Aimee Semple McPherson

—Overview
—About this Film

One day in 1926, a well known evangelist went for a swim and didn’t come back. For a month, the world thought she had drowned. But then she appeared with a story of having been kidnapped. What really happened? Was she really kidnapped? Had she run off for a tryst with the person running her radio station? It was the celebrity scandal of the day. To this day, this may be one of the things Aimee Semple McPherson is best remembered for – her scandal.

Richard Rossi opens his biographical film, Aimee Semple McPherson, with her disappearance, then takes us back to Aimee’s early life on a Canadian farm and lets us discover who the person was behind the headlines.

Rossi has had an interest in McPherson for some time. He became interested in healing ministries when he was growing up by way of the ministry of Katherine Kuhlman. A few years ago he made a documentary about McPherson, getting stories from the surviving people who had been around her. This film gives us a chance to see her life as we are used to seeing stories told in film.

Rossi made this film through a Screen Actors Guild experimental film program that sponsors very low budget films. Although the low budget is obvious at times, he has created an artful telling of the story that has always seemed to capture our attention.

Films about people who fascinate the filmmaker often go one of two ways: they make the subject out to be near perfect, or they show us so many of the warts we can hardly bear to look. In the case of McPherson, the story could have been about how wonderful she was as a healer, a preacher, and innovator. She drew crowds to Angeles Temple each week. She opened soup kitchens for the hungry. She was a pioneer in the idea of the megachurch. She also pioneered using radio and drama to share her message. She was the first woman to own her own radio station. She opened a show on Broadway sharing biblical dramas.

Or, a film about her might also be character assassination. It could paint her as a charlatan preying on her followers and bilking them for their money. It could focus on her love life – she was married three times, twice ending in divorce. It could focus on the scandals like her disappearance or the suspicious circumstances of her death (she died of a barbiturate overdose, which the coroner ruled was accidental.)

Rossi has chosen a middle road. He admires the work she did. But he refuses to turn a blind eye to the problems she had. He never offers definitive answers to the questions about her death or her disappearance, but he offers the possibilities for us to consider.

Throughout the film, he treats McPherson with respect by never doubting her sincerity, her faith or her commitment. The Aimee Semple McPherson we meet is determined to do God’s work because she has been called to do it. There are those in the film who are less noble – especially her mother and third husband.

At the same time, Rossi makes it clear that McPherson had all the problems and needs that are common to us all. He frequently shows her depression and her sense of being alone, even when so many people revere her. Around the time of her third marriage she says, “I’m not like other women, but I’m still like other women.�

There is a discrepancy between her private life and her public persona. In one scene she struggles with her depression, in the next she charms the congregation with her sermon. This difference isn’t treated as a sign of hypocrisy, rather of the struggle to do her ministry in spite her personal difficulties.

She is portrayed as a wounded healer. People come to her for healing, but she is unable to find the healing she needs herself.

In this, we are shown a common problem that faces many in ministry. It is easy to become consumed with the work we are called to do, but fail to take care of our own needs. In professional ministry, especially, the distance that one has to keep with those to whom we minister can often lead to depression and feelings of abandonment.

I have known of Aimee Semple McPherson for a long time. This film gave me a chance to know her not so much as the cultural icon she was and has become, but more as a very human figure trying to serve God as best she could.

I saw this film at a special SAG screening. There are no plans as of yet for a theatrical release. For information about where it might be screened, or to get a copy of the film, consult the film’s website.

—Overview
—About this Film

Murderball

—Overview
—Photos
—About this Film

Quad Rugby: put a bunch of testosterone-ridden quadriplegics in custom wheelchairs, give them a ball, and let them get as violent as they can as they move the ball around a basketball court. When the sport got started in Canada, they called it Murderball. In many ways, it is wonderful therapy, but even more, it is great sport.

We get introduced to the sport in the new documentary, Murderball. But even more important we get introduced to the men who play the game that we discover is more than just an entertaining oddity.

The story follows the US Quad Rugby team beginning with the 2002 world championships in Sweden through the 2004 Paralympic competition in Athens. To give the film a bit of narrative flow, we discover that there is a rivalry developing between the US and Canadian teams. The US has dominated this sport for years. But a former (and disgruntled) US player has gone north to coach Team Canada. To the Americans, this is a betrayal.

Primarily, the film focuses on three personalities. Mark Zupan is one of the American players. Zupan was injured when thrown out of a truck in an accident. One of his long time friends said that Zupan was an asshole before the accident, so his attitude isn’t the result of being in a wheelchair. Zupan is like just about any jock you have ever met. Even as a quadriplegic, he has a swagger about him. He is focused and looking for gold.

Joe Soares is the former Team USA player now coaching Team Canada. His disability is the result of childhood polio. He participated in 13 consecutive US championships. Although his former teammates like to compare him to Benedict Arnold, for Soares, this is his next step in a sport that his been his love. We don’t see much of him as a player, but he does have the kind of motivational personality that makes good coaches. He too wants gold, but he also wants respect.

The third focus is Keith Cavill, who we meet four weeks after he was injured doing motocross. Cavill is just beginning the rehab and the adjustment that will allow him to function in the world. Cavill struggles with the simplest of tasks: going from lying down to sitting, undoing the Velcro on his shoes. At this point in his life, Cavill isn’t thinking of gold, just living – and hoping to walk.

The film could have been made about the US and Canadian teams and it would have been interesting – and might have made it to ESPN late at night. But by including Cavill in the film, the filmmakers managed to make a film that isn’t just a quirky sports film. It is a film not so much about the game as it is about its participants. Cavill shows us the base from which all of these athletes started. We discover that in spite of their injuries – which had them all at Cavill’s level – they are capable athletes. It was a long time before they got to the point they are now. In that way they are a sign of hope for those who may feel powerless in the struggles they face.

But the film is even more than this. The highlight of the film is how it manages to humanize these athletes for us. One of the players, when speaking about meeting girls, says that you’re never sure whether they see you or the chair. For the most part, at the beginning of the film, we see the chair. That is, we note how disabled they all are. We learn how they were injured. We learn about how hard it is to get around. We see a bit of their anger and frustration at their situations. We may even see the rugby as a way of channeling all that anger. We may marvel at what they can do, but we marvel because of how disabled they are.

Slowly, the filmmakers reveal to us the people who are sitting in the chairs. They have girlfriends, they have families, they have jobs, they have problems, and they have dreams. They have lives. They are as normal as anyone you know. They pull sophomoric practical jokes. They party. They have flaws. (Note: the film includes strong language and frank discussions of sex. As I said, these are normal men.)

By the time we watch them in Athens, we are no longer watching the chairs running up and down the court; we are watching our team. We do not see disabled athletes; we see athletes.

Like the game, the film Murderball is powerful experience.

—Overview
—Photos
—About this Film

The Beautiful Country

—Overview
—Photos
—About this Film

The long arduous journey to get home is a common story. Homer’s epic poem of Odysseus struggling against the gods and various dangers is arguably the best of such stories. It is still being told and appreciated nearly three millennia after the blind bard sang of Odysseus.

In The Beautiful Country, Binh makes his own odyssey from Vietnam to America . Odysseus’ journey was his attempt to get back to his home and his loving wife. For Binh it is a much different trip – he is hoping to find a home he has never had.

Binh is “bui doi,� (literally “less than dust,� a term used for children fathered by American soldiers during the Vietnam War). He has grown to adulthood in a land where he is considered nothing. People think nothing of insulting him to his face. While his family eats dinner in the house, he waits outside for someone to hand him a bowl of food.

In time he can no longer stay with the family and heads to Saigon to find his mother. Even in the big city, he is easily recognizable as bui doi, and rejected by people because he has “the face of the enemy.� Yet when he finds his mother, he finds a bit of what it means to have a home. But it is short-lived. Soon he must flee and try to make his way to the US (taking a small brother with him) through the dangerous route of the boat people. The only thing he has to go on is a wedding certificate his mother gave him with an address in Houston .

The journey is very much a struggle. Just as Odysseus moved from one ordeal to another, so too does Binh. Storms, refugee camps, fights, immigrant smugglers, semi-slavery, love, betrayal and death all become part of Binh’s experience. The destination is just as problematic as the journey. His father, although he and Binh’s mother were married and in love, suddenly one day just wasn’t there. We don’t know if he was killed or just returned home without his family. If Binh can find him, will his father accept him any more readily after all these years than the rest of the people Binh has known? Will America understand him as his father’s son (and thus American) or only as his mother’s son (Vietnamese)?

Robert Frost wrote:
'Home is the place where, when you have to go there,
They have to take you in.'

For Binh, all his life there has been no place where “they have to take you in.� In Binh’s case, it is not because of anything he has done, but just because of how he was born. His great odyssey is not just from one land to another – it is a searching for a place to belong.

Perhaps the stories that have been told of the journeys home, from The Odyssey to The Beautiful Country, stir us because there is a sense in which that struggle to find a home – a place where they take you in – is a universal story.

Many people feel alienated – without a place. Perhaps because of their skin, their background, their sexual orientation, their looks, a physical handicap or any of a number of other reasons, people have often been excluded or at best set off to the side (as Binh was with his family). Yet they yearn for home. They need home. Home is a place of safety, of love, of nurture – of belonging.

The eventual outcome of Binh’s odyssey is poignant and touching. This is a journey that for all its tribulations, he had to make to discover himself and to know where home was.

We also journey in our lives to find our true home. I hope you have a safe, but fulfilling trip.

—Overview
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—About this Film

Me You and Everyone We Know

—Overview
—Photos
—About this Film

Here it is, the start of summer. All the big name, big budget movies are filling the multiplexes. Cars, planes, and cities are blowing up. Superheroes are defeating supervillains. Sequels, prequels and remakes will be rolling out tempting us to watch what we’ve already seen before.

What a perfect time to hunt up some good independent films – to find something original and different. Indie films refresh us by giving us variation. Sometimes the film may just be unusual, but often they are also quite good.

Me You and Everyone We Know is just the kind of film to break up a summer of movies that we see every summer. Writer-director-actor Miranda July and the film won (among other things) the Camera d’Or at Cannes for best first film. The film also received a special jury prize at Sundance for originality of vision. Me You and Everyone We Know is a refreshing look at everyday life, even though it seems anything but common place. It is filled with humor and pathos, but mostly with humanity.

At its heart, Me You and Everyone We Know is about the desperation we have to meaningfully connect to someone. It really isn’t so much about our alienation from each other, as much as it is about how hard it can be to really connect with someone else. The film shows a number of ways that people try – through the internet or simply taping sexually loaded messages to their apartment window, through sexual experimentation or setting one’s own hand on fire, through art or collecting household goods.

The various characters in the film find themselves making their way through life, some more successfully than others, but not really happy. Richard, a recently separated father would like to be a better parent, but doesn’t know how. Christine, a struggling artist, wants human contact that is missing from her life. There are fantasies never to be lived out. There are children who may want to grow up too fast, or who act grown up while in a child’s body. There are those who only see the moment, and those who long for a future.

We see that in each character, there has to be more than what they have by themselves. There is a need to share their lives with someone else and a need to have others share their lives with them.

But to connect with others involves risk – risk of rejection, risk of self-discovery, risk of losing oneself, risk of failure. Often the fear of these risks prevents people from connecting. Even as the film shows us how desperate people can be to make a connection, it also shows that to do so means people have to take risks to make those connections. In the film, the risks really aren’t physical risks, but emotional risks. Some of the risks pay off in the film, but not always – just like in life.

Because the risks sometimes pay off, there is a sense of hope in the film. It isn’t a dark, brooding piece about loneliness. Rather it is lighthearted and slightly optimistic. We don’t see the outcomes of the attempts at connecting, but we do see the beginnings of connections that are starting to take place.

In the days since I saw the film, I keep thinking about various scenes and marveling at the detail and skill with which they were put together. The humor is especially agreeable. Subjects that might be offensive or disturbing are handed in such a light manner that it only makes me love the film more. Even the most scatological humor keeps bringing a smile to my face.

So if you’re looking at the theater listings and feel like you’ve already seen everything (even though you haven’t been to the movies for ages), maybe it’s time to find your way to something different, like Me You and Everyone We Know. No cars exploding, no superheroes, no actors you recognize – just a bit of life as bizarre as reality.

—Overview
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—About this Film

June viewing journal

6-2-05 -	The Same River Twice
6-3-05 -	Sister Rose's Passion
6-7-05 -	Tokyo Story
6-10-05 -	101 Reykjavik
6-11-05 -	The Son
6-12-05 -	Tokyo Godfathers
6-13-05 -	A Slipping Down Life
6-14-05 -	Saltmen of Tibet
6-17-05 -	Howl's Moving Castle (favorire for the month)
6-17-05 -	Days of Heaven
6-19-05 -	Noi Albinoi
6-20-05 -	Batman Begins
6-21-05 -	The Death of Klinghoffer
6-22-05 -	Blue
6-22-05 -	Heights
6-23-05 -	Amy
6-28-05 -	Juana la Loca (Mad Love)
6-29-05 -	Charlotte's Web
6-29-05 -	Saving Face

That's 113 features for the year. Here is the list of films I've seen this year.