Upcoming Releases Summer 2009

Griefwalker GRIEFWALKER is an extraordinary portrait of Harvard-trained theologian Stephen Jenkinson who argues that death empowers us to live and that we must experience grief in order to appreciate our own lives. Many may find Jenkinson’s belief that our deaths are not something to be denied or avoided but “befriended” as disturbing; he points out that not every culture fears death as we do. The film transports viewers into the lives of those confronting death, as well as those whose job it is to delay death as long as possible. Combining beautiful imagery of the impermanence of nature, and the actuality of dying, GRIEFWALKER weaves an illuminating picture of a remarkable man, and leaves us with a deeper understanding of how our deaths should be held as “a prized possession.” Year: 2008 Running Time: 70 minutes Subjects: Religion and Spirituality, Death and Dying To pre-order any of our upcoming releases, contact Andi at andi@lorberhtdigital.com or call us at 212-398-3112.

Son of Man In the state of Judea in southern Africa, violence, poverty and sectarianism are endemic. The neighbouring Alliance has invaded to restore ‘peace’ at gunpoint. Bloody street battles accompany the neighbouring dictatorship’s incursion into its weaker satellite. Promises of a transition to open democratic rule accompany summary executions and brutal massacres. As the civil war reaches a new level, a divine child is born to a lowly couple. As he grows and witnesses the inhumanity of the world he lives in, his angelic guardians offer him an escape to the heavens. He refuses. This is his world and he must try to save it from the work of evil men and from the darkness working through them. As an adult, he travels to the capital, gathering followers from the armed factions of rebels that crisscross the land. He demands that his followers give up their guns and confront their corrupt rulers with a vision of non-violent protest and solidarity. Inevitably, he attracts the attention of the Judean tribal leaders who have struck a power-sharing deal with the aloof Governor Pilate. The Son of Man must be brought down and destroyed. It should be another simple ‘disappearance’ like any other… Year: 2005 Running Time: 90 minutes + DVD Extras Subjects: Religion and Spirituality, Performance Studies To learn more about this film, click here. To pre-order any of our upcoming releases, contact Andi at andi@lorberhtdigital.com or call us at 212-398-3112.

NOLLYWOOD BABYLON chronicles the wild world of “Nollywood,” a term coined in the early ’90s to describe the world’s fastest-growing national cinema, surpassed only by its Indian counterpart. The film delves first-hand into Nigeria’s explosive homegrown movie industry, where Jesus and voodoo vie for screen time. Lancelot Oduwa Imasuen, known in Lagos as “Da Governor,” is one of the most influential men in Nollywood. Undeterred by miniscule budgets, Da Governor is one of a cadre of resourceful filmmakers creating a garish, imaginative, and wildly popular form of B-movie that has frenzied fans begging for more. Among the bustling stalls of Lagos’s Idumato market, films are sold, and budding stars are born. Creating stories that explore the growing battle between traditional mysticism and modern culture, good versus evil, witchcraft and Christianity, Nollywood auteurs have mastered a down-and-dirty, straight-to-video production formula that has become the industry standard in a country plagued by poverty. This burgeoning Nigerian film industry is tapping a national identity where proud Africans are telling their own stories to a public hungry to see their lives on screen. Peppered with outrageously juicy movie clips and buoyed by a rousing score fusing Afropop and traditional sounds, NOLLYWOOD BABYLON celebrates the distinctive power of Nigerian cinema as it marvels in the magic of movies.

Year: 2008
Running Time: TBA
Subjects: Arts, Culture, Cinema Studies, International Studies

To learn more about this film, click here.
To pre-order any of our upcoming releases, contact Andi at andi@lorberhtdigital.com or call us at 212-398-3112.

Dear Alive Mind Education Friends, In recognition of end-of-year budgets, Alive Mind Education will honor all current promotions through August 15th. If you place an order for any of the combinations below by June 15th, we will invoice you for the respective amount but you won’t have to pay until August 15th. Make sure you take advantage of this exclusive opportunity while it lasts. All purchases grant public performance rights.To receive the discount, please submit your purchase order to Andi Dervishi at andi@lorberdigital.com. Best regards, Elizabeth

*Special Shakespeare Promotion* Purchase both Macbeth and Measure for Measure by June 15 and receive 25% off your purchase order, plus free shipping. Macbeth The Royal Shakespeare Company’s Macbeth has been lauded as the finest production of Shakespeare’s Scottish play for over a quarter of a century. In 2000, it played to packed houses in Stratford, London, and theaters abroad. All twenty actors from the original production, including Antony Sher and Harriet Walter, star in this compelling screen version of Gregory Doran’s original stage production. Cleverly reconceived for the camera, and brilliantly shot at London’s Roundhouse, Macbeth was filmed in a gritty style using the edgy techniques of fly-on-the wall documentaries. Doran says, “Macbeth is, in many ways, the most filmic of Shakespeare’s plays with its short, quick-fire scenes and its hurtling, dynamic momentum. In the film I tried to capture its raw energy and dangerous intimacy.” “A harrowing and disturbingly funny parable for the dawn of the 21st century.” -The New York Times “The best television Shakespeare I have ever seen.” -Daily Mail   To learn more about this title, click here.   Measure for Measure Sex and power drive the action of William Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure. Set in today’s British army, this is a modern realization of a classic problem play where every character must justify their own private morality in a world bereft of discipline and authority. Critics rave that this contemporary dramatization is the perfect introduction to Shakespeare. “…a great and refreshing adaptation of a very underrated Shakespearian problem play, and Bob Komar should be applauded for taking on the text and giving us a feel for the timeless nature of the Bard’s world.” -Wendy Atwell, Shakespeare Revue “A youthful and raw energy refreshes the Shakespeare problem play into something more digestible for our learners today.” -Janet Armsgrove, All Things Shakespeare “It is perhaps the best learner focused resource for young people on the play I have seen …If only this was the way all Shakespeare was delivered to our youth.” - Ian Devlin, The Bard   To learn more about this title, click here. ____________________________________________

*Special Ibsen Promotion* Purchase both Mabou Mines Dollhouse and Hedda Gabler by June 15 and receive 25% off your purchase order, plus free shipping. Mabou Mines Dollhouse Mabou Mines critically acclaimed interpretation of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House rejuvenates a nineteenth century classic with bold staging and conceptual originality. Ibsen’s Doll’s House has been described as a feminist clarion, Freudian drama and bourgeois soap opera. In Mabou Mines’ re-imagining, the production shocks and enlightens audiences as never before. Includes the companion documentary, Looking for a Miracle, which features extensive interviews with director Lee Breuer and the original cast. Reviews “A Doll’s House still has the force of social truth and the force of art.” -The New York Times “…if you’ve been lucky enough to see the work of Lee Breuer over the years… you know that he’s a wizard-director, an alchemist who blends ideas, genres, styles, texts and technologies to make new kinds of theater…[in Dollhouse] Mr. Breuer gives us a passionate allegory that works - and plays - on many levels.” -The New York Times   To learn more about this title, click here.     Hedda Gabler Set in an anonymous corner of suburbia, this contemporary adaptation of Ibsen’s play is a shattering exploration of ambition, domestic power and gender roles. Just married, Hedda Gabler and her husband arrive at their new home where Hedda’s romantic rival from the past appears. Hedda must confront her desire for a life lived beautifully and without compromise - whatever the cost. This bracing dramatization brings new dimensions to Hedda Gabler’s character.   To learn more about this title, click here.     ____________________________________________

*Special Video Librarian Promotion* Purchase Through the Eastern Gate, Mystical Brain, or FLicKeR individually and receive 10% off your order or purchase two or more of these titles and receive 25% off your order, plus free shipping, now through June 15. Through the Eastern Gate Through the Eastern Gate chronicles the spiritual paths of three young Westerners who have embraced Eastern traditions: Sister Yeshe Chodron’s journey led her from Australia to a life as a Buddhist nun in a Himalayan convent; Ronela Vainio immerses herself in tantric yoga; and Aziz Abbatiello lives as a Sufi dervish in Turkey, where he prays, sings, and spins himself into spiritual ecstasy. This intimate and compelling film delves into the personal practices and challenges of three people who have turned their backs on Western traditions. Features interviews with Venerable Tenzin Palmo, His Holiness the 41st Sakya Trizin, Sherif Baba, Sheikh Sherif Baba Efendi and Swami Vivekananda Saraswati. “An engaging look at a trio of modern spiritual explorers, this is recommended.” -Aud: C, P. (K. Fennessy) Video Librarian, May 2009 ***   To learn more about this film, click here. Mystical Brain Is it possible to shed light on the states of grace experienced by mystics and meditators? Mystical Brain shows us the most recent discoveries of scientific research on this phenomenon in North America and abroad. It seems that mystical ecstasy is a profoundly transformative experience. It could contribute to people’s psychic and bodily health, treat depression and speed up the healing process in patients who combine meditation with conventional medicine. A guided tour of the depths of the human spirit, Mystical Brain is a fascinating documentary that breaks new ground on the intersection of science and spirituality. “A single documentary obviously can’t resolve fundamental questions about the nature of the soul and the Cartesian mind-body dichotomy, but this one does offer a fascinating look at such profound matters without ever becoming either heavy-handed or dismissive. Recommended.” -Aud: C, P. (F. Swietek) ***   To learn more about this film, click here.     FLicKeR This award-winning documentary about poet, artist, calligrapher and mystic Brion Gysin, portrays the life and legacy of an artist who believed art could revolutionize human consciousness. FLicKeR chronicles Gison’s complex ideas, friendships and influence with some of the 20th century’s key counterculture figures, such as William Burroughs, Kurt Corbain and Marianne Faithful. Featuring greats like Burroughs (in archival footage), singer Marianne Faithfull, singer/artist Genesis P-Orridge of Psychic TV, poet John Giorno, punk rocker Iggy Pop, filmmaker Kenneth Anger and artist/turntablist DJ Spooky, FLicKeR is a hypnotic documentary. Taking the dreamachine as the basis of its explorations, FLicKeR asks crucial questions about the nature of art and consciousness, and imagines humanity liberated to explore its creativity in complete freedom. “A single documentary obviously can’t resolve fundamental questions about the nature of the soul and the Cartesian mind-body dichotomy, but this one does offer a fascinating look at such profound matters without ever becoming  either heavy-handed or dismissive.” -Recommended. Aud: C, P. (F. Swietek) Video Librarian, May 2009 ***   To learn more about this film, click here.

Now Available for Exhibition or Purchase with Public Performance Rights Dollhouse Mabou Mines critically acclaimed interpretation of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House rejuvenates a nineteenth century classic with bold staging and conceptual originality. Ibsen’s Doll’s House has been described as a feminist clarion, Freudian drama and bourgeois soap opera. In Mabou Mines’ re-imagining, the production shocks and enlightens audiences as never before. Includes the companion documentary, Looking for a Miracle, which features extensive interviews with director Lee Breuer and the original cast. “…Mr. Breuer gives us a passionate allegory that works - and plays - on many levels…” - The New York Times

Tibetan Book of the Dead Narrated by Leonard Cohen, this two-part series explores ancient teachings on death and dying and boldly visualizes the afterlife according to Tibetan philosophy. A Way of Life documents the book’s acceptance and use in Europe and North America. Included is remarkable footage of the rites and liturgies surrounding and following the death of a Ladakhi elder as well as the views of the Dalai Lama on life and death. The Great Liberation observes an old Buddhist lama and a 13-year-old novice monk as they guide a deceased person into the afterlife. The passage of the soul is visualized with animation blended into actual location shooting. An additional short documentary, The Trap, explores Buddhist concepts of mutual respect, tolerance and cycles in the daily life of a North Atlantic fishing village. “A marvelous documentary creation. Excellently written, and Cohen’s narration suits the theme beautifully. To seek truth and practice compassion is the meaning and purpose of life. This film demands multiple viewings…highly recommended.” - CM Magazine, The Manitoba Library Association

Son of Man In the state of Judea in southern Africa, violence, poverty and sectarianism are endemic. The neighbouring Alliance has invaded to restore ‘peace’ at gunpoint. Bloody street battles accompany the neighbouring dictatorship’s incursion into its weaker satellite. Promises of a transition to open democratic rule accompany summary executions and brutal massacres. As the civil war reaches a new level, a divine child is born to a lowly couple. As he grows and witnesses the inhumanity of the world he lives in, his angelic guardians offer him an escape to the heavens. He refuses. This is his world and he must try to save it from the work of evil men and from the darkness working through them. As an adult, he travels to the capital, gathering followers from the armed factions of rebels that crisscross the land. He demands that his followers give up their guns and confront their corrupt rulers with a vision of non-violent protest and solidarity. Inevitably, he attracts the attention of the Judean tribal leaders who have struck a power-sharing deal with the aloof Governor Pilate. The Son of Man must be brought down and destroyed. It should be another simple ‘disappearance’ like any other… “It doesn’t strain to draw parallels with world events because it doesn’t have to…extraordinary and powerful.” - Roger Ebert

Fierce Light Gandhi called it “Soul Force,” Dr. King called it “Love in Action,” and now, acclaimed filmmaker Velcrow Ripper is calling it “Fierce Light.” It is a universal power that radiates from every human heart, undeniably hopeful, and full of possibility. It holds us to be uncompromisingly nonviolent and drives us to the pentacle of our spiritual excellence. Fierce Light: When Spirit Meets Action chronicles filmmaker Velcrow Ripper’s journey to document examples of this sacred beacon that shines the brightest at the darkest and most dangerous times. After watching Fierce Light, audiences can find hope in this mass movement founded on the values of compassion, collaboration, and understanding and focuses on what we are trying to accomplish, as opposed to what we are trying to destroy. The film features Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Alice Walker, American Civil Rights Leader John Lewis, Buddhist peace activist and monk Thich Nhat Hanh, actor turned activist Daryl Hannah, and famed tree-sitter Julia Butterfly Hill. “If anyone can find the silver lining in a mushroom cloud, it is this astounding, thoughtful filmmaker.” - National Post

Intangible Asset #82 In her debut film, director Emma Franz captures the creative odyssey of Australian drummer Simon Barker in search of his muse, Korean Shaman Kim Seok-Chul - a Grand Master in his seventies who plays with immense energy and complex technique. After hearing a rare recording of Kim Seok-Chul’s music, Barker knew right away that he was listening to one of the world’s greatest improvisers. So unique, in fact, is the artistry of the Shaman that the Korean Government bestowed upon him the honorary title “Intangible Asset Number 82,” recognizing him as the pre-eminent practitioner, Grand Master and protector of his art form. Intrigued, Barker commits to find and learn from the enigmatic master. Yet Kim Seok-Chul proves elusive, despite the fame accompanying his official honor as being South Korea’s 82nd Intangible Asset.Despite seven years of setbacks and obstacles, and with the Shaman now in his eighties, Barker’s commitment intensifies and he returns to Korea for the seventeenth time. Imbued with a sense of destiny, the journey becomes a rite of passage as Barker experiences life-changing encounters with the engaging and exotic characters who eventually lead him to the Shaman. Intangible Asset Number 82 is a true testimony to the universal language of music and its transformative power. “The story never loses traction because all of the characters are so charismatic and open. I found myself totally captivated by Barker’s journey and Franz’s strong imagery. Her debut film is very impressive, and coming out on DVD! - Ellen Spiro, University of Texas

All of the above films are now available for exhibition or for pre-order with public performance rights. To learn more about a film, read reviews, or pre-order, click here.

Please contact Elizabeth Sheldon if you would like to preview any of these films exhibition or public performance rights inquiries.

After hearing a rare recording of Korean Shaman Kim Seok-Chul’s music, Australian drummer Simon Barker knew right away that he was listening to one of the world’s greatest improvisers. So unique, in fact, is the artistry of the Shaman that the Korean Government bestowed upon him the honorary title “Intangible Asset Number 82,” recognizing him as the pre-eminent practitioner, Grand Master and protector of his art form. Intrigued, Barker commits to find and learn from the enigmatic master. Yet Kim Seok-Chul proves elusive, despite the fame accompanying his official honor as being South Korea’s 82nd Intangible Asset.

Imbued with a sense of destiny, the journey becomes a rite of passage as Barker experiences life-changing encounters with the engaging and exotic characters who eventually lead him to the Shaman. Intangible Asset Number 82 is a true testimony to the universal language of music and its transformative power.
 
 
 
 
“A masterly conceived and filmed documentary, ‘Intangible Asset No. 82′ represents a beautiful balance between an educational document and a moving human drama. Through the personal journey of the Australian drummer Simon Barker — guided by the Korean percussionist and vocalist Kim Dong-Won — audiences are provided a rare window onto the meanings and aesthetics of Korean traditional music. The breathtaking beauty and ethos of Korean instruments and voices is matched by the equally enthralling and heart-breaking funeral experienced at the dramatic conclusion.”

Dr. Nathan Hesselink
University of British Colombia
Associate Professor of Ethnomusicology
Research Associate, Centre for Korean Research

Grade Level: Grades 10-12, College and University
Subjects: Culture, Music
Language: Korean and English, with English Subtitles
Copyright: © 2009 In the Sprocket Productions. All Rights Reserved.
Set: DVD Only
Total Running Time: 90 minutes
ISBN-10: TBA
Educational Prices: (includes Public Performance Rights)
Educational with Public Performance Rights: $249.00
 
 
 
Educational without Public Performance Rights: $129.00
 
 
 

To Pre-Order this title please contact info@alivemindeducation.com or call us at 212-398-3112.

For public exhibition inquiries please contact us for more details!
 

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Video Librarian Review January/February 2010
Rating: 3 out of 4 Stars - Recommended!

Filmmaker Emma Franz’s Intangible Asset No. 82 follows Australian jazz drummer Simon Barker as he searches for elusive percussionist and esteemed hereditary shaman Kim Seok-Chul. For seven years, Barker has traveled to South Korea for inspiration. After a friend introduces Barker to the complex improvisations of Kim Seok-Chul (whose work has received minimal documentation), he decides to find out everything he can about the man, proclaiming Kim “one of the greatest musicians alive”—and later discovering that Korea officially considers him “Intangible Cultural Asset Number 82” (“intangible” because one can’t see his contributions). Barker finally meets Kim Dong-Won, a fellow drummer who offers to introduce him to the grand master. To make the most of their journey, Dong-Won recommends that they drop in on a few folk on the way to Busan, including Jeong Sung-Dok, a woman who became a shaman at the age of eight, and Bae Il-Dong, a pansori singer who tells epic stories through song and who built up his voice by singing next to a waterfall for several years. Simon, Dong-Won, and Il-Dong hit it off so well that they end up performing and recording together. But as they get closer to Kim Seok-Chul’s hometown, Barker learns that the octogenarian is in declining health, and the pilgrimage turns out far different than planned. Recommended.

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Opening with scenes of jazz drumming and promotional blurbs of praise for Australian drummer Simon Barker, this first full-length documentary by Australian jazz singer Emma Franz soon has Barker narrating his deeply personal musical philosophy, beginning with a need to base his own performance on something more ‘regional’ than American jazz traditions. After hearing a recording of Korean drummer Kim Seok-Chul, Barker traveled 5,000 miles north to South Korea and found the sound he sought in performances and teachings of Korean musicians who revered and emulated Kim. During his seventeenth trip to Korea, he was finally granted an audience with the grandmaster himself. This film documents that trip.

Kim had been a lifelong shaman and p’ansori percussionist and a shaman. A p’ansori performance consists of one drummer accompanying one singer of dramatic, epic ballads. Not all p’ansori performers are also shamans, whose ritual ceremonies are held to have great curative and creative power. We learn from drummer and teacher Kim Dong-Won, who took his time deciding to trust Barker’s integrity and respect for Korean culture enough to shepherd him around the country and introduce him to other musician and shamans, that Kim Seok-Chul’s work had been officially designated a cultural ‘intangible asset.’ It was the 82nd such honor to be bestowed by the government-sponsored system begun in the 1960s. Kim Dong-Won now shares the role of film narrator with Barker, allowing us to learn his musical philosophy. How will this East/West encounter develop? Franz keeps us wanting to see what happens next.

A p’ansori singer may produce hard, throat-constricted vocal attacks and hoarse sustained notes that leave audiences concerned for the safety of his or her larynx. Kim Dong-Won introduces Barker to Bae Il-Dong, who demonstrates how he developed his p’ansori voice by shout-singing next to a waterfall for seven years. (One of the amazing revelations of this film is Bae’s gorgeous, smooth speaking voice, so different from his barking p’ansori outbursts; he could recite kimchee recipes in Korean and convince you he is describing mouthwatering honey cakes.) Interaction between Korean standing singers, dancers, or bangers on huge, colorful hanging drums and percussionists playing double-headed barrel drums while seated on the ground is a recurring theme and serves to emphasize how important concentration between two performers is to the essentially improvisatory nature of a satisfactory musical outcome. During a lesson with one musician, Barker repeatedly throws himself on the floor in order to be one with the force of gravity – to learn to ‘relax’ into that special technique Korean drummers have mastered that makes them look like their arms simply drop into the required rhythm of their own accord.

Intercultural trust and respect are so often illustrated that they become major subjects in the program. An older Korean master of p’ansori drumming allows questions from Barker and praises the research the Westerner has obviously done in preparation for the interview. Korean spiritual shamanism is sensitively addressed. A young woman who felt called to be a shaman at age eight is visited and excerpts from various healing ceremonies are shown, preparing viewers for the climactic encounter with old, infirm Kim Seok-Chul, just after his release from a long hospital stay. His family has arranged for a shamanist healing ceremony to be performed at his home. Barker and the Australian film crew have been allowed to witness it. Kim Dong-Won finds this astonishing and is obviously awed by the event. Kim Seok-Chul dies only days afterward and formal expressions of grief ensue, with mourners in traditional white funeral garb expressing both heartfelt outpourings of loss and joyous appreciation for Kim’s gifts.

Koreans and Australians seem equally affected by the musical exchanges documented in this film. Barker’s jazz group, Kim Dong-Won, and Bae perform and record together, with a ‘crossover’ sonic result that moves and motivates them all to pursue the collaboration. Simon Barker speaks of all he has learned from the Koreans – about ‘rough beauty’ and breath and rhythm as a circular, ongoing force. Dong-Won says Simon’s entry into the Korean musical world was ‘destiny’ and that ‘something like brotherhood’ has been achieved.

Both the sound and look of this program allow Korea to remain in focus. We, along with Barker, are visitors who wish to understand and be taught something about a beautiful county’s traditions. Lovely images of natural areas, rice fields, and temples balance scenes of city crowds and instructional interiors. Recordings of Kim Seok-Chul introduce us to the sound that initially captivated Barker, but plenty of other music making is shown, and development of the cross-pollinated jazz-p’ansori merger that ends the film seems appropriately inevitable. We are left wanting more. The musicians in the film have formed a group called Daorum whose work can be sampled on YouTube.

Highly recommended to collections supporting studies in Korean music, percussion, jazz, and general cross-cultural studies.

-Educational Media Reviews Online

Additional Information

• The Main Characters
• Musicians Featured in the Film
• Notes on the Film
• Director’s Statement
• Credits - Coming Soon!

Coming soon.

Video Librarian Review January/February 2010
Intangible Asset #82
Rating: 3 out of 4 Stars - Recommended!

Filmmaker Emma Franz’s Intangible Asset No. 82 follows Australian jazz drummer Simon Barker as he searches for elusive percussionist and esteemed hereditary shaman Kim Seok-Chul. For seven years, Barker has traveled to South Korea for inspiration. After a friend introduces Barker to the complex improvisations of Kim Seok-Chul (whose work has received minimal documentation), he decides to find out everything he can about the man, proclaiming Kim “one of the greatest musicians alive”—and later discovering that Korea officially considers him “Intangible Cultural Asset Number 82” (“intangible” because one can’t see his contributions). Barker finally meets Kim Dong-Won, a fellow drummer who offers to introduce him to the grand master. To make the most of their journey, Dong-Won recommends that they drop in on a few folk on the way to Busan, including Jeong Sung-Dok, a woman who became a shaman at the age of eight, and Bae Il-Dong, a pansori singer who tells epic stories through song and who built up his voice by singing next to a waterfall for several years. Simon, Dong-Won, and Il-Dong hit it off so well that they end up performing and recording together. But as they get closer to Kim Seok-Chul’s hometown, Barker learns that the octogenarian is in declining health, and the pilgrimage turns out far different than planned. Recommended.

Video Librarian Review January/February 2010
So Help Me God
Rating: 3 out of 4 Stars - Recommended!

In Religulous, comedian Bill Maher traveled around America to draw believers into conversations that would reveal the foolishness of much, if not all, organized religion. So Help Me God covers a similar journey, but filmmaker Simon Cole is a successful businessman and a nonbeliever who genuinely seeks spiritual fulfillment, looking for God while talking to members of different religious groups. Cole begins his quest with a gag that might put people off (the one about asking a telephone operator for the deity’s phone number), but once on the road, his attitude becomes more serious as he engages with Catholics, Presbyterians, Baptists, Amish, Mormons, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and Sikhs—as well as self-professed “free thinkers.” The range of opinion is naturally wide, with some interviewees rigidly doctrinaire and others extraordinarily broad-minded; and since most are ordinary folk rather than religious scholars, their words don’t necessarily carry denominational authority. But whatever camp they fall into, Cole treats them with respect, and they respond to his gentle probing with observations that are revealing and often gently humorous as well. The result is a film that, while focusing on Cole’s spiritual search, ably portrays the diversity of religious experience in the U.S. Recommended.

Educational Media Reviews Online September 9, 2009
Meditate and Destroy
Rating: Highly Recommended!

Meditate and Destroy provides Buddhist punk author (Against the Stream, Dharma Punx) and provocateur Noah Levine a visual platform on which to expound on his dramatic conversion from turbulent anti-parent, anti-hippy, and aggressively self-destructive teen rebel and repeat offender to a national punk-culture spokesperson for meditative practice and 12-step recovery. Director Sarah Fisher uses concise editing and splicing of animation, punk visual culture, music, and Santa Cruz, California, urban street life to paint an effective tableau of the modern saha world that attracts and feeds violence for the sake of violence, crime, and substance abuse for a significant sub-culture of bored and rebellious youth.

Subject Noah is not only a son of practicing Buddhist parents (thus automatically rejecting their spiritual commitment), but also a product of a late 20th century media culture, and he is clearly engaged and comfortable in front of the director’s camera, as well as a natural and engaging public speaker. His closest punk-culture peers expound considerable reverence on camera for Noah’s leadership and vision, inspired by him in both their most destructive adolescent behaviors and his leadership in moving them out of the self-destructive wasteland and into meditation. Noah finds in his own tapping of the twin tools of meditative practice and a 12-step recovery the compassion to lead his peers toward a purposeful existence, yet carefully maintaining his punk-culture credentials and spiritual independence.

The use of Noah as his own narrator and his eloquent punk-culture peers as authentic spokespersons is a very effective documentary technique. Noah’s punk friends are visually salient, offering calm monologues that alternate with the more frenetic music of Santa Cruz punk bands. Noah, his parents, his parole officer, and his Buddhist mentor Jack Kornfeld all have calm and unique perspectives on Noah’s suffering, and the core Buddhist principles of suffering and release from suffering are woven throughout the video. For urban sociologists, the inner-city violence and substance abuse culture of the late 1980’s is described in stark terms by Noah, his parents, his peers, counselors, and law enforcement officers.

The use of Second Life virtual character animated sequences to portray the most physically dangerous moments of Noah’s incarceration, complete with self-inflicted injuries, is quite effective, offering a non-destructive yet viscerally disturbing substitution for typical re-enacted violence, effectively combined with Noah’s own narration.

Noah describes his meditative rebirth as a spiritual revolution, and Noah’s punk acolytes confirm on camera that Noah’s liberation from suffering and pain has inspired their own meditative experiment. The newly restored trust and respect with his parents, particularly his father Stephen Levine, allows the reemergence of family respect. Patricia Washko, Noah’s mom, also provides authentic memories of her son’s youthful alienation and sadness that has been transformed into compassion and commitment. Noah has become a Buddhist activist on mission, an unabashed iconoclast, challenging negativity and strife with meditation and youth counseling, while maintaining his authentic punk credentials and a free-pass to re-enter the rebellious turbulence of the punk scene. The film’s loud punk soundtrack and belligerent sequences such as mosh pits provides a visual and aural authentic ambience. The film also includes Noah speaking to young persons in locked-down educational settings for troubled youth, and it is remarkable to see this style of group counseling (Noah has earned a degree in Counseling) and encouraging young people to consider meditation as their own form of self-affirming rebellion.

Highly recommended for supervised or moderated viewing at institutions for troubled or incarcerated youth, sociology classes covering punk-culture, and classes on comparative religion.

Video Librarian Review September/October 2009
Fierce Light: When Spirit Meets Action
Rating: 3 out of 4 Stars - Recommended!

One can’t doubt the earnestness of Velcrow Ripper, a Canadian photojournalist who travels the globe recording scenes of protest against oppression, which often place him in serious danger. The death of colleague Brad Will, who was killed while filming a demonstration in Oaxaca, led Ripper to make Fierce Light, an investigation of how spirituality—in various forms—can find expression in social action. The film juxtaposes footage (both from Ripper and archival sources)—of the American Civil Rights movement, the drive for equality among India’s so-called “untouchables,” and a campaign against the School of the Americas (which critics claim teaches techniques of repression) at Fort Benning, GA—with discussions of “soul force,” defined as the spiritually-motivated, nonviolent forms of resistance associated with Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., among others. Interviewees include Congressman John Lewis, writer Alice Walker, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and actress Daryl Hannah, as well as a number of other activists, such as those protesting the decision to close down and sell a community garden in South Central Los Angeles (a story that is the subject of the Oscar-nominated documentary The Garden). A solid discussion starter, Fierce Light is recommended. Aud: C, P. (F. Swietek)

Video Librarian Review September/October 2009
The Gates
Rating: 3 out of 4 Stars - Recommended!

Legendary documentary filmmaker Albert Maysles (Grey Gardens) has chronicled the creation of many massive, eye-catching works of public art erected by Christo and his partner Jeanne-Claude, including the Valley Curtain in Colorado’s mountains, the Running Fence in northern California, the Surrounded Islands in Miami’s Biscayne Bay, and the wrapping of the Pont Neuf in Paris (see review of 5 Films About Christo & Jeanne-Claude in VL-7/04). Maysles’ The Gates follows the pair’s most recent endeavor: the placement of over 7,500 gates of flowing orange-colored fabric along 23 miles of paths in New York’s Central Park. The film begins with the artists’ 25-year crusade to win official approval for the project, which was blocked by the city’s bureaucracy until newly-elected Mayor Michael Bloomberg (a fan) gave the thumbs-up in 2003. The Gates captures the building and month-long installation of the exhibit (including some brusque comments from locals walking through the area), the triumphant opening in February 2005, and the ensuing two-week period during which members of the public were invited to enjoy the work. Many spectators offer up admiring comments as they stroll through Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s creation, while the cameras capture oodles of attractive footage of the fabric billowing in the breeze, as well as especially lovely shots of the curtains seen against new-fallen snow. Although some critics dismiss the artists as charlatans, The Gates makes clear that a lot of folk found Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s Central Park enterprise both beautiful and moving. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (F. Swietek)

Video Librarian Review September/October 2009
The Workshop
Rating: 3 out of 4 Stars - Recommended!

Feeling restless and unsatisfied, British photographer Jamie Morgan journeys to the San Francisco Bay Area to attend 72-year-old Paul Lowe’s “radical self-help workshop,” a 10-day sex-oriented retreat. Morgan interviews other attendees and openly films group therapy sessions and even an orgy, which begs the obvious question of whether the participants are simply indifferent, narcissistic, or genuinely hopeful that viewers will learn something from their journey of self-discovery (interestingly, several are British citizens or expatriates, like Morgan and Lowe). Not only do the interviewees confess their innermost thoughts on camera, they’re also naked much of the time, which is part of Lowe’s process, since it renders everyone equal—at least in the strictly materialistic sense. In short order, the bashful become downright exhibitionistic, rendering the documentary quasi-pornographic (including the aforementioned orgy scenes), although nudity isn’t always a prelude to sexual activity. Lowe also believes that “monogamy is not natural,” and a few of the married (or otherwise attached) participants put that assertion to the test here, including the guru’s son-in-law. Narcissistic or not, the breakthroughs experienced by some of the participants seem real enough, although Morgan neglects to disclose how much individuals paid for the privilege. Recommended for academic human sexuality studies, this is also a strong optional purchase for more adventurous public library collections. Aud: C, P. (K. Fennessy)

Orlando Sentinel Review August 7, 2009 on Son of Man
Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars
By Roger Moore

The story never went like this: “For unto you is born, in the City of Soweto, a King…”

But that’s the brilliant conceit of Son of Man, a South African version of the story of Jesus from the New Testament. This Jesus (Andile Kosi) is a modern African born into a land of civil strife and poverty. He speaks Xhosa and teaches his followers not just the basics — tolerance, forgiveness — but also fairness, decrying drug companies that price their wares out of the reach of those they could save, political violence and “protectionism.”

He has his moments of doubt in the desert, but this time he’s on the shores of the Indian Ocean. He raises the dead, heals, carries out an exorcism and welcomes his Mary Magdalene into a coed cast of apostles.

The angel Gabriel (James Anthony) is a small African boy with feathers glued to his shoulders. At every step, Jesus is dogged by Satan (Andries Mbali), a grinning ghoul in a trench coat and red T-shirt. At the right moment, Judas will betray him — with a camcorder.

But in the bloodstained tradition of modern Africa, this victim of political violence isn’t nailed to anything. He is tortured by the authorities and made to “disappear.” And if you know your New Testament, you know what comes next.

Co-writer/director Mark Dornford-May has conjured up a modern allegory of boy-soldiers with AK-47s stopping Mary (Pauline Malefane) and Joseph on the road, of a violent milieu seen through the viewfinder of a camcorder or on the evening news. It’s a story told mostly with images — the poetic landscapes of Africa set against the harsh realities of shantytowns, the gentle message of Jesus contrasted with civil war and the occupying general who washes his hands when this agitator and trouble-maker is finally arrested.

Well-acted, beautifully photographed and edited, it’s a brisk story told with African music and universal pathos. No, it doesn’t cover the entire New Testament or even the entirety of the New Testament’s biographical stories of Jesus. The historical Jesus gives way to the larger point about where his sympathies lay.

But Son of Man casts fresh eyes on a tale that has dominated Western civilization for 2,000 years. The film, in English and Xhosa with English subtitles, opens Friday at the Plaza Cinema Cafe.

Video Librarian Review May-June 2009 on Mystical Brain
Rating: 3 out of 4 Stars - Recommended!

Philosophical, theological, and scientific questions are raised in Mystical Brain, this fascinating National Film Board of Canada-produced documentary from director Isabella Raynauld, which follows the efforts of North American neurobiologists investigating how the brain reacts during prayer and meditation. In one study, two researchers at the University of Montreal persuade several contemplative Carmelite nuns to undergo scientific tests to try to localize and measure the impact of the mystical experience on their brains. A similar project (although with different techniques) follows a team at the University of Wisconsin working with Buddhist monks, including a translator for the Dalai Lama. Both scientists and subjects feel that the research does not endanger the spiritual experience but rather may aid in our understanding of it—a point driven home in a conference featuring the Dalai Lama, a Cistercian monk, and scientists. Meanwhile, another university researcher is shown here experimenting with a device known as the “God helmet,” which aims to replicate the physiological effects of religious belief on the brain without what the researcher calls the potentially destructive impulses associated with doctrine and dogma. A single documentary obviously can’t resolve fundamental questions about the nature of the soul and the Cartesian mind-body dichotomy, but this one does offer a fascinating look at such profound matters without ever becoming either heavy-handed or dismissive. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (F. Swietek)

Video Librarian Review May-June 2009 on Through the Eastern Gate
Rating: 3 out of 4 Stars - Recommended!

Directors Mironel de Wilde and Julien L. Balmer’s Through the Eastern Gate profiles three young Westerners who chucked it all for spiritual enlightenment in India and Turkey. According to Sister Yeshe Chodron, “Everything you want, you’ll find in India. It’s a place of extremes: heaven and hell.” At 17, the Australian Yeshe became a Buddhist nun, while Californian Aziz Abbatiello found his calling as a Sufi semazen or whirling dervish, and Finlander Ronela Vainio practices Tantric yoga. Yeshe experienced a terrible sense of loss after the death of her father, and turned to drugs and alcohol, but nothing filled the emptiness until she discovered Tibetan Buddhism. After her confirmation in the Catholic Church, Ronela not only felt “flat,” but no closer to Jesus. Both women were looking for change after these transformative experiences (Aziz, on the other hand, had been raised as a Sufi). Each of the three here credit a particular guru or swami—whose comments are also included—for teaching them how to follow their chosen path, and all feel as if they’ve found the “Answer,” although obviously each has found an “answer” that brings purpose to their individual lives. An engaging look at a trio of modern spiritual explorers, this is recommended. Aud: C, P. (K. Fennessy)

Video Librarian Review May-June 2009 on FLicKeR
Rating: 3 out of 4 Stars - Recommended!

Brion Gysin (1916-1986)—painter, writer, performance artist, and countercultural guru—is hardly a household name, but Nik Sheehan’s documentary clearly demonstrates that Gysin was influential on some better-known authors, musicians, and filmmakers. FLicKeR opens with a conventional biographical sketch that is primarily dependent on photographic stills and overlaid narration, but fairly quickly expands to incorporate a collage of newly-filmed interviews (featuring acolytes such as Iggy Pop, Marianne Faithfull, and Kenneth Anger, as well as friends and acquaintances), archival footage, and artwork, while covering topics that include Gysin’s collaboration with William S. Burroughs (which resulted in the “cut-up” composition technique of scrambling images and words) and Gysin’s belief that he was “channeling” the 10th-century Persian Old Man of the Mountain, also known as the King of the Assassins. But the central thread running throughout the film concerns Gysin’s construction of the so-called “dream machine,” a contraption (using a light bulb, turntable, and cardboard cylinder) designed to create a hypnotic strobe effect that, according to Gysin (who collaborated with British mathematician Ian Sommerville), could bring a person—if they stared intently enough—into a higher state of consciousness without using drugs. An insightful look at a figure perhaps more notable for his oddity and effect on others than his individual accomplishments, this intriguing profile is recommended. Aud: C, P. (F. Swietek)

‘Theater’ commences attack on war
The Boston Herald
March 27, 2009

THEATER OF WAR: A

If you’re interested in world theater or the work ethic of arguably the greatest actor of her generation, see “Theater of War.” A documentary about an August 2006 production of Bertolt Brecht’s landmark play “Mother Courage and Her Children,” featuring Meryl Streep in the title role, the film is a fascinating account of artists working to bring the play, a shocking, nihilistic indictment of war, to American audiences at the height of America’s intervention in Iraq.

Streep appears with long, dark hair in interviews shot after the production and shorter hair in rehearsals at the Public Theater and on the stage of the stifling, open-air Delacorte Theater in New York City’s Central Park.

Also appearing in the film are the playwright Tony Kushner (“Angels in America”), who adapted Brecht’s 1939 German-language play, playwright-director George C. Wolfe (“Jelly’s Last Jam,” “Angels in America: Millennium Approaches”), the Public Theatre’s artistic director Oskar Eustis and Kevin Kline, who plays the role of the cook in the play.

Director John W. Walter has assembled impressive background material in the form of recordings of Brecht and still photos of a historical 1949 production of “Mother Courage” in the broken, burned-out ruins of Berlin, featuring Brecht’s wife and lead actress Helene Weigel in the title role.

Set during the Thirty Years War, a somewhat murky 17th century conflict fought in Germany and over most countries of Western Europe, the play tells the story of Mother Courage, a Swedish war profiteer, whose seemingly heartless attitude toward mass slaughter is an indictment of war and warmongers in general and the insanity of Nazi-era Germany in particular.

Experience Brechtian alienation in all its hideous power. See Mother Courage, the “untragic heroine,” deny the identity of her dead son, an unforgettable anti-“Pieta.”

Forget those giants of Greek tragedy, evoking our pity and fear (and admiration), and see the real killer clowns - Bourbon, Hapsburg and dynasties closer to home - at work.

Walter’s film owes a debt to Errol Morris’ “Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara.” Moreover, if Tony-winning Wolfe is more cheerleader than leader, Eustis blathers fatuously and Kline and Austin Pendleton get lost in the shuffle, “Theater of War” is a must-see event for theater-lovers and Streep watchers alike. Don’t miss it.

Theater of War - Backstage insights into art and ideology
The Boston Globe
March 27, 2009

In the summer of 2006, thousands of theatergoers, stargazers, and people who enjoy Marxist German classics braved impossible heat to attend a production of Bertolt Brecht’s “Mother Courage and Her Children” in Central Park. It was more hoopla than Brecht ordinarily receives, even by the standards of the New York stage. But this Public Theatre production was somewhat out of the ordinary. Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline were starring in a new translation by Tony Kushner, directed by George C. Wolfe with music by Jeanine Tesori. And it was free.

John W. Walter, a film editor and documentary maker, was around to film the show’s rehearsals. But it wasn’t just Streep’s star that struck him. It was Brecht’s. “Theater of War,” Walter’s invigorating film, asserts the value of Brecht - and the power of art - for our troubled times.

The film combines backstage footage, interviews with Kushner, Wolfe, Tesori, and Streep, and conversations with two professors, one of whom worked alongside Brecht, the other who teaches his work. What comes of all this is both a film of ideas (call it “Everyday Brecht”) and a modest journey into the dramatist’s life. More than once the two merge into living philosophy.

Much of the playwright’s biography is explained by Tufts University’s Jay Cantor, who discusses how Marxism presented Brecht the intellectual rigging for his political anger. The film applies the basic revelations of Marxism (work is tyranny, labor effaces personality, that sort of thing) to the Public’s production itself. Initially there is reason to fear. Jeremy Lydic, who oversaw the props and wrote his thesis on “Mother Courage,” and Marina Draghici, who managed the costumes, do their jobs while Cantor explains that our work is who we are.

It’s not drudgery we see, though, but a kind of personal pride in craft. Eventually Cantor, who has allowed himself to stare down the Marxist rabbit hole and seems the glummer for it, moves on to the productive uses of Marxism, which, under these circumstances, have more to do with the effectiveness of collective action. That, after all, is how art is usually made.

Brecht wrote “Mother Courage” as an antiwar jeremiad, and the play’s enduring strength is the ugly reach of its moral quagmire. Mother Courage runs a profitable mobile canteen for soldiers that she continues to haul even after the war has cost her her three children. Death is tragic, but so, in a sense, is this woman’s will to live. Walter sees in the Central Park production a parallel to contemporary military conflicts. American troops were spending another year in Iraq, and Israel had just invaded Lebanon.

“Theater of War” is perfectly Brechtian in form - “action and commentary on the action,” as someone points out. Much of the most stirring commentary comes from Streep, who objects to the general idea of filming rehearsals (process looks like “bad acting,” she says), but appears to go with the Brechtian flow, letting us sees flubs, sweat, and tears.

Walter juxtaposes her grueling, almost deranged performance with footage of the legendary performance by Brecht’s wife, Helene Weigel, who appears to be twice as formidable while doing half the work. These backstage scenes explore the Brechtian urge to create and rebel. But the movie wonders whether creation is an adequately confrontational act. What is the value of art in times of strife? Should people be sitting in the theater or rioting in the streets? Walter’s film reminds us that once there was a man whose work made no distinction between the two.

Video Librarian Review March-April 2009 on Absolutely Safe
Rating: 3 out of 4 Stars - Recommended!

In this day and age, breast implants are thought to be “absolutely safe,” a claim that filmmaker Carol Ciancutti-Leyva examines in this thought-provoking documentary. As Ciancutti-Leyva notes at the outset, her mother Audrey chose augmentation after a mastectomy in the 1970’s, a time when the procedure carried greater risks (and before saline became an alternative to silicone). Over the years, Audrey experienced ruptures, joint pain, and chronic fatigue, eventually speaking before an FDA Safety Hearing in 2003 (her testimony is included here). Filmed over a 10-year-period, Absolutely Safe looks at five decades of implant technology, while interviewing women such as former exotic dancer Wendi, who has her silicone implants removed after experiencing health problems, and young wife Denee, who gets implants in order to boost her self-confidence–even though her husband thinks she looks just fine (the film includes some graphic operating-room footage of the procedures for both women). As a toxicologist notes here, these “devices” (as the medical profession refers to them) can leak heavy metals–such as tin, zinc, and platinum–difficult for the body to expel. Offering opinions on both sides, other interviewees include plastic surgeons, a Dow Corning executive, an FDA spokesperson (who cautions that “nothing is free of risk”) and satisfied breast implant customers. Veteran documentarian Jennifer Fox (An American Love Story, Flying: Confessions of a Free Woman) served as executive producer for this documentary, which offers an admirable balance between the personal and the scientific. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (K. Fennessy)

Video Librarian Review March-April 2009 on Forgiveness: Stories of Our Time
Rating: 3 out of 4 Stars - Recommended!

Filmmaker Johanna Lunn’s documentary Forgiveness tells the storis of four individuals who suffered enormous personal losses but worked hard to overcome their grief and rage, ultimately forgiving those responsible for their pain. Toronto woman Lesley Parrott’s young daughter was raped and brutally murdered (but Parrott’s opposition to the death penalty remains unshaken); Anglican vicar Julie Nicholson’s daughter was killed on the London underground subway during the al Qaeda bombing in 2005; Newfoundland woman Anne Marie Hagan’s father was murdered by a schizophrenic neighbor (a young man he’d known for years and treated as a son); and Belfast man Alan McBride’s wife was killed in an IRA bombing (McBride joined a protest group as a means of coping with his anger). Forgiveness combines home movies, stills, and archival footage to provide background for the interviews with the four principals, who reflect on their experiences. A moving film about human tragedy, Forgiveness illustrates the immense struggle required to relinquish the desire for revenge, but also strikes a hopeful note about the possibility of coping with terrible events in our lives. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (F. Swietek)

Video Librarian March/April 2009 on Flying: Confessions of a Free Woman
Rating: 3 1/2 Stars - Highly Recommended

A six-hour documentary about one New York woman’s sex life and associated neuroses? What is this, Seinfeld on estrogen? Maybe, if Seinfeld had ever dared to be about something. Filmmaker Jennifer Fox (An American Love Story) turns her camera on herself, re-examining where her resolutely independent life has taken her: unmarried and childless by choice in her 40s. In this shockingly personal TV miniseries, Fox discusses her affair with a married man; her deep desire not to turn into the angry women who raised her; the constant pressure from all sides to become various ideals of womanhood; and other issues that modern women cope with on a daily basis. Traveling to 17 countries over five years, Fox meets with a global network of friends who help expand the conversation, as women in places such as Pakistan and Cambodia reveal their most private thoughts on sex and love in cultures where they have far less autonomy than the filmmaker. Surprisingly, not once over the course of six hours does the film seem self-indulgent: Fox’s soul-baring honesty feels both profound and universal. This “special educational package” features all six hours of Flying on two discs, plus two bonus DVDs with film excerpts organized by topic—marriage, abortion, sex trafficking, motherhood, etc.—as well as a print discussion guide. [Note: a lower-priced two-disc home video version is tentatively slated for release in April.] Highly recommended. Aud: C, P. (M. Johanson)

Video Librarian January/February 2009 on Hair: Let the Sun Shine In
Rating: 3 Stars - Recommended

In their persuasive documentary Hair: Let the Sun Shine In, Pola Rapaport and Wolfgang Held present the famed musical as more than just a popular stage production that spawned a soundtrack and a movie. As Ben Vereen states, “Hair is not a show, it’s a movement.” With its storyline revolving around the military draft, racial injustice, free love, drugs, and other topical concerns, Hair offered a no-holds-barred portrait of the late 1960s. Creator Jim Rado (who played the role of Claude) and Stephanie Ragni, widow of co-creator Gerome Ragni, briefly talk about the production’s origins, while other interviewees discuss the musical’s significance and their connection to the material. Czechoslovakian director Milos Forman, who would later direct the big screen adaptation, admits he didn’t understand much of the English dialogue initially, but “loved the tunes.” In addition to archival footage of both Hair and the era (Vietnam, Kent State, etc.), the documentary also features excerpts from Rado’s casting sessions for a 2007 revival. Other interviewees include U.S. producer Michael Butler, international producer Bertrand Castelli, composer Galt MacDermot, and performers Keith Carradine, Melba Moore, and Tim Curry. While Hair: Let the Sun Shine In is a celebration of this countercultural classic, the film doesn’t shy away from the dark side of the production’s history, such as the lives lost to drug addiction and AIDS, and a suspicious hotel fire (Hair received threats from a variety of organizations, from the Weathermen to the John Birch Society). DVD extras include casting workshop footage and extended interviews with Rado, Forman, and Vereen. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (K. Fennessy)

FLicKeR review
Reviewed by Dan DiLandro, E.H. Butler Library, State University of New York College at Buffalo
Recommended
November 21, 2008

FLicKeR tells the story of Brion Gysin (the “only man” William S. Burroughs “ever respected”) and his unique contributions to the Arts. Well, indeed, the film cannot completely tell the story, relying more generally on interviews with authors, philosophers, neuroscientists, artists, and other prominent individual from various fields. As a Parisian curator said of Gysin’s most arguably famous work, “It’s a very peculiar piece to classify”; and so is the film itself, following Gysin’s life and work around the loose construct of his “Dreamachine”—a “provoked accident” that related to his own poetry and painting, but also touches upon instances of neurobiology and the anarchic principles of the 1960’s anti-control movements.

In short, FLicKeR is a biography of a person told not about the individual himself, really, but by the recollections of others on the influences of his works — a sort of verbal, artistic Gedenkschrift, in a way.

Beginning with the filmmaker’s attempt to recreate the Dreamachine, the audience is shown that, during a 1950’s train ride, Gysin experienced, basically, a sort of drug trip, caused by sunlight’s interaction with the moving vehicle. The resulting strobe effect was not “grace,” Gysin found, but a physio-neurological effect that stimulated alpha waves in the brain, evincing dreams, hallucinations, and—filmed researchers tell us—epileptic seizures in one out of every 4000 people. The archival images and sound as well as interviews with famous artists (such as Marianne Faithfull, Leila Luce, D.J. Spooky, Kenneth Anger, Iggy Pop) and authors produce a description of Gysin via a description of the machine, and proof of the evolution of the machine out of Gysin’s worldview and artistic standpoint.

There is much talk, as expected, of the similarities of the effects of the Dreamachine to drug use; and the various interviewees express different, though certainly generally uniformly “psychedelic,” visions they experience.

But more than a recitation of subjective emotions is the rich foundation that this machine, and individuals’ thoughts on it, develop for biographical information and, essentially, Gysin’s place within the art world and his true impact upon it.

For instance, we are told that Gysin was obsessed with “unraveling control”—as evidenced by a recording of his spoken poetry repeating “control” over and over again. Via the interviews it becomes clear to the audience how Gysin and his work sought to accomplish this. The artist’s physical art—the graphic, grid-based anagrams; the calligraphic images; the innovative use of “Cut Ups” were, we are told, a manner for the artist to express himself. But the Dreamachine was the “end of art.” The machine provided individual and individualized images to each viewer. No longer was art imposed on audiences by the medium of paint or text; the Dreamachine gave everyone a sort of self-generated, unconscious art show of their own.

It is only toward the end of the film that anything like a more “traditional” biography is presented, but Gysin’s time in Morocco, his belief that he was the reincarnation of the 10th century leader of the Assassins, and other potentially fascinating biographical facts are, as elsewhere, glossed over in deference to more subjective and “artistic” interpretations of the subject himself.

Naturally, given the principle player in the film and the times and ethos from which most of Gysin’s work sprung, there are often reference to drugs and the machine’s (and Gysin’s other art) similarity therein, thereby restricting the film’s audience. So too, the experimental, hyper-visual and –audio “weird” quality of the film itself will necessarily restrict some viewers.

All of the above is fairly heavy intellectual “stuff,” but the film benefits from its high-profile and energetic speakers as well as the real art of the filmmaker. While the visual track can be utterly confusing, the repetitious spoken poetry can be somewhat irritating, the constant flickering scenes of the Dreamachine can be annoying, the insights of the speakers can be truly fascinating and the bridge expressed between kinetics and art is surely educational.

Naturally, the speakers themselves are often quite plain in their admiration or explanation of Gysin, which makes the narrative much more accessible to viewers. Too, the discussions of the utterly failed marketing campaign of the Dreamachine provide levity—but also interesting food for thought as to the commercialization and accessibility of all types of art.

Of course, audiences that are not terribly interested in or adept at Beat and drug cultures, Futurist and post-Dada-type movements (with their textual and individual deconstruction as well as the integration of humans into machines), and anarchic punk movements will almost certainly be divorced from any sense that the film is trying to convey.

Gysin is called “a conjuror swallowed up by his own spell,” and this statement is certainly telling in that the artist is little remembered today; but FLicKeR installs him neatly in his own times while proving that his constructions formed a bedrock for much of the avant-garde and anti-control elements that followed. Our culture has been shaped by his and similar artists’ spell, but this particular magician is, perhaps, less and less in his own creation, hidden by myth, reinterpretation, and the general ignorance of his seminal work.

Of course, for viewers interested in Gysin, Burroughs, these eras and movements as well as the ramifications of poetic movements and the influence of past artistic schools upon today’s “progressive” art movements, FLicKeR is a fine and useful film. It is surely recommended for collections that specialize in specific areas of art, literature, poetry, pop culture, and writing.

The Globe and Mail on FLicKeR - November 28, 2008

Rating: 3 Stars

by Kamal Al-Solaylee

Part literary biography, part science fiction, and part and parcel counterculture certifiable lunacy, Nik Sheehan’s Flicker is a documentary with mood-altering aspirations. For those who like their escapist entertainment raunchier than Twilight but less violent than Quantum of Solace, this Canadian doc will keep the economic news in the papers and the Christmas music in the malls out of your mind for all of its 72-minute running time.

On second thought, escapist may be underselling the ideology that inspired Flicker. Try the chance to achieve transcendence. Travel through the time-space continuum. Soar on a drugless high. After all, these were some of the claims Brion Gysin — sound poet, calligrapher, part-time Canadian and full-time beat-generation Svengali — made when he unveiled his dream machine in the 1960s.

The machine was based on the “flicker effect” theory proposed by W. Grey Walter in his book The Living Brain (1953). By replicating the exact frequency of alpha waves in the brain through the manipulation of light inside a rotating cylinder with patterned cutouts, the machine induces the perception of shapes and images in the user’s mind. Anyone sitting close to the machine with eyes closed can then create “their own spiritual movies” and experience parallel existences (that’s Sixties-speak for hallucinations).

Instead of replacing television sets in every household, as Gysin had hoped, dream machines became a symbol of what’s revolutionary about the counterculture and what’s so boneheaded about it.

Based on John Geiger’s well-received book Chapel of Extreme Experience: A Short History of Stroboscopic Light and the Dream Machine, Sheehan’s compelling documentary delivers a culturally incisive job of unmasking Gysin. That’s no small feat, considering the mercurial and spectre-like nature of a man who believed himself to be the reincarnation of the 10th-century King of Assassins and who counted writer William S. Burroughs, singer Marianne Faithfull and Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones among his friends and lovers.

Sheehan goes out of his way to prove that, for a man who lived in infamy and died (in 1986) in obscurity, Gysin’s influence on today’s culture extends beyond rap and dub poetry and into the emergence of audiences as creators of their own computer-made and distributed entertainment. Experts from stuffy neurosurgeons to hip DJs are interviewed in an attempt to shed light on Gysin as a visionary and the dream machine as a precursor to anything Apple Inc. puts an “i” in front of and sells to the creative masses: iPhones, iPods, iMovies.

Where’s the escapism I promised, you must be wondering by now? It’s there in the journeys that Sheehan and a replica of the dream machine make to New York, Paris and Tangier, among other destinations, tracing Gysin’s wandering existence and giving substantial camera time to counterculture dinosaurs who talk, dress and look as if the Sixties never ended. They may espouse different views but all agree on one thing: A decent haircut is clearly still a sign of selling out.

More importantly, escapism comes through in the open-ended tone of the film. Sheehan recreates Gysin’s world with a skeptic’s belief. Despite the scientific basis of the “flicker effect,” the doc leaves open the possibility that it may all be a load of hogwash. There’s just enough distance between filmmaker and subject to filter in a layer of bemusement, befuddlement even. Guest appearances by the likes of Iggy Pop and Faithfull confirm their reputations as kings and queens of rock — but also its court jesters. Some of the visual tricks to simulate the flicker effect or suggest mind-bending consequences are delightfully tacky without being maliciously ironic.

It all adds up, somehow. Flicker may not deliver the drugless high of the dream machine, but it does its bit to elevate the discussion of Gysin’s legacy while putting down, gently and lovingly, its wackier side. In the hands of the right director, escapism can be a balanced act.

Rating: 3 Stars - Recommended

During the 1960s, the Beatles traveled to India in search of spiritual enlightenment, but like most other visitors eventually returned home. Some Westerners, however, chose to remain, Ulrich Grossenbacher’s documentary Hippie Masala focuses on four such individuals. One Italian man has devoted his life to the practice of yoga, and now lives a life of simplicity and prayer that makes him virtually indistinguishable from a native holy man. A Belgian woman also continues a meditative life, though she confesses to having difficulty finding mentors and also faces government fines as a result of living illegally in India for so many years. The other two subjects—one Dutch, the other Swiss—stayed in India not so much for spiritual reasons but because of their antipathy towards the Western lifestyle. Both men married native women, but while the Dutch painter with a young wife and several daughters appear to be generally content, the Swiss farmer is struggling to eke out a living, and both he and his wife complain about not being accepted by locals. Much of the entertaining Hippie Masala consists of charming reminiscences from the quirky quartet (as well as a pair of voluble South African twins who’ve also taken up residence in India), backed by footage of their day-to-day lives. Recommended. Aud; C, P. (F. Swietek)

Rating: 4 Stars - Highly Recommended - Editor’s Choice

Jessica Yu’s fascinating documentary Protagonist explores psychological observations found in the plays of Euripides to illustrate the universality of human experience. The decision to have wooden puppets “recite” passages in ancient Greek that exemplify the Athenian dramatist’s concepts—as well as to act out episodes in the lives of four modern men whose extensive autobiographical recollections reveal Euripides’ continuing relevance—might have been disastrous. But Yu weaves these elements, together with animated segments inspired by Athenian pottery paintings, into a seamless whole to present an argument that is both provocative and profound. Her extensive interviews with the quartet of subjects—an anti-gay minister who finally admitted his homosexuality, a German terrorist who ultimately rejected the credo of violence, a bullied boy who found release in martial arts, and an abused child who became a bank robber—explore the same themes of obsession and potentially destructive absolutism that Euripides examined in his tragedies. The point, as Greek thinkers were fond of observing, is that human nature is unchanging: the struggles that men and women faced more than two millennia ago are essentially still being played out today. A poignant and serious meditation on human psychology, Protagonist is highly recommended. Editor’s Choice. Aud: C, P. (F. Swietek)

Rating: 3 Stars - Recommended

Ishbel Whitaker’s compelling documentary captures an extraordinary moment in time when ancient Asian customs were threatened by 21st century revolution. In the Himalayan Kingdom of Nepal, three young girls—all under the age of 12—have been identified as living deities, which means that their young lives are transformed wildly as they become the center of feverish religious devotion. Outside their world, however, an unparalleled power struggle threatens to disrupt Nepal as the longstanding civil war sparked by Maoist rebels in 1996 continues to wreck the country, while the nation’s power-hungry king launches a military response to a growing pro-democracy movement. Living Goddess presents Nepal as a country literally at odds with itself, as the fussing and primping of the adolescent “goddesses” here is seen in sharp contrast to footage of armed military forces brutally subduing protestors in the streets. Overall, the girls appear to be much too young to comprehend the depth and scope of their religious lives—yes, they enjoy the attentions, but their demeanor and behavior suggest typical kids rather than atypical deities. Brilliantly filmed under fairly difficult circumstances, Living Goddess will definitely appeal to anyone with an interest in Eastern religions. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (P. Hall)

Rating: 3½ Stars - Highly Recommended

In 2004, Jonathan Miller hosted a remarkable three-part BBC series called Atheism: A Rough History of Disbelief, which was later broadcast on PBS under a slightly different title. Although the documentary combined many elements, one of the most notable was excerpts from interviews that Miller, an avowed non-believer, conducted with a half-dozen figures about their own faith, or—more often—lack thereof. The Atheism Tapes presents the full versions of those interviews—with Miller introducing each segment and occasionally weighing in to explain a particular transition in the discussion—and the fascination of the content compensates for the straightforward talking-head visuals. Five of the interviewees—philosopher Colin McGinn, physicist Steven Weinberg, philosopher Daniel Dennett, playwright Arthur Miller, and biologist Richard Dawkins—are non-believers whose various arguments (as well as disagreements with each other on particular points) are both incisive and thought-provoking. But Miller also draws them out on the subject of what led them to their conclusions—a particularly revealing element in the case of well-known polemicist Dawkins, who discusses his early religious devotion. The sixth interview, with theologian Denys Turner, offers an alternative point of view. Some believers will no doubt refuse to watch these conversations, while others may feel that their faith can only be strengthened by confronting the strongest arguments against it—and The Atheism Tapes definitely delivers the latter. Highly recommended. Aud: C, P. (F. Swietek)

Rating: 3½ Stars - Highly Recommended

In 2004, the Supreme Court found itself reviewing a potential hot potato case: Sacramento-based, blues-playing physician and lawyer Michael Newdow, a self-described atheist, brought a suit against a California school district to remove the words “under God” from classroom recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance, citing it as a violation of the First Amendment. The court sidestepped the issue via a convenient loophole—claiming that Newdow, who sued the school district where his daughter was enrolled, was not entitled to bring the suit since he was not her custodial parent (his ex-wife had parental authority). But the fact that Newdow came so far to present a cogent argument against the religious assumptions in the Pledge of Allegiance was a testament to his perseverance. Lisa Seidenberg’s documentary portrait is hardly hagiographic: Newdow, though a powerful figure, often comes across as both arrogant and humorless, but he presents his argument with a laser-focused coherence. Of course, not everyone is swayed by Newdow, who maintains a log of hostile voicemail messages from those who seem to be far more interested in childishly demeaning his intellect than realistically challenging his opinions. Newdow obviously enjoys the camera’s attention, and even makes noted legal eagle Alan Dershowitz (who is interviewed here) seem shy and reserved by comparison. Both as a lesson in law and as an entertaining personality profile, Pledge of Allegiance Blues is highly recommended. Aud: C, P. (P. Hall)

The New York Times - February 24, 2006 - Workingman’s Death
By Stephen Holden

The sardonic epigraph for Workingman’s Death, the Austrian filmmaker Michael Glawogger’s glamorized documentary examination of hard physical labor, comes from Faulkner: work is “the reason why man makes himself and everybody else so miserable and unhappy.”

Maybe so. But as Chekhov observed, “Man must toil, he must work in the sweat of his brow, whoever he is, and in this alone is encompassed the sense and the aim of his life, his happiness, his raptures.”

The film seems to want to dispute Faulkner. As it observes laborers from around the world going to hell and back, day after day, year after year, to eke out subsistence livings, you are struck by their exuberance, vitality, teamwork and satisfaction in discharging backbreaking duties with a minimum of complaint. The simple act of doing the work, no matter how dangerous, gives their lives structure and purpose; triumphing over fear adds to their sense of accomplishment.

When you’re totally immersed in the physical moment, there is no room left for ennui. At least that’s the romantic way Workingman’s Death likes to imagine hard labor. But tell that to all the oppressed union workers over the decades who have gone on strike for better wages and working conditions.

A film of few words but plenty of indelible images of people (mostly men) risking their lives with hardly a second thought, Workingman’s Death hopscotches to various work sites around the world. It is divided into chapters with portentous titles like Heroes, Ghosts, Lions and Brothers that evoke the Herculean labors of Alexsei Stakhanov, a legendary coal miner in the Soviet Union in the mid-1930’s who was mythicized for his superhuman productivity and is remembered at the beginning of the film.

Jumping to the present, Workingman’s Death visits Stakhanov’s latter-day descendants extracting what coal remains in the Donbass region of Ukraine, where he toiled 70 years earlier.

Squeezing their bodies into narrow crevices known as mousetraps, many no higher than 16 inches, the miners use chisels and pickaxes to dig coal out of these depleted mines.

After separating coal from rock, they haul their meager spoils out of the pit by hand in small wagons, and divide it up. Most use it to heat their homes. The little bit left over is sold for food. Without the coal, one declares, they would freeze to death.

The film’s next stop is a mine at the edge of a volcanic crater in Kawah Ijen, Indonesia, where the earth spits out molten sulfur in hissing yellow fumes that quickly harden into slabs.

Men toting bamboo baskets balanced on their shoulders descend a perilous mountain path into the infernal mist and return bearing 200-pound loads for the three-mile trek back up the mountainside.

The most disturbing stop on the tour is an outdoor slaughterhouse in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, where goats are killed, skinned, cut into portions, cleaned and roasted.

The camera’s unblinking views of the bleating animals’ throats being slit, sending geysers of blood gushing onto the street, suggest a dispassionate nature documentary in which humans are the alpha species in the natural pecking order.

Next up are the Pakistani workers in the port of Gaddani who have traveled hundreds of miles from their mountain villages to dismember giant ships, using blowtorches to split them apart and sending great hunks of metal crashing into the water. The pieces are cut up and sold as scrap.

Although the work is extremely dangerous, they toil in an atmosphere of calm. What little leisure they have is devoted to saying Islamic prayers and eating food they cook for themselves.

Workingman’s Death doesn’t go into detail in any of these scenes. It lets the images (underscored by John Zorn’s industrial music) speak for themselves.

The movie has the structure and tone of an epic historical poem that begins in the past, moves into the present and in two final sequences speculates on the future.

The first, set in a Chinese steelworks in Angang, parallels the optimistic communal spirit there with the exalting of collective labor in the days of Stakhanov.

The second, in Duisburg, Germany, visits a shuttered steelworks that produced more than 30 million of tons of steel from 1903 to 1985. With the blast furnaces turned into an outdoor light show, it is now literally a museum piece.

In the film’s production notes, Mr. Glawogger wonders, “Is heavy manual labor disappearing or is it just becoming invisible?” In this visually impressive but proudly unscientific hymn to progress, the answers are yes and yes.

Written and directed by Michael Glawogger; in Russian, Bahasa Indonesian, English, Ibu, Yoruba, Pashtu and Mandarin, with English subtitles; director of photography, Wolfgang Thaler; edited by Mona Willi and Ilse Buchelt; music by John Zorn; released by Seventh Art Releasing. Running time: 122 minutes. This film is not rated.

Coming soon.