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Watch for a Change: Movies with Meaning
Standard movie fare at local DVD stores and movie theatres may be leaving you frustrated. Sadly, we continue to be bombarded with violence, bad language, gore and sexual exploitation. However, we want you to be aware that there is good quality stuff out there if you just know where to find it. Remember, you have choices in life. We at Change would like to introduce you to a terrific website we discovered where you can order DVDs worth viewing.
The Spiritual Cinema Circle (www.spiritualcinemacircle.org) is not mainstream Hollywood. It is just the opposite: entertaining, soulful movies that will awaken your sense of joy and wonder, inspire love and compassion, and evoke a deeper sense of connection with the universe around you. Below are three of our picks:
Yellow Brick Road (2005)
A documentary that will steal your heart. Yellow Brick Road follows a group of mentally and physically handicapped men, women and children as they rehearse and perform a production of The Wizard of Oz. The participants are part of a Long Island-based organization called ANCHOR (Answering the Needs of Citizens with Handicaps Through Organized Recreation) that puts on like performances annually. The documentary provides a close look at both the group's theatrical production in 2004 and the day-to-day lives of the participants. We watch the actors struggle with learning lines, following staging instructions, getting into character, and making it to rehearsals. But we also experience the joy they feel when the production comes together and they create something bigger and better than anything they would have created individually.
The Whisperer (2005)
Welcome to a remote region of western Ukraine, near the Carpathian Mountains where a wedding is taking place. Get to know the town's characters and traditions. Singing is ever-present and spontaneous, as is the narrative. We learn that there is a connection between the old folk songs and medicine, and that the best singers are also healers. This is a documentary rich with water imagery. From the rain-streaked windows, to the special water collected from streams used in rituals, to the tears that well in the filmmaker's eyes, to the powerful central focus of the film (a life-giving stream that explodes jubilantly as it fills and overflows the shallow vessel of a spoon), water is the irrepressible force behind the story.
Dance Lexie Dance (1996)
An award winning short film set in Derry, Northern Ireland, tells the story of Lexie, a widowed parent struggling to balance his night shifts with his lively, ten-year-old daughter, Laura, who dreams of being a Riverdancer. This does not set well with her Protestant father. They live on the isolated banks of the River Foyle, and Laura is proving to be more of a handful now that she is growing up. Her father dismisses her dance wish as ridiculous but soon realizes that he must find a way of communicating with his daughter. Despite his clumsy efforts, he helps her to become an Irish dancer, and through the fun they have together, create a bond.
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