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Faith & Film
June 29, 2009: Featured this week is Under the Bombs.
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).
In the summer of 2006 Israel bombed southern Lebanon for 33 straight days, after which a cease fire was declared. 1189 people died and perhaps a million were made refugees. This film was shot on location after the cease-fire, and uses only two professional actors. Tony is a Christian taxi driver who takes Zeina, a Shiite who had been residing in Dubai, to find her son and sister. They search refugee centers, schools and convents, and end their improbable journey in a monastery where only the inanities of war could explain the bizarre conclusion. The film effectively takes you to the center of the war zone — bull dozers excavating mass graves, thumping helicopters deploying UN troops, bombed out roads and bridges, and the rubble and ruin of people's lives. "Yes, the hatred keeps growing," says one young Lebanese mother, as she stands in front of a shell of a building that used to be her apartment. In Arabic with English subtitles. |
