Voyage of the Dawn Treader

(Below is a review of the movie with tips on how to engage your kids on the movie with Biblical Themes).

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is a visual treat to the eyes (esp. the 3D version) and touches our hearts deeply, making it perfect for a family winter break entertainment. If your kids (or you!) loved Pirates of the Carribean, Harry Potter or How to fly a dragon, they are definitely going to like Narnia (and even more if they have read the book).

Whereas the above movies excelled purely in exotic animation, Narnia has excellent animation (yes it does show the dawn treader that resembles a pirate ship, a lot of magical fantasy like that in Harry potter and of course a colorful dragon like those found in how to fly a dragon) combined with the soul searching script and theme from C.S. Lewis.

Whenever Reepicheep (the talking rat from Narnia) and Eustace meet, your humor buds are bound to be tickled. There are some powerful dialogues and scenes that could be used to discuss the movie with the kids afterwards.

Even the best among us cannot escape being tempted in our weakness. Lucy’s desire for beauty at the cost of being jealous with her own sister, Edmund’s desire for power and to be the number one, at the risk of fighting against his closest friend are all reminiscent of the sinful struggles we all face everyday because of the presence of sin within us. Succumbing to any of these would have prevented the Narnia kids from accomplishing their great purpose.

How Aslan (who is always watching) helps them from not falling unfolds elegantly in the movie. The three temptations that these characters experience remind one of the temptations of Christ and his response to them as well.

One of the main highlights of the movie is the transformation of the character of Eustace – from an average kid to a fierce and angry dragon and finally back to something wonderful after he comes face to face with Aslan. He shows us how ugly we would all look if only our external appearance begins to reflect our inward sinful self. He reminds us how we all carry a dragon within us and how Christ is the only one who could ‘undragon’ our lives. (For an excellent real life testimony by a Pastor on how this story inspired him to come to know Christ, please see:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeaPB5nr8d8

Questions for parents to chat with their kids after watching the movie:

1. Why did Lucy steal the page from the book of incantations? What happened to her? Did she like it? What did Aslan tell her? Have you had any similar experiences?
2. What made Edmund and Caspian to get into a fight? How did they avoid it? Do you remember being in a situation like that before? How did you feel about it?
3. Why did Eustace become a dragon? What does he say about his experience at the end of the movie? (following this, you may want to show the video clip “how to undragon your life” mentioned above to them).
   

(* I am also writing a response guide for the above questions. Let me know if you'd like to have it and I can send it to you).

For a detailed plot of the movie :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Voyage_of_the_Dawn_Treader

Invictus - A review

Why do good things happen to bad people? What should you do when you are a victim of racism and hatred and relegated to a prison for a major part of your life? What should you do when you spend the best phase of your life doing ‘nothing’? What do you do when your dreams vaporize and your loved ones leave you? If there is a God where is he when it hurts?

These are questions that ought to plague anyone who has experienced all of these in his life. The typical response to these by individuals as well as nations have resulted in us fighting more wars that all that has been fought over the past two thousand years.

When confronted with these questions by his guard, Mandela responds saying, ‘“Reconciliation starts here. Forgiveness starts here, too. It liberates the soul. That is why it is such a powerful weapon.” What an astonishing and shocking response?

Invictus paints a portrait of the towering figure of Nelson Mandela, who stood the test of time, hatred and vengeance and came out giving a real life response to the questions posed above. Rather than choosing to get back, he chooses to go down in service. Rather than choosing to fight back, he chooses to serve those who hated him and caused him so much pain in prison. Here lives a man who turned the tides against him and inspired a nation to be rebuilt breaking down the racial barriers between them to forge a ‘rainbow nation’. This is a rare glimpse in modern times where war is fought in the name of religion, nationality, race, color and language.

How can anyone respond this way to the worst atrocities committed at him and has taken his life away? Where does one get inspiration for such an ‘unearthly’ act? Such acts can only be inspired rather than taught.

Forgiveness is indeed a powerful weapon. Powerful - because it can actually bring about change than destruction. It takes more courage and faith to release someone who harms you without wanting to strike back. It takes more courage to stand down and ‘show the other cheek’ than to react back. It is humanly impossible to do it. The first one to model it lived 2000 years ago. He not only showed his other cheek but gave his own life away and prayed for forgiveness for the very same people who were killing him. It was He who empowered several others to do the same including Mandela. He has done that to each one of us already – even when we were still ignoring him and hurting him by our actions, thoughts, and desires everyday He took it all upon himself and brought us forgiveness. When we taste that forgiveness personally, our hearts gets transformed – He removes our heart of stone and gives us a heart of flesh. He energizes us to do the impossible – forgive those who sin against us.

Avatar – a dialogue

Avatar is a mesmerizing experience as it transports you into a different world that even the wildest imagination could not have fathomed. A flamboyant splash of colors, in a distant enticing planet-Pandora that lights up in the night with fluorescent, vibrant and colorful flora and fauna enchant you endlessly throughout the movie. Beauty, love, courage, redemption and sacrifice elegantly clothe the storyline behind the spell binding visual feast that meets the eye.

As visually stunning as it is, Avatar also invokes strong religious parallels such as transmigration of soul (except that, here it can happen several times within a lifetime albeit with the help of technology), universal energy that permeates everything on the planet, communication with ancestors (common in Eastern religions) and not to forget the very name itself which has been borrowed from Hinduism and means ‘coming down’ of the divine. It is also interesting that it has been released during Christmas eve that celebrates the ‘incarnation’ of Jesus Christ who ‘took upon’ human form to redeem the created world.

Different audiences around the world have responded differently. While the movie has definitely sparked tremendous interest and awe among it’s Western audiences(1) in the innovative new movie making technology and the zest for environmental protection among others , audiences in the East (cradle of six major non-Judeo-Christian religions) are particularly inspired by the heavy borrowing of ideals from their philosophy (as reflected in this sample review that begins with the question, “When does a film become a philosophy?)(2) . The word ‘Avatar’ easily reminds them of the nine avatars of the Lord Vishnu who ‘comes down’ in different ‘avatars’ whenever evil abounds on earth. His tenth avatar as ‘Kalki’ is eagerly awaited where he is expected to destroy all evil after it reaches it’s peak. And the main Avatar of the movie does take on the mandate of fighting and restraining the bad ‘sky people’.

Despite the differing reasons that different audiences are attracted to it, few underlying elements of the film connect universally with every viewer. As the old adage goes, ‘a thing of beauty is a joy forever’. The visual casting of Pandora as a ‘beautiful planet’ draws the audience to want to leap and jump along with the main characters of the movie as they run (and fly on colorful dragons).

Is there hope for the Earth to be restored to it’s original elegance? Is the earth doomed to destruction? Why? Is it man’s unquenched greed for ‘more’ at any cost without due concern for the ‘have-nots’ in the world? As one ponders through these questions, two images from the Bible come to mind. One is that of the Garden of Eden and the rest of the world after it was created and ought to have been unimaginably beautiful (if even God who reviewed it gave it an ‘A’ calling it ‘good’). The other is that of the ‘new heavens and new earth’ that is expected to happen in the future. The events that happen between these two is what the Bible talks about. It attempts to explain the root cause of all this erosion, not just in the environment but also within the nature of man that causes him to be selfish, greedy, proud and arrogant in combination with his tremendous capability to exert ‘dominion’ over the world.

As man would not be able to wriggle himself out of this mess, God chose to come down as an incarnation, not to kill but to die and come back alive overcoming death. He definitely merits a consideration.

1 http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/avatar/ which has an impressive 83% score for the movie

2 http://beta.thehindu.com/arts/movies/article66463.ece?homepage=true for a review by ‘The Hindu’ – a major South Indian Newspaper.

Matrix - Review

Summary of the Plot

The first part of The Matrix series was released in the late 90s and has captured the hearts and minds of moviegoers with a penchant for explosive action mixed with futuristic science fiction. The movie itself is loaded with several New Age themes including some close resemblances to key elements from the Bible and is packed with mind blowing and innovative action sequences unparalleled in the history of Hollywood movie making.

The central character in the movie is played by Keanu Reeves as Thomas Anderson, who works as a programmer for a software firm. He is representative of an average silicon valley software professional. Anderson assumes the role of Neo in his after work hours and spends most of his time as a hacker involved in all possible cybercrimes. Neo appears against the backdrop of ‘The Matrix’ which is really a simulation created by artificially intelligent (AI) beings who use humans as their power source. The time this occurs is in the year 2199 AD. Man’s quest to reign supreme and his faith in technology led to the creation and dependence on machines, the culmination of which was the artificial intelligence. The revolt of the AI beings against mankind led to a war between them and mankind. The AI creatures (Sentient Agents) were originally designed to use solar power believed to be a long-lasting source of energy, but a nuclear winter changed the situation. The AI forms adapt by using humans as batteries. To this end, they create an elaborate hoax known as the matrix, where the humans are bred and raised to believe they lead existences as if nothing ever happened. Neo is being sought after by the leader of a band of rebels (Morpheus played by Lawrence Fishburne) who escaped the matrix and seeks to redeem mankind. For the same reason, Neo is also sought after by the Sentient Agents. Led by the Agent Smith (played by Hugo Weaving), the Sentient Agents are intelligent programs within the matrix that act to reinforce the AI control of earth's populace. Since everything in the matrix is an illusion, all the action is really a metaphor for a battle of wills. Neo is the one capable of inflicting damage on the AI system and free the people who have their minds enslaved.

In the second part, Neo having discovered that he is indeed ‘The One’ through his last encounter with Agent Smith, continues to help the rebels free more people from the clutches of the sentient AI while learning of a plot by the machines to invade and destroy Zion. They take the battle to the Matrix itself. In this part, Agent Smith is now able to clone himself.

In the final part, Neo takes the sacrificial path of killing himself to defeat the AI system and liberate human beings from them. Interestingly, the last scenes also depicts him as coming back to life.

Review

The movie raises several issues, chief among them being ‘What is reality?’ It plays satire on man’s quest and dependence on technology with today’s modern/postmodern world tending to place a lot of faith on technology to redeem mankind of all ills. Man has advanced in his engagement with technology trying to wrench out solutions for all of man’s problems purely using technology that he is now far removed from reality and becomes enslaved in a pseudo world created by the very machines that he originally designed himself. In addition, the movie extrapolates what the world would look like when the effects of ecological and environmental disaster that awaits us because of our poor handling of resources comes to fruition.

There are allusions to several New Age themes including that of Christianity. In this sense, the movie has truly identified the presence and rise of religiosity even in the advanced techno culture, where man might have to fall back on should technology fail to redeem him. Deeply entrenched in the story line are close resemblances to Christian icons and Hindu philosophy. Morpheus, Neo and Trinity could possibly remind a Christian audience of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit in some sense (with Neo even dying and coming alive at the end). However, at a philosophical level there are explicit narrations (particularly by the character Ramakrishna – the original name of the proponent of advaitic Vedanta) of Vedantic philosophy that equates the matrix to Maya and even touches upon transmigration of souls and cyclic birth and rebirth and some esoteric themes involving the Oracle to which Hindu and New Age audiences could identify themselves with. Interestingly the last song in the movie played during credits is an original mantra from the Upanishads shown below reflecting the above.

“asato ma sadgamaya (lead me from nontruth to truth)

tamaso ma jyotirgamaya (lead me from darkness to light)

mrtyorma amrtam gamaya (lead me from death to immortality)

Om shanthi shanthi shanthi (peace peace peace)”*

In conclusion, the synthesis of the plot of The Matrix series closely captures the various ingredients of today’s modern/postmodern world with man seriously engaging technology on the one hand to make the world a better place to live and the rising suspicion and lack of trust by others in such a realization who turn back to religion.

* Quoted in ‘Diana L. Eck, Encountering God: A Spiritual Journey from Bozeman to Banaras. Boston: Beacon Press, 1993, p.117.