August Rush

Posted on April 2, 2008
Filed Under God, movie | 1 Comment

We watched August Rush a couple of nights ago. It is an amazing movie. It is very sensory and so full of God. You know how you can watch a movie sometimes and it can really touch you and it just seems like God has really touched it too. There are a few movies in the past which I have really felt God in (if you know what I mean!). Chocolat is one which automatically springs to mind. That movie should be shown in all churches across the world! I really recommend August Rush if you haven’t seen it - wow, it was good!

Have you seen any movies recently which have really impacted you and that you have felt God in? Or are there any from the pat that have left a lasting impression?

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Water

Posted on October 29, 2007
Filed Under movie | 4 Comments

Jonathan and I watched a really good DVD on Saturday night called Water. It is a film based along the Ganges in India, at the rise of Gandhi’s fame. The film primarily focuses on the plight of many widows who get sent to live in special homes for widows, often far away from their own villages. These widows are shunned by society, they have to wear white clothes and have their heads shaved. They are not allowed to remarry as Hindu’s believe that this will curse the family and the widows chance of re-incarnation.

Now here is the sad thing, a lot of these widows are just children. They were betrothed to marry, and before they were old enough the man they were betrothed to dies. These girls are then considered to be widows and are sent far away from their families to live a life in isolation. Often the girls have not even met their future husband yet, got married or even had intercourse - but because of the betrothal they are considered to be married. The girl in the film was just eight years old. Gandhi is preaching about how society needs to change, widows should not be allowed to be prisoners anymore because of some ancient belief. He is preaching words of freedom and hope - sound familiar?

As of the 2001 census there were 34 million widows in India, most of whom were living in penitence.

Below is what Amazon has to say about the film - it is well worth watching.

Product Description
Set against the epic backdrop of the River Ganges in 1938 during Mahatma Gandhi’s rise to power, this is the inspiring tale of an eight year old Hindu girl named Chuyia. Chuyia’s life is suddenly changed when she is widowed and sent to a home where Hindu widows must live in penitence. She refuses to accept her fate and her feisty presence begins to affect the lives of other residents, including a beautiful young widow, Kalyani (Lisa Ray of Bollywood/Hollywood) who has fallen in love with Ghandian idealist, Narayan (Bollywood star John Abraham).

Synopsis
When Deepa Mehta first began filming WATER in 2000, angry fundamentalist mobs burned her sets and threatened her life. The Indian government claimed it could not protect her, and the project had to wait four years before finally filming in Sri Lanka. Her film has raised the ire of extremists because it challenges the Hindu customs that dictate that widows, considered half-dead after the loss of their husbands, must be closeted in holy ashrams–a practice that still exists today. Set in the 1930s, the film tells the story of eight-year old Chuyia, whose husband dies before she even meets him. Her parents shave her head and whisk her away to a house of widows where the women sleep on the ground and beg in the streets to earn their puny portion of rice. Chuyia, feisty and resilient, comes into this world like a ray of light, and soon the women are rethinking their mute acceptance of their fate. Her closest friend and ally is the lovely Kalyani, and soon a forbidden romance begins to develop between Kalyani and Narayana, a young Brahmin man who, following the teachings of Gandhi, has denounced injustice. The film is sumptuously beautiful, Chuyia is utterly winsome, and despite the harsh social issues at its heart, it often feels light and lively: Chuyia and Kalyani play games and dance, Chuyia steals sweets for a dying old widow, the women dance and paint each other’s faces during a colour festival, and the Cinderella-story romance between Kalyani and Narayana shimmers with the promise of salvation and happiness. Mehta, however, knows it would be disingenuous to allow such an easy resolution to such a dire situation, and the final chapter of WATER takes a tragic turn.

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Charlotte’s Web

Posted on June 1, 2007
Filed Under Jesus, book, church, community, movie | Leave a Comment

This afternoon I watched Charlotte’s Web with the children. It’s a wonderful film, which works on the same basis as the film “Babe” - actors voices to real animals! The ending is kind of sad, as Charlotte dies, but the “meaning” behind her death is true - it’s the life cycle. A little while after she dies her baby spiders (do baby spiders have a correct name?) hatch from their eggs, at the beginning of Spring, and the whole life cycle starts again.

There was one sentence in this film which really pricked my ears up, and I’ve been thinking about it since. One of the sheep says to the other sheep “Why do we always have to follow, let’s think for ourselves for once.” This, obviously, got me thinking about church. There are two takes on this:

A) Is the world, particularly the western world with all of it’s self centeredness, in the mess it is in because too many of the sheep (i.e. humans) have stopped following (or indeed never begun following) the shepherd (i.e. Jesus) and have been thinking for themselves (their own needs etc) too much?

B) The past 5 to 10 years have seen a new movement within the church body where people are trying to “do” church as they believe it should be done. Is the emerging-missional church (or whatever tag you use for it!) a group of sheep who have realized that following their human shepherds (i.e. church leaders) has just drawn them more and more into an institution which is largely irrelevant in society. So now these sheep are thinking for themselves and have found more meaningful and relevant ways of doing church where they are reaching communities on new levels. (I guess people within IC could turn that around and say that the EM church is full of sheep who have lost their way and need to find the shepherd (Jesus) again :) ;) I, of course, don’t believe this.)

On a side note the DVD came with a free educational DVD which focuses on the story. I’ll be down the library to loan the book out, and Ben will have a good few English lessons!

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