Narnian Music

Narnia, originally uploaded by Tolkien Guy.

It is winter, but unlike the unfortunate Narnians, we do have Christmas, and I'll bet that this Soundtrack will be in quite a few stockings. Keep an eye out for it!

The Far Country

The Far Country
Originally uploaded by Tolkien Guy.

"God is at home. We are in the far country."


So prefaces the new, brilliantly crafted album by Andrew Peterson. From this quote by Meister Eckhart, Peterson takes the listener down a lyrical path of wonder that cumulates in a surprising but fulfilling end. He paints a lyrical picture of a vast array of people and places, and takes the listener from Israel to Iowa and back again. His imagery displays an incredible knowledge of emotion, and his sincerity conveys his genuine life experience bleeding through to the lyrics. But there is an overlying theme in The Far Country, that the opening quote alludes to. Some might say that idea is death, for many songs on this recording are defintitely inclined towards that subject. But perhaps the more attentive listener will discover within the subtle lyrics the door that exceeds death and leads right into heart of eternity, and in so doing, finds the meaning behind the music.
Peterson bears similarities to Kevin Max in a way, that is, an artist who works in somewhat mediocre "Christian" industry, but also someone who has a bent and passion toward lyrical and musical profundity. His genius may even be better matched to that of Rich Mullins, who many consider to be Peterson's predecessor. Though he isn't far enough along in his musical carreer to truly be called the next Rich Mullins, he is certainly an incredible songwriter in his own right, and perhaps to even compare them is unfair. Perhaps it is Peterson's turn to lead his own path, and bear the torch of truth for his own audience. But regardless, I beg you to go get this album and be consumed within the inspired writing of Andrew Peterson, that may yet lead us from the far country back home.

Everything: Part II

I have finished most of western Europe, now I will go on to movies from Japan, Mongolia, Poland, and Sweden.
Japan


Spirited Away is the work of Japaneses animator Hayao Miyazaki. Miyazaki is probably the greatest animator working today-- not anime animator, but animator period. Plus 90% of his work is hand-drawn when so much of animation is 3-D. The story of a young girl who is lost in a world of traditional gods and nature spirits after her parents are turned into pigs. Her quest is to survive in the spirit world, and to deliver her parents to the material world. Topics include hunger, and identity. But I would say the say the over-arching topic is courage. Finding courage through love, to sacrifice herself (or at least to be risk herself) so what she loves will be restored.

Foolish Knight's Totally Unauthorised and Unendorsed Bonus Guest Opinion: Hey folks! Eriol's annoying little brother here. Hey, I just stopped by to say that Spirited Away is a totally sweet movie! As far as fairy tales go, it is now one of my all time favorites. I was at the point of tears once or twice while viewing the movie (which I wasn't expecting at all). As a side note: If you're one of those people that say to yourself while reading reviews like this; "Eww! Anime! That's gross! I don't like anime! Yucky!" all I can do is call you a snob, tell you to get over you prejudice and just watch the movie! OK, that's all. I'm really hoping Eriol doesn't see this. Yikes! I could be in a lot of pain real soon! This concludes Foolish Knight's Totally Unauthorised, Unendorsed and Badly Punctuated Bonus Guest Opinion.

In 2004 I saw Akira Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai, which was the first of his movies I watched. This year I saw Throne of Blood, Rashomon, and Ikiru.
Throne of Blood, is an adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth. The plot elements of the play are kept but the dialogue is no longer Shakespeare's. I think this good for the actors did not need to try wrap their tongues about a Japanese translation of Macbeth, but to speak naturally, and leave it to the camera for the story's artistry. Plays take historical events and turn them into metaphysical dramas, but here Kurosawa turns the play back into history. There is no need to be philosophical about Macbeth's tragedy, just watch the movie and see how "he who lives by the sword also die by the sword."
Rashomon has often been considered to be Kurosawa's masterpiece, and certainly it is a great movie. A priest, a woodcutter, and a petty thief meet in an abandoned city gate to have shelter during a heavy rainfall. The thief sees the priest and the woodcutter are sorrowful. He asks for the cause of their sorrow. The woodcutter tells how he found a man's body in the woods. The man was killed. There is a trial, a bandit suspected of murder; the dead man's wife, and a medium speaking for the dead man, all testify of their innocence. But there was a second crime, the woman may've been raped. Nobody agrees if she was raped, or if her husband was murdered; the bandit says he died in a duel. After re-counting these three stories, the woodcutter confesses that he saw everything. But he may not be telling the truth either.
Each one of these stories is told in flashbacks. And all of the stories are the subjective perspectives of four people, who have their reasons to lie. So the viewer can choose between the priest's or the thief's interpretation: the thief's is that everyone is lying, and there's nothing wrong there because we need to survive. The priest's is that people cannot be so wicked, that somewhere there must be truth and goodness somewhere in one of the stories. There's much more to the movie beside my simplifications. And Rashomon is movie that dislikes (abhors) simplifications; don't read anything more, but watch the movie and see the complications unfold.
Both Rashomon and Throne of Blood feature the patnership between actor Toshiro Mifune, and Kurosawa.


Ikiru, routinely translated "to live" is about an aging bueraucrat, who is dying of stomach cancer, but never really lived. Yes, by the end he dies, but he dies after finding what to live for, a reason to live, and how to live.
One night in a saloon he softly sings to an unseen woman; telling her to live while she is young; while "your lips are red". He is in the saloon with a young writer, who is trying to teach him how to "live". But this life is exhausting him; anytime he drinks expensive saki or eat steak, the food ends up on the floor. At home in the morning he finds a young woman from his workplace seeking his permission for her to quit. She is fed up with working in such a place. He releases her and spends time with her, as he now sees her as a guide who knows the way to live. He buys her gifts, and they go to movies. For awhile he doesn't see her, but visits her for once last time. He visits her at her new job in a toy factory and they go to lunch together; he asks why she is happy. She says since working at the toy factory, she feels as if every child in Japan is her friend. He returns to his work with anonymous people sing "Happy Birthday" to someone unknown.
After this the movie flashes forward to (his) funeral. Here various former co-workers are gathered together, with his former bosses, and family. No one knew he was about to die; his family only cared for the salary he drew. The funeral is interuptted by a group of sobbing women. They came he was the only one to help them. Their neighborhood had a swamp in the center, they wanted to replace with a park. The family is insulted by the women's intursion, but are silent. The bosses try to take credit. But they are not there for long, as there so many other things to take credit for. With the women and bosses gone, his one-time co-workers reflect on the park project. They express suprise at his untimely death, they admire him for no longer trying to pass around the petition, but actively lobbying for this small park. He tirelessly follows the thread out of the labyrinth until the park sees the light of day.
The film is nearing the end with a shot him sitting peacefully in a swing snow all around. He is serene man after much toil. It was here, by the following morning he died. But the movie does not end here. It finishes in his old office, the men who admired him, are stupified with intoxicating sobriety of their office life, of competation for the next highest post. They may try to protest something but protest is quieted. Everyone has work to do.

Mongolia

Story of the Weeping Camel is simply about a multi-generational family living in Mongolia. It's a documentry actually-- but don't let your aversion to Mogolians, weeping, documentries, or bacterian camels (see the "B"; it means they have two humps. ) keep you from watching this movie. Here is the story, a mother camel gives birth but the delivery was too painful so she does not want to acknowledge her child (it's a calf, right? I'll go with calf). So the parents decide the two young boys should go fetch a fiddler at the cultural center at the nearest (distant) town, the fiddler is to play a certain tune within a certain ceremony and then cow and calf will be in harmony. Of course. I think I gave away all of the plot, but plot twists are not too special (save Ordet); after all you knew how that hated phantom movie ended, but you cried anyway. Story of the Weeping Camel works in a similar way that even if you know everything about the movie, it means nothing until you actually see how the film works. Also my mom liked it, and it wasn't even dubbed (she doesn't like dubbing anyway).

Poland
Dekalog (directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski) is nothing like any other movie you (or I) have seen. 10 55 minute films to illustrate the 10 Commandments. Not like a sermon illustration; no one to boo or hiss, and no heroes. And no one talks about any particular commandent. Sometimes Jesus or God are mentioned. Other times a Madonna (my lady who is not that Madonna) is shown, or a priest is briefly in the movie. The characters in these films are simply not religiously conscious. However they are morally conscious, actively trying to understand what they do not know. All characters in the film live in a single apartment complex which means their lives intersect. Past characters adding poignacy, and future characters have their stories begun. I won't give any summary or plot twists for the Dekalog, as any summary makes the movie appear flat, and plot twists would give away how various conflicts are resolved.
Sweden


I should now be writing about the films from Russia I've seen this year, but I'm saving that for a seperate post. So in place of Tarkovsky I'll write about Bergman's The Seventh Seal. A quote from Revelation to a knight returning to his homeland finds his country on the deathbed between the sheets of the Black Plague. Death, in the flesh, challenges him to a game of chess. What is at stake is his life and immortal soul (further proof that chess isn't just a game). Around the knight are gathered a cast of medevial characters; all playing their roles as if they're in a morality play. Two (three rather) characters, Jof and Mia, and their baby are the only ones who can transcend the bleakness of the story, where apparently the only action can be taken is to embrace the darkness.
There has been a good bit of debate on the merits of movie and the of Bergman's atheist perceptions. I am not skilled enough to debate the story's quality (hidin' behind Lady Excuses' skirts) but I think a Christian can watch and gain wisdom from this movie. In one scene the knight enters a chapel and begins to confess his doubts, but his confessor is Death. Outside are the ministers of the church, hysterical in a parade of converts. They have become sadists and masochists for God. Don't think this S&M reaction is exclusively Catholic; it happens in Baptist churches too. Someone says they have doubts in Christ's blood, so we spill our blood, and force others to bleed to wash away the pilgrim's doubts. Don't think Bergman didn't know what he was talking about; his father was a pastor. But still I think Ordet is better.

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to Mere Image,
Happy Birthday to Mere Image,
Happy Birthday dear Mere Image,
Happy Birthday to Mere Image!

Serenity Bride

I never go to the movie theater, but last weekend I went twice. Twice?!? Some years I don't even get to go twice! The two movies were Joss Whedon's Serenity and Tim Burton's Corpse Bride.
Back in the day Midsummer, Foolishknight, Why and myself would play with JD and Anna E.M.. We would play "space" with toy six-shooters and shotguns, Serenity takes those games and makes a movie with them. Very cool to see outlaws in space, slowly realize what is the right thing to do. It's not just a Science Fiction Western (or Space Western) but it's a Space Western meets Kung-Fu meets Zombie movie. Pulling these time specific genres together it makes a very timeless movie, inhabited by the ghosts of various movies and directors. Howard Hawks, master of a hundred genres can be seen in the synthesis-- especially his Westerns like El Dorado. Movies where fast-talking wise cracking white hats shoot down the black hats. Specically the characters Captain Malcom Reynolds and Jayne (and for the few that know Malcom could've been Dawson Jones' twin brother). In the characters of Zoe and Kaylee, I saw John Ford's heroines. Women marked by their nobility and honesty. And in the good ship Serenity is the ghost of the Millenium Falcon. But the real star is Summer Glau playing River Tam. River is part psychic and part psychotic, a spiritual visionary who occaisonally goes off into "raging fury" land. Only character I know of who is similar to her is Fiver from Richard Adams' Watership Down. Visually it may not be as exciting as Star Wars, and it may look too much like a TV show, but it also resembles the Warner Brother movies of the forties and the fifties.

Corpse Bride is also very good, but in its own way. Yes, this stop-animated movie is a bit gothic, and you want to paint your face white and dress all in black, but you'll want to dance in the light of the moon, and learn the piano. The piano plays a very important role in this film. In the beginning Victor plays a piano, Victoria his fiancee speaks to him about how her mother has forbidden her from playing because it is "too passionate." They talk a little longer about music and discover they are in love with each other despite having never met before. Later after Victor accidently marries himself to Emily, the Corpse Bride, and then betrays her, they make peace with each other by playing a duet on an old (dead) piano. The animation is a little creaky but it is part of medium. Very lovely movie and I would recommend it, but think of it as a pre-Christian story; Emily does not live in Hell or Heaven, but in Sheol.

And for those of you who are eagerly awaiting future reviews of movies I've seen this year please be patient. But I should be done by years end (maybe).

Sufjan's Next State?

Okay so I haven't heard all of Michigan or Illinoise, but I like Sufjan Stevens' music. Right now he's writing 50 albums dedicated to each US state, he's already produced two albums for the project but if his next state in the project is going to be Oregon, I'm going to want to listen for every whisper from this guy.
I admire him for taking on such a project to the US and the individual states a sense of cultural history. US is quite rich in history and culture but we the people are quite ignorant of our past, and of our culture. I mean Russians are very knowledgable about their cultural and are quite proud of it. If I can I would like to do a series of posts on various American artists, e.g. Flannery O'Connor, Bob Dylan.