Mosaic Movie Connect Group

Star Wars Episode 4: A New Hope -- using the force

2010-01-01T00:01:00.000-08:00

Director: George Lucas, 1977.

"A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. . ." As the title card crawls upwards, the glorious strains of the unforgettable John Williams score transport us to a distant galaxy, where alien creatures and Jedi knights co-exist. This is the film that transformed science fiction and catapulted Harrison Ford into stardom in his first defining role as Han Solo, the charming smuggler with the twinkling eyes and crooked smile.

I remember seeing this on the big screen in Oxford when it first came out. It was so good, I had to see it again at the theater. It was everything a classic should be, with a terrific "good-vs-evil" story, fabulous action sequences, excellent special effects (for its time), and a diabolical villain. Indeed, in 2003 Darth Vader (voice of James Earl Jones) was voted the third best (worst?) villain of the last 100 years, in the American Film Institute's poll (behind Hannibal Lecter of The Silence of the Lambs, and Psycho's Norman Bates). Seeing it again on the small screen, it still brings a thrill, and is (in my opinion) the best film in the Star Wars series.

As the film opens, we see the Death Star, the fearsome weapon created by the evil empire to control its galactic subjects with fear. But the plans for the weapon have been stolen by rebels. As Darth Vader talks of the mysterious Force, Admiral Motti says, "Don't try to frighten us with your sorcerous ways, Lord Vader. Your sad devotion to that ancient religion has not helped you conjure up the stolen data tapes, or given you clairvoyance enough to find the rebels' hidden fortress." Not a good thing to say to the dark Sith Lord. Indeed, the worst rank to be in the imperial starfleet navy is admiral, since almost all the admirals in the original trilogy die at the "forceful" hands of Darth Vader. Better to be a midshipman than an admiral. Vader, choking the admiral without touching him by using the dark side of the force, replies, "I find your lack of faith disturbing."

This initial dialog makes it clear that Star Wars involves religious themes, themes that we will explore over the course of this and subsequent reviews. Faith is central to the film, as it is to life. Admiral Motta has no faith and pays the price. Many people today have no faith and will find themselves paying the price someday. To experience life and not death, we must place our faith in Jesus (Rom. 10:9-10; Jn. 10:10). Everyone has faith, though they may not admit it. If they disbelieve the biblical accounts of Christ, then their faith is simply placed elsewhere. Even atheists believe in something, just not in God.

When Vader boards a rebel ship and captures Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) she sets the story moving by secreting the stolen plans in the databank memory of R2-D2 (Kenny Baker). This little mechanic droid and his compadre, C-3PO (Anthony Daniels), a protocol droid with the voice of a British butler, escape to the desert planet of Tatooine where they are bought by Luke Skywalker's (Mark Hamill) family.

One of the pleasures of this first Star Wars film are the characters. And these two droids are true characters. They are the Laurel and Hardy duo that brings comic relief to the action. While R2-D2 is a practical and pragmatic, get-it-done, voice-less (but not silent) droid, C-3PO is a pessimistic,"sky-is-falling" whiner: "We seem to be made to suffer. It's our lot in life" and "We're doomed." Luke is a boy-next-door hero, with emphasis on boy rather than man. He is clean-cut and gung-ho. Leia provides the obvious female attraction, but even that is combined with inner and outer strength. She can stand on her own. But it is Solo who takes the cake. He is a cynic, a self-centered opportunist who slowly and inevitably becomes selfless. His chemistry with Leia begins here and continues through two sequels. This is a team we care about and will root for, regardless of their arguing; indeed, especially because of their squabbling.

It is only when R2-D2 leaves to find the mysterious Ben Kenobi (Alec Guiness), and Luke goes in pursuit, that we are introduced to the Jedi Knights. Ben was a Jedi, known as Obi-Wan Kenobi, and knew Luke's father, Anakin. Luke has the genetic makeup to be a Jedi himself. Indeed, he is a Christ figure in this trilogy, the eventual savior of the universe.

When his uncle and aunt are murdered by imperial stormtroopers, Luke gets a chance to live his dreams: leaving Tatooine and being a fighter pilot. With the aid of mercenary smuggler Han Solo and Chewbacca, his Wookie co-pilot, they charter the Millenium Falcon to escape and find the rebels. It is on the ship that Obi-Wan begins to teach Luke about the Force: "The Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together."

Coming out in the mid-70s, this idea of the omni-present force was definitely spouting new age thinking. It is pantheistic, in which everything is a part of the all-encompassing immanent god. Here, in Star Wars, this force is an impersonal thing. But in real life pantheism is replaced by theism, even monotheism. There is an immanent God who is omnipresent. He is Christ, the creator and sustainer of the universe (Jn. 1:1). "He is before all things, and in him all things hold together" (Col. 1:17). Not impersonal, but very personal, Jesus is the true force in the universe.

When Luke, Han, Chewy, and the two droids are pulled into the Death Star, they find themselves in an adventure rescuing the princess, while Obi-wan faces off with Darth, his former apprentice. Light-sabers flashing, the duel of the Jedis is one of the highlights of the film, even if evil overcomes good. In sacrifice, that happens. But evil's victory is not always sweet or permanent. When Jesus sacrificed himself, laying down his life in apparent defeat on the cross (Mk. 15:33-37), the enemy, the dark one, savored the moment. But the moment was short, as Jesus rose in true victory three days later (Mk. 16:9).

At the climax of the film, the rebel star-fighters need to destroy the Death Star with a single proton torpedo shot into its only weakness. (Why is it that when the evil empire builds this superlative weapon they fail to allow for this one weakness? Isn't that so typical of the evil designers in all these films?) Sent on their mission with the famous blessing, "May the force be with you," hero Luke remembers the words of his mentor, "Use the Force, Luke." Only by letting go, by releasing his reliance on his own skills and allowing the force to guide him, can he make the impossible shot.

It can be like that in our spiritual lives, too. We can become skilled and self-dependent. As we trust our instincts and rely on our own abilities, we can sometimes becomes too cock-sure. When this happens, God gets no credit or glory. We succeed in our own strength and that is not God's intention. He would rather we, like Luke, use the spiritual force, the ever-present person of the Holy Spirit. As we allow him to work through us, instead of pushing him aside, Jesus gets the glory (1 Cor. 10:31) and the "shot" hits the target. Like Luke's impossible shot, "nothing is impossible with God!" (Lk. 1:37)

All this, in what was to be the first of six episodes.

Copyright ©2010, Martin Baggs

A Few Good Men -- honor, courage and truth

2009-12-31T08:00:00.000-08:00

Director: Rob Reiner, 1992.

A Few Good Men opens with a choreographed sequence showing a Marine drill team in full dress uniform. Twirling rifles like batons, their synchronized moves underscore their training. More than this, it shows them as a unit, a machine with one goal: to bring honor to the Marine Corps. Honor is one of the themes of this Oscar-nominated drama.

When a Marine Private dies at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, two fellow marines are accused of murder. To provide defense in their courtmartial, Lt. Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise) is assigned as lead counsel. His approach is to plea bargain, regardless of right or wrong, innocence or guilt. He does not want a trial. His two co-counsels represent two sides to the same coin. Lt. Sam Weinberg (Kevin Pollack) sees clear guilt in their two defendants and pushes the plea, while Lt. Cdr. JoAnne Galloway (Demi Moore) smells a rat and wants to investigate more fully. Naive as a lawyer, she still believes in fairness and truth, and wants to give the two marines the best defense possible, not a simple plea bargain.

When the three lawyers go visit Gitmo to see the crime scene for themselves, they come face to face with their adversary, Col. Nathan Jessep (Jack Nicholson). Jessop is a career marine with delusions of grandeur. He, too, has two sidekicks who act as foils to his character and values. The use of foils in this movie has been explored by lawyer Ryan Blue, focusing on the two sub-characters on each side of the legal divide. Reiner uses them effectively to move the narrative to its conclusion.

Galloway, underwhelmed by Kaffee's investigation in Cuba and disappointed by his lack of passion, regales him for his lack of courage and conviction. She sees the lack of fairness in the inevitable plea bargain that Kaffee desires, for his own gain not theirs. But it is she who finally wakes him up to the truth.

Fairness is never really at the center of a legal trial. Justice will be done, but not necessarily resulting in fairness. The law does not always ensure that the guilty are pubished and the innocent walk free. As the movie moves toward a climax in the courtroom, Kaffee points out, "This is a sales pitch. It's not going to be won by the law, it's going to be won by the lawyers." It's all a game of posturing, showmanship and storytelling. The lawyers, him included, are paid to create a story that is believable by the jury. With the facts as the bones of its skeleton, their words create the flesh to hang on these bones. The side with the most believable story usually wins. Is this fair? Perhaps, perhaps not. It simply is. The legal system is more concerned with prosecutions and acquittals than with justice.

Getting back to honor and the Marine Corps, A Few Good Men uses the Marine Corps Code of Honor as a thread that keeps the story bound in place. The three core values of this code are commitment, courage and honor. One Marine says of the deceased, "he is dead because he had no honor." Kaffee tells one of the defendants, "You don't need a patch on your arm to have honor." Honor is clearly central to the plot.

This begs the questions, what is honor and how do we get it? Honor involves basic respect: for self, for others, for the unit, for the team. More than this, it connotes honesty and integrity. Honor comes to a person in many ways, through fame, success, distinction in a specific field. But all require the person to be worthy of honor, and this means doing right, maintaining a high standard of moral and ethical behavior. In short, having a high character. This is totally consistent with the biblical commands to live an upright life (Prov. 16:17), walking in the path of right and avoiding sin (Psa. 1:1-3). We attain honor by being honorable. Most Marines earn this through their skill, their strength, and their devotion to duty and to their code.

The code required unquestioning commitment and obedience to orders. That becomes the crux of the legal matter. When questioned on the stand, Lt. Kendrick (Kiefer Sutherland), one of Jessop's officers, says: "I have two books at my bedside, Lieutenant, the Marine Corps Code of Conduct and the King James Bible. The only proper authorities I am aware of are my commanding office Colonel Nathan R. Jessup and the Lord our God." But what happens when they conflict?

Kendrick seems to put Jessup on a par with Jesus. But when the laws of man run counter to the laws of God, God must win. In the early days of the church, the Apostles faced a similar situation, when their authority, the Jewish Sanhedrin, commanded them to stop preaching in the name of Jesus (Ac. 4:18). But rather than submitting to the will of these leaders, they obeyed the will of God. Yet, they did so knowingly and faced the painful consequences of this civil disobedience (Ac 5:40). While Kendrick obeyed Jessup, in like circumstances Christians must obey Jesus. As Peter said, "We must obey God rather than men!" (Ac 5:29)

What makes A Few Good Men so good is its dramatic climax. Reiner (The Princess Bride, The Bucket List) pits Cruise against Nicholson in its pivotal scene. The success of Kaffee's defense (and the success of Reiner's film) stands on this powerful interchange. Though Cruise has somewhat cruised through the film playing a typical Cruise character (think Maverick in Top Gun), he rises to the occasion for this confrontation which leads to the notorious declaration, "You can't handle the truth!"

Truth is the final and climactic theme of the film. Ryan Blue, in his blog article, points out that Kaffee's "two foils are used to personify Kaffee's dilemma: will he have the courage to pursue the truth or not?" Truth is powerful. Jesus, in his defense in front of Pilate, the judge who could save his life, said: "In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me" (Jn. 18:37). Earlier in his ministry, Jesus said, "The truth will set you free" (Jn. 8:32). What is that truth? Jesus is that very truth: "I am the way, the life and the truth" (Jn. 14:6).

Will we be like Kaffee? Will we have the courage to pursue the truth? Will we have the courage to accept the truth and do what is right? Jesus is looking for a few good men!

Copyright ©2009, Martin Baggs

Epic Christmas 2009

2009-12-30T12:00:00.000-08:00

This Christmas we experienced two epic marathons: Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings.

We planned to watch all six Star Wars films in one setting. The main question was, which order? Should we watch in release chronology (i.e., episodes 4-6 followed by episodes 1-3)? Or should we view in narrative chronology (i.e. episodes 1-6)? With the advice of Jedi Master Zach, a long-time Star Wars fan, we decided on an alternate approach: start with episode 3, then 4-6, and close out with 1-2. The reason was logical: if you are going to be tired and prone to sleep, do so during the worst two movies in the series, episodes 1-2. As it turned out, since we started the marathon at 5pm, we only made it through three films (3-5) in one sitting, and completed the series in two subsequent evenings. But episode 3 provides a terrific segue to episode 4, the original Star Wars.

Having learned from our Star Wars attempt we were more prepared for The Lord of the Rings (extended editions). Starting at 3pm, with Thai take-out for dinner, drinks and snacks a-plenty, we made it through the entire 12+ hours of viewing in one session. EPIC!

I will be posting reviews/responses to all 9 movies in January, but may combine/conflate somewhat due to similarity of themes.

As we approach the new decade, may the Force be with you, my precious!

Copyright ©2009, Martin Baggs

The Age of Innocence -- the labyrinth of social conventions

2009-12-29T09:37:00.000-08:00

Director: Martin Scorsese, 1993.

Like many of Scorsese's films The Age of Innocence is set in New York. But these are not the Mean Streets of the late 20th century Little Italy. Neither is it the dark and violent underworld of the civil war era Gangs of New York. No, this is the highly cultured and civilized central New York of the late nineteenth century where convention and social expectations were paramount. Scorsese's usual violence and bloodshed are replaced by repressed emotions and inner turmoil.

Based on an adaptation of Edith Wharton's period piece novel, Scorsese creates a beautiful visual feast for the eyes, even though the narrative is as slow as the multiple course dinners the main characters enjoy or endure. The film earned five Academy Award nominations and won the Oscar for best costume design.

The focus of the story is Newland Archer (Daniel Day Lewis, with whom Scorsese would work again in Gangs of New York). A society bachelor and lawyer, Archer is about to be engaged to May Welland (Winona Ryder). Welland is beautiful but superficial. Her focus is on the conventional aspects of society life: garments, gatherings, and gossip. They appear to have nothing in common except the expectations of society. The Countess Olenska (Michelle Pfeiffer) is the third key character in the film. Welland's cousin, she has returned from Europe to New York seeking a divorce and a new life.

As beautiful as Welland, Olenska is her opposite in many ways. She is refined and well travelled; Welland is immature and limited in her geographic exposure. She is free-spirited and irrepressible; Welland is restricted and repressed. She sees no issues in associating with many single men, despite the appearance of impropriety; Welland is most proper in her associations.

Olenska's disparaging and ignoring of the social conventions cause her to become something of a social outcast. Archer, to his credit, goes out of his way to defend her before the high society's unofficial judge Henry van der Luyden. When he wins her a dinner thrown by the van der Luyden's it would appear Olenska has been granted a reprieve. But she does not understand the expectations of this society and strays once more.

Archer's slow understanding of Welland as a clueless socialite causes him to look at the only free-bird in his social circle, Olenska. As he does so, he comes to realize they are a match for one another. But his engagement to Welland and Olenska's marriage to the count prove to be barriers to their love. Unconsummated, his love is not unrequited. Sadly it remains unfulfilled.

Archer's pursuit of Olenska does not go unnoticed by Welland, his wife. Her clueless nature is actually a facade, hiding a covert deviousness and manipulation. She knows more than she lets on.

The Age of Innocence is like The Wings of the Dove in many ways. Both are beautiful period dramas centering on a love triangle. Both have a scheming beauty in the main role, although Welland is seeking to keep what is hers, while Kate (Helena Bonham Carter in The Wings of the Dove) is trying to get what is not hers. Both are restricted in their actions by society and relatives. Ultimately, both movies are somewhat dull and over-long.

One of the key themes of The Age of Innocence is the maze of social customs and norms that permeate a culture. As Ellen Olenska says to Archer, "Is New York such a labyrinth? I thought it was all straight up and down like Fifth Avenue. All the cross streets numbered and big honest labels on everything." Archer retorts, "Everything is labeled, but everybody is not." Olenska wanted a simple road map, all in plain sight. But high society is not like that. It is a jungle, a civilized one, but one that is uncharted.

Our society, wherever we live, places expectations and cultural standards on us. If we choose to identify them, to recognize them, and to conform to these conventions, then we are usually accepted. If we don't, then we are ostracized, to some degree or another. We can become, like the Countess Olenska, a social outcast.

Jesus defied the social conventions of his day. He touched lepers (Matt. 8:3). He talked to tax collectors (Matt. 9:9). He dined with sinners (Matt. 9:10). When he was questioned about his followers' behavior, he said: "How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? They cannot, so long as they have him with them" (Mark 2:19). He would not be pressured or conformed by the traditions of his people. He had come to set them free (Heb. 9:15). This freedom included the liberation of inner transformation (2 Cor. 3:18). We, too, must live within a social situation but do not have to conform to all its norms or expectations. Yet, by refusing to navigate the labyrinth we must be willing to pay the price. For Olenska, that price was exclusion. For Jesus, it was execution.

As Archer treads deeper in his plot of emotional treachery, he tries to persuade Olenska to somehow be with him. But she understands that even with their liberated approach, this could not be. "How can we be happy behind the backs of people who trust us?" The price for their love would be the unhappiness of their friends and relatives. That is too high a price. There are some social customs and norms that even Olenska was willing to accept. Likewise, Jesus was not an anarchist. He did follow Jewish tradition. He obeyed the law (Matt. 8:2-4). He worshipped in the synagogue (Lk. 4:14-20). He prayed to his father (Mk. 1:35). As we live within our social situations we must conform to some of its norms and expectations lest we become a malcontent, an insurrectionist, a rebel. Jesus was a counter-revolutionary, but not a rebel.

Copyright ©2009, Martin Baggs

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios) -- the weakness of infidelity

2009-12-21T07:00:00.000-08:00

Director: Pedro Almodóvar, 1988.

Almodóvar is known for his absurd comedies and this is one of them. This was the film that catapulted him to international attention, winning numerous awards and being nominated for an Oscar. (He later won one for the 2002 Talk to Her.) More of a farce, it has a loose plot but strong characters.

Pepa (Maura Carmen) and Ivan (Fernando Guillen) are lovers who work together as voice-over actors who dub foreign films into Spanish. When Pepa wakes one morning Ivan is gone. He has left her. All he wants is his clothes, packed in a suitcase left by the door so he can pick it up later. He is going on an international trip with a woman, but not her.

When Pepa realizes his betrayal, she is mad. She has some news for him, but cannot reach him. He will not return calls and has made himself scarce. Indeed, he is not a main character in the movie. But we will return to Ivan later.

As Pepa begins her search for him, she runs into a number of eccentric characters: Paulina (Kiti Manver), a feminist lawyer and Ivan's new lover; Lucia (Julieta Serrano), Ivan's wigged-out and bewigged ex-wife; Candela (Maria Barranco), a brainless model; Carlos (Antonio Banderas), Ivan's son; and Marisa (Rossy de Palma), Carlos' fiancee. Impossibly unlikely scenarios bring laughs to this comedy: a terrorist skyjacking plot, a barbiturate-spiked gazpacho drink, a burned bed, and windows broken by tossed telephones. Then there is the elegantly coiffed but overly emotional cab driver who finds himself repeatedly in Hollywood-like chase scenes. You can't help but find something to laugh about even if the story is somewhat disjointed.

Like most of Almodovar's films (All About My Mother) the plot revolves around women, with hardly any men. However, he highlights the negative influence of men, and these women are all left on the verge of nervous breakdowns because of the men. In one scene clueless Candela says, "Men keep taking advantage of me. I always realize when it's too late." Certainly, in the narrative Candela has allowed herself to be taken advantage of. Likewise, Pepa made the choice to sleep with Ivan and become his lover. In some sense they have themselves to blame. They entered these relationships with eyes wide open.

Life is like that. We make choices and then live with the consequences. Sometimes these are positive and we call them blessings. Sometimes these are negative and we call these cursings, a fallout of poor decision making. Either way, if we are honest with ourselves, when we allow others to take advantage of us we are adopting a victim mentality. We can, we must choose to be stronger than that.

In ourselves we are weak. The apostle Paul recognized that. He cried out to the Lord three times to have a "thorn in his flesh" removed (2 Cor. 12:7-8). Each time, though, he was ignored. The thorn remained. Finally God answered him: "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." (2 Cor. 12:9) When we understand this we can turn to Jesus and find his strength and his grace sufficient. We can then make choices and live gracefully with the results, not like Pepa or Candela, but like Christ.

If the women are clueless and victims of the men's infidelities, the men in this movie are weak. Not weak in Paul's sense, but weak in character. In particular, Ivan, whose infidelities are central to the main plot, is told by Paulina his latest lover, "You're weak, Ivan." He doesn't argue, he simply agrees, "Yes, sweetheart." He knows who and what he is.

Ivan's weakness has prevented him from working through his relationship issues. His weakness has caused him to move from one lover to the next when he gets tired of them or things get tough. The weakness of infidelity is that without commitment it is easier to move on than to stay put.

How often have we experienced struggle in our marriages? By bringing two people together in this form of union it is inevitable that tension and conflict will occur. Yet, it is by working through the conflict that we can become stronger. The strength of our commitment shows in the length of our confederation together. Marriage is a God-blessed and God-ordained institution from the very beginning (Gen. 2:25). He wants marriage to last and that is why he says, "I hate divorce" (Mal. 2:16). Worse, though, is the weakness of giving up and moving onto someone with whom we are not committed. Not only do we degrade our own marriage, we cheapen the illicit relationship we embark on. No, it shows a far stronger character to remain faithful and work through issues with the wife or husband of your youth.

Copyright ©2009, Martin Baggs

Wings of the Dove -- hypocrisy and fake love

2009-12-18T07:00:00.000-08:00

Director: Iain Softley, 1997.

Based on the Henry James book of the same name, Wings of the Dove is a forgettable disappointment. Sure, it has beautiful locations from London to Venice, with wonderful cinematography. It dresses its stars in fabulous clothing. But that is expected in an English period piece film. What lets it down are the characters themselves. They are cold and hard to sympathize with.

The protagaonist is Kate Croy (Helena Bonham Carter), the daughter of a wealthy woman and a penniless opium addict (Michael Gambon, Dumbledore in the Harry Potter series). But with her mother dead and her father in the poor house, she is a ward of her aunt Maude (Charlotte Rampling), who gives her the chance to return to the high society life her mother gave up for love. But it comes at a cost. Kate must give up her lover, Merton Densher (Linus Roache, Thomas Wayne in Batman Begins). Kate's love for Merton is true love. Despite Merton's working-class background, they are secretly planning to be married. What a choice she faces.

Wings of the Dove raises the question of the priority of economic security or love. Would we sacrifice true love if it meant we could live a secure life of comfort? Would we marry someone we did not love for this purpose? Love is a precious thing, more valuable than simple creature comforts. Life is a fleeting thing, a mist that disappears (Jas. 4:14). So, to find love is to find a pearl of great value. Casting this aside for physical comfort is a sad indictment of a warped value system.

Kate, though, chooses initially to please her aunt and not follow in her father's footsteps. She cuts all ties to Merton and refuses to answer his letters. When he unexpectedly shows up at a black tie party, they are once more thrown together, and their love cannot be denied.

It is at that party that Millie (Alison Elliot), a red-haired American and "the world's richest orphan," enters the scene. She meets Kate and then espies Merton, seeing him as a handsome Englishman. She is an heiress with everything but love and sees her opportunity for love. Meanwhile, Kate sees a scheme to get everything she wants.

Helena Bonham Carter plays Kate as calculating and manipulative. She is a selfish lover who is at once both jealous and Machiavellian. One character says of her, "there's something going on behind those beautiful lashes." And there is, but we cannot be sympathetic to her, as she connives against friends who care for her. With Millie bearing a secret, she is an innocent who we root for, not Kate. And Roache seems miscast as Merton. He is not handsome enough to be credible as the love interest for multiple women. He does fill the role.

Merton's character, too, is somewhat unlikable. He is a jaded journalist, raking up muck to satisfy the masses who buy the rag he works for. A hypocrite, he says of himself in one scene, "I don't believe in any of the things I write about. I fake passion. I fake conviction." In a word, he is a fake.

This brings us to the question of true love vs fake love. If love is precious, is fake love worth anything? Should we fake a love we don't feel to attain a true love we yearn for? Surely the ends do not justify the means. Fake love is a lie. If we still feel a love that is true we cannot disguise it in the shape of a love for another. That is unfair and untrue, to ourselves and to the other person.

Merton's hypocrisy plays itself out. Hypocrisy is the pretense of having a virtuous character, in this case to be in love with someone you're not in love with. It comes from the Greek root to act in a play, to pretend. It is not a positive quality. Whenever we consider faking it, whether in love or in other situations, we must realize we are lying. The New Testament exhorts us to avoid lying (Col. 3:9). Indeed, one of the Ten Commandments says, "You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor" (Exod. 20:16). For reasons good or ill, it is a slippery slope that will pull us down to a dismal end.

When the credits rolled, my wife reminded me that we had seen this film before. Apart from Carter's acting, which earned her an Oscar nomination, it was not one that stays in the memory long. Like fake love, it is best left alone.

Copyright ©2009, Martin Baggs

Traitor -- terrorism, tactics, and faith commitment

2009-12-15T07:00:00.000-08:00

Director: Jeffrey Nachmanoff, 2008

Almost a decade past 9/11 it is "safe" to make movies about terrorism. In the immediate aftermath, the wounds on the US national psyche left by the attacks were still fresh and open. But time heals some wounds, and we are ready to consider some deeper questions now. Traitor forces some of these upon us.

The film starts with Samir Horn (Don Cheadle) in Yemen. He is a US citizen born in Yemen, and is back there doing business. Only his business is selling detonators to the highest bidder. A war-mongerer and weapons-seller, he might be a terrorist and a traitor.

When his meet with a Yemeni is interrupted by state police with FBI agents Clayton (Guy Pearce, Memento) and Archer (Neal McDonough), who are trying to stop a terrorist group, he is captured and put in prison. The prison scenes, though important to show his developing friendship with Omar (Said Taghmaoui), a radical Islamic terrorist, are slow and make the film seem longer than it is. Indeed, this is a not an action thriller in the vein of The Bourne Identity; it is more of a thoughtful drama with some action set-pieces akin to Rendition.

From an early flashback we realize that as a boy Samir witnessed his father being killed by a car bomb. There is clearly more to Samir than meets the eye. As a devout Moslem he fits in well with Omar and when they escape he becomes central to the cell group's mission to bring terror to mainland America. But is he merely a terrorist? Or is there something else?

This is one of the complaints about Traitor. It is hard to be sympathetic towards Samir, as we don't really know who he is. By the time the truth emerges, both he and we are conflicted.

Traitor takes us from Yemen to Marseilles, from London to Washington. As Agent Clayton, himself a religious man, doggedly searches for clues to the whereabouts of Samir and the terrorists, the sense of fatalism for Samir grows. He is locked in a plot from which he cannot emerge.

Traitor does give a key insight into terrorism. In one scene the terrorist leader waxes philosophical speech: "The art of asymmetrical warfare is less about inflating damage than provoking response. Terrorism . . . is theater. Theater is always performed for an audience. Ours is the American people. But they are dispersed across a large country. The question is, how to convince them that nowhere is safe." Terrorism is not about war; it is about security. It is about bringing terror to the hearts of civilians, not soldiers. It has the aim of bringing a government to its knees by a civilian outcry of fear.

Moreover, terrorism is not about numbers of deaths. In terms of fatalities, there were 2,819 people killed that awful day on 9/11. That compares to 4,367 American soldiers killed in Iraq since 2003, 58,236 killed in the Vietnam war, almost 500,000 in WW2 and almost 700,00 in the Civil War. Statistically, the casualties of the terrorist attacks in 2001 were small, but the attacks brought the possibility of imminent death to millions of Americans. We are still more likely to die in an automobile accident than as the result of a terrorist bomb but the former is mundane, the latter memorable.

In one scene, a stressed and pursued Samir is talking with an American intelligence operative, who tells him, "This is war! You do what it takes to win." This is the same message that the terrorist preached to him earlier. Both sides see this as war. And both sides are willing to take matters into their own hands. How different are they are? Who are the good guys and who are the bad guys? Indeed, as a terrorist reminded Samir, "Once upon a time it was the Americans who were terrorists to the British." Black and white has mixed to form gray shades with dark shadows.

In traditional war, the enemy is a known quantity, a visible force. His whereabouts are usually localized. In terrorism the enemy is unknown, often within our midst. The enemy might be our next-door neighbor, or the barista we buy coffee from each morning. With a new kind of enemy comes new offensive strategies. When Samir tells Omar, "Tactics have changed, my friend," Omar simply replies, "Tactics have always changed. You don't defeat an empire by fighting by their rules."

As tactics change in war, tactics also change in living and sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ. As followers of Jesus we live in enemy territory. We are subject to attack by the forces of darkness (Eph. 6:11-12). This has been true for centuries. But our weapons are not of this world (2 Cor. 10:4). And our tactics change as we reach out to bring the life-changing gospel of Christ to a needy world. The apostle Paul said that "I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some" (1 Cor. 9:22). We change and our tactics change. What worked a generation ago will not work today. What worked in one country must be altered for another country. What was effective in a rural part of America may be ineffective in a cosmopolitan city. We adjust, we morph, we change tactics with the goal of winning some to Jesus.

Traitor bears comparison with Paradise Now, another film made since the Iraq war began. Whereas Traitor is an American Hollywood vision of terrorism, Paradise Now is Palestinian, bringing us into the heart of war-torn Israel. Both show terrorist suicide bombers building and donning suicide vests in preparation for attacks. Both let us consider the terrorists themselves. But where Paradise Now feels true, to its material Traitor seems trite and contrived. Although both do go below the surface to some degree, Paradise Now allows us a more holistic picture, seeing the impact on survivors as well as on the "soldiers."

For a Hollywood film, putting a Muslim as the hero of this story is a brave act. We remember 9/11 as being a Muslim ordered act of aggression. Of course, Traitor would not work as well if Samir were a Christian or an atheist merely playing a role. No, it is his commitment to his Islamic faith that makes him believable to us and to Omar.

Indeed, it is this faith commitment that causes Samir to point out, "If a man hasn't found something he's willing to die for, he isn't fit to live." Life and death are two sides of the same coin, in this sin-marred world we live in. More than this, though, "A man who is not afraid to die, can never be defeated." This is the implicit motto of the terrorist. The suicide bombers cannot be defeated because they are ready to die, and death ushers them into paradise, or so they think.

Followers of Jesus have something greater than this life and so can live apart from fear. Perfect love casts out fear (1 Jn. 4:18). Knowing that death is just a transition to life with Jesus himself, we can never be defeated. Paul said as much in his letter to the Romans, when he said we are more than conquerors in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:37).

Samir points to this same faith commitment when he says, "We answer to God." Though he is talking of Allah, the god of the Koran, this is actually true for all of us. According to the Bible, whoever we are, we will face a judgment with the almighty one day (2 Cor. 5:10, Rev. 20:11-15). We must live our lives so we are ready for that day. We don't know when it will arrive. If we have not yet reflected on faith, now is the time. Now is the time to ponder the message of the gospel (Rom. 3:23, 6:23, 10:9-10). "I tell you, now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation." (2 Cor. 6:2). We might not have another day to procrastinate. Who knows if we might find ourselves caught in the middle of another 9/11.

Copyright ©2009, Martin Baggs

My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown -- three needs of a human being

2009-12-12T07:00:00.000-08:00

Director: Jim Sheridan, 1989.

What would it be like to be in a room with your family, totally aware of what's going on, and yet not be able to communicate with them? Jean-Dominique Bauby, the French editor, experienced this and described in his book, which was turned into the film, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. He had been healthy for most of his life until a car crash left him with "Locked-In Syndrome." But what if you had been unable to communicate from birth? That's Christy Brown's true story in this film.

Born in Dublin to a large poor, working-class, Catholic family in the early part of the 20th century, Christy Brown suffered from cerebral palsy and could not speak or even move his body. The only thing he could control was his left foot. More than disabled, he was considered nothing more than an animal. He lived his early years lying on the floor in the living room watching his parents and many siblings go about their lives while he was ignored, like a piece of furniture.

Sheridan could have milked this story for its sentimentality. But he refrains from doing so. Instead, he lets Daniel Day-Lewis lose himself in the main role as the adult Brown. He plays the man as a cantankerous yet brilliant artist who does not want sympathy. Rather, he wants to be treated as a person, a real human being. Lewis is so good in this role it seems he really has cerebral palsy, and he worthily won the Oscar for best actor, his first. (He was nominated for his outstanding role in Gangs of New York, but won his second Oscar for another brilliant performance as the oilman in There Will be Blood.) But the young Brown, played by Hugh O'Connor, is completely believable, too. He even looks like a young Day-Lewis. Then there is Brenda Flicker, giving an Oscar-winning performance as Christy's mother.

Mrs. Brown is the only person who really believes in Christy. Like mothers the world over, she stands by her son and supports him when no one else does. When Christy picks up a piece of chalk in his left foot and writes a single word on the floor, all their lives change irreversibly. No longer is Christy the mongrel in the corner. Now he is a person with intelligence; a person who cannot easily make himself known, but a person nonetheless.

As he grows, his control of his left foot improves, allowing him to produce beautiful art work. But his speech is still limited, sounding like gutteral grunts. When Dr. Eileen Cole (Fiona Shaw) offers free treatment in a new clinic, he reluctantly agrees to participate. This begins the friendship between the two that enables him to learn to talk in clearer and understandable ways and shows her the beauty of the art he produces.

Christy Brown was no saint, and neither were his parents. But they were people in a tough situation and trying to make the best of it. The normality and banality of the Brown family serves to underscore the abnormality and disability of Christy.

In My Left Foot, and through Christy Brown in particular, we see underscored the three things people the everywhere desire: to express themselves to others, to express their own creativity, and to express and share love, especially genuine love in the intimacy of marriage.

Fundamental to humanity is the first need. We want to be able to express ourselves to those around us, especially our family. Our ability to communicate in words lifts us above the animals. We can think and craft sentences, theses, even books. When we cannot express ourselves, we feel trapped, imprisoned, helpless. This is how Christy felt until he was freed with a piece of chalk and his left foot.

Once we can communicate with others, a deeper need is to be able to express our unique creativity. We have all been made in the image of our creative creator (Gen. 1:26). Part of this image is the ability to create. Art is one form. Christy had that gift. For years he must have felt a yearning to express himself through this artistic outlet, yet was unable to do so. Once he could communicate he was given the tools necessary to paint: brushes, canvas, paints, etc. And he made contributions to the world that others, with the use of all their limbs, could not match. He even painstakingly wrote his own autobiography, typing it a letter at a time with the toes of his left foot, offering hope to many!

Perhaps the deepest need of the human heart is to express and share love. Christy was no exception. How hard it must have been for him as a child to have to listen to people around him mocking him, all the while simply wanting love, particularly from his father. Yet his father never told him he loved him. In one scene where Mr. Brown (Ray McAnally) takes over building a room for Christy in the small back yard, Christy's mom tells him, "Well, Christy, that's the nearest he'll ever come to saying I love you." Christy comes to experience parental love and shows love back to his mom by giving her what she does not have: money. He gets to receive and share love within his family.

But this is not enough. Most of us want something deeper, the intimacy of love between a man and a woman. God made mankind in his image as man and woman, and joined them together in marital union (Gen. 2:21-25). As part of God's original intention, Christy wanted this. His love for Dr. Cole was misunderstood and unrequited. Often when this need is foiled or blocked, we can fall into depression, even despair. This happens to Christy, but eventually he finds a woman who will love him as wife.

My Left Foot is a very human story, showing the grittiness of life in poverty and the struggles of life with disability. More than this, though, it reminds us that even the disabled are human beings. We cannot and should not look on them as anything less than a person bearing the image of God.

Copyright ©2009, Martin Baggs

Star Trek -- friendships and choices

2009-12-09T07:00:00.000-08:00

Director: J.J. Abrams, 2009.

"Space: the final frontier.These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Her ongoing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life-forms and new civilizations; to boldly go where no one has gone before." These words that opened the long-ago TV series that first brought Star Trek to the pop culture close out the newest movie while connecting it with its predecessor.

After creating Alias and Lost for TV, and then directing Mission Impossible III, Abrams took on the challenge of directing the latest Star Trek movie. This is the 11th feature film in the series but it is a brand new start. In the era of reboots, this is about as good as it gets. Where Batman Begins fired up the caped crusader once again, this Star Trek puts new life in the USS Enterprise and its crew. But unlike Batman Begins, which was dark and realistic, this film is bright and optimistic and full of fun.

The film opens with the USS Kelvin in dire straits. A Romulan mining, under the command of Captain Nero (Eric Bana), has damaged the federation vessel and is about to deliver the coup de grace. But Captain George Kirk orders the crew to abandon ship, while he stays on to ensure their safe escape. On one of the escape pods is his wife, delivering their only child: James Tiberius Kirk. Birth juxtaposes with death in this prologue.

To trekkies who have followed the various series over the decades, this timeline will seem wrong. James Kirk had a father who did captain a federation starship. But in a plot that plays with time and time-travel, Captain Nero changes the timeline and provide an alternate universe. In this one Kirk's father dies while his mother is in childbirth. By doing this, Abrams can bring the main characters back but in his own way, sticking to much of the lore while changing parts to his story's end.

We start with Kirk (Chris Pine) as a rebellious teenager in Iowa. One by one the rest of the crew of the Enterprise are brought center-stage. There are Uhura (Zoe Saldana), Sulu (John Cho), and Chekov (Anton Yelchin). Of course Doctor "Bones" McCoy (Karl Urban) is an early and close buddy of Kirk's, who helps him get onto the USS Enterprise when he is supposed to be grounded. And there's Scotty (Simon Pegg, Hot Fuzz), the engineer who can always squeeze just a little more oomph out of the dilithium crystals, even when "I'm giving her all she's got, Captain!"

And then there's Spock (Zachary Quinto). There is as much time spent on Spock's early life as Kirk's. And rightfully so. He is as central to the Star Trek stories, and this story in particular, as Kirk. In one scene, he asks a character why Kirk was not told the truth, and he is told prophetically in response, "Because you needed each other. I could not deprive you of the revelation of all that you could accomplish together, of a friendship that will define you both in ways you cannot yet realize." The friendship between Spock and Kirk is legendary. Although they start out as opponents, not quite enemies, they go beyond animosity (an emotion Spock should not feel) to a life-long friendship that plays out in the TV series.

Although Star Trek is mostly flash and fun, without much depth, there are one or two nuggets. This is the first -- friendship. Initially Kirk despises Spock, who has accused him of cheating on a key test. But Kirk moves beyond this. He does not allow this incident to define the relationship. Likewise, we too may find our best friendships emerging in the strangest circumstances. Friendship is one of life's greatest joys. To have a true friend is to have a treasure from heaven. The Bible tells us "a friend loves at all times" (Prov. 17:17). Even a person who seems to be a thorn in our side may be destined to become an intimate pal. We just need to be willing to be open to any possibilities that God has for us.

As a young boy Spock grows up facing discrimination for being half-human. With a human mother (Winona Ryder) and a Vulcan father, Sarek (Ben Cross, Harold Abrahams in Chariots of Fire), he is at a disadvantage compared to the other Vulcan children. But Sarek gives him excellent advice early on: "You will always be a child of two worlds, and fully capable of deciding your own destiny. The question you face is: which path will you choose."

This is a question we, too, must face. We are children of this planet, mere mortals, humans. But we are also children created by God to be like him (Gen. 1:26), children of heaven. Sin has had an impact and separated us from our creator (Eph. 4:18). Now we must choose: will we follow him and accepted our citizenship in heaven (Phil. 3:20), or will we remain earth-bound, alienated from God (Col. 1:21)? It is a choice that will seal our destiny, as Spock's choice sealed his. We must choose wisely, so we can live long and prosper.

When Vulcan faces the evil plans of Nero, the federation is called into action, manning the Enterprise with all the cadets at hand. The main plot line, then, is the race to thwart Nero, who determines to destroy planet after planet in his vengeance-fueled fury, while secondarily bringing all these characters into their position for subsequent adventures. Abrams pulls it off well.

Spock's early accusation against Kirk for breach of ethics highlights the difference between the two. Spock sees the test as a no-win opportunity to teach mastery of fear in the face of death. This is logical to him. But Kirk cannot face a no-win scenario. He is too confident and too cocky for that. He does not like to lose. He creates his own no-lose scenario, and that is so characteristic of Kirk. He can turn a no-win into a no-lose. He brings emotion and instinct to complement Spock's logic and rationality.

In the DVD extras, the producers contrast the old TV series with Star Wars, seeing the former as classical music and the latter as rock and roll. They have sought to bring more rock to this classic, and surprisingly have accomplished their mission. This is a new Star Trek for a new generation. You don't need to have any knowledge of the earlier characters; they have been explained anew.

Copyright ©2009, Martin Baggs

Paradise Now -- extreme self-sacrifice

2009-12-06T07:00:00.000-08:00

Director: Hany Abu-Assad, 2005.

Set in Nablas in the occupied West Bank of Israel Paradise Now recounts the story of three Palestinians and gives stark insight into the minds and hearts of suicide bombers. As a political thriller its slow pacing allows the characters to take center stage. Writer-director Abu-Assad avoids turning this into simple propaganda and instead allows us to care about the fate of the protagonists, whether we are pro- or anti-Israel. And it earned the honor of being the first Palestinian movie nominated for an Academy Award.

Said (Kais Nashif) and Khaled (Ali Suliman) are young car mechanics, barely making a living. When extremist Jamal informs them that they have been chosen to be suicide bombers, their lives and plans are suddenly interrupted. The terrorist cell group that Jamal is part of has decided that, after two years of inactivity, the time for violence is prime. Tel-Aviv is the place, tomorrow is the time.

During the movie, Said and Khaled offer perspectives on what has led them to this point. "Life here is like life imprisonment. The crimes of the occupation are countless." The West Bank settlers have brought injustice and discrimination with them. "They use their war machine and their political and economical might to force us to accept their solution: that either we accept inferiority, or we will be killed." From their position, life under Israeli authority is unacceptable; they have little freedom. Khaled's philosophy, perhaps drummed into him by Jamal and his extreme Muslim fundamentalism, offers him only one solution: "If we can't live as equals, at least we'll die as equals." There is another perspective, a different solution to injustice, which emerges later.

Said and Khaled are shorn and shaved, ritually bathed to prepare them for their personal jihad: to blow up themselves and as many Israeli soldiers as possible. As they allow the explosives to be strapped to their chests, they offer a study in contrasts. One is confident in his Islamic faith. He is ready to martyr himself and arrive in paradise now. The other is afraid. He is unsure. Is this what God (Allah) has decreed for him? The biggest contrast, though, is between the two soon-to-be martyrs and their handler, Jamal. His job is easy, to recruit, prepare, motivate, and send. There is no immediate personal sacrifice for him. He just needs to ensure his two recruits don't turn back.

The third person central to the film is Suha (Lubna Azabal). She is the daughter of a martyr and acquaintance to both Said and Khaled. When the operation becomes compromised and she learns of their plans, she seizes the opportunity to persuade them to give up the mission. She is the foil that allows us to see the other perspective. Her scenes become crucial to making this a balanced and fair film.

In one interaction with Khaled, the more devoted of the two bombers, she questions even the Koranic concept of paradise for martyrs, "There is no paradise. It only exists in your head." She seeks peace not war. As a survivor of a martyr, she knows firsthand the sorrow for those left behind: "And what about us? The ones who remain? Will we win that way? Don't you see that what you're doing is destroying us?" She highlights the fact that there is tremendous pain and grief for the families of these "heroes." Such martyrdom brings sorrow to all involved and merely promulgates the conflict it seeks to win. And there is no real paradise for such murderers. Biblically, there is an existence in eternal punishment that awaits them (Rev. 21:8).

In this one extended conversation, Khaled declares, "Don't be so naive. There can be no freedom without struggle. As long as there is injustice, someone must make a sacrifice." Suha responds, "That's no sacrifice. That's revenge. If you kill, there's no difference between victim and occupier." This highlights the other response to injustice -- sacrifice. Although Khaled's form of sacrifice is to kill others, there is a sacrifice that has already dealt with injustice: Jesus' sacrifice. He willingly allowed himself to be executed on the cross (Lk. 23:26-49). He did so, to absorb the punishment for sin, all the sins of the world (Rom. 3:23-26). His sacrifice came with the gift of forgiveness and life (Col. 1:14), not death.

Indeed, when Said speaks a monologue on what has driven him to his hopelessness, the contrast between Said and Christ is striking, "A life without dignity is worthless. Especially when it reminds you day after day of humiliation and weakness." Said sees worth in power and victory; Jesus sees power in weakness (1 Cor. 1:25). Jesus humbled himself, giving up his position on the throne of heaven (Phil. 2:8), so he could live a "worthless" life as a humble unknown carpenter in a forlorn and desolate country. His was a life of humiliation and weakness. His was the greater sacrifice. And his is the perfect paradise later, not now. Though he did not usher in an age of perfect justice, a paradise on earth, Jesus coming kingdom will be one where injustice has no place (Isa. 65:17-25).

In her first scene, Suha says, "One day things will be better." This is the film's only moment of hope. But it does portend the hope of paradise that will eventually come when Jesus, our sacrifice and martyr, returns as a conquering King.

Elf -- naivete and belief

2009-12-03T07:00:00.000-08:00

Director: Jon Favreau, 2003.

Some movies are deep or convoluted requiring repeat viewings to gain better understanding of what happened. Memento and Unremembered would fit this category. Others are simply pulp films, without depth. Elf is one of those. Superficial, yes. Sentimental, absolutely. Side-splittingly funny, in places certainly. It bears repeat viewing, but for its comedy not its chasmic proportions.

Before Iron Man, Favreau cut his directorial teeth on this Christmas film. Will Ferrell, in his cleanest and perhaps funniest role, stars as Buddy a human raised by elves. As a baby, he somehow escapes from his crib in the orphanage and stows away in Santa's sack one Christmas Eve. When he is finally discovered by old Saint Nick, after his once-per-year special workday is done, there is nothing to do but keep him at the north pole. Papa Elf (Bob Newhart), with no kids of his own, "adopts" Buddy.

The opening scenes depict Buddy as a fish-out-of-water, being a giant "elf" trying to fit into an elf's world. Clothes, furniture, even houses are difficult for him. Hardest of all is his job making etch-a-sketch toys. He simply cannot cut the pace of a true toy-making elf. He does not fit in. When he overhears one elf telling another that he is actually a human, it crushes him. "Why the long face, Buddy?" says Leon the Snowman. "It seems I'm not an elf," replies the sad Buddy. "Of course you're not an elf. You're six-foot-three and had a beard since you were fifteen." Buddy was the only one who didn't know he was no elf.

With the truth now no secret, Santa tells him who his father is: Walter Hobbs (James Caan), a heartless children's book publisher living in New York City. Worse yet, Walter is on Santa's naughty list. So, Buddy takes off on a grand adventure to find and bond with his true father.

Of course, if Buddy is a stand-out outcast at the north pole, he is just as much out of his element in the real world. Still dressed in elf clothes, Walter thinks he is a Christmas-gram. Others mistake him for a seasonal worker, one of Santa's elves working in Gimbals, the huge toy store. It is there that he meets Jovie (Zooey Deschanel), another "elf" and discovers that warmth in his face might be love in his heart.

As Buddy navigates the minefields of New York, his naive innocence and elf-like cultural habits create opportunities for comedy. He pours syrup on spaghetti for his new stepmom (Mary Steenburgen). He offers hugs to complete strangers. He gets drunk with an ex-con and descends into a frenetic tickle fight. He eats cotton balls like cotton candy in a doctor's office (cameo from Favreau as Walter's doctor). He tells the truth. To a dwarf (Peter Dinklage, The Station Agent) he speaks from his heart: "You're an angry elf" despite the threat of consequences. And he declares in outrage that the Gimbal Santa is a fraud, sitting on a throne of lies.

His naivete presents a lesson for all of us. He accepts everyone. In his childlike (elf-like?) innocence, he simply cannot compute cynicism, sarcasm or even criminality. He is warm-hearted and kind to both family and strangers, those he knows and those he does not. In doing so, he enables Walter to see what is most important to him, and find his own heart.

Jesus tells us to be kind to those around us (Eph. 4:32). Kindness is a fruit of the spirit (Gal. 5:22), after love. We should love, even the unlovely, especially our enemies (Matt. 5:44). We can put aside our distrust in humanity, and embrace the spirit of Christmas, of wonder and allow the Spirit of God to warm our hearts and imbue us with his grace and love. We can learn to believe in others, even when the rest of the world is pessimistic about them.

Indeed, belief is another theme of Elf, just like another Christmas movie, The Polar Express. When Santa is en route for his deliveries, his clause-o-meter drops to zero. The cause: the world has stopped believing in him, effectively grounding his sleigh. What he needs is a resurgence of human belief.

What the world needs is belief. The difference is the object of that belief. We all know that Santa Claus is not real. At some point, in our childhood, we discover that our parents were the ones who left the gifts at the end of the bed or beside the tree. But true belief, life-changing belief, must be focused on Jesus. He is the real reason for the Christmas season. Advent is all about his coming as a person in that stable 2000 years ago (Lk. 2:4-7). In the prophetic words of Isaiah: "The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel" (Isa. 7:4), which means God with us (Matt. 1:23). God is still with us. Jesus came with a mission: to live and die as a man for the sins of humanity (1 Pet. 3;18). We can experience life, forgiveness, freedom, by simply believing in his finished work.

Wouldn't the world be a little bit better place if we took these lessons from Buddy seriously?

The Secrets (Ha-Sodot) -- compassion, connection and change

2009-11-30T07:00:00.000-08:00

Director: Avi Nesher, 2007.

Who doesn't have some secret that should not be revealed? In Nesher's film three women have secrets that slowly emerge to transform their lives.

At the heart of the Israeli film The Secrets is Naomi (Ania Bukstein), the daughter of a prominent rabbi. With her mother dead, she is to be married off to an arrogant rabbi-wannabe. But she is not ready for that. A devout orthodox Jew and brilliant student, she imagines herself the first female rabbi. That would be quite something in the traditional, yet repressive culture that she is immersed in. To postpone marriage, she suggests to her father that she spend a year in Jewish seminary in the mountains studying. Surprisingly he agrees.

When she arrives at the "Truth and Knowledge" seminary in the ancient Kabalistic town of Safed she meets Michel (Michal Shtamler in her film debut), a free-spirited student who is set on challenging all the rules and maintaining her individuality. These two will forge an unlikely friendship that will change both.

The third key female is Anouk (the iconic French actress, Fanny Ardant). A middle-aged woman, she has returned to this isolated town to die. She has terminal cancer, and a shocking secret. Assigned to bring her groceries as a mission of compassion, Michel and Naomi come to terms with one another through these visits. Michel is the only French-speaker, and since Anouk cannot speak Hebrew, that leaves Naomi isolated.

Their approach to this ministry underscores the differences between Naomi and Michel. Naomi's desire is to perform the ministry by the letter of the law: deliver the groceries, store them and go. This is much as her religion dictates. In contrast, Michel goes further. She sees compassion as reaching the inner person, not just the outer shell. She befriends Anouk, and their conversations begin to unpack the secret that has been spiritually eating Anouk up like the cancer that has ravaged her body.

This introduces two ethical insights. First, it challenges the notion of religion as a simple list of rules and regulations. Noami has lived her life religiously, doing what is defined as right. She does the grocery chore at the command of the head of the seminary. But in keeping the letter of the law she is missing the underlying spirit of the law. Michal, the non-traditionalist, understands this. She ministers to the heart and in doing so initiates change: in Anouk and in the two students.

How often do we, even Bible-affirming followers of Jesus, seek to live our disciplined lives by keeping rules? We may have our own lists of dos and don'ts, or they may be suggested by our ministers. But Jesus said there is really only one commandment: to love God completely (Lk. 10:27). There is no complicated series of laws to ponder and strive to attain. Just love God. This is so much bigger than our little lists; it is a holistic lifestyle.

The second insight is centered on compassion. Michal reached Anouk by caring for her, by listening to her story. And as she did so, Anouk shared her guilty secret. Jesus realized this, too, when he added an appendix to the one law: "Love your neighbor as yourself" (Lk. 10:27). We do not love ourselves by simply keeping a list. We go beyond this. We look at our inner person, and feed and nurture our souls. Likewise, ministry that is focused on performance and numbers is often legalistic. Life-changing ministry focuses on compassion, on care, communicating love. This changes both giver and receiver alike.

As Anouk's friendship with these two students blossoms, she reveals her desire to come right with God before her death. Naomi, the more learned of the two, researches and creates several tikkun, Kabbalistic Jewish purification rituals that would cleanse her and restore her relationship with God. One, a cleansing in a sacred pool, seems similar to the Christian sacrament of baptism. Anouk emerges from her submerging with a renewed zeal.

Indeed, Anouk's desperate desire for redemption parallels that of most people, if truth be told. We are all, in some way or another, separated from God (Isa. 59:2). When death comes knocking and we know we have little time left, this desire, dormant for decades perhaps, rises to the surface. Like soldiers offering foxhole prayers, people staring mortality in the eyes often realize their need to get right with God. Redemption is a heart-beat and simple prayer away. It does not require the elaborate rituals that Naomi takes Anouk through. Simply accepting the gift of grace that our savior Jesus offers is enough (Rev. 3:20). We can become children of God through a prayer of faith (Rom. 10:9-10), when we believe in his payment of our sin on the cross on our behalf (Heb. 9:15).

Instead of dealing with sin in this fashion, an alternate approach is evident in Naomi's life. As her secret emerges, she seeks the Jewish Scriptures for an answer and "finds" one. She rationalizes her sin away. We do this, too, when we find our answers, ignoring the clear and crisp words of God. Rationalizing sin is our way to create and control a god who is smaller than Yahweh, the one and only true God found in Scripture (Deut. 6:4).

As the movie winds towards its non-Hollywood ending, we find Naomi liberated from her repressive beliefs. The black clothes of her student days in the first half of the film are replaced with white garments. She is no longer repressed but is rejected by family and society. What a a price to pay for her "freedom." In contrast, we see Michel willing to compromise her individuality and accept a more traditional role in society. Their roles have been reversed.

The Secrets is a slow-paced yet poignantly moving story of repression and forbidden love. But it leaves us focused on change. Are we changing for the better or the worse? Are we more like Naomi or Michel? Either way, have we come to terms with our God like Anouk? That may be our own most important secret.

Watchmen -- watching society, saving humanity

2009-11-27T07:00:00.000-08:00

Director: Zach Snyder, 2009.

Snyder has done what many thought impossible: turned Watchmen into a movie that is faithful to the novel. Alan Moore's book has been called the greatest graphic novel of all time. It is certainly no comic book story. Rather, it is dense and deep, with sidebar articles that provide backstory for many of the characters that shed light on the mystery itself. Most of these sidebars have disappeared to make this film a reasonable length. Still, it runs almost three hours, a dark and gritty, violent and gory tale that will surely satisfy fans of the graphic novel. For those who have not read this modern classic, the film may be a little confusing.

It is 1985 and an alternate America where Nixon is President for a third term. The cold war is still hot and the world is on the brink of nuclear destruction. Society has descended into depravity and despair. There is a need for a savior.

At the start, Snyder gives a montage of images that paint the history of America since WW2. Masked vigilantes emerged to watch over society. These so-called superheroes are merely men and women who are prepared to fight crime, for one reason or another. One image shows a group of these watchmen together at a retirement party. This party photo is a recreation of Leonardo Da Vinci's "The Last Supper" and is clearly painting the parallel to Christ and his disciples. Yet, missing from the picture is the Christ figure. He will show up later.

Snyder employs songs from the 60s-80s on the soundtrack to perfectly match the mood and tone of the film. Bob Dylan's "The times they are a changing" takes us from these histories to 1985 and underscores the pint that change has come. The government has passed a bill outlawing masked men. Their days of vigilante justice are gone. Capes are hung up, masks removed. Superheroes are retired. Yet still society is under attack.

Snyder paints a dark picture of humanity. The rule of mob law and the depravity of the superheroes themselves points to the savage nature of mankind. This is an exaggerated but sadly true picture of humanity. We are depraved (Jer. 17:9), we are tainted by sin. None has lived a righteous life (Rom. 3:10); all have turned away from God (Isa. 53:6).

So when the Comedian, Edward Blake (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), is brutally murdered in his high-rise apartment, the other watchmen start to wonder if it is a conspiracy to kill them all. Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley), another superhero wearing a mask that mutates in rorschach ink-blot patterns, is determined to solve the mystery. And it brings him back in touch with an old partner Dan / Nite Owl (Patrick Wilson). The watchmen start to reconnect with each other: Ozymandias (Matthew Goode, Brideshead Revisited), the smartest and wealthiest man alive; Laurie / Silk Spectre II (Malin Akerman, The Proposal), and her lover Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup).

Although these superheroes want to make the world a better place, their motives are mixed and so are their methods. Rorschach lives with the principle, "Never compromise. Not even in the face of Armageddon." He wants to exercise justice on the unjust, the lowlife criminals, but he does so without mercy or compassion. There is nothing that separates him from those he is trying to rid society of. Justice is one thing, justice tempered with grace is quite another.

Ozymandis believes that the solution to war is to find enough resources to go around. If he can rid the world of its reliance on oil and fossil fuels, he can bring in a utopia. What a dream! He does not count on the darkness that lives within the human heart (Rom. 1:21). That cannot be cured by a socialist approach. It requires a savior's touch.

Throughout Snyder intersperses brief vignettes showing us who the watchmen really are. Comedian, the first to die, is the only government-endorsed superhero. But, who watches the watchment? The Comedian is actually a psychopath who relishes societal violence as an opportunity for him to exercise violence on others. We see him enjoying the killing fields of Vietnam and showing no remorse while coldly gunning down a lover.

"Who watches the watchman" dates back to Aristotle who coined this phrase in response to Plato's theory of the filakes, the ancient watchmen who would be the ultimate, infallible authority in the perfect city-state (see "The Republic"). But who really watches the watchmen? When we give too much power to those who are supposed to be protecting us, we run the risk of corrupting those very people we trust. The watchmen in this story are not perfect. They are people with flaws and weaknesses. They are, in some cases, worse than the worst of society. And they get off on the power that is thrust on them. No one, so it seems, is watching these watchmen. But someone is. And that someone is killing them off. Who and why is the mystery that Rorschach, Nite Owl and Silk Spectre II set out to solve.

Of all the superheroes, there is only one who actually has super powers -- Dr. Manhattan. His backstory is given midway through the film. A physicist Jon Osterman gets locked into a lab when a field energy experiment is underway and his body is vaporized only to become reassembled later. When he returns, he is transformed into a huge naked blue being who can change matter. He can mentally transport himself or others to any place he desires. Used initially by the government to win the Vietnam war, he becomes more and more distant from his lover, Laurie, until she leaves him.

It is Dr. Manhattan who is the missing Christ-figure. Referring to him, one of his friends says, "I did not say there is a superman and he is American. I said there is a God and he is American." From superman to god, he is deified. And no wonder, he can see past, present and future. He can manipulate matter. He can materialize anywhere he wants. He can split into multiple beings, a veritable holy trinity of blue Jons.

Before the advent of cgi filming, the special effects needed for Dr. Manhattan would have been difficult and overly expensive. With today's technology Snyder pulls off a miracle making this god-like man believable. The scenes on Mars in his ice-palace take our breath away even as Laurie has no breath to take when she is transported there.

The comparison with Christ is clearly worth considering. Dr. Manhattan has resurrected from death to new life and, like Jesus, upon his return he is a new kind of body. Just as Jesus appeared in a room behind locked doors (Jn. 20:26), Dr. Manhattan can suddenly show up in a different place. Further, he was the savior for America in the Vietnam war and is their hope for peace and security amidst the cold war. And when it becomes clear that it requires a scapegoat to save earth from hell, Dr. Manhattan allows himself to be that scapegoat, just like Jesus is our scapegoat (Jn. 11:50).

But Jesus is not a nationalistic savior. Though a Jew and sent to the Jews, Jesus is the savior of the whole world (Jn. 3:16). He is our hope (1 Tim. 4:10), our peace (Jn. 14:27), our security (Psa. 18:2) amidst all human wars.

Indeed Dr. Manhattan is not God, and the contrasts are clear. He was born a man, and is thus a creature. Christ, on the other hand, pre-existed creation (Jn. 1:1). He has always existed and is the creator not one of his created beings. In his new super-body, Dr. Manhattan can see the past, present and future. But he can only see his, not that of others. And when tachyons are used, they shield even his future so he cannot see what is coming. Whereas God can see all of time for all of us. Further, Dr. Manhattan says, in one scene, "I am tired of her, of these people, of the tangle of their lives." He has lost interest in humanity -- "Why would I save a world I no longer have a stake in?" God, on the other hand, is so involved with humanity that he sent Jesus to became one of us, descending from his position on the throne of God (Phil. 2:5). He loved us so much he went to the cross giving up his life for us.

Finally, Dr. Manhattan says, "I can change almost anything . . . but I can't change human nature." How unlike Christ. He who made us innocent (Gen. 2:25), saw mankind become corrupt and sinful (Rom. 3:12). He watched us turn away from God in our savage nature (Gen. 3:1-11). But through his sacrifice, he can change human nature. He can make us into new creatures with a new nature if we turn to him (Jn. 1:12). He can re-create us (2 Cor. 5:17), and to those who become his followers he will mold us into his perfect image (Rom. 8:29). And he has placed in us his Holy Spirit (Jn. 14:16-17). God now lives in us, his followers, not in Dr. Manhattan.

When it all comes to a close, we are reminded that there is only true watchman, one true savior. He stands apart from the rest in his personal involvement. He is the craftsman that has created all and he desires for this creation to be remade (Rom. 8:18-24). One day he will return and peace will be established. Until then, let's put our hope in our Watchman.

Copyright ©2009, Martin Baggs

No Man's Land -- the absurdities of war

2009-11-23T07:00:00.000-08:00

Director: Danis Tanovic, 2001.

"War is hell." Civil War General William Sherman said this in an address to the graduating class of the Michigan Military Academy in 1879. Films have explored this thought, most notably Saving Private Ryan. Spielberg showed us the violence and gore close-up, especially in the opening sequence of the D-Day landings in Normandy.

130 years after Sherman's famous quote, Pope Benedict XVI declared, "The human tragedies and the absurdity of war remain in people's memories." Although talking about WW2, the pope could have been describing any war, anywhere. Writer-director Tanovic focuses on the absurdity and insanity of war in this movie that won the 2002 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film (beating out Amélie).

No Man's Land is set in the Bosnian-Serb conflict of the 1990s, and gives war a very personal and bleak picture by honing in on three soldiers. Ciki (Branko Djuric) and Cera (Filip Sovagovic) are Bosnians, while Nino (Rene Bitorajac) is a Serb.

After their guide loses his way in the dense fog, a sudden firefight finds the two Bosnians in a no man's land trench between the two armies' front-lines, Ciki is wounded and Cera is apparently dead. When the Serbs send out two soldiers to scout out what happened, Nino is one of them. The other puts a "bouncing bomb" mine underneath the body of Cera to boobytrap the corpse, but a brief skirmish leaves this Serb dead and Nino wounded. These three wounded soldiers form the core around which Tanovic delivers his thoughts about war.

In one scene, Ciki has a rifle pointed at Nino while both are hiding in a hut in the trench from the shelling by one side who does not care who is in the trench as long as he is killed. His bitter animosity emerges when he asks Nino who started the war. Neither will admit his party and ethnicity to be in the wrong. But finally he tells Nino to admit that the Serbs are at fault. When Nino asks why he should do so, Ciki says "Because I have a gun and you don't." Later, the roles are reversed when Nino gets the rifle, and asks "Now . . . tell me. Who started the war?" And Ciki has to respond, "We did."

These two scenes highlight two moral concepts. First is the universal need to be right. No one will willingly lay their life down in battle for a cause that is wrong. They may be forced into this via conscription or threat, but most soldiers go to war believing their nation is in the right. And a person whose village has been burned and whose relatives have been maimed or killed cannot easily hold onto the idea that his nation started the conflict, although often the initiator is lost in the history of the violence.

The second moral concept is that might is right. The man holding the weapon becomes the man in the right as Ciki testifies. But might is right is an errant philosophy. Just because Ciki holds the rifle does not mean the Serbs started the war. He simply has the power to make the Serb say what he wants to hear or risk being killed. Might is right is simply wrong. When we misuse our might and power to make others say and do things we want, we are guilty of coercion and no better than the enemy who we think started the war.

Ciki represents the bitter cynicism that is generated by war. He has seen his family tortured and killed and wants nothing more than revenge on those who made him suffer. Nino, on the other hand, represents the innocence of humanity. He came to the front as a virgin soldier, never having experienced combat. But he was not accepted, even by his fellow Serbs. When he is confronted by Ciki he tells him his name and extends his hand for a handshake, but he is rebuffed. There is no place for friendship with the enemy for Ciki, only hatred. Even though they have common ground in a mutual acquaintance, the bitterness of war will not allow for sharing of names or shaking of hands. Little by little, his innocence is tarnished and Nino becomes bitter himself, another casualty of war.

Ciki and Nino have fallen prey to the workings of the depraved human nature. It seems normal to hate those who hurt our families and who would do us harm. But such hatred fueled this conflict and led inevitably to the desire for ethnic cleansing and genocide. Millennia before this war occurred, though, Jesus shocked the crowds listening to his sermon on the mount with a counter-cultural command, "You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" (Matt. 5:43-44). It is easy to love those who love us, like our spouses, our families, our friends. But it is only by the working of the Spirit that we are empowered and enabled to love those enemies.

Tanovic adds two more elements to this tragedy to highlight the absurdity of war. First there are the UN Peace-keepers. They are the blue-helmeted soldiers sent to keep the peace, not to become involved in the conflict. Their mission is to avoid putting their own forces in harm's way. Yet, one French sergeant, tired of this disinvolvement, determines to disobey the implied orders and provide help. Coming to the trench, he sees the three wounded soldiers. He offers to rescue Nino and Ciki and take them to freedom and safety, but their common hatred steps in the way and prevents their rescue.

Jesus has come down to our war-torn and sin-infected planet to offer humanity rescue and freedom. Yet like the Ciki, much of humankind refuses this offer. They see this as unfair, offering to friend and foe the same opportunity for redemption. Since the enemy apparently does not deserve this chance at new life and since this would stop the war without bringing victory or vengeance, the offer is rejected. How sad and absurd that such faulty logic will cloud our thinking.

In coming to the trench, the French sergeant unwittingly brings the press. When a British reporter learns what is going on, she manipulates the peacekeepers and forces the hand of the presiding UN Officer until all the press are allowed to visit this no man's land. Tanovic forces us to ask the question, what is the role of the press in war? Unlike in earlier, more traditional conflicts, like WW2, where reporters went out with the troops, here the press stand apart from the two sides. Although seemingly neutral, these reporters here have moved beyond mere observation to direct provocation. They are not concerned about the lives of the three soldiers in the trench. They are simply concerned with the live broadcasts that will go out globally and generate more viewers or sell more stories. War has become commercialized for consumers.

No Man's Land is ultimately a dark and disturbing view of war and the absurdities that circle around it. But it is more than that. It is a sad social commentary on people and organizations. From soldiers to civilians, peace-keepers to the press, none is above reproach. All are tainted. As tragic as it is, Tanovic's film puts a human face on the absurdity of war, and leaves us deep in thought as his final frame hovers above a dead soldier.

Copyright ©2009, Martin Baggs

The Taste of Others (Le goût des autres ) -- the power of art

2009-11-20T07:00:00.000-08:00

Director: Agnès Jaoui, 2000.

What value does art have in our lives? Can it bring transformation? Is it an acquired taste? Actor-writer Jaoui puts the spotlight on art and love in her directorial debut. This is a slow French comedy of sex, good taste and bad manners. What story there is centers on three men and three women whose lives intersect. These interactions form the crucible for their character development.

Early in the film we see Castella (Jean-Pierre Bacri), a wealthy industrialist who owns a steel plant in Rouen. He is being driven back from a lunch engagement by his driver Bruno (Alain Chabat, I Do). He slowly but vacantly gazes out of the window, bored, seeing nothing. Looking, he does not see.

This reminds us of the parables Jesus told. These stories had important messages to those who heard and understood. But, when his dull disciples asked why he spoke this way, Jesus said, "This is why I speak to them in parables: 'Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand' " (Matt. 13:13). How often do we drift through life, looking but not really seeing. Just like Castella, our minds are elsewhere. We are blind people walking.

When Castella and his wife Angélique (Christiane Millet) later go to the theater, he is once again bored, wishing to be elsewhere. He is a rich philistine, not appreciating the finer things in life. But his eye is caught by Clara (Anne Alvaro), the lead actress in the Greek tragedy and he gazes at her with rapt attention. Somehow, his artless heart has become alive to what is before him. She was the woman he failed to hire as an English teacher. Recognition dawns and so does the spark of life.

If Castella and Clara are the main characters who will change, Angélique and Bruno form a pair of naive foils. He is seemingly faithful to his fiancee, abroad and distant. But his heart is fickle and infidelity becomes a foregone conclusion. She is married but going through the motions. In one scene she and Castella are gazing at the TV engaged with the show but not really with other. Both Angélique and Bruno seem to take for granted what is apparently theirs in the relationships they are in. Yet for both, their partners awake to the taste of others that leaves them surprised and shaken. Angélique's retreat is her interior decorating hobby, a form of art, while Bruno's is his attempt at flute playing.

And then there are Manie (Jaoui) and Franck (Gérard Lanvin). She is a pretty barmaid who deals hash for a living. He is Castella's temporary bodyguard. Both have a cynical approach to love and relationships: casual sex is their choice. He boasts of his hundreds of conquests to the naive Bruno. She tells Franck that she approaches sex like a man: no love just physical union. But by the time the movie is over, they have found in each other someone so much like themselves that they are ready to change.

Manie and Franck represent the mindset and lifestyle of so many today. Sex is simply a form of pleasure to be enjoyed with a person whose name we might never know or forget within days. Partner after partner, faces disappear into the pack. But is this really beneficial or is it simply a taste of others that damages our dignity and puts another brick in our barricade? Both Manie and Franck seem to have a fear of intimacy that they hide behind the physical act of coupling. Surely this is not what God intended when he made man and woman? No, sex is intended to be a loving and intimate act that opens us up to the other, revealing while bringing pleasure. Sex is meant to be enjoyed within the realm of marriage, one man with one woman, committed to one another (Gen. 2:25; Heb. 13:4). Although Manie and Franck find fulfillment in one another, it has taken them y4ars and countless individuals to get there.

Which brings us back to Castella and Clara. After he has gazed upon the beauty of her acting, he wants more. Castella becomes like a puppy in love, wanting to spend time with her, though he is clueless among her bohemian artist friends. She wants little to do with him, but this does not stop him. As he hangs with her, he begins to see art. His eyes are open as if for the first time. She, in turn, is 40 and wants love but cannot find it from the men around her. She cannot see what is in front of her face: Castella. Her preconceptions keep her closed off to this businessman.

Art can have a transformative effect. Just like in this film, it can open our eyes to see things we never dreamed of, to experiences we never felt before. Even if we are not particularly gifted artistically, we can still appreciate what others have created or their performances. Like Castella, I am not an artist yet I have in my family a fine fabric artist and a singing-dancing actrss. I am learning to taske and savor the power of art.

Art stems from God. He created humanity in his image (Gen. 1:26) and as such we have an innate ability to create and express ourselves. There are numerous forms of art, including painting, theater, film, music, quilting. All offer a way of self-expression. If art is fine, it will transcend and inspire, it will open us up to new potentialities. It adds beauty to lives that otherwise may be insipid and dull. And as art points us to beauty we are drawn back to the Artist who made it all possible, the Lord. He is beautiful (Psa. 27:4) and beauty itself.

Art may transform us, turning us from philistines to connoisseurs. But it is the Artist, Jesus, who can transform us truly from within. He can remake us as beautiful works of art. But we must let him. We must allow him to paint on the canvas of our lives. When we do that we experience the beauty of new life (2 Cor. 5:17).

As The Taste of Others closes, Castello gazes on Clara performing beautifully, and she gazes back. Both have been changed. And Bruno plays the theme from Edith Piaf's great song, "Je ne regrette rien" (I regret nothing). His musical art has transformed him, leaving him with no regrets. Art can truly do that.

Copyright ©2009, Martin Baggs

Carlito's Way -- honor, loyalty and change

2009-11-17T07:00:00.000-08:00

Director: Brian De Palma, 1993.

"And I want to thank a lot of people for that. I look over there and I see that man there, Mr. Norwalk. I want to thank you, sir. . . . And I want to thank AImighty God. . . . I can't believe this. I must have forgot. How could I forget my dear, close friend and lawyer David Kleinfeld, who never gave up on me through everything, thick and thin."

This is Al Pacino giving his awards speech for his one and only Oscar, won for the 1992 Scent of a Woman, right? No, actually this is Carlito Brigante (Al Pacino) in a courtroom at the start of this film addressing the judge who sentenced him to a 30 year prison stretch as it is over-turned after five years on a technicality.

Al Pacino has played his share of gangsters. He starred as Tony Montana in De Palma's 1983 Scarface. But his most memorable gangster role was as Michael Corleone (The Godfather Trilogy). As Sicilian Corleone, he was the college graduate who wanted nothing to do with the family business but found himself inevitably drawn in. As a result he was changed, corrupted by the inisidious evil that was the heart of the mafia. Here as Puerto Rican Brigante, he is a heroin-dealing gangster, a former big fish in New York who emerges from prison with a change of perspective.

In his courtroom theatrics, Carlito declares, "But my time in the sterling correctional facilities of Greenhaven and Sing Sing has not been in vain. I've been cured; born again. . . . I've changed." This is no religious conversion, but it is a sincere change of heart. This ex-con wants to go straight.

Carlito's reference to being born again takes us back to the first century conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus. Jesus told this Jewish leader, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again" (Jn. 3:3). He was referring to the fundamental life change that occurs when a person decides to follow Jesus. An act of faith, it is an act of conversion. It requires an act of God to turn a cold and callous heart of stone into a living, throbbing heart of flesh (Ezek. 36:26). Being born again brings with it new life (Rom. 6:4), new perspective, a desire to follow the straight and narrow path (Matt. 7:14). We may not be convicts who have spent years behind bars, but we all have gone astray and committed sin (Isa. 53:6). We all need to experience this healing, this rebirth that frees us from our own prisons, much like Carlito.

Carlito has seen the corpses in the dark alleys of his former way of life. Indeed, he has put many of them there himself. But he wants no more of this. He has a plan to earn enough money to buy into a legitimate business venture in the Bahamas and be a regular citizen. But can he do this? Or will his old instincts kick in? Will his misplaced loyalties and his former friends lead him astray, straight back into his former way of life? Those are the questions De Palma asks in this violent but unusual gangster film.

When he agrees to help a relative with a quick drug deal, Carlito does so reluctantly. But this reintroduces him to the violence he left behind. Guns and drugs equate to easy, if dangerous, money. With this money he buys into a nightclub and becomes a manager. Running the club more on reputation, Carlito still carries enough weight to scare the young turks who see themselves as the new Carlito.

But it is Carlito's lawyer, David Kleinfeld (Sean Penn in a wild afro) who proves more of a threat. Kleinfeld has gotten Carlito out of prison, so Carlito owes him. And he treats him like a dear friend, even a brother. But this lawyer is a sleazy and corrupt cokehead, and has more problems than the ex-con. When he calls on Carlito for a favor, old loyalties prove too strong. Even his old love Gail (Penelope Ann Miller) cannot dissuade him from doing something foolish.

Carlito's way is to honor old debts. He owes Kleinfeld and will pay him back. There is a sense of transactional fairness and equality. He wants to change his way but this debt is an albatross that flies slowly overhead preventing Carlito from a new way. How unlike Jesus' offer of change. We have a debt, a debt of sin. That debt requires payment of a life. It should be our life, but Jesus walked in our shoes and paid our debt with his own life. No longer do we need to pay our debts for sin. Grace has made Jesus' way possible for us.

Carlito's loyalty to his friend proves his undoing. He knows this, yet still proceeds: "There is a line you cross, you don't never come back from. Point of no return. Dave crossed it. I'm here with him." Just like in Gone Baby Gone, there is a decision that can never be unmade once made. Later, he tells Dave, "Never give up your friends, Dave, no matter what." There is honor and loyalty among some thieves, though not all. Carlito may not give up his friends, but he may let them get what they deserve. In contrast, Jesus wll not give up his friends and will not let them get what they deserve. Justice is trumped by mercy. God is both just and the justifier (Rom. 3:26), and he has provided a way for us to be free in Christ. Once we come to him by faith, he will never give up on us (Rom. 8:38-39). He will not give us up to the devil.

Honor and loyalty are the code of ethics that drove Carlito and caused his downfall. They were his core values. He cried out in desperation to Gail, "It's who I am Gail, it's what I am. Right or wrong, I can't change that." He found his identity in these values and concluded that though he wants to, he cannot change. These values define him and define his future. He is like the hero in a Greek tragedy.

Values are important and play a role in crafting identity. But they can be changed. We can change. We may say, like Carlito, "I can't change," but Jesus breaks our paradigm. He breezes like a breath of fresh air into a stagnant room, replacing stale odors with a sweet scent. If we allow him to come into our lives he causes us to become new creations (2 Cor. 5:17). With new life comes the potential for new identity, identity in Christ. It also brings new values. We come to embrace the values of love and humility, mercy and joy, from Jesus. Change is indeed possible.

De Palma brings an exciting climax in the Grand Central Station with a gunfight that brings flashbacks to his earlier classic, The Untouchables. As much as we want Carlito's way to bring him the success he desires, his way is impossible. Jesus' way is far better than Carlito's way.

Copyright ©2009, Martin Baggs

State of Play -- playing our friends

2009-11-13T07:00:00.000-08:00

Director: Kevin Macdonald, 2009.

The new movie from MacDonald (The Last King of Scotland) makes us watch and think to the very end even while taking us on a taut and tense thrill ride. That should be no surprise given that Tony Gilroy wrote the screenplay. Better known for his writing on the Bourne trilogy, Gilroy also wrote and directed Duplicity, itself a fine film.

As the film opens a petty thief is being chased through the backstreets of Washington DC until he is coldly executed in a dark alley. Washington Globe reporter Cal McAffrey chases down the facts with a cynicism and efficiency that can only come from long years on the beat.

Meanwhile, a Congressman's young assistant falls to her death on the tracks of the DC subway, and rookie reporter Delia Frye is assigned to this news event. Delia is bright and energetic. More than this, she is the on-line reporter, a blogger.

It is not until a connection emerges between these two apparently unrelated deaths that McAffrey and Frye start to work together. When they do, the contrast between old school and new school comes sharply into focus. We see the inner workings of the newspaper, and we also see the future of the industry.

McAffrey represents newspapers of the past. Writing with pen, publishing in print, he lives for the investigation. He wants to see his stories in hard copy. Reporters produce newsprint. Frye, on the other hand, is the new wave of the journalistic future. She blogs, she produces digital copy. More and more newspapers are finding it difficult to turn a profit. News is migrating to on-line, on all-the-time options. With internet in the pocket of paying customers in the form of smart phones and iPods, why wait for today's news to show up in print as tomorrow's headlines? Why not read all about it now, on the internet? Who can wait 12 hours for their news? This is a now generation.

Can the two types coexist? Certainly, in this movie the two main characters coexist in a mutually beneficial relationship that proves ultimately successful. Some, perhaps many, still find the tactile feeling of holding a newspaper very satisfying. I personally prefer to read a paper version of "The Oregonian" while I eat my morning cereal, rather than reading the same story on my iTouch. There may come a time when electronic readers become larger, lighter and brighter, and if this happens newsprint may then become obsolete. But for now, as in this movie, there is room for both.

One of the strengths of State of Play is its cast. Russell Crowe, once again looking dumpy and homely as he did in Body of Lies, plays Cal McAffrey as a wisecracking but jaded loner. Rachel McAdams is his naive but fresh foil as Frye. Helen Mirren shows up as their editor, a hard-as-nails deadline pusher who lets herself be manipulated by McAffrey. Ben Afleck brings his A-game, perhaps his best performance in years, as Congressman Stephen Collins, and Robin Wright Penn (The Princess Bride) is his wife. And Jason Bateman has a small but critical part as a PR man.

As McAffrey and Frye begin working together, a major story appears to be taking shape. McAffrey's clues uncover a corporate cover-up that has huge implications. Collins, the congressman whose aide died, has much to lose, both politically and personally. With a number of insiders, informants and assassins, State of Play plays with the whole concept of friendship and exploitation.

There is a history between McAffrey and Collins. They were friends in college but became estranged, as many college room-mates do. In one emotional scene, Collins confronts McAffrey:

You're just seeking the truth. You're a truth seeker. You can't help it, that is just who you are. You're such a hypocrite. You're not interested in me. You come in here, it's all about you and you getting your story. I trusted you. You're my friend! You were supposed to be my friend anyway.

This begs the question, how far should using a friendship go before it becomes abuse? Is it fair to exploit a friend? The root of the answer to this question comes down to our motivation. In the film, McAffrey is clearly seeking the truth. But he is doing it because he smells a story, perhaps even a Pulitzer. He was not really interested in his friend. His friendship simply opened the door for him to garner more information. He was actually abusing a friendship that had faltered and festered. Though he let Collins sleep on his couch, his friendship was merely functional and self-serving. True friendship looks out for the other person. True friendship is about helping not hurting. True friendship expresses love (Prov. 17:17).

Moreover, the Bible has much to say about truth. It offers truth. It points us to the truth in Jesus (Jn. 14:6). Certainly we should be truth-seekers. But we should also be truth-speakers. What we do with the truth is as important as seeking and finding the truth.

How do we use the truth with our friends? In this context Paul, writer of many of the epistles in the New Testament, gave us the key truth in Eph. 4:15: "Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the head, that is, Christ." This verse addresses method and purpose. The purpose is to help others grow. It is to benefit rather than berate. Yet the method is critical. Truth alone can be cutting and cruel. But truth tempered with love can never be like this. If we speak the truth in love we will focus on what is said and how it will be heard. It will focus on how we can help. It will affirm our interest in our friend, and this interest will be genuine because we want to see the other reach his potential. There is no hypocrisy in truth spoken in love. It is no longer about me. It is all about the friend.

State of Play keeps us guessing until the very end. Twists and turns add to the tension. But ultimately it makes us reflect on how we deal with our friends, especially those we haven't seen in a while. Will we return trust with love-harnessed truth? Or will we focus on what we can get for ourselves from the relationship?

Copyright ©2009, Martin Baggs

I Do (Prête-moi ta main) -- meddling and marriage

2009-11-09T07:00:00.000-08:00

Director: Eric Lartigau, 2006

The staple of the romantic comedy is the happily single bachelor put into a position where permanent relationship looms, threatening his carefree ways. I Do takes this formula and meddles with it a little.

When we first meet Luis (Alain Chabat), he's a young man in the 70s with wild hair and wildly in love. But he is surrounded by his mother Genevieve (Bernadette Lafont), the strong-willed widow and matriarch of the family, and five sisters. Overbearing, they insult his girlfriend and scare her away. In the process, Luis' heart is scarred. He had eyes only for his girl and she is gone. But it is his nose that reminds him of her scent. And developing a fragrance to remember her, he discovers his career: La Nez. He is the nose, the designer in a perfume company.

Cut ahead to present day, Luis is in his early 40s. He lives in his own bachelor pad apartment, where he can enjoy casual sex with one-night stands and no familial repercussions. Yet his laundry is handled by his mom and sisters, and he gets meals there when he wants. In short, he is pampered.

When this "G6" counsel of women suddenly decide it is time for Luis to grow up and get married, his life takes a decidedly downward turn. The amusing montage of bad blind dates arranged for him by his family is reminscent of that in Arranged, but here Luis is far more blunt with his needs and desires.

Realizing that his family will not give in until he has settled down, Luis hatches a perfect plan to get them off his back. He will get married to a "perfect woman" and then be stood up at the altar. In this way, he can almost get married yet stay single and gain lifelong sympathy from the mother and sisters. Of course, this would not be a comedy if the plan played out perfectly.

The perfect woman comes along in the form of Emma (Charlotte Gainsbourg), the sister of his best friend. She has moved to the city and is in need of a job. When he offers to hire her she strikes a hard bargain but the contract is agreed. These two have appeared together before, in The Science of Sleep, and they play well here. Her businesslike approach covers a different family need. Both want something from the other, yet neither desires any commitment. It is simply a commercial transaction.

Different parts of this premise have appeared in earlier films over the years. Richard Gere hired Julia Roberts to be his escort 20 years ago in Pretty Woman. Kate Hudson tried to show How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. Here these combine as a hiring and firing of a bride. And of course, this focus on my best friend's sister's wedding brings to mind Julia Roberts again in My Best Friend's Wedding.

Two moral issues emerge from this film. First, there is the concept of meddling. What gave Luis' mother or sisters' the right to get involved in his life? Are they better able to decide what is best for him than he is? The apostle Paul addresses the problem of meddling in two of his letters. To his young pastor friend Timothy, he writes (about widows): "not only do they become idlers, but also gossips and busybodies, saying things they ought not to." (1 Tim. 5:13) These young women who have nothing better to do start meddling in the lives of others. To the church at Thessalonica, Paul warns: "We hear that some among you are idle. They are not busy; they are busybodies" (2 Thess. 3:11). Meddling is even compared to murder in 1 Pet. 4:15: "If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer or thief or any other kind of criminal, or even as a meddler."

We might feel the urge to play matchmaker for our friends or single relatives, but is that really our place? Surely it is better for us to give them space to make their own decisions. If they are adults, they are responsible for their own actions. They have their own lives to live. We can offer some insight, even some wisdom. But to press beyond this is to meddle and become a busybody.

The second moral issue is that of casual sex apart from marriage. This shows up in most movies these days. But it is a predominant theme here, since Luis wants to avoid commitment. He is focused on externals, the looks of a woman, the size of her breasts, the smell of her scent. But he cares less about her deeper character qualities. After all, he wants passion, not permanence. Relationships are superficial for him. Yet, this causes great damage to the soul. We are more than animals. We are complex physical, emotional and spiritual beings created to enjoy marital intimacy and sexual union (Gen. 2:24). Marriage may not be for everyone. Even Paul affirms this (1 Cor. 7:8). But sex is to be cherished and enjoyed in the marriage bed (Heb. 13:4). Sex while single diminishes the sanctity of this physical union while making us thinner, weaker people. This is not a message that is welcome today. In contrast, when we find the perfect marriage partner, we help each other become deeper, stronger, more loving people.

Copyright ©2009, Martin Baggs

Duplicity -- success and trust

2009-11-06T07:00:00.000-08:00

Director: Tony Gilroy, 2009.

After his debut film, Michael Clayton, Gilroy comes back with a stronger, smarter, brighter movie. Both deal with multinational conglomerates, but Duplicity has more pizazz. Perhaps it's the star power of Julia Roberts, or the chemistry between Roberts and Clive Owen. It helps that the screenplay is tight and engaging. Gilroy wrote it himself. And he has written some dandies, including the fabulous Bourne movie trilogy.

Owen plays Ray Koval, an MI6 spy while Roberts is Claire Stanwick, a CIA operative. They meet at a cocktail party in the middle east. His attraction to her leads to the bedroom, naturally. Like James Bond, he gets the best looking babe. But he gets more than he bargained for -- a mickey finn. He gets the long sleep, she gets his secret documents.

Jump ahead several years and neither are working for governments any longer. Now they are corporate spies. That pays much better than the bureaucrats, though the thrills may be somewhat diminished. When they meet, their past catches up with them. Their mutual distaste mirrors that of the two corporate CEOs pitted against one another.

Indeed, the opening scene sets the tone well. Sitting on the tarmac of a small airport are two company jets, from two rival pharmaceutical companies, facing each other. When Richard Garsik (Paul Giamatti, Sideways) sees his arch-nemesis Howard Tully (Tom Wilkinson, Michael Clayton), something snaps. They get into a yelling, shoving, and wrestling match. There is no love lost between these two.

Both are struggling to find the next big drug. Their need for success is matched only by their need for control. Like the drugs they manufacture, success is their drug of choice. And to achieve this, control is their means.

How do we approach success in our lives, especially our professional careers? Is it a goal that must be attained at any cost, as it is here? If so, the truth will shatter your illusion. It is not a worthy goal. Success, like the drugs themselves, gives a short-lasting hit. After the glow of the achievements dims, we are left with a rusty trophy and a higher goal for our next fix. Such a drug will cost us too much; it will cost us our families, perhaps even our souls.

True success is measured in healthy balance of work and play; it is measured in healthy relationships, with family and friends, even coworkers. True success is measured in pleasing God (1 Thess. 2:4), obeying him and glorifying him (1 Cor. 10:31). These will bring lasting rewards, crowns that will not fade with time but will endure throughout eternity (1 Pet. 5:4).

If control is the means for Tully's success, the means for our spiritual success is service. As we serve those around us, we build them up and our relationships grow stronger. We serve God, and in serving him we minister to others. More than service, love is central. When we love God and then our neighbor (Lk. 10:27), we are pouring ourself into an enduring endeavour. Success will surely follow.

Gilroy slyly brings us new information on the love-hate relationship between Ray and Claire. Employing a clever multi-screen view to segue between the past and present, he shows us there is more to this than we first saw. And as the movie progresses, it becomes clear that they have to trust each other and their team to make their spying and stealing work. But even as this emerges, it seems that the different players are playing each other, so that it is unclear who is on whose side. A scam is happening, but what scam?

This brings us to trust and love. Trust is in short supply here. Can spies really trust? Who do they trust? Certainly, Ray and Claire must trust each other if there is true love between them. But is there this love? For us, if we love someone we need to trust enough to let them see who we really are. We keep our true self hidden most of the time in pursuit of success, but the woman we sleep with needs to know her husband. Ray puts his finger on this when he says to Claire, "I look at you, and I think, 'That woman . . . that woman knows who I am and loves me anyway.' " What is necessary in a human love relationship is infinitely more relevant with God.

Jesus is the only person who completely and absolutely knows us, warts and all. And he loves us anyway. It does not matter what you have done, where you have been. He does not hold that against you. He simply loves you and wants you to love him back. He stands at the door waiting for you to open and let him in (Rev. 3:20). No one else offers that kind of unconditonal acceptance and love. After all, isn't that we what we all really want?

Duplicity offers a sharp picture of deceit and double-dealing. It takes us on a merry journey that requires keen observation to follow the trickery and twists. Yet, it lands on the runway of trust and stops at the gate of unconditional love offered by Jesus, who said he was the gate (Jn. 10:7). Will you exit the plane and enter into his love, or will you look for your own form of human success and acceptance like the two CEOs?

Copyright ©2009, Martin Baggs

Finding Neverland -- imagination and faith

2009-11-03T07:00:00.000-08:00

Director: Marc Forster, 2004.

"Grow up." "Act your age." "Quit being a kid." "Be a man." How many times have we heard people tell us one of these? Or maybe we have used them on our kids. They sound so mature and logical. But they fly in the face of the premise of this movie.

Finding Neverland takes us behind the scenes of "Peter Pan," telling the story that led to that play's creation. Though it is based on real life, some of the events are more imaginative or modified, such as the conflating of five Llewelyn Davies children into four. But surely a movie that extols imagination can be cut some inventive slack.

Johnny Depp (Chocolat) plays James M. Barrie, the Scottish playwright, with a marvelous brogue and a genuine sense of wonder. Coming off an opening night flop, Barrie is keen to create a play that will be a hit. But he has writer's block. His beautiful but distant wife Mary (Radha Mitchell) is no help. There is little love shared between the two. For them, appearance and proper behavior is paramount. After all, this is 1903 London, barely post-Victorian.

Enter Sylvia Llewelyn Davies (Kate Winslet) and her brood of kids. When Barrie is walking his dog in a London park, he meets Peter (Freddie Highmore), one of her sons. Peter and Barrie are foils to one another, at the very heart of the film. When Barrie invites Sylvia and her sons to sit and watch him put on a show, he entreats them to activate their childlike imaginations and turn his dog, Porthos, into a dancing bear. The initial interchange between Peter and Barrie set the tone for the film and defines a key theme.

When Peter says cynically, reclining on the green grass, "This is absurd. It's just a dog," Barrie retorts,"Just a dog? Just?" Offended, Barrie addresses his dog first and then Peter:

Porthos, don't listen! Porthos dreams of being a bear, and you want to shatter those dreams by saying he's just a dog? What a horrible candle-snuffing word. That's like saying, 'He can't climb that mountain, he's just a man,' or 'That's not a diamond, it's just a rock.' Just.

Peter has suffered the loss of his father. (In real life, his father was alive when Barrie met them, but his death makes for a better narrative.) He has not processed his grief, and is not ready to embrace dreams that are fragile. He does not want them dashed, as were all his dreams for enjoying time with his dad.

How often do we quash other's dreams with this little word "just." We may put down our kids' goals and aspirations, suggesting they "be real" yet in the process put to death their imagination. Death by little words. Maybe we do this to ourselves with negative self-talk. "I am just a blog-writer," I might say. What I really want is to be an author, writing books that people enjoy and are transformed by. Yet that little word "just" diminishes my hopes and dreams until I settle for what is, instead of aspiring for what could be. Just. Jesus said with faith even as tiny as a mustard seed, as small as could be imagined, nothing would be impossible (Matt. 17:20).

Craig Detweiler, in his excellent book "Into the Dark," quotes another of Barrie's line from this early scene which lays out the film's central thesis: " 'With those eyes, my bonnie lad, I'm afraid you'll never see it. However, with a wee bit of imagination, I can turn around right now and see the great bear, Porthos.' Producer Richard Gladstein says, 'That line is really the quintessential part of the movie. . . . It's really about giving a child back his childhood." Imagining vs settling, growing up vs staying childlike, believing vs disbelieving, these are the antithetical pairs that focus the movie.

As Barrie develops a friendship with the Llewelyn Davies family, he grows more child-like even as Peter stoically remains adult-like. To almost each scene with the boys Barrie brings toys for his imaginative games. Sometimes he is a pirate taking captives, other times he is an Indian shooting cowboys. Yet as he grows closer to them, he grows more distant from his wife. And he draws the ire of Sylvia's pragmatic mother (Julie Christie). She is worried about how the appearance of a grown man acting like a child around a widow can impact the social and marital prospects, rather than being concerned for the boys' well-being. Straitlaced, she is great at social conformity and adept at quashing many dreams.

The whole concept of believing is highlighted in two other scenes. First, we see Barrie trying to show the boys how to fly a kite. When Michael, the youngest, tries the first time he fails and the other boys offer dream-quashing comments, "Oh, I told you this wasn't going to work!" and "I don't think he's fast enough." But the child-like Barrie speaks words of encouragement, calling for faith, "It's not going to work if no one believes in him!" Faith is what they needed.

Then, toward the end of the film, when Sylvia lies ill in bed, Barrie uncharacteristically tells her, "They can see it, you know. You can't go on just pretending." (There's that just word again.) But she refutes this with passion: "Just pretending? You brought pretending into this family, James. You showed us we can change things by simply believing them to be different." And in a closing scene with Peter, Barrie pleads with the boy, "Just believe." And in a moment of magic that will cut through the most hardened heart, Peter finally believes, and lets his grief emerge with a single tear. The man has accepted responsibility and the boy has become a child.

Jesus has called us to become like little children if we wish to enter into his kingdom (Matt. 18:3). As we give up our own maturity and wisdom and once more look at life with eyes that can see the wonder of the dew drop on the rose petal or the beauty of the sunset over the Pacific, we learn to play again. We learn to laugh again. We can dream big dreams again. We can become a writer or an astronaut, a pro sports player or an actor.

Barrie's playing with the boys releases his own imagination. And from this emerges the ground-breaking concept of a playful play. At the time, plays were serious, not fantastic. But, drawing heavily from his times with the Llewelyn Davis family, he creates "Peter Pan," the story of a boy who would not grow up, and who goes to Neverland, the mythical place where we never grow old. And this would be his magnum opus.

The contrast between growing up and staying childlike is captured in two crucial scenes. In one, George, another of the boys, realizes his mother is seriously ill. Watching his reaction, Barrie comments, "Magnificent. The boy is gone. In the last 30 seconds . . . you became a grown-up." Is this a compliment or a put-down? In perhaps the most poignant scene, Barrie finally opens up about Neverland. He has never told this to anyone, but he recounts to Sylvia how the death of his younger brother, when he himself was a child, traumatized his mother and left him in a perpetual child-like state. Evan as an adult, he has retreated from his responsibilities. He has continued to be a child. What a contrast to Peter, and even to George, two young boys who behave like middle-aged men.

Jesus once said if we have faith we can move mountains (Matt. 21:21). We have limited our faith with our adult reasoning. But if faith can save a man destined for hell (Eph. 2:8), if that faith can provide forgiveness of sins (Col. 1:14), all our sins past, present and future (Col. 2:13), that same faith can make us realize dreams we were too afraid even to tell our friends. It's time to give up growing up. It's time to play like a child. It's time to look at life through the eyes of our imaginations.

As nostalgic and mushy as it seems, Finding Neverland is a beautiful film, giving testament to the wonder of a child's imagination. And it points us to faith in a God who can change things.

Copyright ©2009, Martin Baggs

Blood Simple -- guarantees, isolation and tests

2009-10-31T07:00:00.000-07:00

Director: Joel Coen, 1984.

A quarter century ago a pair of fresh young film-makers hit the scene. They were the brothers Coen. This was their first film, but it contains seeds of the greatness that was to come, with foreshadowings of both Fargo and their Best Picture Oscar, No Country for Old Men.

Like No Country, Blood Simple is set in Texas. But where the later film used the harsh landscape almost as a character, here is is used simply as a backdrop for a film noir. Like any good noir, the private eye provides voice-over narration. Well, at least for the opening scene, but that's all that's needed to provide context for what is about to unfold:

The world is full o' complainers. An' the fact is, nothin' comes with a guarantee. Now I don't care if you're the pope of Rome, President of the United States or Man of the Year; somethin' can all go wrong. Now go on ahead, y'know, complain, tell your problems to your neighbor, ask for help, 'n watch him fly. Now, in Russia, they got it mapped out so that everyone pulls for everyone else... that's the theory, anyway. But what I know about is Texas, an' down here... you're on your own.

Two major themes emerge from this initial soliloquy: guarantees and isolation.

Like most film noir, the premise is clear: cuckolded husband hires a man to kill his wife. But the characters are complex: a cheating wife and a jealous husband, a committed lover and a jaded detective.

When Marty (Dan Hedaya) finds out that his wife Abby (Frances McDormand) is sleeping with his employee Ray (John Getz), he solicits the private eye who discovered the adulterous pair in the act, Loren Visser (M. Emmet Walsh), to murder them both. A simple, if sinful, proposition, yet Marty doesn't count on the depths of deceit of the detective, whose greed outstrips his guile. Double-cross follows double-cross until it is unclear whose heart is the coldest.

Of the four main characters, Visser is the simplest and the wickedest. Contrary to film noir norms, this private detective is no good guy. He is not even gray and shadowy. He is cold and cunning, manipulating and malevolent. Although he prefers to stay within the law, he has no conscience about crossing the line if the price is right. Honor and honesty are words absent from his phrasebook. The Coens even portray his evil with careful camera work that focuses on the sweat that slowly slides down his face and the flies that alight on his head. The diseases that the flies may carry are nothing compared to the wickedness that he harbors in his heart. This, combined with a satanic laugh, makes Visser a vile villain.

Since Marty is the husband wronged, he might be the sympathetic hero. But he is loud and obnoxious, and a would-be murderer. He has no charm, no heart, only a love of money. He wants his pound of flesh. He wants his guarantees. But, "nothin' comes with a guarantee," and Marty finds out first-hand how true this is in painful and humiliating ways.

Speaking of guarantees, Benjamin Franklin once said, "in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes." Even Jesus needed to pay taxes when he walked the earth, though he came up with the money in a miraculous manner (Matt. 17:27). And Jesus faced death, an ignominious penal death by crucifixion. The penalty, though, was not his but ours. Jesus died on our behalf to take the punishment for our sins, that we might find forgiveness and freedom to live in him (Eph. 1:7). Visser was wrong; life comes with a guarantee. We face a choice with two guaranteed outcomes: new life in Jesus (Matt. 25:34) or separation from God apart from him (Matt. 25:41, 46).

Unlike Marty, Abby is the real protagonist in this dark film. Though she sets the wheels in motion with her infidelities, she remains in the dark through most of the narrative. Separated from Marty, when Ray becomes guilt-crazed in a Macbethian manner, Abby realizes she has no one to turn to. She is isolated, on her own. And she does not really know what is happening around her.

Abby may be alone, but we have a guarantee of community and fellowship with Jesus. When we trust him, we are brought into his family as children of God (). Moreover, we become members of the body of Christ, the church universal, even if we are not attending a local church. Best of all, Jesus promises never to leave us or forsake us (). Others might walk away, leaving us like Abby to face our enemies apart from other people. But Jesus will always be with us.

And then there's Ray. When we first meet Ray he seems just a small-town hick, harmless enough. But the way of the adultress is death, as Proverbs says (Prov. 2:16-19). His choices cause him to slide slowly down the slippery slope. But it his love, misplaced though it may be, that drives him there. Visser, the film's anti-conscience, speaks to Marty in one scene about getting our hands dirty. "That's the test, ain't it? Test of true love." Ray in his ignorance misreads the signs and seeks to save his "true love" Abby by getting his hands down and dirty. But at what cost.

Jesus got his hands dirty for us. He humbled himself by clothing his godness in humanity (Phil. 2:6-7). Then he had his hands pierced, nailed to the rough wood of a cross of execution (Acts 2:23). He died to save his true love, humanity; you and me. What we could not do, he did for us. And unlike Ray, Jesus was able to complete his mission, saving us in his love. Our life comes through Jesus' blood simple.

Copyright ©2009, Martin Baggs

Caché -- guilt and sins of the past

2009-10-28T07:00:00.000-07:00

Director: Michael Haneke, 2005.

Caché is a French suspense thriller that defies traditional Hollywood norms. Moodily sad, it ratchets the tension but leaves the ending ambiguous with no real closure. This is intentional, as Haneke wants the audience to reflect on the various possibilities and come up with their own interpretation of the film. For a typical American viewer this may be quite frustrating. For European viewers this will resonate.

The movie opens with an extended camera shot, sans music, of an apartment viewed from an adjacent alley. With little action or movement, we wait patiently until we see the Parisian couple who live there: Georges (Daniel Auteuil), the host of a TV talk show, his wife Anne (Juliette Binoche, Blue), and their teenage son Pierrot (Lester Makedonsky). When this long, boring surveillance video tape anonymously arrives at their doorstep they are puzzled. But when additional tapes and gory child-like drawings show up, it is clear they are being stalked by a mysterious enemy with an unknown agenda.

When the tapes start to open closets containing skeletons and dreams unearth images of the past, Daniel suspects a culprit. He remarks to Anne, "I have a hunch." But he refuses to share more than this with her. "Can't you tell me?" she shouts. "No, because it's only a hunch." This leaves her furious. Haneke uses this pivotal scene to spring the trap that will catch Georges and force his hand. Anne despairingly cries out, "You never heard of trust?"

Anne has a point. She is, after all, his wife. She deserves his trust. But he is unwilling to open up. A marriage is built on trust. Without this as a foundation it will begin to collapse inwards on itself. Jesus told a parable about faith using the imagery of a house built on sand (Matt. 7:26-27). This is similar. Trust is integral to a healthy relationship. Where this is missing, deception takes root. And this is what occurs in the Laurent house. Georges' lack of trust begins a slow disintegration of his family.

The French title is translated "Hidden" and so much is hidden here. The truth is hidden from Anne by Georges. He hides his emotions from her. She hides depths of relationships from him. Even the cinematography employed by Haneke is designed so that image hides image. According to the director, this is just like reality. He claims that we see only what we want or think, that we never know the truth because there are thousands of truths rather than just one. It is certainly true that different perspectives often offer contradictory takes on reality. Yet, Jesus came claiming to be "the way, the truth and the life" (Jn. 14:16). He did not soften this absolute statement. He is truth. There is truth. We need to look carefully for it.

As Georges goes looking for the truth he resurrects long-forgotten memories, and he finds something he wished had remained lost. Not wishing to share his discovery with Anne, he further damages their fragile trust by lying to her, a lie that will come back to haunt him.

This is one of the themes the Haneke plays with here. We may consider a lie to be trivial, a little white lie. We may rationalize that untruths like this are not bad lies, or that we are fudging or hiding the truth simply to protect our lover. But the director points out that one step in that direction and we have to follow a path that is now defined. Referring to Christian moral terms, Haneke in a commentary refers to sin as a deviation from the righteous path, that once committed leads us further and further down.

Of course, the non-believing Haneke does not allow for repentance, confession and forgiveness. This is the way to break this one-way path to destruction. By admitting the sin, the lies in this case, and not simply defending oneself, true repentance can lead to restoration of relationship. This is what God offers to us, his creatures who have turned aside and gone our own way (Isa 53:6). We have forsaken his path, we have lied to him, we have sinned. Forgiveness is available in Jesus (Ac. 13:38), who paid the price for us at the cross (Rom. 3:25-26).

Haneke extends the concept of hidden things from the personal sins of the man to the public sins of nations. With a clear reference to events that took place in 1961, he puts a spotlight on the 200 Algerian corpses that floated down the Seine during the Algerian War. The French denied this incident for over 35 years before acknowledging in 1998 that at least 40 people died. The shameful acts of the French nation's past still could not remain hidden. These sins of the past eventually caught up with the present and became public. What is true at the personal level is mirrored at the national level.

So, with his sins catching up to him, Georges has to deal with his guilt. The central theme, then, of Caché is how can a person live with guilt. Will he accept it and deal with it? Or will he ignore it? And if so what does this do to him? In this movie analysis, guilt is not such a simple thing. Others, such as Georges' mother, come under the microscope. Even Anne has veiled secrets of her own. There may be enough guilt to share, but the spotlight remains true and focused on Georges. He cannot escape. His sins are no longer hidden. His guilt is center-stage. It has had impacts rippling beyond his own life.

Guilt itself is not a bad thing. It is there to prick our conscience, reminding us that we have transgressed, crossed the line. If we heed guilt's rooster call, we can confess and make course correction. We can come back to God; we can come back to our families. But if we ignore this call, we suppress guilt causing it to fester like a sore. When this happens we have seared our conscience (1 Tim. 4:2), and we begin to develop a guilty conscience, that will come back to bite us at some point. Even if we "get away" with it in this life, we must still face God. Better to 'fess us now, kneeling before the throne of God and leaving our sin at the cross, than carry this burden to the throne later.

Unlike an American thriller, where the conflict faced by the couple would be the catalyst that brings them back together, the conflict here leaves the Laurent family broken and hurt, much like real life. And like real life, the answers to the film's resolution will differ.

Copyright ©2009, Martin Baggs

Unremembered -- rediscovering the past

2009-10-25T07:00:00.000-07:00

Director: Greg Kerr, 2009.

Independent film-maker Greg Kerr brings a striking debut full-length feature to the big screen. Kerr, who is by day a professor at Portland Community College teaching screen writing classes, wrote this screenplay, then self-funded its production in Oregon. A labor of love, it took over 5 years to come to fruition. This is a film made on a shoe-string budget of $31,000, and that is evident. But after the first 5 minutes, the story is strong enough to make us forget the film's limitations. Indeed, the screenplay won Award of Merit at The Indie Fest in California.

"If you had it to do over again, what would you do?" This opening line sets the stage for what is to come -- a sci-fi mystery with a non-linear narrative. There will be opportunities for the protagonist to "live over" his life and rediscover his past. In fact, the film is similar in many ways to Donnie Darko or Memento but in reverse. It takes us through 16 days in the life of John Outis (Tim Delaney), but these 16 days last a literal lifetime.

Unremembered plays with time while giving us, in Kerr's words, "a romp through relativity." It is a complex and convoluted film that plays on multiple levels. As a neo noir, it has the classic sultry femme fatale separating a man and his wife. As a mystery, it is unconventional in making the 'detective' a physics professor, who explains in layman's terms aspects of Einstein's special relativity without belaboring the theory or descending into a patronizing lecture.

If the plotline is fascinating, the quality of acting is surprising. The four lead actors all give strong performances, and Tim Delaney received an Award of Merit for his role. But watching it as a physicist and theologian, I was drawn into the film's main themes of dreams, time, existence, and will, and the spiritual parallels. This independent movie contains more meat to chew on than a number of mainstream Hollywood formula films. It almost begs a second viewing simply to see how the circular timing makes sense.

As the film opens, John Outis stands outside a beautiful home, covered in blood, holding a knife. When he washes the blood off, standing next to an Asian woman, Penelope (Laura Duyn), she seems to not notice him. After he is thrown out of the house by her lover Anthony (Spencer Conway), John is arrested on suspicion of being a thief. But when the police have no remembrance of who he is and why he was arrested, things start to get interesting. Confusing, though, is the fact that John does not know who he is. He has no memory, no past. These first few scenes come rapid fire, leaving the audience as bewildered as the hero. We don't know what's happening any more than John does.

On day 2, when John returns to this house, Penelope welcomes him in. Apparently they have been together a month. But still John cannot remember his past. His confusion is exacerbated. Realizing the police are likely to be of no help, he seeks out an expert, in this case a physics professor, Tina Plantes (Karla Mason). Intrigued, she agrees to help as long as he can come up with proof, evidence. She is a scientist, after all.

As the film progresses John's past seems to change daily. And as it does, the people in the present change too. So, like Groundhog Day, John reprises his visit to Tina's house, injecting some humor to offset the dark drama that is developing. Little by little, though, she begins to peel back the onion of this problem. And she forms hypotheses that can be tested based on special relativity and the perceptions of time.

Dreams form a critical element. John's dreams show him things that happened in his past, thereby enlightening him, or things that are to come, thereby warning him. They are the connection between John's timeline and that of other people. The importance of dreams here is a reflection, in a way, of the truth that dreams can communicate truth. God has used dreams to convey his message to humans in the past. He spoke to Jacob in a dream (Gen. 28:12-15). He used a series of dreams to free Joseph from an Egyptian prison (Gen. 40-41). Pilate's wife was warned in a dream about Jesus' innocence (Matt. 27:19), but could not disuade her husband from condeming Christ. He still uses dreams today, predominantly in cultures that are less rationalistic. That is why many Muslims who convert to Christianity today describe dreams as the way God reached out to them.

As the days continue, John's past emerges. He is not the wounded hero he at first seemed. Callie (Carmela Ramaglia) enters the picture, a foxy mistress. Indeed, there is a history there, a sordid affair. Murder, blackmail and betrayal are piled on, as the thriller gathers momentum towards its climax.

It becomes clear to Tina, if not to John at first, that he is in a different timeline. She brings up the very question of existence: "I don't think that you exist in time like the rest of the world. History is catching up with you." Disconnected timelines are causing weird happenings.

This raises the question of time itself. Is it linear and constant for everyone? Einstein proved that if we move at close to the speed of light not only will we get a speeding ticket but we will also experience a slowing of time. Time, apparently, is not constant. Can there be different timelines, parallel to one another? Superstring theory, in physics, has postulated multiple dimensions beyond space and time. (Brian Greene has written a very readable book on this: "The Elegant Universe," 1999.) And multiverse hypotheses, seeking to understand all that is, propose that multiple parallel universes exist (see Michio Kaku's book, "Hyperspace," 1994). Hard to visualize, there may be more to reality, including time, than most of us know.

Indeed, Unremembered brings to mind the parallels between Jesus and John Outis. John exists in a different timeline to the rest of the world. To others, he is outside of time. Yet he can intersect their timeline in different ways. Before God created all that is, Jesus pre-existed (Jn. 1:1), outside of time. He can intersect with our timeline in an infinite number of points, thus enabling him to experience the past, present and future as if it were one. As hard as it is for us to understand, Unremembered offers a faint glimpse of how this might work.

Then there is the question of existence: what is existence? Is John real or is he somehow an apparition, a figment of someone's imagination. If he is outside of Tina's and Penelope's timeline can he exist for them? Tina says to him, "I can touch you. But you don't exist." Which is it? Do we deny our senses? Jesus said something similar to Thomas, after his resurrection. When he appeared to the disciples gathered in a locked room. Just as John says to Tina, "Why do you doubt me?" so too Jesus said to Thomas, "Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe." (Jn. 20:27)

Furthermore, John is told at one point, "You can't protect us and save yourself." That was true of Jesus. As his life on earth moved inexorably toward Golgotha and crucifixion, he could save himself or he could save the world. But he could not do both. One had to give. He chose to voluntarily take our place and die on the cross. What sacrifice.

Kerr throws in the issue of the human will. Both John and Tina exercise their wills to create reality and connection points. How much freedom does a person have? Conversely, how much of life is determined? This is a classic conundrum in theology debated for centuries: predestination versus free will.

But there the similarities between John Outis and Jesus end. John is actually an antihero, and his growing understanding of his past reveal dark secrets. He is no savior. Though we are sympathetic towards him, particularly due to Delaney's performance, the sinister side of John's life slowly emerges. The sins of his past seemingly cannot be avoided, and they creep into his present and future.

Unremembered catapults to a startling ending, leaving the viewer wondering and thinking. The clues are there. Some see them and connect the dots; others don't. The film opens the door to various interpretations, but the director's statements help shed light on the plot. For an unknown movie, Unremembered will certainly be unforgotten.

Copyright ©2009, Martin Baggs

Monty Python and The Holy Grail -- the true God and his word

2009-10-22T07:00:00.001-07:00

Director: Terry Gilliam & Terry Jones, 1975.

Forty years ago this October a group of 6 young men came together to form an awfully silly and awfully funny new comedy troupe. Brits John Cleese, Michael Palin, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Graham Chapman, and American Terry Gilliam created the now world-famous Monty Python for the BBC TV show, Monty Python's Flying Circus. 45 episodes and 5 films later they called it a day in 1983. But their humor still lives on in DVD collections of compilations.

Their first non-compilation film is a hilarious parody of the knights in shining armor quest genre. Mostly directed by Terry Jones, animator Terry Gilliam stepped in for several scenes when Jones got fed up and gave up. Yet, despite their directorial disagreements and the low budget, the team came up with an anarchic film that is loose on plot but is strong on comic skits. Throw in a few animations and a couple of songs, and the small-screen TV show turns into a cult classic big-screen comedy.

The storyline that holds these episodic scenes together are the two quests embarked upon by King Arthur. His first quest is to seek knights to join his Round Table. We first see him and his servant "riding" over a hilltop. Since the budget was so low that they could not afford real horses, and they came up with the idea of using coconuts to create the clop-clopping noise of the horses' hooves and employ this device throughout.

There are some famously memorable lines in The Holy Grail. The Dead Collector yells, "Bring out yer dead," a spoof on the black death. (And the old man who pleads, "I'm not dead.") Then there is the wonderfully mixed up logic for determining if a woman (Connie Booth, one-time wife of John Cleese) is a witch ("If she weighed the same as a duck. . . she's made of wood. . . And therefore. . . A witch"). Of course, who can forget the Black Knight and his "flesh wound,"or the Knights who say Ni.

One of the funniest scenes occurs early on, an anachronistic parody of political science and imperialism versus communism. King Arthur has yet to find a knight and comes across Dennis (John Cleese) and his wife, a common peasant toiling in the mud. He introduces himself as their king, and Dennis responds, "Oh, king eh? Very nice. And how'd you get that, eh? By exploiting the workers. By hanging on to outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the economic and social differences in our society." When Dennis takes a break, the woman chimes in, "I didn't know we had a king. I thought we were an autonomous collective." Ignoring King Arthur, Dennis answers her, "You're fooling yourself! We're living in a dictatorship. A self-perpetuating autocracy, in which the working class. . . " and he trails off.

Just as neither of these peasants knew they had a king, many today live in ignorance of the one true King, Jesus (Rev. 1:5; 19:16). The peasants didn't experience any benefit from having a sovereign. Unlike them, when we bend our knee in allegiance to our King, we instantly receive sonship in his family (Jn. 1:12), not serfdom. And unlike many medieval kings who did exploit their subjects, taxing them for personal gain or to support war efforts, King Jesus does not explout or oppress the masses. He has lived in the margins, with no place to call home (Lk. 9:58). He understands what it is like to be down-trodden, to be poor, to be a manual worker. He will not Lord it over us as other kings would. That is the kind of King I want.

When King Arthur succeeds in gathering a motley group of knights to follow him, including Sir Galahad the pure, Sir Bedevere the quiet, Sir Lancelot the brave, and Sir Robin the not-quite-so-brave-as-Sir-Lancelot, he gets a second quest. God appears in the clouds, an animated figure, and speaks to him, telling him to go in search of the holy grail. (The holy grail is the chalice that Jesus drank from and shared with his disciples during the last supper -- Lk. 22:17). But in this interchange, God is decidedly grumpy:

God: What are you doing now?
King Arthur: Averting our eyes, oh Lord.
God: Well, don't. It's just like those miserable psalms, always so depressing. Now knock it off! . . . Every time I try to talk to someone it's "sorry this" and "forgive me that" and "I'm not worthy."

This is a comic caricature of God, unfortunately one held by many people. He is seen as a party pooper, a cosmic kill-joy. But, God is not this grumpy person. He is a loving and joy-filled father who wants to enjoy us, his created children, and wants us to enjoy life and all that it entails (1 Tim. 6:17). Furthermore, in this scene God seems to want to be on the same plane as Arthur. Yet, biblically God is exactly the opposite. He is portrayed as completely holy (Isa. 6:3), which is why mortal men like Isaiah realize they are not worthy to be in his presence (Isa. 6:5). And seeing our own sin in the light of God's purity, we cry out for his mercy (Isa. 6:7). This is almost a knee-jerk reaction to God's innate character.

Moreover, the psalms are not at all miserable. They may be difficult to understand, as poetry can be. But they are joyful and loved, a blessing to many a worshiper. Their emotive power penetrates the heart of those who are suffering or grieving, of those who are depressed or rejoicing.The shepherd's Psalm 23 is a pastoral favorite beloved by most Christians ("The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want"). Psalms of thanksgiving, such as Psalm 100, call out plentiful praises to God ("Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the LORD is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations"). Then there are the Messianic Psalms, which point prophetically to the coming Messiah. The most quoted of these is Psalm 110 ("The LORD says to my Lord: 'Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.' "). Finally, the psalms portray the beauty inherent in God's word, the Bible, such as Psalm 119 ("Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path").

Speaking of the Bible, King Arthur makes implicit reference to this holy text when he needs help. Facing the dreaded killer rabbit, only the "Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch" will suffice. But the king has a problem: "How does it work?" When no one can answer him, Arthur declares, "Consult the Book of Armaments." And Brother Maynard, one of the attending priests, opens the book, "Armaments, chapter two, verses nine through twenty-one."

As much as this elicits laughter, it does impress the point of the power of the holy word. The Bible is God's very own communication to man: "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness" (2 Tim. 3:16). As such "the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart" (Heb. 4:12). More powerful than a stick of dynamite or a holy hand grenade, it shows us how to come to a life-bringing faith in the life-bringer, Jesus (Acts 4:12, Rom. 10:10).

For an irreverent parody, Holy Grail points us back to God and the Bible, both key doctrines in theology. And interestingly, when the team were asked by the press what their next project would be, Eric Idle flippantly answered, "Jesus Christ's Lust For Glory." When they realized this shut the reporters up, they continued to use this answer. And over time, they got to thinking that something like that would be a great topic, and this led to The Life of Brian, another comedy that served up much food for theological thought.

Copyright ©2009, Martin Baggs

Sunshine Cleaning -- a picture of ministry

2009-10-19T07:00:00.000-07:00

Director: Christine Jeffs, 2008.

If you've seen crime movies or TV shows you have no doubt seen numerous crime scenes. Dead bodies litter the celluloid landscape, with yellow tape keeping the curious back. But when the CSI specialists have taken all their specimens, the detectives are done, and the coroner's office has removed the corpses, who cleans up the mess that remains? Who you gonna call -- Ghostbusters? No, Sunshine Cleaning!

The film focuses on two sisters Rose (Amy Adams, Doubt) and Norah (Emily Blunt, The Devil Wears Prada), and their would-be entrepreneur father Joe (Alan Arkin, Little Miss Sunshine). This is a typical dysfunctional family, each with their own problems. Rose is a single mom who can't find a man to marry. Norah is single and can't hold down a job. Joe has too many crazy ideas with no business plan to separate the good from the bad and the ugly.

Rose, the former head cheerleader, is still in love with former boyfriend, high-school star quarterback Mac (Steve Zahn). But he is married with children. He is using Rose and will never leave his wife. Yet Rose is too weak to face this truth. She knows it, because she tries to motivate herself with a bathroom mirror pep-talk: "You are strong, you are powerful, you can do anything, you are a winner." Mere words are not enough. She needs a crisis and a catharsis.

Rose's self-talk, though it is addressing her diametrically reversed intrinsic condition, reminds her and us of a common plight. We want to be strong but we are not. It brings to mind words penned by Paul the apostle in Phil. 4:13: "I can do everything through him who gives me strength." Like Rose, Paul recognized his own weakness. But instead of looking at himself and seeking "bootstrap strength," he called on the Lord Jesus who said to him, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." (2 Cor. 12: 9). In truth, Paul understood the concept of finding his strength in God alone: "For when I am weak, then I am strong." (2 Cor. 12:10)

Rose's crisis comes when her son Oscar (Jason Spevack) gets kicked out of school. She faces a dilemma: she wants to put him in private school but her job as a maid, house-cleaning for others, won't pay the ticket. That's when Mac says there is big money in cleaning up crime scenes. With few options, she persuades Norah to join her in sisterly business venture, Sunshine Cleaning.

When they come to their first trailer park suicide clean-up, Rose tells Norah, "All we have to do is go in there and throw everything away." It sounds so simple. If only it were. In a sense, this is another of Rose's self-revelations. All her life she has been throwing everything away. She has not stopped to take stock of what she has and what she wants or needs. As the "responsible" older sister, she has always looked after Norah. Now she is doing this for other people.

Sunshine Cleaning is a comic drama focusing on dark subject matter -- suicide. The leads play well together and have good chemistry. As a quirky low-budget film, it is short but feels longer. It employs a little too many stereotypes for a typical indie movie, and the comedy feels strained in places. But it is of interest for its characters and offers two terrific scenes worth pondering.

In one scene, Sunshine Cleaning has been called out to Mrs. Davis' home, where her husband has killed himself. When Rose sees the widow lost in her loss, she tenderly asks, "Mrs. Davis, would you like me to sit with you for a little while?" As they sit together silently, simply holding hands and shedding quiet tears, it is a reminder of how we can minister to the grieving. Words carry little comfort. The present of personal presence is far more precious. As Job's three friends showed us, when they sat with the grieving man in peace and quiet for seven days they provided solace (Job. 2:11-13). But when they started to analyze and comment they created rifts (Job 3-31). We can best minister to a grieving friend by simply being there.

If this scene gives a glimpse into silent ministry, the next scene presents a beautiful verbal definition of ministry. When Rose is invited to a baby-shower of a former high-school friend, now very well-to-do, she sees this as a way to reconnect. But she is out of her league. She mops up after death; they sell real estate. She sits in silence with widows; they prattle on with each other about trivialities.

When she tells these so-called friends what she does, "We go in and clean up the mess and make sure that everything is clean and sanitary," they stare at her with mouths agape. "You like doing that?" they ask in unbelieving amazement. And that's when we see her catharsis, her eyes lighting up with fresh vitality. With a genuine smile of contentment and satisfaction on her face she answers them,

Yeah, I do. We come into people's lives when they have experienced something profound and sad. They've lost somebody. You know. And the circumstances, they're always different. But that's the same. And . . . we help. In some small way, we help.

She has found strength in her weakness. She has discovered the beauty of serving others in distress and in need. She has found her vocation. If she were a follower of Jesus, she would say she has found her calling and ministry.

Ministry is all about serving those in need. Like Rose, if we are Christians we are called to serve (Gal. 5:13), to help those who are in need. If we can enter people's lives and make a difference by helping them in some small way, then we have succeeded in ministry. We do this for Jesus (1 Cor. 10:31) and in his strength (1 Tim. 1:12, 1 Pet. 4:11). And regardless of what our form of service is, whether to the Rescue Mission or to the widow, to the newcomer with no friends or to the criminal reestablishing himself in society, Jesus knows our hearts. If we help them, then one day we will hear those precious words coming from our Savior's mouth, "Well done, good and faithful servant! . . . Come and share your master's happiness!" (Matt. 25:21)

Copyright ©2009, Martin Baggs