Remember “City Of Angels”, starring Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan? That drew inspiration from a 1987 film released from Wim Wenders, called “Wings of Desire”. Six years later, his follow-up film in the same style and theme, “Faraway so Close” was released. These two Wim Wenders films are pure, meaning of life, metaphors that can offer us transformative realizations if were ready for them! For this months Seekers Guide review I’ve chosen, Faraway so Close, a moving and poetic interpretation of the lives of humans from the eyes of an angel only newly born into mortal existence. From the many possible answers to the usual question “what’s in it for us”, I chose to explore Casiel’s observations on the nature of a human’s reality.
“Each one creates his own world within his own vision and hearing. He remains a prisoner in it, and from his cell he sees the cells of others.”
Those are the words of our main character, Casiel, an angel who chooses to become human. In order to have a reference to what Casiel represents in this film, let’s look at these words from Carlos Castaneda,
“Are we physical beings having an occasional spiritual experience, or are we spiritual beings having a physical experience?”
By observing the actions of humanity it is clear that the perspective in place is more in line with; we’re physical beings having an occasional spiritual experience. By contrast, Casiel’s perspective is clearly of a spiritual being having a physical experience. The difference lay in the contents of the memories. The human memory contains a lifetime of memories that have conditioned a belief of fundamental separateness from one another. The content of Casiel’s mind on the other hand does not contain those kinds of memories. His memory is that of an angel, the experience of being absolutely connected to everything that is.
Let’s say, we hold a belief in a greater power, and for the sake of analysis, let’s call that power spirit. If that power is responsible for creating us and all life, then our source is spirit. By choosing that belief we can now choose to perceive ourselves, like Casiel, as spiritual beings having a physical experience. Now, if we made that choice, would we find ourselves observing our human existence in the way that Casiel observes it? The answer is probably not. Why that is, can be found in the difference between Casiel’s memory, and our own memory. It bears repeating here. Casiel’s memory is the memory of an angel, the experience of pure spirit, of connection to everything. He is filtering his experience as a human, through that lens. Our own recallable memory, is of personal, not shared, pain and pleasure, creating the foundations of belief that we are fundamentally separate from one another, which is a completely different lens. I think Einstein said, “The world is exactly how you see it. Change the way you look at things, what you look at changes.” This movie illustrates that.
Check out this next line from Casiel, when you read it, remember that he is a physical being with only memories of complete connection, among beings whose memory strongly suggests the opposite. Separateness. …..
“So this is loneliness Raphaela. It’s really bad. No one hears what the other feels. No one looks into the others heart. Nobody asks for anything, not even for directions. What am I doing here? Just watching day turn to night and back to day. Nothing makes sense.”
With every line that Casiel delivers throughout this film, you can begin to get an understanding that the reality of existence in all of its details can be just a matter of perspective, and therefore choose-able! In the case of this film just two choices are illustrated; Casiel’s perspective of connection. And the human perspective of disconnection. What if we chose to perceive an infinity of choices, none being right or wrong, each one offering a different choose-able result?
Since Casiel is now a human, he too becomes subject to the conditioning effects of experience and memory. That experience soon leaves him overwhelmed by time and the rapid pace at which things pass for humans. Watch the movie to see where that goes.
“We humans are confined by what’s visible Raphaela. Only what we can see matters. What is invisible doesn’t count. Only the things we can touch truly exist for us.”
These lines begin to define Casiel’s role in this film. He is the inner voice, the conscience, of the human race, peaking out from behind the clouds of memory to point out that we aren’t seeing the invisible connection that binds us one to another and to all life. Spirit. As a result we are confined by the limits of what we can see. Watch this film and you may see that were only scratching the surface here. Faraway so Close is a sure winner for all you Seeker movie watchers.
Remember, you are what you watch! ……….and popcorn is good for you!
For those who have requested more about implementing the ideas we find in movies, this is a new feature of the Seekers Guide.
How do I use it?
This is how I use the concept we’ve explored in “Faraway So Close” in my own life and as a coach.
Step 1: Do I believe that I exist due to a higher power? The answer is yes.
Step 2: I choose to believe that I came into this world from pure spirit and therefore I’m still connected to it. I believe this not because it is right. I believe this because it offers me more choices, which support the fulfillment of my desires than another belief I could choose. In other words, it is not about being right it’s about being whole.
Step 3: My choice in step 2 means that I now see myself like Casiel, a spiritual being having a physical experience. I’m not just a body. I am body, mind, heart and spirit. I am no longer mostly guided by the needs and desires of my body and the contents of my mind.
Step 4: My heart is wise and my spirit is connected to all that there is. From now on my actions are guided by those.
Step 5: My new guides want to pull me towards worthy goals. By being clear about what I want and why, the choices I am shown are in line with the fulfillment of those desires.
Step 6: Finally, I immediately translate these choices that support my desires, into new actions. I take them without delay. I now am enjoying the results of those actions and more.
Our lives change when our actions change. Our actions change when our thoughts change. Our thoughts change when our beliefs change. It’s not linear like that though. It is circular. A new belief without action is only an idea. Our lives are the result of our past actions, which confirm our working beliefs. It is the new action that will create a more desirable result, which creates new memories that prove to us the value of a new idea. If you like the result, you’ll do it again and again. Only then is that idea officially a belief. Think of changing our beliefs like a test drive in a car. To do it, we have to get in the car and start it up, drop it in gear and step on the gas! Do you like it? Is it everything that you desire in a car? Then own it. If don’t like it, even a little, go back and try another one.
Whether you believe in higher power or not, the freedom of choice is the most powerful freedom we have. Our actions and our thoughts are only limited by the choices that we fail to notice. Infinite choices lie in the gap between what stimulates you and how you respond to it. The wider the gap, the more choices you will see. How wide is your gap? You can make it wider. It’s a matter of choice!
In this unabashedly romantic film, an elderly woman approaches playwright Richard Collier (Christopher Reeve) and presses a pocket watch into his hand whispering, “Come back to me.” Years later, Collier becomes obsessed with a picture of an early 1900s actress (Jane Seymour) and discovers that she’s the woman who gave him the watch. Collier wills himself back in time to find the woman, and the pair begins a love affair out of time.
Starring: Christopher Reeve, Jane Seymour, Director: Jeannot Szwarc
This is one of my favorite films of all time. In fact this film is the one that caused me to begin looking to film for examples and guidance on my own path of personal growth. While it did very poorly at the box office in 1980, it has become one of the most loved and owned films of all time. This is understandable on many levels. Whether you have seen the movie once, twice or a dozen times, I’d like to invite you to watch it again from the perspective I’m going to talk about in this issue of the Seekers Guide To Great Movies.
What’s in it for us? A very clear example of a powerful first step toward creating the life that you want. It sounds something like this:
Imagine yourself surrounded by the conditions that you would like to create in your life. Another way to put that is,to begin with the end in mind.
At one point in the film, this first step is exactly what Richard Collier, played by Christopher Reeve, is doing when attempting to travel back in time to be with the beautiful Elise McKenna played by Jane Seymour. He re-creates every detail of his room at the grand Hotel on Mackinaw Island to reflect a reality nearly 80 years before. In his first attempt, after he has imagined himself surrounded by the conditions that he would like to create in his life, he is unsuccessful because of a single detail. If you’ve already watched the film, you’ll remember the scene well. If you haven’t watched the film this won’t spoil it for you. His failure is caused by his use of a cassette tape recorder to play an affirmation that represents where he wants to be in time. And no matter how hard he tries, he does not succeed because the tape recorder cannot exist in a turn-of-the-century hotel room. How is the tape recorder relevant to the life creation model that is being demonstrated?
The tape recorder is a metaphor for an unsupportive or negative belief that keeps us from having the life that we want.
As the scene unfolds Richard realizes that the tape recorder is preventing him from achieving his desired goal. He eliminates the tape recorder from the visualized reality he is trying to create and succeeds in traveling back in time.
The realization of what was keeping him from achieving his desired goal, is a metaphor for a moment of self-discovery, when one becomes aware of limiting beliefs and thoughts that keep us from living the life that we want to live.
In real life we don’t find those under the bed! We find them through self inquiry, by asking ourselves questions like; What do I believe? And how do these beliefs support the fulfillment of my desires?
Back to the film. Once Richard has successfully relocated himself back in time we get to enjoy the rediscovery of the love they have for one another. This whole film is pregnant with metaphor and powerful concepts they can help to guide us on many levels so there is a lot of other stuff here that we could talk about. But I’m just going to stick to the one concept for you to explore.
As we near the end of the film, there is a moment, after a night of love, when Richard is clowning for his beauty Elise. He reaches into the pocket of his dated suit, the comical subject of his performance for her, and produces a penny revealing a date from the future. The moment he sees penny’s date, his new reality is shattered and he is instantly transported back to his own time 80 years in the future. It is an especially powerful scene, tragically romantic, the kind of stuff that great movies are made of, but what’s in this scene for us?
The penny is another metaphor for the power of our personal belief systems to make or break our efforts at living the lives that we want to live.
The penny has the same effect on Richard’s reality as a single unsupportive belief can have on the fulfillment of our own desires. In the movie Richard realized the tape recorder was preventing his success. He eliminated the tape recorder, but he did not assess his environment for any other things that could turn up and suddenly make the reality that he managed to create impossible! Ouch.
Here are the specific metaphors related to this approach and the creation of our lives.
Metaphor
Our Lives
Richards tape recorder
= a limiting belief
Richards hotel room
= our core belief system, our paradigm, the way we look at the world
The Penny
= equals other limiting beliefs we hold.
The contents of our minds contain a lifetime, of memories, experience, thoughts, habits and scripting. Much of which we are not consciously aware of. The spare change of the mind, if you will! But the reality is that many of those items by their very unconscious existence within our core belief systems are clearly saying no to the reality that you imagine your self living in.
To change our beliefs is to change the way we see the world. ……. Things are exactly how you look at them. Change the way you look at things, and the things you look at will change.
The process of personal growth and self-discovery is an exciting and never-ending process. You could say that it is the unfolding of awareness until we are aware of awareness itself! …..What if Richard, had stopped and asked himself what else have I missed? What might I be taking with me into this life that I am imagining, that might not support my desire? It was only a penny! The smallest amount of change, caused his tragic undesired change. When faced with that change, Richard chose to see it as a failure of his attempt to fulfill his desire.
What is hiding in our metaphorical pockets or under the bed of our subconscious? What do we carry with us that could have the same effect? And finally, what about failure? What can we call it that doesn’t mean the end of our journey toward the fulfillment of desire?
Devout sisters Anna and Martina reject the opportunity to leave their sparse Danish village. Thirty-five years later, a French cook named Babette appears at their door seeking respite from the French revolution’s terrors. Fortune smiles upon Babette when she wins the lottery. She prepares a feast to thank the sisters for their kindness and to give them a taste of the world outside their village.
Starring: Ghita Norby, Asta Esper Andersen, More
Director: Gabriel Axel
This months pick, Babette’s Feast, comes with a few words to prepare you in advance, in a way that the above film blurb does not! At first glance one would think that this movie is one that falls into the category of luscious food movies, of which there have been many great examples in the last few years like Eat Drink Man Woman or Like Water for Chocolate. This movie is not in that category! Yes there is a luscious feast, but that doesn’t happen until nearly the end of the movie. You won’t see anything that resembles ready to eat good food until about one hour and 12 minutes in, when someone says, “dinner is served”! Everything that happens prior to that point in the movie is superbly necessary in order to setup and deliver the powerful message that this movie has to offer.
The blurb fails to mention that what the sisters Anna and Martina are devoted to are; their father and his strict and, dare I say dogmatic, Christian teachings! (Let me go on record in order to avoid angry e-mails! This is not an attack on Christianity or any other spiritual belief system! I believe all religions and all spiritual teachings contain the same universal truths, it is the dogmatic adherence to variations of the universal theme, that creates the conflict between and thus fear of different spiritual perspectives!) That said, ….. Anna & Martina’s father is a widely known minister who teaches adherence to a strict interpretation of Christian values and commandments, rejecting nearly all pleasures of the flesh. The entire village lives by them. By viewing this movie you will experience living in a simple, sparse and beautiful Danish seaside village during the time of the French revolution from that perspective and worldview. The rejection of simple pleasures is so complete that it might to be, at times, uncomfortable to watch. Especially if the viewer possesses a mindset that puts pleasure and enjoyment in a completely different light! …Therein lay the first of the many lessons I found in this movie. Does their rejection of so many of the simple pleasures that someone embraces, embraces make them wrong? The answer is no, it only means that they have different point of view. And that each from their point of view are absolutely right. The grains of universal truths however distorted they might seem in their application to living, are there for both points of view.
You will see that love is even rejected, by both sisters, in the face of what they believed to be a more important and spiritual duty. If when watching this film, this ascetic mindset begins to bother you at all, please don’t let it make you reach for the remote! I encourage you to keep watching, because at 1 hour and 26 minutes and 45 seconds, you will receive the gift that this movie has to offer! And that is, one of the most powerful messages I’ve ever found in film. This entire message is delivered in under two minutes by the soldier who appeared earlier in the film and is the love possibility that is rejected by one of the sisters. When he returns 35 years later for a celebration in memory of the deceased minister’s birthday, he finds an out of this world, unexpected and truly amazing culinary experience! It is this meal that moves him to deliver two of the best minutes to be found in film!
A quick synopsis! The young soldier misses out on love, and so departs, to become a man of the world. 35 years later, he returns for a birthday celebration in memory of the father of the lost love he never forgot. He had risen to the rank of general, a man of privilege and therefore a man who knows, understands and appreciates the pleasures of fine food and wine. With his memory of the stark simplicity of the place, he is certainly not expecting to share in anything resembling a grand banquet! Babette, whose presence there is directly connected to the other sisters rejection of love, many years earlier, has been living with the sisters for some months after escaping from the terrors of the French revolution. Babette, an accomplished chef, has been cooking for the sisters in return for being allowed to stay with them. Her cooking is of course limited to the simple bland foods there were customary in this village. And boy, is it bland! …When she wins the French lottery, and asks them to allow her to prepare the upcoming birthday feast as thanks for their kindness of taking her in. They reluctantly agree but become fearful when they witness the arrival of lavish ingredients for the meal, that are way beyond their experience and imaginations. So in a fearful mindset, the sisters gather the villagers together, where they agree, for the protection of their very souls, that during the meal they will not speak of it, they not be conscious of the taste of it and they will certainly not enjoy it! Their collective rejection, in contrast to the worldly general’s enjoyment of the meal, is priceless as it demonstrates a great deal about the nature and source of truth, the power and significance of choice and the role of perspective in all of that! I will say no more so as not to spoil the bliss of the general’s words and of the last 13 minutes of this film! Bon appetite!
A bold experiment in film narrative that paid off in critical raves and cult status, Louis Malle’s drama consists almost entirely of the dinner conversation of two real-life friends. More or less playing themselves, Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn wrote their own dialogue, which ranges in subject from the New York theatre world to rainforests, and in tone from hilarious to heartbreaking.
Starring: Wallace Shawn, Andre Gregory
Director: Louis Malle
Genre: Drama
Format: Full Screen, More
Language: English
Subtitles: None
My dinner with Andre came out in 1981 and I may have seen the movie then but to be honest I don’t remember it, which is why this film is a perfect choice for the Seekers Guide To Great Movies! Why is it perfect? Well simply because of the reason I don’t remember it! At 19 years of age, I wasn’t quite so conscious of seeking answers to the questions asked during this film. Questions like; Where did I come from? How did I get here? Why am I here? Where am I going? And herein lies the nature of being a seeker. If you’re not asking questions about life yourself, then you’re not likely to recognize the relevance or meaning, when witnessing the questions being asked by someone else, right? So, in 1981, I might have said “what in the world are these guys talking about?” But with this movie it goes beyond not recognizing the content. At 19, what additionally would have seemed unfamiliar to me, was the way in which Andre and Wallace were communicating with one another. They were fully listening. There were no interruptions. No conflicts over disagreement resulting in a complete disintegration of the conversation! In spite of the subject matter touching on sensitive core beliefs. I don’t know about you, but that’s not the way it was in my neighborhood back then in 1981, or even now in 2004. ….In the conversation between Andre and Wallace, there is an absence of the common tendency for people in conversation to be formulating a response shortly after the other begins speaking. Once Wallace meets Andre at the restaurant, the film never leaves two of them at a table in a fine New York City restaurant. You can see it in their eyes, these men are listening to one another! The camera work is intimate and excellent beautifully revealing the presence in the eyes of these actors whose performances are superb, I’m sure due in part to the fact that Andre and Wallace wrote much of the dialog themselves!
This movie can be watched twice, from two different perspectives, each time learning something valuable to a seeker. You can watch the movie for the content of the conversation itself. Watch and listen as if you are part of that conversation, and reap the benefits gained by coming to understand another’s point of view on some meaning of life, without concern as to whether you agree or not. Or you can watch the movie for communication style, ignoring the content of the conversation. In fact turn you can turn off the sound and just witness two human beings being totally present in a conversation, coming from a place of respect with a desire to move forward through conversation, together, toward the mutual benefit of a higher understanding of each other and of themselves. It actually worth two viewings for that very reason. When you switch to watching style, you miss some compelling insights, and vice versa! Anyway, this movie is a masterpiece. Watch it and you’ll gain insights on meanings of life and come away with a heightened awareness of the infinite possibilities that lie within every conversation we have, if we only choose to listen. Aaah, the meaning of life and the infinite potential of conversation, all in one movie.
Rent, watch, enjoy, grow and don’t forget the popcorn! Thank you for subscribing to The Seekers Guide To Great Movies. I hope you enjoy reading it is much as I enjoy creating it.
Thanks again and remember, you are what you watch!
When her mother dies in a car accident, 4-year-old Ponette (Victoire Thivisol) is left physically and emotionally scarred and in the care of her grief-stricken father. Sent to live with family for a while, Ponette sullenly navigates a world made up mostly of children’s faces and slowly comes to terms with her loss. Thivisol’s powerful, haunting performance earned her a Best Actress award at the Venice Film Festival in 1996.
Starring: Xavier Beauvois, Matiaz Bureau Caton, More
Director: Jaques Doillon
Genre: Foreign
Format: Full Screen, More
Language: French
Subtitles: English
This movie has a unique feel that you might even find hard to get used to at first. If that happens, keep watching, you’ll get used to it! Our lead character Ponette is the daughter of divorced parents and is being raised by her mother. Sadly, the father has little to do with his daughter. Early in the film there is a car accident and Ponette’s mother does not survive, which of course leaves the ill-equipped father in the parenting position. Sounds depressing? Wondering why do I want to watch this? Here’s why.
What follows the death of Ponette’s mother is the little girls journey through countless and contradictory answers to her questions about where her mother is and when and if she’s coming back. The answers she is given, leaves her with a confused set of ideas regarding God, heaven, life, love, and death. What makes this film so brilliant is that it is shot almost entirely from the child’s perspective. A child has not yet been conditioned to be skeptical. They simply accept everything they hear as true, and then seek to experience that truth.
In experiencing Ponette’s confusion caused by the broad range of answers to the questions that she asks, we are reminded that our minds decide what anything that we hear or experience means, by comparing it to what we have heard or experienced before. Ponette is asking the deepest questions of life at a very tender age. Her pure heart only knows how to trust so, so she takes the answers to her questions to heart and seeks to validate the answer in her experience of trying to understand where her mother went.
All along the way people spill their truths on this little girl, who desperately need answers to the biggest questions there are in life. And their truths are nothing more than something that they heard somewhere else. Watching this happens to this little girl made me think, how much of the truth that exists in our minds is little more than that same kind of hearsay? It is difficult, it seems, for people to say, “I don’t know”. Does it say something about us if we don’t know something? Are we somehow less than someone who does? And if that goes on long enough, does just thinking that we know, or appearing to know, to others, become the goal rather than actually seeking to develop an understanding about profound things?
Here’s an alternative to answering a question with what we think we know. Say that we don’t know. By saying we don’t know, the mind becomes quieter because it is not so busy rendering its opinion! In that quiet is where we can find the connection to source. It is the same place that we go during meditation, or when communing with nature! By connecting to source we are open to inspiration, inklings, intuition and wisdom beyond the limits of the mere contents of our memory. By saying I don’t know, I am open to the infinite possibilities rather than limited to the one answer that my mind serves up, as the truth, when asked a question by another. If we then take into conversation, the inklings, the inspirations and the ideas or concepts that come to us in the quiet, we have an opportunity to explore a question together, to seek an answer that gives us real understanding and mutual benefit. In short to come up with an answer that serves us, rather than one that just sounds familiar.
In that scenario, Ponette with her open child’s mind would teach as much as she would learn about the questions she is asking. She would learn by example and experience how to plug into the greatest source of information that there is. One that is available to all of us all of the time. She would learn to embrace uncertainty as the doorway to infinite possibilities, rather than the limits of the known. Her conditioning would position her for lifelong access to the true wisdom that manifests all that there is. including ourselves.
I loved this film. And marvel at the ability of young Victoire Thivisol to carry me away on her journey.
Rent it today from your local video store, or try Netflix and have this movie delivered to your mailbox in just a couple of days! It’s free to try and cheap to join!
In Disney’s animated adventure, the son (Joaquin Phoenix) of an Indian chief killed by a bear vows vengeance but is transformed by spirits into the very thing he sought to slay. Seeing the world through a bear’s eyes, the young man learns valuable lessons about the cycle of life. This disc includes the full version of the movie in the original 2.35:1 widescreen theatrical presentation, as well as a making-of featurette, deleted scenes and more.
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Jeremy Suarez, More
Director: Aaron Blaise, More
Genre: Children & Family
Format: Widescreen, More
Language: English, More
Awards: Academy Award Nominee, More
This is a first for The Seekers Guide To Great Movies! This month, not only am I recommending an animated feature, but it’s a Disney animated feature! Perhaps I live in a sheltered world because I didn’t even know that this movie was in the theaters in 2003. I can only guess that there wasn’t much fuss because it didn’t do very well at the box office. And that would be no surprise, because this movie is just too good for the mainstream numbers! The animation is terrific, the color and dimensional depth of the images is stunning, especially if you watch on high-definition television! The writing is very sharp and funny with dialogue that I rank right up there with any of the Pixar releases. There’s plenty of cute stuff to keep the children entertained, along with the more sophisticated references and character interplay for the adults. Two characters that are especially funny are a pair of Moose named Rutt and Tuke. (voices by Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas) These two Moose are the first friends that Kenai and the cub, Coda, make on their journey to “where the lights touch the earth”, and they are really funny. Audio Sample: Brother bear Rutt n me Tuke (Listen Windows Media Audio! ) One of them starts his day with some chiropractic and little yoga! Audio Sample:brother bear yoga (Listen Windows Media Audio! )
This is such a powerful film for adults and children alike. It introduces us to the more native ideal that all things come from spirit, manifested into this world of form and phenomenon, and then return to spirit when this physical life is over. The story begins as a young man named Kenai is about to experience a traditional rite of passage into manhood. Kenai has two older brothers and he desperately wants to be a man, so he doesn’t have to be treated like a baby brother anymore. During his ceremony, a tribal elder presents him, with his personal totem which is to guide him throughout his life. His hurry to grow into man exceeds his understanding of what it means to be a man, so as a result, the totem that he receives doesn’t measure up to his expectation! Listen to the sound clip for a taste of that moment. Audio Sample: brotherbeartotem
Following the ceremony he and his brothers, who now are delighting in teasing him about his totem, discover that the fish had not been securely tied into the trees and a bear had made off with their catch. Disappointed because of the totem he received, angry at the loss of the fish and embarrassed by his brothers teasing, Kenai sets out to seek revenge on the bear that took the fish, and perhaps prove his manhood in the process. What follows is an incredible journey of discovery about the transforming power of love and its relationship to the spirit that animates all beings.
As animated features go, this movie has it all. I give it five stars. A great story, a terrific soundtrack featuring Phil Collins and others, great writing, incredible animation effects, lots of humor and an ending to warm your hearts! Wait until you see the Caribou stampede in Chapter 1! Spectacular! You shouldn’t wait to get your paws on this one.
Rent it today from your local video store, or try Netflix and have this movie delivered to your mailbox in just a couple of days! It’s free to try and cheap to join!
Kurosawa’s Academy-Award-winning production is a testament to the value of friendship and the indomitability of the human spirit. An old hunter is hired as a guide by a party of Russian soldiers on a surveying expedition through Siberia.
Starring: Yuri Solomin, Maksim Munzuk, More
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Genre: Foreign
Format: Widescreen, More
Language: Russian, More
Subtitles: English
Awards: Academy Award Winner, More
Akira Kurosawa’s work has always been full of personal growth and transformation lessons, which in his earlier work were usually delivered by a heroic character played by the great Toshiro Mifune. Kurosawa’s work changed after Red Beard in 1965, which was the last project he did with Mifune. Gone are the heroic characters of his earlier work. Instead Kurosawa brilliantly uses less direct techniques, such as the stark comparison of two different mindsets used in this film, as the vehicle for the lessons he delivers.
Akira Kurosawa’s Dersu Uzala is a rare opportunity to witness two fundamentally different ways of looking at the world, side-by-side, for the duration of an entire film. The way we look at the world is known as our paradigm. Dersu Uzala is a man of the forest, a hunter and a tracker. His paradigm could be best compared to that of any truly native human, like; a native American Indian, an Australian aborigine or an African bushmen. It’s a paradigm that is based firmly on the immutable principles that govern all life on Earth. Those principles are the laws of nature. The civilized paradigm of all the other characters is aligned with the ever shifting collection of human values and laws that disregard the laws of nature and subjugate most everything to the service of human beings alone. It is a rare opportunity to see these two mindsets side-by-side, since the civilized paradigm has done such an efficient job of assimilating all but some thousands of those that lived by the more native paradigm.
Captain Erseniev, is the leader of a party of Russian soldiers surveying the vast Russian wilderness. When they come upon Dersu Uzala the Captain quickly befriends Dersu for more than just the practical reason of needing an experienced guide. He is sensitive to what makes Dersu different and special. It is this sensitivity that places the Captain into the category of the seeker. He is open to the possibility of wonders and truths greater than that which he possesses. But he is not yet far enough along on his path to actually consider the possibility of a shift in his very civilized paradigm. By comparison, the other soldiers in the party are slow to respond to Dersu and in fact openly ridicule the manner in which he navigates through life.
Early on in the film, the party seeks shelter in an abandoned dwelling that they come upon in the forest. Dersu begins repairing the roof and damaged walls making it a fit shelter. The soldiers ridicule him for tending to that which did not belong to him. Later the soldiers ridicule intensifies when Dersu asks the Captain for some of their matches and food to leave behind in the shelter as they depart. The Captain asks him why, and Dersu explains, that they are meant for anyone that should come along needing them. The Captain considers this for a moment, quiets the soldiers, and orders that the provisions be given to Dersu to leave behind. Following this scene the Captain speaking about Dersu with another says, “Besides he has a beautiful soul, he provides for people he doesn’t even know.”
Dersu personifies the Idea that we all come from spirit. That there is no time or space separating us from one another or from anything in the universe. That we are all manifest from the same realm of Spirit. What Kurosawa wants us to see is that the difference between Dersu, and the other characters in the Movie is only in the way they look at the world. It is not that they are not connected, like Dersu perceives himself to be. It is simply that they no their civilized paradigm, which guides them to look at the world from the point of view of being separate from all things. Separate from each other, separate from that which they desire, separate from that which they need and even separate from God.
There is a scene when Dersu and Captain Erseniev are off scouting alone. Dersu begins to sense the subtle signs of the coming danger of a winter storm and tries to warn the Captain that they should turn back. The Captain doesn’t listen to Dersu or the environment around him. They press on and soon find themselves in imminent danger of freezing to death. The Captain loses consciousness in the struggle to build a shelter and it is only Dersu’s wits and wisdom that saves them both. When the Captain regains consciousness after the storm passes, he realizes that Dersu saved his life. Dersu, not thinking that it was a remarkable thing to do, simply says to the Captain, “Man is very small before the face of nature.” This scene is called Cut Grass Fast and is one of the key scenes that dramatically demonstrate the fundamental differences in the mindsets of these two characters. Dersu’s broad consciousness to Captain Erseniev’s self consciousness. Dersu’s ability to listen and be guided by the life and environment around him to Captain Erseniev’s tendency to listen only to his own guidance.
Personal growth is about understanding and then shifting the way we look at the world. Albert Einstein said the most important question that any individual can ask themselves is: Do I live in a hostile or a friendly universe? Whichever answer you choose is the experience that you will have. Akira Kurosawa’s Dersu Uzala illustrates for us this concept, that the world is how you look at it. To take that concept beyond mere words, to an understanding that exists for you at the finest level of your being, is to give yourself the power to re-create your life and experience the fulfillment of desire simply by changing the way you look at things.
After James’ mother dies in a tragic automobile accident, he befriends Maddy, a lonely older widow who helps him work through his feelings surrounding his mother’s death by telling him that angels often talk to the living through Morse code. As James’ grows closer to her, finding comfort in her company, his family grows to question their relationship.
Starring: Vanessa Redgrave, Ray Liotta, More
Director: Peter O’Fallon
Genre: Independent
Format: Widescreen, More
Language: English
Subtitles: English, More
What’s in it for you?
The key opportunities to learn about ourselves, that I’ve observed in this film are:
How fear can cause us to take action in situations when no action is warranted.
Does an accepted idea of what is normal have value?
The effect of not facing pain and trauma.
Realizing that we can choose a new belief just because it allows more room to be whole.
How fear can cause us to take action in situations and when no action is warranted.
This is powerfully demonstrated by the parents of James, who take strong steps to protect him from the influence of Maddy Bennett (Vanessa Redgrave), in spite of the fact that they admit her influence has led to James dramatically returning to life, after steadily slipping away from them in the years since the tragic death of his mother.
This character, Maddy Bennett, is a great example of a person living on purpose. In spite of the alienation brought on by commonly held public opinion, Maddy believed that it was her purpose to give comfort to another person, with the messages that she believes to have received from her son on the other side of the veil between the physical world and the spirit realm. Most believed her to be crazy. That was their choice. The transformation of that one little boy from dying to living was fulfillment of the role she believed she had. Her little book of messages from her son, gives anyone reading it the choice of a new perspective on death. Instead of death being a mysterious and horrible thing, something to be feared all your life, until you eventually reach it. Death is something that can be understood and accepted with grace and received as a beautiful thing, a transition from the physical back to spirit. Any rigid concept of Truth, has nothing to do with it. We can choose a belief that creates the environment that supports the best life we can experience. One that is based in love, connection, relationship to all, including spirit. One that is marked by the absence of fear. The liberation of the boy in this film is a beautiful example of that.
“The soul leaps from the body
Like a boy from a school house door
Suddenly with joy
There is no horror in death.”
Recognizing the limits of perceptions about what is normal.
In a world distorted by an unrelenting push toward conformity, this film has the most useful information coming from nonconforming characters. Regarding the health and well being of young James, the wisdom they deliver is not accepted by the townspeople because these characters, are on the fringe, considered not normal or weirdo’s. This is such a beautiful illustration of the reality of the limiting nature of conditioning. Children haven’t been conditioned, long enough, to close their minds to wondrous ideas or magical things. With this thought in mind, why not reconsider the value of growing up? If growing up means letting go of the infinite possibilities in the universe, denying the magical, by conforming to a standard called normal, we can say. I’d rather not! …For any of us that already conformed it’s never too late. The magic is still there. Just grow back down! This is really what folks on the path of personal growth or seeking spiritual awareness are doing. Rediscovering …..what we hadn’t yet been conditioned to deny, as a child. Rediscovering ……what never went away. Rediscovering……. as a necessity for complete joy and fulfillment in our later lives.
The effect of not facing pain and trauma.
Another great mirror in this film, shows us how often pain and trauma is denied or buried, never allowing for the opportunity to grow from it. Here is a young boy traumatized by being a witness to his mother’s death. He is now being parented by a father, who is stereo typically never there for him. He is always away for work reasons, and when he is there, he doesn’t communicate or connect deeply with his son. When he does connect, it is not about their mutual loss of the wife and mother that they loved. At an early point in the film, one of our fringe characters, young James’s uncle Charlie, makes the point to the boy’s father, upon arriving home from a business trip, that he is losing his son. This is a great moment in the film because it reveals, the depth, feeling and awareness in this, not so normal, Uncle Charlie. Charlie has to play the role of father to James, but in his reluctance to that, he is really more of a friend to him, which is what James really needs anyway. Beautiful stuff!
Realizing that we can choose a new belief just because it allows more room to be whole.
Like an onion this movie has many layers. The conflicting beliefs that we’re talking about from beginning to end in this movie are about death. Maddy Bennett, who is considered crazy by the townspeople, lost her son in the war. Her archaeologist husband, died sometime after that in a work-related accident. Once she sees how stuck James is, she shares with James that she communicates through Morse code with her son. By reading the messages that she wrote down and exploring the idea, that there exists a possibility of communication or connection of some kind with those beyond the veil, James begins to come back to life and deal with his own loss. It is through James awakening, that we get to witness how personal belief, when held in the mind as a truth, can limit the holder and those under its control, to only the possibilities, actions and thoughts allowed by that truth. For example, watch and see how truth (and the agreement on it by someone else), is not necessary, for a belief to have a transformative effect on one’s life. The young boy James is trapped by the grief and horror of his mother’s death. Potentially limited, for the rest of his life, to being consumed by his lack of a thrive-able perspective about life and death. By meeting Mrs. Bennett the boy gets an opportunity to see that there are other ways to look at all things, including death and grief. All he has to do to experience his own freedom is, simply make a choice to believe something that allows him to be whole. There is a crossroads in the film when this becomes particularly evident. In a crisis of belief, he must decide whether it is about truth or whether it is about his own belief. Should the choice be made based on what others say is true, or should the choice be made on the believing that allows him to be whole? Great Stuff!
Inspired by a homeless man’s story, Yosuke (Koji Yakusho), an unemployed businessman, travels to a remote seaside village where a golden Buddha stolen from a Kyoto temple is supposedly hidden. Instead, Yosuke finds Saeko (Misa Shimizu), a woman with an odd affliction: She fills up with water, and when she’s full, she leaks … and the only way to express the fluid is to make love.
Starring: Isao Natsuyagi, Koji Yakusho, More
Director: Shohei Imamura
Genre: Foreign Language & Int’l
Language: Japanese
Subtitles: English
A note about the director: Perhaps the world’s greatest little known director, Shohei Imamura is in fact one of only two directors to ever claimed more than one Palme d’Or from the Cannes Film Festival. A formative figure and leader of Japanese cinema’s New Wave, Imamura is as widely revered in Japan as Kurosawa is known worldwide.
Just in case there are any concerns about graphic sexual content, in spite of the subject matter, you needn’t worry. This is a Japanese film, done by a highly respected director so worry not! Yes the love scenes between our delightful leads are outrageous, as you can imagine, but they tastefully as well as rather humorously framed.
Yosuke, the unemployed businessman, has a circle of friends that by society’s description are homeless vagrants. One of them named Taro, also known as the blue tent philosopher, is indirectly a spiritual teacher of sorts to Yosuke. It is Taro that influences Yosuke to seek the treasure of a golden Buddha that he claims to have stolen from a Kyoto temple. The existence of this treasure is of course in doubt due to Taro’s status as a vagrant. It is during this quest that he finds the strangely afflicted character Saeko, and we begin to wonder as to the true nature of the treasure he was sent to seek!
Director Imamura is renowned for his fondness for the use of characters from the uneducated lower classes. “The lower part of the body and lower part of the social structure” allowing for the exploration of irrational and limiting belief structure of Japanese and human life. The characters, Taro and Saeko’s grandmother, are the best examples out of many in this film, of Imamura’s style in this respect. I don’t want to say too much so as to not spoil it, but pay special attention to these characters that fall into the status of a lower social order! It is there you’ll fin the gems of awareness!
There are several subtle references to sacred sex beliefs as found in the Kama Sutra and eastern tantric traditions and an understanding of these really helps the viewer to understand the depth of the message in this film, which is alludes to the subtle or energetic body and the interconnection of all life, all beings and everything that exists through a cosmically sourced energy that animates it all. (See the book recommendation at the end of this review.) There is a terrific scene that takes place at a modern research facility where the nature of neutrinos is being studied. The true relevance of the scene is revealed with a description of one of the necessary ingredients of that research.
The most profound lesson in this film, besides the realization of the unifying energy field that supports life, is the idea that the intention that you bring, to a connection with that unifying field, dictates the quality of what you get back from it. Like the old cliché “You reap what you sow.” Nowhere is that connection more profound than through the act of sex as observed in the eastern traditions mentioned above. This energy or subtle body is what is being referenced when you hear “vital essence” in this film. Positive intentions of love, kindness, respect, responsibility, appreciation, creativity and humility, strengthen and increases and restores our vital essence, while negative intentions such as; anger, fear, control, mistrust, conceit and disrespect, deplete our vital essence. These higher and lower vibrations describe the difference between the ego and the higher self as well. Since everything is composed of this energy, the qualities and dynamics of everything in our lives depends on the quality of the vibrations that are brought to the energy field. …Our relationships are dictated by the intentions of those involved. ….The external conditions of all aspects of our individual lives are also predicated upon what intention we consciously and unconsciously bring to our connection to this unifying field of energy. This is a terrific movie for making such a delightful representation of this universal energy dynamic. And of course it’s nothing new, in fact it’s the oldest thing there is! It’s the software of the universe, the mechanics of creation as observed by scientists and sorcerers, sages and mystics, poets and philosophers alike!
Albert Einstein said “The most important question anyone can ask themselves is: Do I live in a hostile universe or do I live in a friendly universe? The life experience will reflect and confirm whatever answer is given to that question. …….hmm change your answer, …..change your experience!
Remember, you are what you watch! Mark Firehammer,
A few days before Finland pulls out of World War II, Veiko, a Finnish sniper, is denounced by his comrades for a being a pacifist and a reluctant fighter. While a Russian officer, Ivan, is accused by his army of being a traitor. As punishment, Veiko is shackled to a rock and forced to wear a German uniform, knowing full well that Russian soldiers have orders to shoot Germans on sight. While Ivan is sent off to face certain death at the hands of his own countrymen. Both men escape their fate and they cross paths, where a woman farmer, who speaks neither of their languages, cares for them while they demonstrate their deep fear mistrust for one another.
Starring: Anni-Christina Juuso, Ville Haapasalo, More
Director: Aleksandr Rogozhkin
Category: Foreign Language & Int’l
Format: Widescreen, More
Language: Russian
Subtitles: English
When you rent this movie at your video store, or get it from Netflix, ignore the description on the sleeve. It’s is not even close, which is often the case! The one you read above is my adaptation of it. That’s one of the reasons that I love being a subscriber to Netflix because I can preview so many of these movies on line before I have them sent!
First off! Ladies, you’ll love this, and men pay attention! The lead in this movie is not just a strong, independent, resourceful and beautiful, woman. She’s purely woman, rather than a woman simply playing a typical and fiery male role. The approach regularly applied by American, big studio, film makers. ….This film is Russian.
This power of this film, for seekers, lies in the way it brilliantly and eloquently demonstrates what I believe to be the top 3, key concepts, for personal growth and understanding. Ready? Number one, it shows us the power of love, as the cornerstone of one’s personal foundation. The cornerstone is what I call the come from. Number two, is the clear example of the result when the limiting, destructive and blinding nature of fear dominates the personal come from. The number three demonstration is, the power of belief, in that it has nothing to do with truth in it’s traditionally recognized form, which so often requires some agreement! With belief, it’s personal, and agreement isn’t necessary! The nature of belief transcends truth, in that the belief alone is enough to create a beautiful and satisfying reality.
A soft whisper toward a realization that, perhaps one can even choose to believe something, just to create that which they need or want!
The reason that this is so beautifully stated in this film is that the woman is not choosing to believe differently than her guests. It’s simply that her, come from, of love, rather than fear or mistrust, generates belief that manifests a very fulfilling reality for her! In spite of soldiers having killed her husband 4 years earlier, she’s still guided by her come from, which is love. A native of a land, torn apart by war, she still manages to live a simple, connected, and beautiful life, while remaining fully conscious and accepting of the hardships associated with it.
There are 3 languages spoken in this film (over English subtitles), and each character only understands his/her own, preventing any of our characters from truly knowing what the others believe or represent. So, as the omniscient viewer, you’ll find yourself willing them to understand one another as the Russian believes the Finn is a German because of the uniform he had been forced to wear. And the Finn sees the hatred in the Russians eyes so is afraid to let his guard down long enough to find a path (without language) to understanding and détente. All this in stark cinematic comparison, to our beautiful farmer, and her ways, as they all interact.
A final glimpse of a difference between truth and belief is given at the end. With a hint that an inheritance of a beautiful reality can be as easily passed on as one that is dark and tragic. ….and from this writers belief, with a greater chance of evolutionary survival! Don’t miss this one. There is so much here, and I’ve only scratched the surface!
Remember “City Of Angels”, starring Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan? That drew inspiration from a 1987 film released from Wim Wenders, called “Wings of Desire”. Six years later, his follow-up film in the same style and theme, “Faraway so Close” was released. These two Wim Wenders films are pure, meaning of life, metaphors that can offer us transformative realizations if were ready for them! For this months Seekers Guide review I’ve chosen, Faraway so Close, a moving and poetic interpretation of the lives of humans from the eyes of an angel only newly born into mortal existence. From the many possible answers to the usual question “what’s in it for us”, I chose to explore Casiel’s observations on the nature of a human’s reality.
In this unabashedly romantic film, an elderly woman approaches playwright Richard Collier (Christopher Reeve) and presses a pocket watch into his hand whispering, “Come back to me.” Years later, Collier becomes obsessed with a picture of an early 1900s actress (Jane Seymour) and discovers that she’s the woman who gave him the watch. Collier wills himself back in time to find the woman, and the pair begins a love affair out of time.
Devout sisters Anna and Martina reject the opportunity to leave their sparse Danish village. Thirty-five years later, a French cook named Babette appears at their door seeking respite from the French revolution’s terrors. Fortune smiles upon Babette when she wins the lottery. She prepares a feast to thank the sisters for their kindness and to give them a taste of the world outside their village.
A bold experiment in film narrative that paid off in critical raves and cult status, Louis Malle’s drama consists almost entirely of the dinner conversation of two real-life friends. More or less playing themselves, Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn wrote their own dialogue, which ranges in subject from the New York theatre world to rainforests, and in tone from hilarious to heartbreaking.
When her mother dies in a car accident, 4-year-old Ponette (Victoire Thivisol) is left physically and emotionally scarred and in the care of her grief-stricken father. Sent to live with family for a while, Ponette sullenly navigates a world made up mostly of children’s faces and slowly comes to terms with her loss. Thivisol’s powerful, haunting performance earned her a Best Actress award at the Venice Film Festival in 1996.
In Disney’s animated adventure, the son (Joaquin Phoenix) of an Indian chief killed by a bear vows vengeance but is transformed by spirits into the very thing he sought to slay. Seeing the world through a bear’s eyes, the young man learns valuable lessons about the cycle of life. This disc includes the full version of the movie in the original 2.35:1 widescreen theatrical presentation, as well as a making-of featurette, deleted scenes and more.
Kurosawa’s Academy-Award-winning production is a testament to the value of friendship and the indomitability of the human spirit. An old hunter is hired as a guide by a party of Russian soldiers on a surveying expedition through Siberia.
After James’ mother dies in a tragic automobile accident, he befriends Maddy, a lonely older widow who helps him work through his feelings surrounding his mother’s death by telling him that angels often talk to the living through Morse code. As James’ grows closer to her, finding comfort in her company, his family grows to question their relationship.
Inspired by a homeless man’s story, Yosuke (Koji Yakusho), an unemployed businessman, travels to a remote seaside village where a golden Buddha stolen from a Kyoto temple is supposedly hidden. Instead, Yosuke finds Saeko (Misa Shimizu), a woman with an odd affliction: She fills up with water, and when she’s full, she leaks … and the only way to express the fluid is to make love.
A few days before Finland pulls out of World War II, Veiko, a Finnish sniper, is denounced by his comrades for a being a pacifist and a reluctant fighter. While a Russian officer, Ivan, is accused by his army of being a traitor. As punishment, Veiko is shackled to a rock and forced to wear a German uniform, knowing full well that Russian soldiers have orders to shoot Germans on sight. While Ivan is sent off to face certain death at the hands of his own countrymen. Both men escape their fate and they cross paths, where a woman farmer, who speaks neither of their languages, cares for them while they demonstrate their deep fear mistrust for one another.
