people remain as modern-day slaves.

This month, the movie Amazing Grace, depicting the life of Wilberforce, opens in the US. The lead role is played by Welsh actor Ioan Gruffudd ( Hornblower, Fantastic Four, Forsythe Saga, Man and Boy, 102 Dalmations) Click here for a preview of the film.

The film coincides with the release of David Batstone's, Not for Sale: The Return of the Global Slave Trade--And How We Can Fight It