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Every Monday the Journey with Jesus posts a new essay based upon the Biblical lectionary, a film review, a book review, and a poem or prayer.
Our Faith & Film section has a revised layout as of January 2006. The current film is now featured on this page. You may view our archive of over 250 films from 35 countries in two ways: (1) indexed by title; or (2) you may scroll through all film reviews at once, although this page will load more slowly because of the graphics.
These films provoked me to think afresh about our human condition and what it means to believe, confess and live the Gospel in our modern world. My selection criterion was simple—these are films I liked. Note that if you click on the film title you will be taken to the Movie Review Query Engine and multiple reviews of each film. For example, if you click on the title The Last Temptation of Christ you will be taken directly to 51 reviews of that film. For Whale Rider you get 181 reviews, and so on.
The single best film resource is the Internet Movie Database (http://www.imdb.com).For specifically Christian perspectives, see the following three books.Donald Drew, Images of Man; A Critique of the Contemporary Cinema (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1974); Robert Johnston, Reel Spirituality: Theology and Film in Dialogue (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 2000); and William Romanowski, Eyes Wide Open; Looking for God in Popular Culture (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2001).For a broader critique see the now classic work by Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death; Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (New York: Penquin, 1986).
This documentary recounts the history of some 20,000 Jews who fled 8,000 miles from Europe to Shanghai during World War II when most all other countries had closed their borders to them. At the time, much of China, including Shanghai, was occupied and controlled by Japan. Because of their own racist stereotypes, the Japanese feared the Jews, and so allowed the refugees to exist in the "Restricted Sector for Stateless Refugees" with the help of wealthy Baghdadi and poorer Russian Jews who had already settled there, along with western aid. A rich cultural life emerged that included schools, theater, newspapers, and music. As one of the poorest sections of Shanghai, life for the local Chinese who lived together with the Jews was often worse. After Pearl Harbor, American attacks on the Japanese in China made the horrible conditions in Shaghai even worse. The film draws upon archival footage, diaries, letters, historians, and, most powerfully of all, interviews with a half dozen survivors who were children of eight to ten years old at the time.
August 18, 2008: Featured this week is 