Found

I watched the movie August Rush with my friends Elizabeth and Juan the other day. It's a recent movie about a young musical prodigy who is eleven years old and has never met his parents. People tell him that he'll never find them, but he keeps believing, because he hears something that tells him they're still alive.

The movie has some wonderful music in it and some deep themes that resonated quite clearly within me. For all it's faults, I thought it was a worthwhile movie.

August's parents meet only once and don't see each other for eleven years, but during that time they are depicted as not being completely whole - they are missing something and know that they are really missing the other person. Though I think the movie would say it was because they are true soulmates, I think it speaks to the union that happens when we make love, a connection that cannot really be broken.

Another part that touched me was when the title character was asked what he wanted to be more than anything else in the world. He replied, 'Found.' More than anything, he wanted to be with his parents. The music that he heard reminded him that he didn't belong in the orphanage. It called him to a greater purpose. The Spanish title of the film is ¨Escucha tu destino¨ Or ¨Hear your Destiny¨. I thought it was an appropriate title.

For its faults, I don't think that the director really knew who was the main character. There is the love story between the parents, but aspects of their characters could have gone much deeper. And August, though the Title character, seemed distant and unknowable for the most part. And yet I think he is the person we should most emulate: being still to listen for the music all around us, waiting, and hoping, and looking to be Found.

Cloverfield

My brother wanted me to watch the thriller Cloverfield, so I put it in one evening. The premise of the movie is a home video, shot to record the going-away party of a twenty-something. The video records much more than people’s farewells – apparently something is attacking the city (how many times has Manhattan been destroyed? By giant gorillas, giant lizards, global warming, asteroids?). You don’t really know what’s happening, what the giant monster wandering through the streets is, wreaking havoc and causing pandemonium. You just follow the youngsters, reveling in their distress, pain, loss. Manhattan looks like a warzone.

Why do we make movies like this for entertainment? There was recently a huge earthquake in southern China. 40,000 people are dead. Burma suffered a tidal wave and subsequent flooding. Tens of thousands gone, there as well. There is chronic war in Iraq, Sudan, multiple places around the world. The events depicted in Cloverfield happen to real people around the world (barring the alien monster, of course). Are we so numb to the pain of the world? To the real loss and suffering elsewhere? We not only transplant that destruction into our own cities (because it’s more exciting when it affects a place that we’ve visited) but we do it for entertainment. For pleasure. For a thrill. I doubt that watching Cloverfield inspires many Americans to care about people around the world who experience tragic events such as earthquakes or war. My guess is that they snuggle deeper into their chair and relish the safety they possess.

When something really does happen in New York City, say, attacks by extremist terrorists, we make that into a movie, too. So we can sit, enjoy buttered popcorn, and watch real events mesh into sensationalized thrillers.

David, my brother, I don’t really like the movie. Sorry.