Juno

Juno interviews a couple seeking to adopt her baby-to-be. © 2007 Fox Searchlight Films

Rated PG-13. Fox Searchlight Films

This funny but thought-provoking film would have been my choice for the best-picture Oscar in 2008. Juno is a pregnant teenager whose parents are wise and understanding, unlike those in the usual Hollywood teen movie. Rejecting abortion, Juno, with the help of her best friend, answers the newspaper ad of a yuppie couple anxious to adopt a baby. She decides to give over the infant, and then when matters do not go smoothly, she must decide whether to withdraw her offer.

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This is a funny and poignant tale of a spunky girl examining her relationship with her boyfriend and coming to a better understanding of herself. It would be a good film for adults and young people to watch together before discussing such issues as responsibility and developing self-awareness.

Not just for kids

Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!

Rated G. Directed by Jimmy Hayward, Steve Martino. 20th Century Fox Animation. Running time: 1 hour 28 min.

Because she cannot see them, the narrow-minded Kanngaroo refuses to believe Horton when he claims to have talked with the tiny endangered Whos. © 2008, 20th Century Fox AnimationAt last Hollywood gets it right with a Dr. Seuss story! Unlike the bloated How the Grinch Stole Christmas or The Cat in the Hat, this wonderfully animated film stays true to the spirit of its creator.

Horton is the kindhearted elephant who lives with his sidekick — a little mouse — in the jungle of Nool. When he hears a cry for help from a mote of dust resting on a flower blowing in the wind, he investigates and discovers a microscopic planet. The cry came from the mayor of Who-ville, who is trying to save the city from ruin. Horton vows to help, but runs into opposition from those who refuse to believe what they cannot see.

Kanngaroo, a mother so fearful that she “pouch trains” her own child, heads the opposition. Warning of the danger to their children’s minds that Horton’s “dangerous idea” poses, she leads a mob to silence him. The mayor also has trouble convincing his people that there is a being above them who cares about their welfare.

Children, of course, will love this film, but it offers much for adults as well. It is widely believed that Theodore Geisel (a.k.a. Dr. Seuss) patterned his 1954 story on the infamous McCarthy anti-Communist witch hunts (as did fellow cartoonist Walt Kelly when he introduced Sen. Malarkey in his Pogo series). Thus the story can be seen as an amusing parable against intolerance and the importance of faith in what cannot always be seen.

While talking with children about the film, it might be helpful to point out the similarity of Horton’s statement about the Whos — “a person’s a person, no matter how small” — to what Jesus said to his disciples when they tried to prevent the children and parents from approaching him.

The voice talent and animation are outstanding. The original book is short, so the “padding” to make this a feature-length film consists mainly of extending action scenes. There’s the chase to capture Horton, and a wonderfully animated sequence in which the mayor and one of his little son’s (A biblically prolific guy, the mayor has a hundred or so children!) try to get Who-ville’s citizens, bells and whistles to make enough noise so that Horton’s doubters can hear them.

This is a film that will be as much a treat for adults as for the children whom they take — though for preschool children the chase and the ominous eagle, Vlad, might be a bit scary.

—Ed McNulty

Finding wholeness in a ‘payback’ culture

The Power of Forgiveness
Directed by Martin Doblmeier. Journey Films. Documentary, not rated. Running time: 1 hour, 18 min. — plus several extra features.


The Amish rank forgiveness as one of their greatest responsibilities. (c) Blair SeitzThe man who gave us the excellent documentary Bonhoeffer now turns his attention to a central theme in Christian ethics and theology: forgiveness. As the film amply shows, this is a central theme of all major faiths.

Striking testimony of the power of forgiveness is offered by Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese activist and Buddhist teacher; Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Laureate; Azim Khamisa a Sufi Muslim teacher and father of a murdered son; James Forbes, pastor of Riverside Church in New York City; Thomas Moore, author of the best-selling Care of the Soul; plus others in Northern Ireland, New York City, Pennsylvania and Lebanon.
 
In one segment the film brings together spiritual and the scientific disciplines, disclosing how hundreds of experiments have been conducted on the medical aspects of forgiveness. One experiment reveals how subjects’ blood pressure rises when they recall persons who have wronged them, but how their blood pressure drops when they forgive those same persons. Even better, the film provides examples of forgiveness that move us beyond both the laboratory and the classroom or sanctuary.
 
Three women, two who lost sons and the other her husband on 9-11, speak of their anger, then sorrow and finally forgiveness as they join with an Episcopal minister to lobby for a “Garden of Forgiveness” at Ground Zero in Manhattan — an unpopular cause in the city. The three women travel to Beirut, Lebanon, where activist Alexandra Asseily’s dream of “Garden of Forgiveness” was being fulfilled. Knowing first-hand the power of hatred during her country’s long civil war, Ms. Asseily says, “Forgiveness allows us to actually let go of the pain in the memory, and if we let go of the pain in the memory, we can have the memory, but it doesn't control us.”
 
Just how one can “let go of the pain in the memory” is powerfully demonstrated in an episode narrated by Azim Khamisa, an American Muslim whose son was murdered by a 14-year-old boy while delivering a pizza. Mr. Khamisa not only visits the murderer in jail, but also forms a team ministry with the boy's grieving grandfather to visit school children to speak on the need and the benefits of forgiveness. The film also goes to Pennsylvania where the Amish community forgave the man who murdered five girls and wounded five others in a school; plus in Germany and Israel we witness the results of Elie Wiesel’s forgiving the German nation of its terrible crimes against the Jews. As the film’s director points out, there is a personal and a communal aspect to forgiveness.
 
Filmmaker Martin Doblmeier reminds us, “We are living in a culture of payback and justice. 9/11 shows us that. Lives are being lost.” We are indeed in a culture that teaches “Don‘t get mad, get even,” and this film is a marvelous tool that Presbyterians can use for countering the vindictive urge to “pay back.”

This is a film that can help bring healing to those caught in the vise of anger and resentment. It does not offer easy answers, but the various insightful speakers show how forgiveness is the difficult path to spiritual (and mental and physical) wholeness. I cannot recommend this film too highly!

—Edward McNulty

Note: The film is being shown on PBS during March and is available for purchase on DVD. There is enough material in the film and in the special sections of the DVD for a provocative series of 6–12 sessions. A discussion guide for the film will soon be available at Visual Parables.

The Kite Runner
(in English and Dari, a dialect of Farsi)

Directed by Marc Forster. Paramount Vantage Pictures. Rated PG-13. Running time: 2 hours, 2 min.

Khaled Hosseini’s beloved novel is well served by Marc Foster's film version, though David Benioff's screenplay had to eliminate details of Afghani customs and incidents in the life of Amir’s wife Sohrab to keep the film at two hours. Nonetheless, we learn much about that far-off nation, its recent history and customs. The wider audience that will now come to love the story by seeing the film will also see Afghani males as more than just bizarre-looking men in turbans and beards. The story is so compelling that the use of flashbacks is never confusing. Though the main character, Amir, fails dismally in a moment of crisis, we still care about and root for him.

Amir (Zekiria Ebrahimi) and Hassan (Ahmad Khan Mahmoodzada) are two boys in the city of Kabul in 1978. They are best friends, even though Hassan is the son of the household servant Ali (Nabi Tanha). Amir's well-off father, Baba (Homayoun Ershadi), a widower, loves both boys, observing Hassan’s birthday as well as that of Amir — though not with the kind of lavish party he throws for Amir.

Amir, who often feels that his father is displeased with him because he is such a docile boy, hopes to win the annual Kite Festival by being the last one to keep his kite aloft after a day-long series of aerial battles. (The film spares us the novel’s details about treating long stretches of the kite string with a sticky mixture of glue and ground glass so as to cut the string of an opponent's kite — which also leaves the hands of both kite flyers cut and bloodied.) In an unforgettable scene the day of Amir’s victory, thanks to the help of loyal Hassan, the best kite runner in the city, also becomes the day of his life-altering shame.

The story is told years later, in 2000, by the adult Amir ( Khalid Abdalla), now living in San Francisco, where he and his father fled when the Soviets invaded their country. The author of a new book, he is married to Sohrab (Ali Danesh Bakhtyari), the daughter of a former Afghani general. The genesis of their courtship is fetchingly portrayed.

Amir is still filled with shame because he had years earlier seen from a distance three bullies attacking and raping Hassan, but had run away instead of intervening. He receives a telephone call from Pakistan, from his father’s best friend, Rahim Kahn (Shuan Toub). This man had encouraged Amir to write stories, and had even given him a fine book with blank pages to write in. “Now there is a way to be good again,” Rahim tells him. Amir flies to Pakistan, where he learns that his friend Hassan has a son in their Taliban-ruled homeland. Fighting against his old timidity, Amir reluctantly agrees to return to Kabul and seek out the boy. What transpires next is both riveting and unexpected, with a portion of his childhood history repeated in a strange but satisfying way.

The film reminds viewers that love, loyalty and honor are not just Christian virtues, but are strongly affirmed by Muslims as well. Hassan shows incredible loyalty and acceptance of his friend, though Amir does little to deserve it. Indeed, Amir’s two betrayals of the boy make him a difficult figure to like. His failure of courage is far worse than that of another literary character, Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim. It becomes plain also that the Muslim faith, as well as Christianity, values grace or “a second chance,” also the theme of the popular film Field of Dreams. This sense of loyalty and honor embedded in Hassan's heart, prove to be terribly costly, first to the boy and then to the man.

The kites, which we see in colorful array flying high above Kabul and then above a beach near San Francisco, serve as a wonderful symbol of freedom — a symbol close to the heart of the people of Afghanistan. Those who have read the novel should be pleased by the film, and those who have not may well be led to visit their library or bookstore. During this time of widespread fear and prejudice toward Muslims, The Kite Runner, in both its novel and film versions, offers far more than entertainment.

—Ed McNulty

More “Christian humor”

Thou Shalt Laugh: The Deuce

Produced by Hunt Lowry and Jonathan Bock (2007)

Those who laughed their way through the first Thou Shalt Laugh DVD will welcome with open arms this second program of “Christian humor” (a euphemism for “clean humor,” comedy acts that one can attend as a family with little embarrassment, other than an occasional risqué remark aimed at adults). Though some of the jokes and stories deal with church matters, most are funny observations from everyday life, informed by a Christian perspective. Hosted by the hilarious Tim Conway, the program features five comedians who are not ashamed to own up to the “Christian” label. They vie to tickle our funny bones and maybe even leave us with an insight or two about relationships and cultural differences.

Conway’s emceeing at times constitutes a sixth act, especially when he comes on stage with the slow shuffle of his Old Man persona. The stand-up comedians are a nice mixture: female Victoria Jackson; Indian-Japanese Dan Nainan; African-American Bone Hampton; and Caucasians Thor Ramsey and Taylor Mason.

Several of the comedians deal with racial matters. Dan Nainan especially has fun with his Indian and Japanese ancestry and his Japanese mother's mixing up the "R" and the "L" sounds in English. Victoria Jackson does such crazy things as reciting one of her doggerel poems while doing a hand stand. And Taylor Jackson, on stage the longest, has the crowd in stitches with his saucy hand puppets in the first part, and when he sits down at the piano, he wows everyone with his technique and songs. I’d love to hear him play “Mr. Piano Man”!

Thou Shalt Laugh: The Deuce, or the first Thou Shalt Laugh, would make a wonderful gift for that hard-to-buy-for friend, especially one convinced that Christians are a dour lot. Some observers, following in the footsteps of former Saturday Review editor Norman Cousins, have touted the therapeutic values of humor and laughter. If we could measure in milligrams its humor content, this DVD would be in the 1000+ milligram range, with a humor doctor prescribing it for the dispirited patient, “Take one a day.”

—Ed McNulty