I’ve been working through a Torah course on the book of Judges as a follow up to the recent time I spent in the books of Numbers and Joshua. And while I have only recently started my journey through this tumoltuous time in Israel’s history, some of the context for the book that I have been uncovering has started an intriguing line of thought that I felt was worth pausing to briefly reflect on.

To Name A Judge

The English title for the book’s title comes from a word that translates similarly in the Greek, the Latin and even later English (to make it revelant to my personal, modern context). As with many words that translate from the original Hebrew, the word itself faced (and does face) some specific problems when it comes to capturing the essence of it’s original meaning. This might be most readily evident when we see the word in modern judicial terms, as is the tendeny in the English speaking West. The root of the term “judges” comes from the Hebrew word that evokes something broader than simply a judge offering up a verdict on someone who is either evil or who committed an evil act (and the flipside the declaration of innocence). At its core, in Hebrew the term “judges” conjures up allusions to one who both saves and one who reforms. It is a relational term that evokes images of a savior rather than demonstrating a legal or legislative postion, and images of purifying or reforming rather than a condemning sentence.

The root of the word flows from Moses story in Deuteronomy (chapters 16-18), where we see “judges” defined as appointed figures alongside the Priests (Deut. 16:19-20; 17:8-13), a concept which has to do or is concerened with living as the people of God and in relationship to God and one another. At this point in Israel’s story we see the establishment of this new community, a people called to demonstrate God’s vision for the world, taking shape.

What is important to remember about the term “judges” is that this same appointed position flows outwards into the concepts of Priest, Prophets and the Kings. All of these are terms that relate to a kind of appointed position or governance, and the best way to understnad Israel at the time that these terms emerge is as a decentralized group of disparate people coming together from different cultures and different walks of life to co-exist with a shared experience of oppression. During their time in Egypt, and subsequently throughout the experiences that follow the Exodus story, this would have been a growing mix of all kind of people who simpy shared in their experience of being under the Egyptian power (according to the Hebrew Tradition). Similar to the surrounding nations, and further on in Greek society, one could then describe Israel as a loose confederation of disparate states held together by single collective force. In the ancient world this was most often religion, which itself was bound together through a nations or a people’s origins story. These origins stories were both how a nation distinguished itself from another and how they co-existed as a diverse people with a unified vision.

What is interesting then is to track what happens to these different “nations” or people groups as one or another of them begin to develop into empires. In most cases what woud would happen is the empire would recognize that the best way for these conquered nations to live together under the rule of a single entity was to be afforded some degree of freedom to coexist within their belief systems, so long as allegiance was payed to the ruling empire and religious system through trade and money. In other words, in a world where mutliple origin stories had to be synchornized in order to function productively in service to a powerful empire’s rule, religion was often traded for some version of forced economic and trade relations. Which is not to say that religion was done away with, but simply that they allowed religious observance through (expected and forced) economic participation. This is what it meant later on in Jesus’ day to say that Caesar is Lord under Rome. This is the very nature of assimilation.

And when a nation is forced to assimilate, what often happened is that people would begin to forget about their origins story and find greater comfort and safety through marrying their own tradition to the customs of the land they now reside in. This was the state of Israel at the time of the Judges. The time of the Judges (traditionally there are 12 of them) reflected the official shift from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age, which coincided with the development of the “sea people” (the Philistines) and, theologically speaking, provides the bridge between the end of Joshua’s story and the beginning of the era of the Kings. In tension was their memory of their origins story, which at this time was the story of the Exodus which culminated with Moses on the mountain, which later melds with the Genesis narrative of creation and Abraham,

In both Moses’ narrative and Joshua’s narrative we essentially end with a call to Covenant renewal. The reeestablishing of their collective religious memory as a unifying force. Between Joshua’s death and the period of Judges we see an immediate decline in the state of the people. We encounter an almost anarchist tone of a people too numerous to count in the book of Numbers, albeit a tempered one, where this eclectic and diverse group of people living in the land together have quickly forgotten the Exodus story (in the same way they did in the book of Numbers… AND THEY JUST LEFT EGYPT!!). They lived essentially without a ruler, rather appointed persons and offices, that is until they started to see the powerful nations around them (in the book of Judges we see the Philistines), nations who had rulers.

Prophet, Priest, Judge and King

To repeat again, the notion of a “judge” belongs in the same designation as prophet, priest, and king. And all of these titles, although expressed and defined differentlly throughout the different situations that these appointed figures encounter, have two essential descriptives in common-

1. They are appointed by God

2. They are intended to deliver or to save

As well, they are best understood in terms of a method of governance. A way of unifying a diverse group of people within a single vision of where they came from and where they are headed. Of concern in the midst of this, and what the Israelite story could speak speak to, is this figuring out of the relationship between their cirucmstnace and their own actions. They are freed from Egypt, and yet freedom often leads back into further slavery to surrounding nations as we follow the Israelite story. We see this in the desert, in the occupying of the promised land, in the exile and demolishing of the temple. Thus what came to be undertood is that if a promise of freedom is defined as a covenant, either God has broken His side of the promise or they broke theirs. In an effort to locate the reason for their continued oppression, their point of perspective continues to flow back and forth between these two realities, with appointed positions raised up to remind them of God’s faithfulness and their sinfulness as the root of the issue. If they find themselves in positions of suffering and far from the freedom they hope for, it is not because God has abandoned them, but rather because they have chosesn something different than God’s vision for their people. As a temple text established to hold this in plain view, this then forms the crux of the Genesis narrative, a narrative that imagines the same dueling force of blessings and curses that flows from the mountain on which Moses first establishes this marriage between Yahweh and Israel as a functioning and brithing community.

In the scope of the larger Christian narrative, where we see this story finding its climax is in the person of Jesus. As Jesus arrives on the scene, he arrives in line with these designations of rule or governance that have run through Israel’s history. He embodies the completeness of these designations, designations that are constructed according to the rule of the surrounding nations, such as the call for a King if simply because the powerful nations that surround them have a Kingd. These appointed positions can be seen as broken signposts, to borrow the language of N.T. Wright, of something greater, flawed characters calling a flawed people to unity in the midst of division as they await the promise of the fulfilled covenant. Jesus embodies the people’s collective memory and becomes that unifying force. All things now come together in Jesus who is seen as the restored Temple, the New Adam, the full Israel, the indwelling or tabernacling of the presence of God in the lives of a people who are declared loved by God.

It is in Jesus then that this particular label of “judge” finds its clearest expression as an intimately formed Jewish idea. As the story of Israel has been unfolding, the trajectory begins with one man (Adam, the image of God), moves outward from the garden (which represented God’s unified vision for the cosmos, for the world, the divine throne room where he occupies the heavens with the earth as his footstool) to the story of Noah (which in this progression provides the central antithesis to this unified vision now reconfigured through the violence of Cain and Abel that breaks it apart). Here we see a society built on the shedding of blood being held in contrast with the unity of the garden, with the flood story functioning as a de-creation narrative in patterned allignement with the Genesis origins story of the waters held above now being let go. This returns us to the garden through this vision of these symbolic “pairs”, which gives us a picture of this return to vision of unity within our diversity that through the covenant with Noah moves forward through one man (Abraham) with a renewed vision for how this unity can and will work- one man for the nations (the world). This is what Abrahams name literally means. Thus we find the unfolding narrative that becomes the essence of the Christological or messianic expectation. This one man (Abraham) becomes embodied in a single nation raised up for the sake of th world, through which we then begin to narrow in scope again to a family (Davidic line) followed by an even further narrowing to a single seed. Out of which we move into the period of exile and towards the fulfillment of the promise in one man, the New Adam (Jesus).

A couple important points here. Through this lens we can locate both the coming exile and the broken signpost of these failed titles of prophet, judge, priest and king to bring Israel to covenant fulfillment, as a de-creation process. A saving work. A purifying work. Similarly, we can see the state of Israel in the story of the “judges” in this way as well. Secondly, what we can recognize is the intention in seeing in the final judge (Samson, as is the case with King David and Moses and Joseph leading up to the Exodus) a Christ type. Consider that he is a Nazirite born with a declarative promise given from an exceptional birth, and that he is seen to be set apart for the sake of his people and sacrifices himself for his people in a kind of cleansing or destroying act with the purpose of fulfilling a decreation-recreation process.

The Uniquely Unifying Vision of the Israelite Promise

With this in mind, what is important to keep in mind when reading the Book of Judges is how this trajectory, this messianic focus and typology, and in Christendom this understanding of the fulfillment of these governing titles in Jesus, there is a single idea that seemed to set Israel apart from the surrounding nations. And it has to do with how we move from a unified people under God (or in the broader sense, religion) to a people for the world without getting caught in the trappings of empire. If the Christian narrative can be summed up as a singular contest, it would be as a contest of empires. There seems to be this ongoing tension presented throughout the Judeo-Christian story that suggests there are two ways of building society, beginning with the Garden as a constrating picture of a “building” society (one birthed in the tree of life, the other birthed in the blood soaked story of Cain and Abel), and then carrying through the story of a people set apart for a different vision of empire, perhaps most recognizably patterned against the story of Babel (a people unified under conquest and conformity and assimilation that becomes the literal and metaphorical template for “Babylon” that runs through Genesis to Revelation… the contrasting picture of empire). The problem that we find over and over again is that as nations develop into empires, a people (Israel) set apart to represent a contrasting vision of empire find themselves under conquest and thus desiring and conforming to the wrong idea of empire. Thus, as the messianic promise unfolds the office of prophet, priest, kind and judge continues to call them away from these visions of conquest and economic control and back to remembrance of their origins story. This most often happens through an ongoing cycle of deconstruction and reconsruction narratives, and perhaps more readily happens through thet flawed systems that see Israel mired in these undesirable cycles of violence and conquest as well. This is where Jesus becomes the fulfillment and fullest expressions of these office’s true concern- liberation and reform for the sake of a new creation. In Jesus we can see how Yahweh’s desire for Israel was something other than these destructive cycles which are not brought on by God’s doing, but rather by Israel’s forgetting of their true identity- where they came from and where they are headed as a people for the world.

What we actually find then is a nation, a people unified by their origins story for the purpose of then being pushed back out into the diversity of the world with a single vision of God’s love. By enveloping the diversity of the world into this unifying force that declares the power to uphold it, they can then bear witness to the new creation reality, a Kingdom being built according to a different way than economic purposes. In the story of the Judges this is demonstrated through being reminded of their covenant with Yahweh. In the Christian story this covenant promise is then fulfilled in Jesus. Scholarship pretty widely recognizes that this represented a unique vision in a world full of religious diversity. Rather than measure their Kingdom according to a self serving and self protected religious devotion on one end, or simply forgetting that religious devotion in favor of building their kingdom through the marks of conquest, economy and trade, on the other end, Israel was called to a different way of moving into the world- a people called to the kind of power that flows through the sacrificial image of the Cross. A people who become the least in order to bear witness to the true liberation being extended to all the nations of the world, a vision of liberation which represents Yahweh’s heart for a diverse world born through this being fruitful and multiplying purpose, and which carries the good news of a truly unifying picture of love embodied through its diversity.

Understanding Judges Through the Genesis of This Diversity

A recent and very wonderful episode of the Bible Project does an excellent job at breaking down how this picture is represented straight from the beginning in the Genesis text. Rather than the typical reading of Genesis that simply sees the man created to rule over his wife, and the rest being subservient to the original Adam as a form of understanding the true rule of God, a reading that has more in common with the opposing view of empire, we must begin with the Adam as representing a singular humanity. They note that this humanity is set alongside the idea of a diversity of animals, something that comes up again in the story of Noah in the notion of “pairs”. If Adam (humanity) is seen as the image of God, what we find in the creation story is a model through which to understand this concept of being unified in our diversity. The proper terms for Adam and Even, or hu-man and wo-man carried a strong poetic presence. It’s the idea of hu-man being divided in two so as to have a mirror image of ones self, the same identity as the image of God. Seeing a singular vision of God in the other as the image bearers of His identity and character. And it is in this mirror image that we then see the pattern of the Godly image for creation playing out, along with the ways in which our distorting of this image in the other leads to division. One divided then becomes one through the metaphor of marriage, out of which a singular whole is once again produced. This singuar whole then separates from the one (leaves mother and father) and goes through the same process, embodying the call to be fruitful and multiply.

What’s important to remember here is that this is not dogma but rather imagery, metaphor. If Genesis reflects an origins story, that means it is a temple text. And the tempe in Israel represents this unifying vision for creation with God as its indwelling centre, dwelling in their midst. The whole image of two divided and becoming one and thus creating diversity through this multiplying act is held together by this singular truth- in Yahweh and in Christ we find our unbroken identity that allows our diversity to flourish. It is when we we neglect this diversity for the sake of ourselves or oppress this diversity for the sake of our conquests that the covenant promise for this Edenic vision to be made new becomes broken and compromised. Which is why Jesus as fulfillment becomes such a hopeful and unique idea. When we are unable to see the image of God in what is essentially our mirror image (the other), then we tend to do harmful things to the other and thus ourselves. This is where Jesus becomes the image of God made incarnate (made in the image) and, through His death and and resurrection, indwells as the image of God in the hearts of all. Jesus calls us to see the other anew.

It’s also important to recognize that, as a metaphor, this idea of unity through diversity is blown wide open through the unfolding narrative of adoption that encompasses the story of Israel and the early church. Family, to borrow the ancient language, comes in many ways. Becoming one happens in many ways. Not simply through marriage or blood. The mirror image is simply the “other”, and in coming together in relationship to the other we are able to see the image of God and bear witness to its diverse presence as a single, declarative truth. This is what built the nation of Israel, is the bringing in of a diverse group of people from all different nations and with different gods by binding them together through a shared experience of oppression and liberation and then calling them outwards towards a different way of being together, one not built on the empires of conquest but the Kingdom of God. A people for the word.

This forms the meaning of John 12:47, where it says, “I do not judge anyone who hears my words and does not keep them, for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world“, and John 3:17 where it says, “do not judge anyone who hears my words and does not keep them, for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.” To understand the appointed title “judge” in this particular OT book we must see it through this larger vision and context of Israel’s purpose, and the best way to do that is to to return to that origins story, the story that provides the context for continued covenant renewal. And then ask the question, how do we then grow as people of the covenant in our diversity without retreating into division. In truth, if Judges has suggeststed anything to me this early in the the Torah Course, it is that my own creation, de-creation process, which is what we find in judges, is a way towards that end. A recreation process.

Director Bryan Bertino’s recent film The Dark and The Wicked is not only one of the best horror films of 2020, it is one of the best films of 2020. The most interesting dynamic of this story about the horrors of the devil invading the life and home of a particular family is that we aren’t given immediate reason for the invasion. Ordinarily what we find in a horror film, especially those involving a family and a home, is someone invading the space where this (or these) entities already live (a picture of oppression), or someone has done something to welcome the presence into their lives and their home (a metaphor for sin). We get no sense that this family has or is doing anything wrong or is somewhere they are not supposed to be, nor are we offered a clear explanation for why the devil arrives to oppress them. Only that something dark and wicked truly this way comes.

**SPOILERS AHEAD FOR THE DARK AND THE WICKED
The film takes place on a secluded farm in an undefined and unnamed American town. The house is occupied by an older man and an older woman (the grandfather and the grandmother), and their family (mother, father and kids) who have arrived to care for their dying grandfather. As this man awaits his death we are made suddenly aware of this increasing presence of something wicked and evil, first through a shocking sequence involving the grandmother who, upon slicing off her fingers while preparing a meal, ends up committing suicide. We then see this same presence moving through the different members of the family, gradually preying on their fear, distorting their vision of what is real and what is not, and gradually consuming their sense of being and seperating themselves from one another, sowing seeds of phsyical division.

The only place we are given a true name for this oppression, this invading entity is within the pages of the grandmother’s journal, where she describes the presence as “the devil”. Outside of this, all we are given is the expression of its intent as it looks to take over and occupy the lives of this family.

What seems to guide the devil’s intent though is something much more clear- death itself. At the center of it all lies this grandfather awaiting death’s gradual arrival. Death here is the great evil that permeates their home and overturns their lives, proving itself unwelcome but also undeniably present. Death is the great enemy for which they wait as they watch their grandfather laying in his bed struggling to breathe and counting the days.

It is this season of waiting that haunts this family, threatening to either bring them together or tear them apart. It is in this season of waiting for death to arrive that they, each of them, lie vulnerable and open to death’s great blow. The promise of this awaited death comes through the signs of the grandfather’s sickness, and with this comes all the uncertainty that death brings. As a parable about death then, maybe even more so this becomes a parable about life. While the darkness consumes in The Dark and the Wicked, the bleak and despairing picture of death’s disruption of their lives and its ability to steal and destroy, often seemingly against our will, beyond our control, we are thus reminded of a crucial part of this waiting- awareness of life. With the story being a stark metaphor for grief, it is this awareness that can help us from being consumed, allowing life and light to break through the darkness in a way that informs rather than destroys.

A NEW SEASON OF WAITING: BONHOEFFER’S CHRISTMAS SERMON
In one of Bonhoeffer’s famous Christmas sermons he speaks about a slightly different season of waiting. He makes the case that in our rush to see the light, to cherish life, we often skim past the darkness of the Christmas story, a season marked by Advent, a time of waiting and anticipating what is to come:

“We take the thought of God coming among us so calmly. It is all the more remarkable when we remember that we so often associate the signs of God in the world with human suffering, the cross on Golgotha. Perhaps we have thought so much of God as love eternal and we feel the warm pleasures of Christmas when he comes gently like a child. We have been shielded from the awful nature of Christmas and no longer feel afraid at the coming near of God Almighty. We have selected from the Christmas story only the pleasant bits, forgetting the awesome nature of an event in which the God of the universe, its Creator and Sustainer, draws near to this little planet, and now speaks to us. The coming of God is not only a message of joy, but also fearful news for anyone who has a conscience.

It is only by facing up to the fearfulness of the event that we can begin to understand the incomparable blessing. God comes into the midst of evil and death, to judge the evil in the world- and in us. And while he judges us, he loves us, he purifies us, he saves us, and he comes to us with gifts of grace and love. He makes us happy as only children know. He is, and always will be now, with us in our sin, in our suffering, and at our death. We are no longer alone. God is with us and we are no longer homeless. A piece of the eternal home is grafted into us. For that reason, we grown-ups can rejoice with all our heart around the Christmas tree- perhaps even more so than the children. We can see already the abundance of God’s gifts.”

In Matthew’s Gospel we see Jesus’ own story anchored in the very Jewish tradition and celebration of the Exodus story, one that begins in a place of enslavement and exile and moves through the waters (of baptism) towards the mountain in which God’s covenant promise is made known through Moses and now fulfilled in the person and ministry, in this movement from death to life, of Jesus. Just as the Temple was built (given birth) and destroyed (in death), Jesus is now raised again as the Temple restored and renewed. God’s presence, which seems so absent in times of darkeness, has finally returned.

And yet even as Christ is raised and the Temple restored, we continue to be called to a time of waiting in the present sense, awaiting the great renewal of all things, the promse of new creation, the new heavens and the new earth that are said to even now be unfolding and pouring out from the establishment of this new Temple of God’s presence in our midst:

“It is not yet Christmas. And neither is it yet the great last Advent, the second coming of Christ. Through all the Advents of our life, we shall wait and look forward with longing for that day of the Lord, when God says, “I am making everything new!” (Rev 21:5). Advent is a time of waiting. Our whole life is a time of waiting; waiting for the time when there will be a new heaven and a new earth. Then all the people will be brothers and sisters, rejoicing in the words of the angels’ song: “Glory to God in the Highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests (Luke 2:14).”

The signs of darkness and death call us to remain diligently aware of the promise of light and life. The most difficult part of living in the light is the truth that the darkness remains, and yet in the common and binding narrative of the Exodus story, in its startling and vivid picture of oppression and exile which at times bursts its way through our doors unannounced and uninvited, invading both life and home, while at other times arrives by way of our own invitation, the consequence of our own failures and our own sinfulness, we are reminded that it is through our awareness of this present darkness, the very power of death itself, that we can learn to see the light, to experience life. The darkness is not the whole story, it is simply, to borrow the words of N.T. Wright, a broken sign that points us to something greater- the light and the life. In the coming and long awaited Christ child, the birth of this new creation, this new Temple, there is also living. In this sense, death, darkness, is the very sign of life itself.

And so, as Advent beings we “learn to wait!” We learn to recognize the signs, not only of death but of life, for “He has promised to come.”

When I set out to do this filmtravels2020 exercise back in January as part of my new years resolution plan, I don’t think I considered, or at least failed to imagine just how rich the experience would be. Seeing films from around the world and experiencing new cultures through film has not only enlivened my personal viewing experience, but has enriched my understanding of the ways in which film history intersects with cultural and political histories around the globe. Living in Canada it is far too easy to simply succumb to the shadow that is the great American industry. The degree to which my own viewing habits are directed by American culture and film undoubtedly looms large. Seeing the development of film industries across the world up close and personal then has done two things- reminded me that the world is much larger than this Canadian-American bubble, and second, encouraged me to dig into the distinctives of my own Canadian culture. After all, the question of what makes culture and what makes a people is intimately tied to the development of its dominant public artform, and for the last 120 years film has played that role around the world.

In arriving in Africa, a vast and diverse continent in its own right, another thing I never expected was some timely overlap in my reading life, particularly in relationship to my interest in theology and the Christian faith. A few months ago I had the pleasure of reading a book called “How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind” by Thomas Oden. This was one of those pivotal and revolutionary reads that kind of shook up many of preconceptions and changed how I see faith and the development of faith in my own life and in the world. This book made an excellent pairing with two more subsequent reads: “The Non-Violent Atonement”, which gives a good deal of time exploring how Westernized versions of the Gospel have long been extrapolated from their African (and Eastern) roots, formulating an indivdualized Gospel built around notions of violence, power and conquest that has informed Western Theology as a “spiritualized” concept of atonement that then gets lobbied back onto the more collective African experience that is far more aware and familiar with a “liberating Gospel” (centered aroun “The Exodus” story) through the concept and idea of Western missions.

It is no coincidence then that the ongoing and continued development of a localized film industry in what is a diverse continent mirrors a similar movement in its pushback against Western advancement and colonization, western stereotypes and the pressures of navigating a broad country divided and detached from their collective story.

What is worth pointing out about the African cinema right from that start then is that there is no one single African cinema. To uncover African culture and the development of its people through the lens of its film history is to find the power of the collective within its diversity. There are differences between North African and Sub-Saharan cinema, and between the cinemas of the different countries that make up the whole.

Within this diversity though it is possible to locate key, driving forces, be it the the vastness of the Nigerian Film Industry, which has been documented as the second largest film producer in the world and its vital economic center, or the cultural touchpoint of “Cinema of Egypt”, recognized as one of the oldest industries in the world and arguably the epicenter of the ancient African Tradition. Throughout Africa’s long history of colonization, which has translated to imported cutures across North and South, these two centers of played an equally important role in protecting some sense of who Africans are outside of the acculturating effects of both Christian and Muslim conquest (among others). In terms of an interest in colonizations overlap with the film industry, history recognizes the colonial period as “the Scramble for Africa”, which occured at the hands of Western powers during 1881 and 1914. Thus the interest of Africa’s colonial and post colonial reality coincides with the development of its film industry as a vital part of that history given the development of film leading up to the year 1900 and hitting is formative stride in the early 1900’s. 

Of concern for this discussion is the fact that during the colonial era the ongoing Westernization of Africa was in full force, including the film’s occupation by Western filmmakers. There is much in the way of documentation that reveals the ways African’s were percieved by other territories through film, including Latin America, Europe and of course America. They were shown to be an underdeveloped and lesser people akin to the natives of their land, often romanticized and made ‘exotic” (read: strange, backwards and unfamliar) in ways that degraded them, and often capitalized so as to place them within those localized, national narratives in subervient ways. Maybe even more destructive was the way these depictions began to feed back into African industries as well, framing their percpetion of themselves in particular and largely damaging ways. This paved the way for this Western encroachment through colonization to become a matter of “civilizing” a uncivilized people and nation. And what better way to do this than through control of the film industry, the primary way in which a people and a culture is able to document its collective narrative and story.

Thus, to speak about the development of a truly African cinema one not only needs to look fairly late in the game to document its rise and capture its identity, but we also need to locate it is a developing industry against the reality of colonization. As a post-colonial expression, African Cinema has a definite past-present-future concern and focus, trying to recapture their narrative in a similar frame of the African Christian Tradition, ensuring they don’t forget the struggle of colonialism as the driving narrative, while also making sense of this new and unfamiliar land that awaits them, rich with history and Tradition and a buried cultural presence ready to be made alive and uncovered. It is through the development of the film industry that one can then begin to see the tables hopefullly beginning to turn, for Africans to find themselves in light of their own story rather than the one long imposed by the West.

For this reason, much of the scholarship insists that locating the African film industry begins in the 60’s when many of the diverse African Countries were able to claim some form of independence. This leads to a truly divere continent full of a diversity of films and “kinds” of industry movements, but a diversity shaped by a desire to

“use the art of filmmaking as a political instrument in order to rightly restore their image which had been wrongly depicted by Westerners” precisely by focusing on aspect of the “neocolonial” condition.   

Just to give a sense of how long it took for Africa to be able to reclaim this sense of identity, a few stats:
– Considered the first film directed by a black African, Afrique Sur Seine explores the difficulties of being an African in 1950s France.- Allégret later made Zouzou, starring Josephine Baker, the first major film starring a black woman
– The first African film to win international recognition was Sembène Ousmane‘s La Noire de… also known as Black Girl.
– the first African film to win an Academy Award for Foreign Language Film was Tsotsi (2006), a South-African production.
Stats like these show just burdened the continent was by its past, and how long it took them to even begin to overcome this long shadow and find representation of themselves even in their own context, countries and land. Perhaps even more striking is the battle that the Director considered to be the “father of African Cinema”, Ousmane Sembene, faced in terms of trying to pull from the most influential voices in African cinema, who were not African at all, a sense of African’s as people rather than, to borrow Sembene’s own words, “insects”. To work in film on their own land and in their own industries largely meant working under a foreign culture casting African’s in particular roles. Sembene, along with Oumarou Ganda, had to fight like hell to make something out of nothing, and he became incredibly influential, particularly in the area of Senegal.

One of the ways to track the rising diversity of the African film inudstry and cultural identity is through the different colonizing powers. For example, the struggles that French colonies faced as industries intimately tied to the support of the French Ministry of Cooperation, a fact that prevented Africans from making “African” films (see the Laval Decree), was slightly different from Portugese colonies who had little to no industry influence and simply used the local film industry for colonial propaganda, which again depicted Africans working in the industry as insects.
Add to this that colonization left a fractured continent having to navigate three main cultural and religious influences- African Tradition, Arab-Islam, and Euro-Christian, and you have a complicated and complex landscape that Africans as a whole have had to try and navigate.

“Like other forms of creative expression by Africans, filmmaking constitutes a form of discourse and practice that is not just artistic and cultural, but also intellectual and political. It is a way of defining, describing and interpreting African experiences with those forces that have shaped their past and that continue to shape and influence the present. It is a product of the historical experiences of Africans, and it has direct bearing and relevance to the challenges that face African societies and people of African descent in the world in the present moment and in the future. As product of the imagination, filmmaking constitutes, at the same time, a particular mode of intellectual and political practice. Thus, in looking at filmmaking, in particular, and the other creative arts, in general, one is looking at particular insights into ways of thinking and acting on individual as well as collective realities, experiences, challenges and desires over time. African thinking and acting on their individual and collective realities, experiences, challenges and desires are diverse and complex, and cinema provides one of the most productive sites for experiencing, understanding and appreciating such diversity and complexity.”
– Mbye B. Cham

The essential reality of the African experience through the lens of the African film indusry according scholarship is that “The situation contemporary African societies live in is one in which they are dominated on several levels: politically, economically and culturally.” As one source reflected, the African filmmaker is often compared to the traditional griot., whose primary task is to capture and give back to the people pictures and narratives that can speak to their collective experience. Looking back to African Tradition, the primary point of expression which would then unfold into South Africa in its diveristy, we can located the prominance of oral practice, which African filmmakers have been able to use to recapture a true sense of African identity. Given the prominance of colonization in its narrative, what much of the scholarhip also narrows in on is the ways in which Africa was able to take the revolutionary movements and language of Italian neoralism and New and Third Wave film expressions and shape it around their own revolutionary language, a language that is well suited to oppressed societies looking for reform and third world practices. Before arriving at the modern shape of African Cinema, a big part of what helps give shape to these different industries today is this indebted style and focus to giving film back to the people on the ground and allowing film to tell the stories of the people on location and incorporating real Africans who are then empowered to tell their stories.

In terms of giving shape to a more recognizably modern and now developed (and still developing industry) across Africa, we begin with this overarching truth:

“The African cinema industry acknowledges undeniably the need to develop its own way of making films, support their local initiatives, and invest in cinematic cultures such as films festivals. Although the African film industry does not currently attract the same levels of popularity claimed by the well-developed European and American industries, it has shown significant growth and progress in the beginning of the 21st century, a fact reflected in part by the creation of a Journal of African Cinema and African TV channels.” This can also include the creation of the African Film Summit in South Africa in 2006 and the African Movie Acadamy Awards which started in 2004, which has been instrumental in the growth of the Nigerian Film Industry, a kind of epicentre, and in creating a unified ability and opportunity to develop industries across the continent. Or things like the Pan African Federation of Filmmakers created in 1975 and the the Charter of the African Cineaste that flowed from that. This helped give a unified focus to the larger continent on the importance of giving voice to past-present-future driven narratives.

To narrow in on Nigerian Cinema, known for the growth of “Nollywood” (which produced 1844 films, a record in 2013, and has only been growing), what brings definition to this bustling industry is low budget films made for the local communities and without concern for international focus. These are stories meant to build up, reinforce and give voice for a local culture, and more importantly to do so without being dependent on outside industries such as France and America. This industry is pushing for the cause of indepence and autonomy.Contrast this with a more continent wide movement into a genre known as Afro-Futurism (think Black Panther, or if you are an ignorant and uninformed white male like me: https://www.vulture.com/2018/02/what-to-watch-after-black-panther-an-afrofuturism-primer.html).
These films have a specific interest in speaking into the Diaspora and finding a way to connect voices abroad with voices in Africa.

Contrast this still yet with something Somoliwood, a more youth oriented industry (in contrast with Nollywood) interested in pointing towards the future expressions of young Africans.

All across the Continent you can find these kinds of stories. Stories on the one end like Equatorial Guinea, who continues under a Dictatorship that has stifled its ability to build a localized industry, to the superpower of the Continent in South Africa’s rise in financial status. Two very different expresssions both located within the larger African experience. Or a place Burkina Faso, a smaller locale which boasts a wealth of locally driven entities who are pushing to have a real international presence. Or the one-two punch of Nairobi and Kenya, with Nairobi doing some exceptional work in investing in and uncovering local talent (behind the award winning film Nairobi Half Life and Out of Africa and the home of the Hot Sun Foundation) and Kenya doing the leg work of building international connections. And one can’t overlook the cultural forces of Morroco, which boasts desired locales and festivals, and Egypt, which holds a massive influence and presence in the Middle East and Arab world. It is still the oldest and one of the most cultured and enlivened industries in Africa.

“In spite of its youth and the variety of overwhelming odds against which it is struggling, cinema by Africans has grown steadily over this short period of time to become a significant part of a global cinema civilization to which it brings many significant contributions. More specifically, it is part of a worldwide film movement aimed at constructing and promoting an alternative popular cinema, one that corrects the distortions and stereotypes propagated by dominant western cinemas, and one that is more in sync with the realities, the experiences, the priorities and desires of their respective societies.” This sets its sights on things like the loss and reclaiming of Tradition, oppression and liberation, immigration, diaspora and localized cultures, colonialism and post colonialism, racism and reclamation of identity and image, among many other things.

If there is something that emerged from the discussions of scholars and historians and filmmakers it is the necessary focus in Africa on film as communication:

“One can argue that film is an important part of the cultural domain in any country, but particularly so in South Africa where social change depends on the quality of communication in the society. Communication is one of the cornerstones of democracy, and film and video can make an important contribution to the democratisation and development that need to take place within this society… most Afrikaans films communicated by means of obsolete symbols that had little intercultural communication value. They painted a one-sided and stereotypical portrait of the Afrikaner, leading to a misconception about who and what the Afrikaner was. Furthermore, the negative portrayal of blacks as a servant class in these films is a visual symbol of the deep-seated apartheid ideology.”  If this is the damage that coopted communication can represent, what is happening in the current African rennasaince is a film industry looking to communicate better, both in terms of the importance of their diversity which moves from North to South, but also in the sense of affirming a true African identity. This is what lies behind the goal of all of these movements, modern developments and industry developments. And if it has the opportunity to say anything, the future is hopeful.

As a fun note to leave this on to that end:

“In Mauritania CINEPARC RIBAT AL BAHR is an open air Drive-in Cinema located in Nouakchott, the only one of its kind in Africa. In addition to the projection schedule, the drive-in have a new application iOS and Android provides you with the biggest international movie database in which you can find information such as plot summaries, cast members, production crews, critics reviews, ratings, fan trivia, and much more about movies, series, and all cinematic work.”

SOURCES
http://www.experience-africa.de/index.php?en_annual-african-film-festival-2013_african-film-industry
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema_of_Africa#:~:text=African%20cinema%20is%20film%20production,primary%20cinematic%20technology%20in%20use.&text=Auguste%20and%20Louis%20Lumi%C3%A8re%20screened,filmed%20by%20Egyptians%20in%201907.
African cinema: a historical, theoretical and analytical exploration by Martin Both
Cinema and Media StudiesAfrican Cinema
Frank Ukadike
Questioning African cinema : conversations with filmmakers / Nwachukwu Frank Ukadike
Flickering shadows: cinema and identity in colonial Zimbabwe / J.M. Burns
African cinemas: decolonizing the gaze / Olivier Barlet
https://africanfilmny.org/articles/film-and-history-in-africa-a-critical-survey-of-current-trends-and-tendencies/
https://oxfordre.com/africanhistory/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-157
https://openjournals.uwaterloo.ca/index.php/kinema/article/download/779/648?inline=1
https://www.cambridgescholars.com/download/sample/57721
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330689452_African_film_in_the_21st_Century_some_notes_to_a_provocation
https://www.jstor.org/stable/3820132
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1771833
file:///C:/Users/jcourtney/Downloads/Dialnet-HistoryCultureAndIdeologyInSouthAfricanCinema-4952012.pdf
https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-south-african-film-industry-timeline-1895-2003
https://openjournals.uwaterloo.ca/index.php/kinema/article/view/1139/1368
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/13/movies/touki-bouki-streaming-afrofuturism.html
https://www.vulture.com/2018/02/what-to-watch-after-black-panther-an-afrofuturism-primer.html

Some thoughts from the book of Zechariah as I keep and mind and pray for America and all my friends in America this week.

“Return to me and I will return to you”. (Zechariah 1:3)
This word of hope covers the book of Zechariah as it speaks of a day and a time when what is wrong will be made right. When a people in self perpetuated, self induced exile will brought together and made whole in a city described as being without walls and gates and surrounded by the “fire” of the Lord.

This grand imagery sets the stage for the great drama of Israel’s history which has now come a point of return following many years in exile. In a climatic moment, Zechariah imagines a coming king simply named “The Branch” who will bring about their necessary salvation, liberating the people from oppression, bringing them back into the land, and restoring their purpose.

One thread that runs through the prophecies or “oracles” found in this book is the unique progression of this promised return and restoration:
1. It begins with the fruit of their forefather’s “repentance” being made known in the present generation. Thus the decisions we make today make a better world for those who will inhabit tomorrow. Here we get a people who have looked upon their past and repented, which gives way to the proclomation of the continued faithfulness of God as He is said to dwell in their midst. Repentance is an active word that literally renders “to turn and look in a different direction”, and here it is away from exile and the model of empire that surrounds them and towards a new Kingdom, a better Kingdom symbolized in the rebuilding of the temple.

2. Secondly, a “flying scroll” identified as “the curse” goes into all the earth collecting the “iniquities” (the present state of things, the mess of things) and places it far away from the people so that the land can be restored.

3. Third, the people in the restored land are then be tasked to go into all the earth tasked with a new and better way as a witness to the continued restoration of all and the good of all.

This is what leads to the future restored land/city overflowing with new life. And what lies at the center of this picture is a man named Joshua, a high priest who stands as an image of the coming “Branch”, a name later writers will apply directly to Jesus. This future King will bring together the office of both King and Priest as a “counsel of peace”, freeing the oppressed, unifying the people, and restoring the earth.

As I was reading, two key moments in the book stood out for me in terms of how this promise will come about.
The first comes from a conversation between God and Zechariah. Looking towards a people who are stuck in the mess that they have made for themselves, God calls Zechariah in the beginning of Chapter 11 to “become a shepherd of the flock doomed to slaughter” using two staffs named “favor” and “union”. But Zechariah became impatient with them, saying that the people detested him. “What is to die, let die” he says.

This is contrasted with Chapters 12-14 which then repeats the pattern of salvation as it looks forward to the day when the temple will be rebuilt, the land restored and the people saved for the sake of the world. This image of hope revolves around the one “who they have pierced”, “the Branch” who will come to make God known once again in their midst. And instead of shepherding with a “what is to die, let die” attitude, this future King promises to come near and to be present, to restore, to rid the iniquities of the world. This echos the early sentiment where God declares the suffering people and nation to be “the apple of (His) eye.” (2:8)

We then get a repeated picture of the iniquities being removed, freedom from oppression, followed by the call to bear the fruit of this salvation through their care and concern for all the world. This is the purpose of the temple they are rebuilding. It looks nothing like the old one, but through it comes something even greater, the one who will be a true council of peace. This is the exact same image we get in Chapter 3. Chapter 3 opens with a dramatic scene featuring Joshua (high priest), an angel of the Lord, the Lord and Satan, who currently stands as Joshua’s judge. Satan is rebuked, and Joshua, currently clothed in filthy garments, is told to remove them. They represent his “iniquities”, and thus in being reclothed in “pure vessels” he is said to be judged differently, judged according to God’s view of him not Satan’s.

And yet here is the important thing. This comes with a charge- be faithful and you will be my representative. The task to bear witness to a new way of being, a new way of living, a new way of seeing world, the way of this council of peace, is one that doesn’t simply demand repetance, but participation. This is where the real Kingdom work begins.

And what is this better way? To what end are we called to work? We get this in chapter 7 where the people returning from the exile ask about what they need to do to gain the Lord’s favor. Here the Lord reminds them, is it not me who has been with you the whole time? They have nothing to earn. They are already loved, cherished, welcomed, longed after. So what should they do? “Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another, do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor, and let none of you devise evil against one another in your heart.” (7:9).

This is the way of the Branch. This is the way of the council of peace. This is the way to a people renewed, a land overflowing with goodness and grace, mercy and love. May we all bear witness to this end.

Some reflections from my read through the Book of Haggai this morning

This tiny, two chapter book packs a punch. Even more worthwhile is considering what it has to say to us during Covid as we experience our own collective, virus bred exile.

EXILE IN CONTEXT: THE POWER OF A NAME

The context of the book is the return from a long period of exile and the rebuilding of the temple that had been destroyed which ushers in what is known as the Second Temple period, the world into which Jesus was born, ministered, died and rose again.

The name Haggai is a poetic rendering of the word “festival” (festal), which accomplishes two things in this narrative:

1. It positions Haggai’s relevance as a prophet given that he does not arrive with a genealogy. By associating him with a context (an important festival), it gives his prophetic voice a necessary weight.
2. It gives Haggai’s message a broader context within the larger narrative of Israel’s story. We don’t exactly know what festival Haggai is being associated with, but given the references to Egypt and the Exodus it seems clear and fair to me that this would be calling back to the related festival of both bondage and liberation of that story. As will become clear, the present-future context of this book’s prophetic word can also then locate that same Exodus context in Jesus’ own story. This is both a call to present action and a word of anticipation and hope for the future. The restoration of the temple will bring about the expected return of God’s presence to Israel.

So to restate the context: Israel has been given to exile and the temple destroyed. Babylon has changed hands and the new rulers have allowed the people to return to Jerusalem. Some of them stay in Babylon, some of them return. This is in the 6th century (Cyrus, the Persian ruler captured Babylon in 539, which when Cyrus’s son Cambyses died was replaced by Darius, once a general). This is also during the time of Ezra and Nehemiah and during the second year of Darius (520). Ezra 3:1-4:5 tells of how the work of rebuilding the temple stalled when opposition arose. Darius’ support was necessary for the temple rebuilding (Ezra 5 and 6)

In this sense, King/Ruler and Temple are two themes that are intimately linked, with Zerubbabel promised the heir of David’s throne, who the prophet’s word goes out to and from, along with Joshua, the high priest. (1:1), along with the question of oppressive empires in the immediate sight and application of the prophetic word.

This consideration of two Kingdoms, two empires is then filtered backwards into Israel’s story (Exodus and Exile), and forwards into the expectation of a future temple, with the temple providing an image of continuity, both in the shared experience and in the faithfulness of God. The problem we are told is that the people are complaining about the current state of the rebuilding project, and the Lord says in verse 3, “is it a time for you to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruin.?” (1:3-4). They know this temple being rebuilt is smaller than the former (Ezra 3:12). Into this response comes the word of the Lord through the prophet Haggai.

THE WORD OF THE LORD
The book of Haggai is written around four messages from “the Lord”, each with its own specific date and context and concern. And here is the important trajectory or pull of these messages- they are addressed to the prophet, which extends to ruler and priest, which extends to the “remnant”, which extends to all. This frames the large picture of a future restoration as a message of hope to the nations.

Again, the context is exile, return from exile, and the prospect of rebuilding a temple that no longer looks the same. It is a shell of what it once was, which could easily lead to frustration and apathy.

For my own reflections, I was considering this in light of Covid. As we look on the Church during Covid, it appears to be a shell of what it once was. In fact, as we look out at all of society, this is what we find. This has been a kind of collective exile, one that is able to remind us of our shared humanity, an exile that we are still only imagining our eventual return from. If we can imagine a future day when we can return, the words in Haggai to the people, “Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory?” arrives with a biting force. It strikes me that I never figured a virus could be as divisive as politics and religion, and yet this has been precisely the temptation on a global front. A people divided. If we see the Church in with Israel’s story then, the call is for the Church to demonstrate a picture of an undivided people, with Israel the means of a message of hope being sent out into all the world, bringing and ushering the world into a greater picture of an undivided Kingdom.

THE CALL TO BE STRONG, GET TO WORK, AND NOT TO FEAR

So in the first message from the Lord through the prophet for the ruler and the priest and the remnant (some had returned to Jerusalem, some remained scattered in Babylon) and thus the world, we get the call to “consider your ways” (1:5), for you have sown much and harvested little.

To restate this in other words, I hear this in this way. All the years of having Church (the temple) as normal, and all the struggle that comes with it’s loss, what has all this experience been for if not for this rebuilding time, this time of harvesting the faith that has been sown through the life of the Church? Will we be like the people Haggai’s word is speaking to, hunkering down in anxiety, feeling like the current state of being, things being less than ideal, the Church looking like a shell of what it once was should lead us to retreat inward into our houses? The bubbles or our isolated worlds and lives that exile has demanded and created?

The natural consequence of retreating instead of building is a lack of the blessings of the harvest. The fruit of the faithful witness in terms of healing and liberation of the oppressed, the hurting, the marginalized, the sick. Hear the word of the Lord here. If the word, “Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? carries weight, so does the following word from the Lord, which is “how do you see it (the state of the Temple) now? Is it not as nothing in your eyes?” Out of which we get the call to “be strong” and to “work”. Now is the time to do the work of the Church.

Calling them back to Egypt as the guiding narrative and the exile as their most recent reality, God reminds them that “my Spirit remains in your midst”, so “fear not.” For God will shake the heavens and all the treasures of the nations will come in. “I will fill this house with glory.” This rebuilding will lead to an even greater temple and the restoration of the heavens and the earth. This might not look like it once did, but I am with you, and thus you can trust that this temple, which is a shell of what it once was, is not the end of the story.

SHAKING AND RESTORATION

A word on this notion of “shaking” that can help us bring this call into our own context:
This restorative message has a future and present context. The spirit is encouraging people to get to work in rebuilding, and thus this shaking happens in the contextualized marriage of both God’s work and our work. Shaking has a couple contexts in scripture. One is the fall of Kingdoms, of which the Prophet would have had oppressive empires in his sight in line with the Exodus story of liberation. Another is the trembling and shaking that comes from trials and suffering. A third is the natural shaking of the earth given an interpretive and divine force.

The shaking in Haggai 2 is rooted in the past of “once more” this will happen, which takes us back to the pivotal event in Israel’s history, the original covenant-broken covenant (read: fall) narrative. (Hebrews 12; Exodus 32-34) When it says in Hebrews, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens” (Hebrews 12:25-29), it has this Haggai passage in mind. This is the image of bringing together heaven and earth, or the prayer “on earth as it is in Heaven” being made real, so that what cannot be shaken may remain.
When we pair this with Haggai 2:7, where is says that this shaking will lead to “the treasures of all the nations” coming in to the future Temple, we get an even heightened sense of this “shaking’s” present-future context. Treasures translates to “desire”, which in its plural form gets translated to the desired or collective “whole”. What this has in mind then is once again the Exodus story (Exodus 11:2-3; 12:35-36) where literal treasure (materials) from the Egyptians are used to rebuild the temple. Think of the wise men coming from the East as this imagery then gets applied to Jesus who is declared as the full restoration of the Temple, God with us.

As this remnant of people gazes on the present state of things and is tempted to shrink back into their state of exiled anxiety, this word pierces through their experience to point them to a greater reality not simply rooted in their present, but in a past-present-future reality. This is where they are to find the strength to see this as a time to come out of our houses and “get to work”. And the amazing picture that we have here is that important trajectory that moves from the word of the Lord all the way to the nations. The work of the Church is for the world, especially in times of exile and rebuilding.

And the thing about this promise is that the physical Temple, the picture of God’s dwelling place is now Jesus, and Jesus dwells in us, in the world, in creation. The liberating message of the Exodus story flows out into a new image of Christ with us in our own exile, this time of Covid. As we gaze upon the destruction this virus has caused, this prophetic word calls us to be awakened to a greater sense of purpose and faith and grace. Christ with us, Christ for the world. It moves us from our state of anxiety and exile to see what this act of rebuilding entails in the world. This is the Christian mission.

As we continue to tread through this time of exile, may this word arrive as a message of comfort, peace and charge. God with us. The same message that we will be declaring in a couple months from now as we enter the season of Advent and Christmas. Therefore do not fear. Be strong in the hope and reality of the spirit and get to work rebuilding God’s Kingdom in our midst, that promised new creation, the new heavens and the new earth that looks to usher in the true treasure of the nations as a greater vision of hope and renewal.

Some reflections since I was up early this morning.

I’ve really been struck this year by how much of our understanding of God seems to hing on Genesis 1-3. It is striking how much of scripture has these three chapters in mind, with Revelation itself essentially retelling the narrative in a contextualized fashion.

And really narrowing in on these three chapters I think can help us make sense of our own context. Consider the following:

In Chapter 1 we are given a cosmic view of creation that essentially establishes the 3 tier view of the ancient world- the land, the waters out of which the land is formed, and the heavens.

The heavenly and earthly realm are interconnected in the view of ancient Judaism, indicating that the whole is God’s abode.

We then come to the interesting relationship between the two creation accounts of Genesis 1 and 2. What’s interesting to note is how we move from Genesis 2, a cosmic perspective with the use of both the plural elohim (a term that denotes the spiritual beings who occupy the divine realm) and the plural adam (humankind… which follows the creation of the multitudes of creatures that occupy both earth and sky) and the vast expanse of both heaven and earth to the singular Yahweh-Elohim and the singular Adam and Eve and a particular use of “land” as a locale in chapter 2.

In Genesis 1 we find God calling the cosmos (heaven and earth, and all that is in them) into form. Then in the rest of Genesis (beginning in Genesis 2) we have the account of what came of (or developed out of) God’s initial creation, how humans responded to God’s call to be his image in the world.

This prepares us to move into Genesis 3. Notice that when we are introduced to the serpent and the serpent is convincing “the woman” to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil we have a use of “elohim” ( You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God) that is commenting on this use of plural and singular. By using the plural in this instance, what becomes established are two things:
1. The pattern in relationship of service, or being “in service to” rather than have power over. We find this image in this move from the plural elohim (divine beings) to the singular (Yahweh, which renders elohim over elohim… the source of life)
2. In a world where both the divine and earthly realm were seen as interconnected and coexisting realities, to be like god meant to subvert this notion of “in service to” towards having “power over”, with the emphasis moving in two directions- in service to creation and one another and in service to God as his image bearers to creation.

The emphasis then on wisdom (and Genesis is considered wisdom literature), which in 3:6 says is the root of the woman’s desire, is one of being like god, or a member of the divine realm. Later in Genesis 6:2 we see this same contrast with the “descendants of Adam and the sons of Noah” in chapter 5 being set in relationship to the “sons of god”, which again is the inference of the plural elohim in indicating the sons of “divine council” or the divine realm, or those who saw themselves as descendents of the gods/the divine realm. This is the cosmic-earthly context in relationship.

What follows Chapter 6 is the story of the flood, which basically reverses the picture towards a deconstructing or de-creation process, literally ending with a naked human being. A return to Adam, with the land once pulled from the waters meeting with the collapsing of the three tiered universe where the waters once protected both below and above reflecting humanities desire to have power over rather than being in service to.

Before we arrive at this deconstruction/decreation process though, what we have is the story that binds creation and decreation together into a promise of recreation. A way of connecting Genesis 1 and 2 with Genesis 6. In the Garden, in this specific piece of land, we have two trees, one indicating the source of life and the other indicating the source of death, which is captured throughout scripture in terms of this duality of blessings and curses, life and death, two kingdom realities. It also sets in play the three central agencies at play in this biblical narrative- Yaheweh, the Powers (of Sin and Death, the evil one, the principalities), and Humanity.

Now notice the central pattern set in play in Genesis 3 in terms of the role of the second agency (the Powers)- the serpent accuses God of lying which leads the man to accuse the woman which leads the woman to accuse the serpent.

The serpent personified as lies and falsehoods which is embodied in “accusation”, a pattern which subverts the “in service to” in exchange for being in power over another.

The curse that results in this choosing of life and death then has a double result- the personified image of the divine beings is made into a serpent which is made the lowest of all creatures, the man set in power over the woman, and the land power over the man. This becomes the reality of this inversion of our created purpose to be “in service to” creation, one another and God, the choosing of death over life.

Consider the two trees as well in the book’s temple context- the tree of life is the tabernacle or temple, which is where God’s presence is seen to dwell, and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil is the Law, which is said to reveal the Powers of Sin and Death.

This subversion then becomes realized in the first expression of this new reality, accusation which leads to jealousy in Cain and Abel, which leads to death- the building blocks of civilization.

Which begs the question, what comes of this? Are we simply stuck in this pattern of subversion, exchanging service to for power over? A constant ebb and flow between oppressed and oppressor? This is where chapter 3 give us an important image that alludes to the promise of recreation or restoration. Speaking of the serpent, it says
“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.”

The woman, which is later made singular as “the mother of all living”, will bring an offspring that will “strike your head”. But this comes with a cost. The serpent will strike the offspring’s “heel”. This sets up the image of the seed which will bring new creation, which flows through the covenant with Noah, Abraham, and Moses on the mountain meeting with God (which in ancient Jewish tradition actually functioned as the original “fall” narrative… Moses on the mountain with the people making an image of Yahweh down below, the embodiment of these two trees). Notice as you work through the biblical narrative how we have this pattern as well- individual (Abraham) to family (Jacob) to nation (Israel) to family (David) to individual (Jesus), with the foundation of the covenant being a promise to bless “all” the nations of the earth.

What’s important about all of these patterns is how they allow us to connect our reality, which is what the Genesis narrative was intended to do, to an origins story or working mythology (that is, a story that connects present reality-history-mythic origins) that can help us understand where we are today (which for the present audience of Genesis would have been wilderness and then exile). As it reads, “He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life.”

In the larger patterns we get two working images here- this exchanging of a given reality with a chosen reality (life and death, service for power), and this developing image of restoration and recreation that begins with Abraham and culminates with Jesus as the means for entering our chosen reality in order to give us a new reality. In this sense the guarding of the way to the tree of life is both the protecting of this divine-earthly intereconnected relationship which sets creation in service to rather than in power over, and the guarding of the way back to this interconnected relationship where the source of life, the Elohim of elohims dwells in the whole of the created order, land, water and heavens.

The grand truth of Genesis 1-3 is that all is Yahweh’s domain. When we exchange the truth for the lie, when we take on the role of the accuser, what happens is we then end up standing in judgment over creation, over one another, and even ourselves. When we do this, when we function in this way, we then place ourselves, our systems, our desires, our motives, both individually and collectively, in power over the other. If we are to apply that to today, we see this in the long history of patriarchal systems and structures, where the male figure has positioned itself in power over the woman. We see this is racial structures, in the colonizing realities where races have positioned themselves in power over other races. We see this in global developments where nations have set themselves in power over other nations. This is a reflection of the Powers, the lie of the accuser, the embodiment of our desire. When we miss this aspect of the Genesis narrative, we miss how this plays into the rest of scripture as we see Yahweh being distinguished as the Elohim above Elohim’s, the “I am who I am” or the “I will be who I will be”, constantly working to subvert the measure of these desires to look to subvert in service to, or in relationship to, for notions of in power over. We see this in the ways women are elevated, slavery is reconstructed, empire is dismantled, patriarchy is criticized, and power structures are judged. To choose this reality of the lies of the accusation is to inherit a corrupted order. We feed the Powers which hold this world in its present state, in bondage to a reality that is different than Genesis 1, and that plays through Genesis 2. Notice how in Genesis 2 we get this interesting twist on Genesis 1 which moves from “good” to the final declaration “very good”. In Chapter 2 Yahweh-Elohim looks at man and says “It is NOT GOOD that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.” This was the vision for life- togetherness, the call to live “in service to” one another, community. In our diversity we embody the divine image when we recognize this truth. As image bearers (In the ancient world the idol, the image of the divine being, was the final thing to be placed in the temple. In ancient Israel we are the idol, the image bearers) we are intended to reflect this reality back out to the whole of creation. When we don’t we end up with civilization built on power, systems that hold power over one another.

And yet the grand image, the hopeful image that we find in the Judeo-Christian narrative is that this picture of the serpent being crushed and the serpent biting the heel is one of a demonstrably different way, a way that is ultimately revealed in Jesus, who demonstrated himself by lowering himself so as to raise up his creation and show us how it is God’s Kingdom, this cosmic-earthly reality in which we live, was intended to operate. We are called in scripture to follow Jesus to the Cross, to follow in way of the Cross, setting ourselves in service to creation and one another and to God. When we forget what this looks like, look to the Cross. This is what it means to participate in communion as a central part of our common liturgy.

And it is at the table that our liturgy then moves us to the resurrection promise. The very image of recreation. But what the communion table does is invite us into those few chapters that connect Genesis 1-2 (creation) to Genesis 6 (decreation), which is the central pattern of deconstruction and reconstruction, a pattern we are called to participate in daily and faithfully. It is when we do this that we can then gain a vision of that Abrahamic promise, that grand movement that brings us from individual (ourselves) to family (church) to nation (collective), all for the sake of the world, the world that remains and is and always will be God’s true domain, the domain we have been called to occupy as Yahweh’s image bearers.

According to film historian Daw-Ming Lee, one of the major gaps in scholarship surrounding the study of Taiwan film history is the period before the 50’s.

“Relatively few books and essays, in any language, have explored Taiwan cinema during the Japanese colonial period. In the past quarter of a century, most film studies on Taiwan cinema in the West discuss only films and their makers after 1950, especially those after the emergence of Taiwan New Cinema.” (Daw-Ming Lee)

The reason for this is because these films were never considered Japanese cinema, but were also, to varying degrees, distinguished from main land china, leaving them with a lack of cultural recognition on the international stage while also isolated as a territory.

Further complicating the matter is the fact that, in dealing with Taiwanese Cinema one also needs to navigate the competing and interconnected world of Chinese-language films and Chinese politics as a whole, with a distinct Taiwanese Cinema (and culture for that matter) only becoming truly visible in recent years with the New Wave, and even then being burdened by this complicated landscape.

“Research in world cinema addresses three major areas of Chinese-language cinema:
Chinese cinema, Hong Kong cinema and Taiwanese cinema.

Most research on Chinese-language cinema focuses on kung fu movies, authorship, political identity, gender, and aesthetics. The best-known research on Taiwanese cinema relates to Taiwanese New Cinema and authorship.” (The Film Industry in Taiwan: A Political Economy Perspective).

To truly understand Taiwanese New Cinema (New Wave), one needs to be able to understand their colonial past, as their more recent struggles to define themselves over (and depending on the lens one uses, against) mainland China has tried to locate their identity within and in relationship to this developing history. Taiwanese cinema was the earliest of Japan’s colonial industries (film markets), and can also be considered its most vibrant, which allowed the Taiwanese people to use this fact to quietly grow their culture even in in the midst of colonization.

For example, a defining element of Japanese early cinema was the incorporation and development of the “benshi”, artists who would narrate films at public showings. One of the characteristics of the benshi artform was that a different one would perform at different showings, thus making each viewing unique not only in terms of how the story was told in a particular and different flavor, but in its demonstration of and ability to highlight the cultural touch points of a given area and a regional expression. The Taiwanese took this tradition and renamed it piān-sū, which allowed its local culture to be preserved and celebrated through their particular interpretations of films showing in their Country, which at that time were largely exhibitionist films coming in from the outside. Later on, the emphasis the Taiwanese New Cinema would (and does) place on interior spaces (with symmetrical lines and spaces and walled rooms) is representative of this same sort of Japanese influence being interpreted through their own cultural and specific Taiwanese lens, as is their dedication to slow cinema and a critical focus on encroaching urbanization.

One thing is for sure. Taiwanese Cinema has played a huge and significant role in helping Taiwan to establish itself as a distinct culture and identity in what grew to be a complicated political system in China, especially as it developed from an “exhibition” state under Japanese rule to a commercial hub in relationship to Hong Kong (dominated by the Central Motion Picture Corporation, a state-sponsored studio with heavy censorship characteristic of an authoritarian state). It’s desire to distinguish itself as a place dedicated to true artistic expression and to give rise to authentic artistic voices and the concern of the Manifesto that would eventually help to bring change and a sense of definition to the Country as a whole, would be the very thing that would allow the Country to tell the story of it’s people, its place, and its circumstance. And this persists through its particular sociopolitical challenges:

“(On a sociopolitical level) Taiwan has grown increasingly isolated on the international stage. Whereas Taiwan had official diplomatic relations with almost 70 states back in the late 1960s, only 17 states currently still recognize the Taiwanese government as the legitimate representative of the Chinese people… Contrary to what its political and economic impotence might suggest, however, there is one area in which Taiwan has played a hugely important role: cinema.” (Andrew Emerson, The Beginners Guide: New Taiwan Cinema)

As mentioned, it would be impossible to avoid mention of the Tawain Cinema Manifesto, signed by 54 filmmakers in 1987, when talking about Taiwan Cinema. It criticized censorship and the governments failure to recognize film as a necessary and important artform in the sociopolitical arena, pushing for a distincly Taiwanese culture and industry and leading to international recognition. Why do manifesto’s matter? Because they speak to distinct Taiwanese concerns:

“One can think of New Taiwanese films’ lack of narrative as one way in which they sought to distinguish themselves from their Hollywood and Hong Kong counterparts. More generally, this lack of narrative also speaks to the underlying intentions of New Taiwanese filmmakers. They weren’t so much interested in telling stories as they were in evoking, analyzing, and critiquing an atmosphere and way of life.” (Andrew Emerson)

THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT
To understand the Taiwan Film industry, it’s important to understand the history of the Country.

This reaches back to the overthrowing of the Qing Dynasty (1911), and the establishing of the Republic of China and the Chinese Nationalist Party (under Dr. Sun Yat-sen). With Taiwan having been ceded to Japan and made a Japanese colony following the war in 1894 and not made a part of China until 1946, their relationship developed somewhat estranged from both Japan and China for a good part of its most recent history. This would lead to Taiwan being the place where the Chinese Nationalists, following the civil war in the late 1940’s, would flee and establish roots when Communist Rule (under Mao) overtook the Republic of China. Here the Nationalists would begin to think about their Chinese identity, refusing to disassociate from the ROC under communist rule and essentially creating the two state structure (the PROC… Peoples Republic of China, and the ROC). Taiwan became something of a safe haven due to protection from international forces (including the U.S.).

It is because of this precarious position, of being considered a province and a Country, and being under the Nationalist Party, the provincial government and military rule, and encroaching influences and pressures coming from those protecting them from Communist China (Western influence), that the film industry was forced to build itself from the ground up, essentially establishing itself as the honest and integral voice of its people from within these political entities.

THE POWER OF LANGUAGE AND THE RELEVANCE OF ART
A hugely important facet and characteristic of Taiwan’s cinematic identity was the ability of their specific language to persist through both Japanese and Chinese rule, both of which positioned Taiwan primarily as an exhibitionist territory (and in the case of Hong Kong, committing them to commercial and genre films). This protecting of and dedication to their language allowed them to build their culture, imagine (and reimagine) their past, and discover their story without being consumed by these external forces, even with (and through) the development of the”Central Motion Picture Corporation (CMPC)”, the unifying of Chinese Cinema into a single entity. And given how dedicated (and successful) Hong Kong was to producing mainstream and commercial films, their connection to the story of their people through language was what allowed them to begin to develop a serious film industry built on artistic creativity rather than money.

“By the end of the 1970s Taiwan audience was antipathetic to the unimaginative remakes or copies of “national policy films,” martial arts swordplay wuxia pian, and kung fu films, as well as romantic Chiungyao films and melodramatic wenyi pian, causing a significant decline at the box office. It was against such a sluggish economic environment that a fresh group of young writers and directors began to make different and original films.” (Daw-Ming Lee)

This dedication to artistic and creative value would lead to the influential Taiwanese New Cinema movement and the infamous Manifesto that would help give it concrete definition and form.

“Most films made by Taiwan New Cinema (TNC) directors were successful, both critically and commercially, from 1982 to 1984. After 1985, when many of their films did not do well, such as Edward Yang’s Taipei Story (1985), critical voices against Taiwan New Cinema started to appear in the press, and such critics gradually formed an alliance with the traditional film industry (“old” cinema). The conflict between filmmakers and critics who supported and opposed the TNC extended from newspapers and journals to the jury meetings at the 1985 Golden Horse Awards. Contrary to the animosity shown against Taiwan New Cinema films in Taiwan, international film festivals in Europe and North America began to celebrate the TNC films, especially those by Hou and Yang, which won numerous awards beginning in 1986. Facing the unfriendly press and film critics, discrimination from the local film industry, and an apathetic government, the TNC filmmakers and their supporters finally issued the “Taiwan New Cinema Manifesto” in 1987, criticizing the government, press, and certain film critics.” (Daw-Ming Lee)

The key, characteristic of the Manifesto?

“In the manifesto, the 54 New Taiwanese filmmakers expressed three major concerns. First, they criticized the Taiwanese government for its policies towards filmmaking, claiming that it was more interested in promoting “political propaganda” and “commercial filmmaking” than “cultural activities.” Second, the 54 signers also criticized the mass media for its refusal to treat cinema as an important part of artistic culture. And third, they also attacked Taiwanese film critics, asserting that said critics tended to “support the idea that Taiwanese films should emulate those of Hong Kong and Hollywood.”
– Film Inquiry: A Beginner’s Guide to New Taiwan Cinema

A PRESENT AND FUTURE INDUSTRY
Most of the world knows China through the films of Hong Kong. It is one of the fastest growing industries in the world with its export of film sitting just behind that of the U.S.. These films play internationally, have the necessary budget and funding, and have the benefit of a strong commercial industry backing them. And yet, it is the filmmaking coming out of Taiwan that remains most crucial to the building of the Chinese identity, the same industry that helped build Taiwan and develop it according to its distinct language, culture and story. The problem that the Country still faces is for these films to continue to find the opportunity to influence the mainland with its commentary and representative voice. Without money and the commercial heft of Hong Kong, it needs to operate in relationship with Mainland China, which is a complicated endeavor given censorship, still competing political interests, and their equal desire to find and maintain a degree of independence.

What Taiwan does have that Hong Kong doesn’t though is a recognizable presence at international film festivals. This is something that its creative and artistic voice has allowed to prosper in recent years.

“If we regard Hong Kong cinema as crowd-pleasing entertainment, then Taiwanese films are more art-oriented. Hong Kong cinema focuses on commercialism, while Taiwanese cinema emphasizes ideology or aesthetics.” (Taiwan: A Political History)

Hou Hsiao-hsien, Edward Yang, Tsai Ming-liang, and Ang Lee are three distinct Taiwanese arthouse Directors who helped pave some inroads on the international and festival market stage, begging the question of a distinguishing Taiwanese identity. Regarding the future, “the question is not only about whether the Taiwanese film industry should focus its efforts on art films or commercial films, but also about how the Taiwanese film industry has coped with the dramatic rise of the whole Chinese-language film market.” (The Film Industry in Taiwan: a Political economic study).

Building their industry based an intrinsic artistic value and dedication to the craft has allowed Taiwan, despite the censorship rules, to invest quietly and subtly into its filmmakers, whereas Hong Kong has devoted its time to building an industry. Two very different approaches with very different concerns and very different outcomes. It is here that Taiwan’s cinematic identity will likely continue to be defined. Films like the sweeping and epic A BRIGHTER SUMMER DAY, A CITY OF SADNESS, and THE PUPPETMASTER are definite examples of Taiwanese New Cinema, all award winning films which filtered the particular Taiwanese Manifesto as a local and nationally focused cultural concern. They represent stories and events that place an emphasis on character (and psychological study), Nationalistic concerns (external narratives), and an interior focus (internal narratives). Yang, known for TAIPAI STORY and the exceptional YI YI, (and TERRORIZERS), are examples of the focus these films are able to give to one of Taiwan’s most pressing concerns- urbanization. In particular, my favorite New Taiwan Cinema film, the spiritual epic A TIME TO LIVE AND A TIME TO DIE, is a wonderful and compelling fusion of all these elements. Likewise, for one of the earliest representations and works from the New Wave, Chen Kunhou’s GROWING UP is a great place to see this movement being set in motion, representing a truly patient and touching story of Taiwan through a story that reflects both time and place.

Where ever you start in exploring the Country through film, and it is likely you will begin to explore Taiwan through its New Wave films (which in and of themselves reflect a diversity within their shared focus and characteristics), what is immediately evident is the level of awareness and intelligence present in these films. As a cultured representation of a people defined by persistence, patience and awareness, these films refuse to rush their narratives. They hold a real ability to reflect, but with a past-present-future focus. And above all, they show a spirited refusal to give in to outside pressure, to conform, creating some of the most honest and integral artistic films available. A true inspiration, and an industry that will be exciting to watch develop even further.

Here is my working list of films for my watchlist, some that I have seen and some that I am working through:
https://letterboxd.com/davetcourt/list/film-travels-2020-taiwan/

SOURCES
Film in Taiwan by Daw-Ming Lee
https://www.filminquiry.com/beginners-guide-new-taiwanese-cinema/
Berry, Chris and Fei Lu, editors. Island on the Edge: Taiwan New Cinema and After.
Roy, Denny. Taiwan: A Political History. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003.
Tweedie, James. The Age of New Waves: Art Cinema and the Staging of Globalization. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.
Yeh, Emilie Yueh-Yu and Darrell William Davis. Taiwan Film Directors: A Treasure Island. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005.
Yip, June. Envisioning Taiwan: Fiction, Cinema, and the Nation in the Cultural Imaginary. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema_of_Taiwan#:~:text=international%20film%20festivals.-,Early%20cinema%2C%201900%E2%80%931945,the%20era%20of%20Japanese%20rule.
https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1G1-269691793/a-brief-history-of-taiwan-s-film-industry
https://taiwaninsight.org/2018/10/31/the-journey-of-taiwan-cinema-from-taiwan-new-cinema-to-post-new-cinema/
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/19905493.pdf
file:///C:/Users/jcourtney/Downloads/A_Brief_History_of_Taiwan_Cinema.pdf

I first saw the film Tolkien, directed by Dome Karukoski, back when it released in theaters. Back when theaters were still open and when the world wasn’t being held captive by a virus as fierce as any dragon from Tolkien’s mythology. I remember actually showing up to the theater intent on doing a double feature (with Aretha Franklin’s concert film, Amazing Grace), but being so affected by this film that I refunded my ticket to the second showing, downloaded the soundtrack, and just went for a drive into what was one of the coldest nights of that winter.

Since that moment, I have been hesitant to revisit this film out of fear that it would steal away from this memory. Yes, I know that sounds utterly silly. But when art impacts you in this way, it becomes something of a treasure. And so I came back to this film with some trepidation that it might not live up to my expectations, but also with a determination to pick up my pen and hash out of some my thoughts as I embarked on this now familiar journey back into the creation of Middle Earth. Imagine my surprise then to find a film that not only confirmed my experience, but also elevated it by speaking of art as a treasure to uncover, one of the dominant themes in the story.

This is what this film is and means to me, a treasure we are meant to uncover, an artform in which we are to find the language of our own inspiration, giving both the story of the film and our own story a voice and meaning against the backdrop of the darkness and struggles of our lives, be it war, be it loss, be it a virus, or be it times of struggle and depression that follow a world necessarily bound to a persistent and never ending lock down.

As the film develops, we gain glimpses of Tolkien’s upbringing, the people and home that gave him a sense of place, belonging, and imagination. Forced to move, the mother calls Tolkien to look around him and to carve these images into his memory as a way of protecting this sense of place, belonging and imagination in his heart, giving it a single world to recognize it by should he lose sight of it- happiness. Not circumstantial happiness, but deeply felt joy. This call is framed by the presence of a light, which then morphs into the light of the sun bursting through the trees, bridging night and day in a spectacularly connected cinematic expression. This shapes, visually speaking, as a constant journey from darkness to light, and light to dark, both of which form an essential part of the mothers story about a quest for the “treasure”. What the treasure is is the mystery they must uncover, for as she says, there is treasure, and there is TREASURE.

Here the light, in its cinematic expression, gives way once more to the dark where we encounter these magical moving images cast from the twirling lamp which is twisting shadows and light into a gloriously connected story about dragons, treasure and desire.

What I noticed this time around when watching the film was this intentional and constant movement from light to dark, dark to light, both on a narrative and cinematic level, allowing this to weave the narrative of Tolkien’s particular journey into one that must make sense of these two extremes living together, ultimately learning to imagine the world through his mother’s eyes, through that twisting lantern which becomes the reigning visual as it forms the backdrop of the final scene in which we witness Tolkien finally picking up a pen to write the first words of The Hobbit story.

The Director’s narrative vision towards this end is profound to me, with rarely a scene not fitting into the stories purpose and theme in a specific and illuminating way. Just consider how the early scenes from this point in the film are constructed and weaved together in such a poetic fashion.

Having moved from the light to the dark, we are given this image of Tolkien in the middle of the war lying in a pool of blood and mud. Having faced the loss of his mother and now put in the care of a family Priest, the war mimics the darkness of this moment, setting him in tension with the memory of the light he is supposed to hold close to his heart, the light the Priest now embodies in a complicated way. This then leads us back into the light of day and the emerging into the “Barrows”, which is referred to as a “Kingdom” and given a romanticized shine. Here we find the start of a friendship and a world that is formed through language, a language that is immediately entrenched in a vision of love and beauty as we meet a beautiful young woman (Edith) whom Tolkien discovers playing the piano.

As these two meet, this young man and young woman from different walks of life but also with a shared understanding of poverty, the film shifts back to the darkness and we find Edith employing language in order to describe their environment and to imagine another world in the light of the kingdom motif, one where poverty is not a constraint, where the light shines brighter than the darkness. This imagining once again cuts us back to the war, which sets the stage for this developing friendship between the brotherhood of four as another light in the darkness, bringing with it this proclamation that to die is not within our control, but to live is. The brotherhood become the soldiers, using their stories, their art, as their weapon to fight for good. Here both the beauty and the horror come together in a single but complex frame, one that is willing to sit in the tension that this creates for Tolkien.

A really compelling part of this scene for me this time around was finding the 4  boys sharing stories about this figurative “hell”, where hell is both the dangers (the darkness) but also the fiery and beautiful woman who they are drawn to. They face hell on both terms then and turn it into an adventure, which gives the whole light/dark motif an added layer of meaning. Not only this, but it also paves the way for the relationship between Tolkien and Edith to rise to the surface, something we now see being established as they sit down for a rather glorious dinner scene together.

What’s super interesting about this dinner scene is how it connects to a postscript offered at the end of the film where we learn that Tolkien’s and Edith’s tombs were ascribed with the descriptive “a mortal man who fell in love with an elvish princess.” Just as the brotherhood of four sit around the table sharing their own imaginations, passions and thoughts, now Tolkien and Edith sit around a table discussing the nature of a story, ruminating over how they fit into this unfolding narrative of treasure seeking, grand quests, conquest of dark and light, and adventure. As they are discussing the nature of language, at one point Tolkien accepts the challenge of Edith to place his love of language into the context of his story. As Edith proclaims, it is not language itself that is beautiful, but it is the marriage of sound and meaning that makes language, and things, beautiful. Therefore, Tolkien must learn to discover what it is that makes his words meaningful.

The word Tolkien has been throwing around here is the word celladoor, a word he has created. As he begins to weave it into a story, uncovering its possible meaning, we find him attaching it to a sense of place in a way that reaches back to the call of his mother to protect these images of his home in his heart. Image and meaning comes together. The trees, the water, the magic, all of this then imbues this word the notion of “seeing into the heart.”

It is this magic that brings in the other thoroughline in this narrative imagery, which is the people and forces that occupy his story. Here we see Tolkien talking about dragons much in the same way as the brotherhood was talking about hell, applying it as a slightly ambiguous fusion of both light and dark motifs. Later on in the film this causes Edith to wonder whether she is actually the dragon in this story as Tolkien quickly redirects her attempts to speak of a princess into the larger imagery that his word is now imagining in terms of their own relationship together. Tolkien takes the normal princess motif and turns it into something so much richer, which is where the girl as the dragon then merges with this image of the dragon cast against the war, once again returning us to the darkness on a cinematic level.

This scene from the war frames the proceeding scene back in time where Tolkien invites Edith to come with him to the meeting of the brotherhood, only to find himself torn by the darkness inside of him as Edith’s light begins to shine. In perfect, streamlined precision, and in character with the films narrative progression, the darkness inside of him gives way then to a scene of Edith likewise playing a dark tune on the piano, expressing the darkness inside of her, only to be asked to play something more cheerful, more happy. This single scene perfectly brings together the different threads of the film, including this notion of joy being something we must guard and protect, the themes of light and dark working together, the themes of dragons being both good and bad, the theme of Tolkien’s and Edith’s different backgrounds but shared understanding of what they have to overcome.

Throughout the film we find these parallel lines of the Tolkien and Edith relationship and his relationship with the brotherhood working together as well. In the billiard scene, a scene that is about loyalty, the script calls us back to his specific relationship with Geoffrey, which is brought upon by the both of them getting in trouble and Geoffrey’s father, who is also the headmaster, deciding to pair them up for the duration of the semester. Here the father’s lesson comes to fruition, with Geoffrey’s and Tolkien’s relationship forming an unbreakable bond based on trust, one which would later lead him straight across the battlefield, setting him face to face with the darkness that would come to shape him and help give his language meaning.

One of my favorite scenes in the film is when Tolkien takes Edith to the opera. Or attempts to. As Tolkien is trying to count out pennies and comes to realize he doesn’t have enough to pay for the only remaining seats (the more expensive ones), we see the both of them coming together around their shared reality of feeling like life and circumstance has them imprisoned, a prison they both want to escape from. This leads them to duck into a passageway underneath the auditorium in the hopes of finding a way to sneak in. With all the doors locked and once again feeling dejected and defeated, the music starts to play and the two of them suddenly come alive, acting out the play as if they are a part of the story, a story they are creating for themselves. The shot of the kiss is brilliantly captured, with the camera slowly panning out and moving backwards down the passageway, giving it the allusion of the path that Tolkien had described during their dinner together.

These kinds of visual touches and imaginative processing of the themes is what makes me love this movie so much. And yet, for as powerful as this moment is, we see them once again pulled out of their story as the Priest tells Tolkien, as his caregiver, that he is not allowed to see Edith anymore and needs to focus on his classes. This leads us back to the war and the shot of Tolkien still lying in a pool of blood. Here we find the question of hope being presented, and the call to not give up hope as we see Tolkien desperate to find Geoffrey, whom is also there with him somewhere on the battlefield. Back at home he is about to lose Edith, and here in the war he is about to lose Geoffrey. This sense of loss eventually leads to one of the more desperate moments of the film, finding Tolkien stumbling across the grounds of Oxford, where the Priest has sent him, drunk and speaking in his created language. It is like he is playing a role in his own story, but from a perspective of hoplessness. The darkness appears to have won. This becomes a pivotal moment for him, requiring him to answer the question, what story does he actually belong to and want to tell, with these working images of love intermixing with the images of war. With these two things seemingly competing for his attention and for his life, it once again comes down to the power of language to help bring these two ideas together in a meaningful way, the twirling images of shadow and light of the lamp in the beginning mixing with the image of the white horse standing in the blackness of the battlefield as its demons emerge.

There is a power sentiment that emerges from the film regarding this exploration of language. As he speaks with his professor, a master of languages, and shares his own stories and creations, he is reminded that language never steals. Language is shared. It is what we have in common. It is what allows us to define life together. In this way, the language we use is always influenced, and it always influences. We learn a word and it becomes ours. We give it a name that befits our experience, and embody it in a way that is meaningful to us. As the two of them, Tolkien and his professor, walk through the treed pathway, together they replay this idea of their story from the context of this movement of word to meaning to imagination, which ultimately leads back to a single truth emodied by a single sound (a word), but a sound that now holds and carries meaning, that holds history and understanding. A word without meaning is merely a sound. What moves it through this process, this history, is the push to define the word and give it meaning by locating it within our experience. In this sense, language isn’t merely about naming things, it is the life blood of a people, a culture.

This encounter with the professor gives Tolkien a way back into his story, this grand vision of Middle Earth that is unfolding in his context and with real meaning and attachment to his experience and his world and the persons that embody this world. But now the timeline of the film catches up with the war, being interrupted by its announcement. There is an amazingly captured scene here where, as the war is being announced and people are erupting in emotions, Tolkien keeps trying to tell his story, even as his words slowly fade amidst the greater reality.

It is a reuniting with Edith and the renewed expression of their love that brings these two frames, of light and dark, love and loss, together. In love, they must once again depart as he goes off to fight the war on the battlefield. Two dragons, one back at home, one he is about to face out there. One forming his darkness, one confronting his darkness and bringing it out. This is then twinned again with his relationship with Geoffrey, a narrative line that carries him through the war through Geoffrey’s death and his reuniting with Edith. The section that holds these two narrative lines together is a scene that finds him running helplessly through the battlefield, looking for the brotherhood but only finding tragedy, death, loss and horror. The film’s shooting of this scene brilliantly allows the chaos to gradually fade away, giving us an image of the Cross framed against all of the death around him, and ultimately leading him into the silence of what remains, alone with the demons of his imagination and his experience. All except for a single white horse that dots the battlefield, which contrasts with a rising figure cloaked in black. This is described by Edith as trench fever, the images given to someone scarred by what he has seen on the battlefield.

It is out of this then that the light is able to shine amidst the darkness, not by doing away with the darkness, but by placing it into context of the larger story. Life is both light and darkness which are constantly at war, both within us and around us. And it is our ability to give words to this reality, both hopeful and devastated, heartbroken and joyful, that allows us to enter into this as a story, one in which we find ourselves, and one in which we find ourselves in relationship to others and the world around us. As we walk through the final scenes of the film, we find that Tolkien is not just to be one voice, but rather the voice of the brotherhood. Death can make us loatheless and helpless as individuals, as Geoffrey says, but it cannot put an end to the immortal four, the stuff that gives such a word its meaning. As the Priest says surveying the darkness, he speaks the liturgy because there is a comfort in ancient things that lie beyond our comprehension, and the language of this liturgy then becomes the very thing that can speak meaning and beauty into the darkness, uncovering the light the lies within us, that is being protected in our hearts.

From out of the war we begin to gain a clearer picture of what it is that Tolkien has attached his words to, the stuff that gives him meaning. The pictures of the family by his bedside merge with the nighttime chat with his new family, the relationship with Edith and their now children. In another one of my favorite scenes, we find Edith challenging Tolkien as they sit on the steps under the night sky, the one who once wrote for pleasure and passion and now feels pointless and where language has lost its meaning, to decide what he wants from his stories, his writing. Find its meaning or abandon it. Here he returns to where the four of the brotherhood used to meet with Geoffrey’s unreleased poetry in hand. And then he returns home with Edith and his children, once again amidst nature, the images of the trees and the light that has been held captive and protected in his heart. As his family asks him what his story is about, Tolkien is finally ready to to attach his words to what is most meaningful to him. It is a story about treasure, and the treasure is love, companionship, friendship, light and dark weaved together to create something beautiful. It is a story about a quest and a journey, a fellowship, our fellowship with one another and with nature and with God.

In the final scene, it is out of the shadows that we once again see the lights dancing in the background as the pen writes the first words to the Hobbit, the words a “hole in the ground” reflecting the one he once lied in during the war, filled with blood, but also the hole he met in with the brotherhood, and the hole he now calls home with his most cherished loves, his family, God and nature. Darkness transformed into light, tragedy transformed into beauty, the stuff that every good and worthwhile story is built around.

My introduction to Director Kelly Reich was her film Certain Women (2016), an incredibly nuanced depiction of four strong willed women who are all different in character but whom share in a visible and felt struggle to overcome the burden of sexism and oppression. The film brilliantly fuses together three different sources under a singular vision in order to bring these character lines together in one cohesive and masterfully crafted story.

It wasn’t until I saw her 2010 film Meek’s Cutoff though, a fascinating and highly contemplative examination of fear and the nature of trust set in the barrenness of the Orgeon trail in 1945, that I really started to appreciate her brilliance. She uses the period setting and the western motif to offer a similarly nuanced perspective on modern, feminist ideals and the racial systems that keep us in bondage to feelings of fear and uncertainty, especially when it comes to embracing the unfamiliar, unforgiving landscaping and the uncertain future. Her ability to use things like space, the natural environment, and silence to her advantage is an incredible gifting that she has demonstrated quite adeptly throughout her career.

Revisiting Oregon: Firs Cow and The Telling of a Universal Story
Her latest film, First Cow, returns us to Oregon, this time set in 1820 and telling a single story adapted from author Jonathan Raymond’s book, The Half Life. Here she continues in stride, making what is one of the best films of 2020 so far in my humble opinion, but also putting together a distinctly universal story about what it means to not only co-exist, but to persist within the trappings of the great American Dream.

In the opening shot, Reichardt features a slow, almost laborious shot of a lone ship trudging down a river. It’s simple, spacious, and  basically devoid of surrounding activity. She employs this basic image as a way of anchoring her story in a narrative that transcends time and place, both in the imagery it evokes and in how it provides this central and establishing movement from the present day to the past.

Uncovering The Past And Seeing the Future: Parallels and Portraits of Contrast
This lone boat, which coincides with the proceeding scene where, set in the modern era, two skeletons are uncovered featuring two indistinguishable men whom apparently died side by side. This scene and this uncovering is used to parallel the ensuing arrival of this cow, in the past, which is literally the first cow to arrive to the Oregon settlement as a means of providing milk for the community. The proceeding scenes then introduce us to our two main characters, Cookie, a cook who is trying to make a way for himself amonst the fur traders by cooking meals for them, and King-Lu, a Chinese immigrant fleeing a murder (of a Russian man).

These two parallel scenes, of the ship and the arriving cow, connects the opening imagery of the unearthed skeleton with our working story of these two men coming to find company and comfort and even opportunity in one another, establishing a bond across different paths and through differing journey’s, one looking to escape and move on, the other immersed where he is in his particular ambitions

One of the most striking things about the portrait that Reichhardt creates here through these two working images, one of modernity looking backwards, or uncovering history, and the other looking forward anticipating what lies ahead, is how she imagines it within a landscape of diverse peoples, all coexisting around this single cow. The cow itself stands as a colorful and resonant symbol both of the growing bond between Cookie and King-Lu, but also of the nature of progress, it’s milk providing the means of sustenance, cooperation and care, but also demonstrating the essential image of opportunity, the chance for one to establish ones self and get ahead in the world by using the milk to gain a foothold in a competitive environment. The most interesting part of Cookie’s character, and King-Lu for that matter, is that they both imagine from their individual vantage points sitting beneath the shadow of others, that it is okay, then, given this competitive and unfair environment, to engage in certain activities or make certain choices that will allow them to get ahead. This moral line is crossed somewhat nonchalantly, in a matter of fact way that emulates the daily chore of gathering mushrooms and foods from the forest. This is simply what one needs to do. When the milk belongs to the haves, we must rightly take some of the milk in order to help ourselves gain a foothold, to gain some level of significance in this world and be seen with some respect.

Even more interesting is the fact that Reichardt draws this out within a landscape dotted with all kinds of people, from the settlers, to the Chinese Immigrant to the indigenous peoples. This sense of progress seems to be making its way up through this collage of peoples, providing a compelling picture to carry over into the present day picture of these two indistinguishable skeletons lying side by side. In this sense, the emerging social divide, the essential reality of those on the bottom and those on the top, does not discriminate.

Nature, Human Nature, and the Nature of Relationship 
The other thing that emerges in First Cow, or rather reemerges within the Director’s filmmography, is her obvious love of nature. She demonstrates an artistic interest in exploring humanities relationship to nature. In First Cow, the cinematography, utilizing an interesting aspect ratio that leaves plenty of room to apply different angles and close ups, is sharp and distinctive, giving the landscape an almost dreamy gloss, but one that seems to desire to uphold both the beauty of the earth and the rawness of nature’s complex form. It’s not simply that she uses the aspect ratio to bring the natural landscape into focus, it’s that she does so without romanticizing it. In a sense, she is not trying to locate the past in a glorified vision of its time, in its unfiltered and uninhibited optimism. She recognizes that this optimism is complicated and burdened by what we know of the future, and thus she imagines a largely unglorified landscape, but one that still, in some mysterious way, looks otherworldly and dream like at the same time. This allows the red cow, a color that stands out in the mix of imagined visuals and landscape like a reverent or sacred force of nature, to stand as a bit of an unusual but unavoidable symbol within the human drama, drawing attention towards it as things unfold, particularly as we see the story, history, unfolding in its ongoing pursuit of conquest, growth and progress.

Beautifully rendered, gentle in spirit, and patient in telling, this focus on nature in relationship to human progress ultimately leads to a film about the nature of relationship, or the power of friendship, both between a man and a cow (and all it symbolizes), and the two men travelling different paths drawn together by seemingly simple dreams and simple ideas. Paths that uncover this basic and universal human longing and human need to belong, to be seen as something and be taken seriously.

In the social system that we find being developed and uncovered in the film, there are those on top and those on the bottom, with the milk from the cow, the central possession of those on top, providing the means for getting ahead. As the economic machine forging from this opportune milk pushes forward, what becomes clear is that this single cow, in its sustenance and in its giving presence, doesn’t render everyone equal by becoming what is essentially a commodity. This is what makes the bond between man and cow so aware. It speaks to the relationship we have to both need and want, and the relationships this world has to the haves and the have nots of this world. It speaks of the respect we have for that which allows us to get ahead, the essential opportunity afforded to us in our visions and our willingness to act on our allusions of freedom. But it also speaks of the ways in which that commodity becomes utilized, corrupted, and used in ways that uncover the basic human problem- greed and suspicion of those above and those below. Which, in process, becomes the thing that not only that perceivable works to further distinguish between those on the bottom and those on the top, but also between the different peoples that are occupying this shared space by nature of how growth happens and moves forward.

Following in the footsteps of this working economic interest is the ongoing relationship that develops between Cookie and King-Lu. As their actions become exposed and their position in this settlement is compromised, both of them find themselves now on the run, equal in the condemnation afforded them in the eyes of the rest. What unravels in the chaotic final 20 minutes of the film offers a startling and genuinely fascinating picture of loss and gain. The attempting to gain prominence and to get ahead through some suspect, morally questionable choices, we can also see that this was driven by Cookie’s recognition of the unfairness of it all, which emerged from the label of being a bottom feeder, something of a servant, and now a thief.

At the same time, as we see him now on the run just as King-Lu was when he met Cookie, he is being chased or followed by a boy whom himself found himself the recipient of social neglect. Earlier we see the boy denied the last biscuit, the product of the milk and of Cookie’s aspirations, based on his loss of a place in line. So Cookie, now suffering an injury caused by his fleeing, eventually reunites with King-Lu, but given his injury only has the strength to go so far before having to lie down, seemingly to rest, but clearly with a hint that he seems to have little life left to live and give. His pursuits and his attempts for gain have caught up to him in his given poverty. This is where we see King-Lu faced with a choice, measuring the money, which he could salvage by leaving Cookie behind, in one hand, and his friendship and bond in the other. He ultimately chooses friendship, lying down next to Cookie and bringing the film firmly into the future and the uncovering of this grave so many years later.

It’s an astounding vision that Reichardt presents here, one of two people across ethnic lines being bonded together in struggle, and surrounded by others on all sorts of potential sides of this struggle. But what pulls these two skeletons back into the pages of history as fully fleshed out persons is the image of the cow. The cow is both a hopeful image and a damning one, depending on which perspective we are looking from, either ahead from the past or backwards from history. What’s interesting about the image that looks backwards is that, in some sense it is equally hopeful. This image of two people from diverse backgrounds rendered indistinguishable as skeletons imagines a better future that still could be. But it must be a future built on our true understanding and recovery of the past. How we imagine the Cow as a symbol for our current economic system, and how the Cow is used to achieve our dreams and our imaginings of prosperity and progress, is one of the most important imaginative processes that we can engage in today. This is something that needs to be reformed and redeveloped as we choose to consider the past. Caught between the admiration and appreciation and seeming worship of the Cow is the stuff that eventually leads everything to spiral into chaos in the film, ultimately built by way of competition and capitalist ideals and fueled by an awareness of social placement and division and the human need to belong.

The real question this leaves us with then is this. Seeing this picture from our vantage point, looking back on history, how does seeing history through Reichardt’s telling of this simple story about the first cow help to reframe our understanding of the future in a more informed and more meaningful, and dare I say more godly way? How is it that we will be able to learn how to detach ourselves from the delusions and falsities of the American Dream as a capitalist system based on gains and losses, haves and have nots, and draw it back to its most essential vision of a people working and existing together for the sake of true freedom? It’s a vital and important question, and one made all the more alive through Reichardt’s stylistic imaginings and the simple image of a red cow.

In exploring Iran’s important cinematic history, the most striking characteristic is the overwhelming presence of a liberated cinema which, for example, boasts an incredible representation of women in cinema, but which also bears the mark of a heavily oppressed and marginalized industry (heavy censorship).

There is a wealth of material attempting to make some sense of why this contrast exists, or how these two elements can manage to co-exist, with most authors narrowing in on the two basic and essential periods of Iranian cinematic history (defined as pre war: 1900-1929, and post war: 1950’s and on). What these two periods share is the following characteristics:

1. The prevalence of Iranian cinema as a “social cinema” (As it says in the article, History of Iranian Cinema, both the cinema of the first period and the cinema of the fifties and sixties must be seen primarily as a “social-oriented cinema”)

2. The growing privatization of the industry (which pushes back on cinema’s social interest)

I found that researchers tended to differentiate between these two characteristics in this way- nationalism (social cinema) and globalization/international (capitalist cinema), with one of the most fascinating aspects of Iranian cinema being the inversion of these ideas- the development of social cinema happens outside of its borders, while capitalism, or globalization governs cinema inside its borders. This leads to some interesting analysis about why this is this case.

(The first period) “was often critical of society and social conditions, of crude modernity and western invaders of an essentially traditional society, of the implications of society’s rapid urbanization and the disappearance of domestic values… (dealing with) the authentic problems of Iranian development…

due to the inherent demands of cinema, its nationalism, its reliance on the capital of the private sector and the return of that capital from the audience, it is forced to find clichés that are attractive to the public, and must give importance to the economic aspect of cinema.”
– History of Iranian Cinema

Leading to this further observation,

“Perhaps this very importance—a constant presence in countries where cinema depends on the private sector—is what pollutes cinema, and brought unwanted harm to Iranian cinema in its second period.”

As the author goes on to suggest,

“The start of film production in 1929 was the natural consequence of the general Iranian movement toward modernization. It was the wish of the system and the people to create a national cinema industry as yet another sign of advancement, and its failure was also a natural consequence of society’s rejection of the essence of modernity, for society had not yet released its stronghold on tradition or even clarified the existing relationship. Cinema, contrary to many other manifestations of modernity, was not a simple tool to be nationalized with the scanty efforts of a few westernized citizens and intellectuals.”

So, while encroaching, Westernized ideals start to creep into the Iranian landscape, cinema’s ability to lend a critical lens to certain social realities is crippled, pushing the social commentary of Iranian cinema outside of its borders, where it was able to speak more freely, resisting nationalist pressures in order to find and build a recognizable national identity. While capitalism appears to be a wanted value (the privatization of the industry in line with the American ideal), weirdly, on of the problems is that capitalism/nationalism and censorship, which is typically representative of more socialist leaning societies, appear side by side in Iranian Cinematic history, forcing Iranian filmmakers to “be aware of the dangers of both.” The end result? Out of his awareness births a recognizable national cinema and cultural identity, helping to give shape and voice to relevant social issues and creating a very real local industry and culture in a Country where heavy censorship and the need for progress (by way of capitalist pursuits and privatization) still co-exists.

With all this in mind, as I’ve been working through all the material I have been reflecting on this question- where does the power of film to change, influence, shape, create, and develop culture on a sociopolitical level come from, and what can Iranian Cinematic history teach me about the relationship of film to these sociopolitical realities in my own Country?

Cinema, The Development of the Modern Nation-State, Revolutions, and An International Cinema
Farshid Kazemi writes in Iranian Cinema about how the development of cinema in Iran is “inextricably linked to the development of modernity and the nation-state.”

“The cinema in Iran was an important site where modernity (tajadud) and the nation (mellat) were respectively constructed, contested, and negotiated throughout the long 20th century and into the new millennium.”

Kazemi goes on to talk about how the history of Iranian cinema was essentially defined by two revolutions that helped to determine its modern development (1905–1911 and the later Islamic Revolution in 1979). Considering that it is the Islamic Revolution where Iranian cinema finally starts to grow into something recognizable, a part of Iran’s specific and uniquely developed “revolutionary language”, a language shared by cinema around the world, is especially attuned to modern issues. And yet it is language that is rooted in a very real understanding of its past and Iran’s need and desire to develop a social cinema.

Reflecting on why Iran creates some of the world’s best films, author Hamid Dabashi, in an article published for BBC Culture back in 2018, wrote that, “There has never been a moment in the long history of Iranian cinema when it was confined to its current frontiers.” This gets to the heart of why and how we find such a deeply held focus on things like representation in Iranian film in a Country where censorship persists in ways that are usually seen in non-capitalist societies. Again, what is interesting is to note how Iran’s somewhat ironic journey towards a functioning industry was built through maintaining a consistent international presence. What makes this interesting is that the development of a strong and functioning cinematic identity typically depends on the ability of a Country to establish a national industry first, on which then allows it to establish its influential “as” a recognizable industry and culture on the international stage. What has often threatened smaller industries around the world is when their local industries are absorbed by international entities which then hinders and threaten a Country’s ability to build and retain a true national identity (and subsequently, preventing them from having a global presence as well). As Dabashi notes, Iran’s decidedly long and difficult path to actually get to the international stage (read: festivals), came in the reverse, and even more surprisingly seems almost uniformly international in its presence on both sides of that narrative coin. “The historical formation of Iranian cinema took place on a transnational public sphere – both in its origins and its destinations – from the East India Company film studios in India where the very first Iranian films were made, to these European film festivals.”

What you find is an Iranian film industry forced to develop a love for its Country and a social presence from outside of its borders, either making films from within the context of the larger empire,

“The very first Iranian sound film, Dokhtar-e Lor/Lor Girl, 1932, also known as The Iran of Yesterday and The Iran of Today, was produced by Ardeshir Irani and Abdolhossein Sepanta in the Imperial Film Company in Bombay. There is a larger frame of reference that extends from Europe to the Ottoman and Russian empires all the way to Egypt and India, which was the site of the rise of Persian prose and poetry as well as Iranian visual and performing arts.
– Dabashi

or having to “smuggle” films from inside of its borders to the outside (see Dariush Mehrjui’s The Cow (1969). As Dabashi writes, “The global staging of Iranian film offered some of its best works international attention, a crucial component that fed back, aesthetically and thematically, into the country’s cinematic repertoire and inspired successive generations of Iranian film-makers.” Both of these things feed into this inversion of the usual mode of development, working from the inside (national identity) out (global presence).

A CINEMA IN CONTEXT
Regarding the first of the two recognizable periods in Iranian film history, it says in A History of Iranian Cinema, “During all those years, from 1900—the year the Gaumont camera was bought by the Qajar shah, brought to Iran and installed in a corridor of the imperial palace—until 1937—the screening date of Sepanta’s last Indian-produced film—with all the “ifs” and “buts”, must be considered the first period of Iranian cinema.” With the filming of the Shah (film was brought to Iran by the King as a tool of entertainment for members of the monarchy and the royal court), Iranian Cinema goes on to develop along these shared religious-sociopolitical lines, giving an interesting frame of reference for the competing socialist-capitalist interests, while also offering a frame of reference for how film was introduced within a clear social divide (with film being the entertainment of the grand royalty, and subsequent development beginning a journey of making  film the voice of the Iranian people and culture).

So who exactly was Sepanta, as the Director of the very first talkie film in Iran? He was a scholar of the Persian world with a keen interest in finding and locating a true Iranian identity. Using the international industry (in India) as his inspiration, he, as a storyteller and historian (religious historian), he helped to plant the seeds of the Iranian cinematic identity and modern development. What’s so important about this, especially when set within the first period of cinematic development, a period that is considered largely inconsequential to the industries larger development, is that it helps to anchor the modern movement in Iran’s larger sense of history, formation, and influence. As it says in Iranian Cinema: Before the Revolution by Shahin Parhami,

“If one were to trace the first visual representations in Iranian history, the bas-reliefs in Persepolis (c.500 B. C) would be one of the earliest examples. Persepolis was the ritual center of the ancient kingdom of Achaemenids. As Honour and Fleming [1] state, “the figures at Persepolis remain bound by the rules of grammar and syntax of visual language…

After the Arab invasion and conversion from Zoroastrianism to Islam —a religion in which visual symbols were avoided — Persian art continued its visual practices.”

Given how this period of early development connects Iranian Cinema’s foundation to its storytelling past, the article goes on to say that “What has attracted international audiences to this national cinema is its distinct style, themes, authors, idea of nationhood, and manifestation of culture”, something that it owes to these older visual (and poetic) roots. And the reason why cinema is so important to this manifestation in terms of applying to the modern expressionistic landscape is that, “among all manifestations of modernity, cinema was the only one with a forty-year history.” (Iranian Cinematic History) So, even though the second period of Iranian is where we find the industry largely being defined and developed, predicated on the Iranian Revolution of 1977-1979, this early period was hugely important for establishing and protecting national roots beyond the nation’s borders where film was forced to develop.

Speaking more about this narrative influence as rooted in the history of the people and place,

“This cinema and this psychology and characterization, even its form and structure, is not rootless, but rather based on Iranian folk tales. The narrative mold is derived from the performance methods of storytellers and the structural mold, especially in comedies, is derived from Iranian performing arts such as takht-e hosi—traditional farcical theater performed outdoors—but transforms them to suit the cinematic medium. For dramatic molds it relies on a sentimental outlook and tone, highly emotional and mournful, which is the essence of Iranian folk tales.”
– History of Iranian Cinema

What the development of film at this time mirrors is the further development and exploration of these national roots as a part of true Iranian culture, which is the very thing that can bring clarity to the holding tension mentioned at the start of this blog.

A GROWING NATIONAL IDENTITY
What’s important to note then, as cinema shifts from being the concern of royalty to informing and being formed by the voice of the people, is the global development of Eastern and Western influences on this same historical front. Iran is a fusion of a deeply held, captured and protected sense of national identity that is tied to both its historical and religious roots (and Eastern ideals), even as Westernized influences competed to gain a foothold in the ongoing modernization of both industry and culture. Many of the articles listed in my sources talk about this marriage of influence and development as a key to understanding how it is that such a strong national industry emerges from what was predominantly an international stage. This fusion of roots is the central means by which social awareness and modernity is able to coexist alongside strong censorship and capitalism (privatization), which in itself remains a rather confusing mix of contradictory forces, allowing its given identity (in terms of historical placement and religious development) to hold ties with its sense of person and place while interpreting their culture from afar.

And it tracks this development through Evans Oganians, who “returned to Iran in 1929, with limited experience in cinematographic education but an ocean of enthusiasm, idealism and faith, in hopes of founding a “national cinema”, founding the School For Cinema Artists, which would lead the way for the building of the National Iranian Film Society in 1949 through Farrokh Ghaffari (shaped by the 1948 film, The Storm of Life, which is developed by way of Western, international, technological advancement in dubbing through filmmakers Esma‘il Kooshan and Ali Daryabeigi), and eventually, by way of the Iranian Revolution and Amir Naderi’s The Runner (shot during the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-1988 in 1984). In this string of connected presences we see the true development of a recognizable, national cinema that is built for the people, by the people, and through the people’s experiences, starting to take shape. Consider, for example, Forough Farrokhzad (1935-1967), a female poet and filmmaker who made the film The House is Black (1962). Her influence on shaping Iranian Cinema according to her strong interest in social awareness (it was filmed in a leper colony) comes by way of leaning into the power of old storytelling methods in order to flesh out and make sense of their modern reality. This is why “the years between 1948 to 1978 are on one hand Iranian cinema’s most productive periods and on the other the most misunderstood.” (History of Iranian Cinema)

“The most important characteristics of this cinema can be thus summarized:
The cinema of the first period is a very noble yet humble one. With very rudimentary and limited technical means, old and obsolete methods and no cinematic know-how, it is essentially based within the private sector. It receives no help from the government and must therefore stand on its own feet, relying solely on itself and its audience, and all this in the face of competition from the foreign films of the time.”

And yet, at the same time,

“It is at the same time a social-oriented cinema; often critical of society and social conditions, of crude modernity and western invaders of an essentially traditional society, of the implications of society’s rapid urbanization and the disappearance of domestic values. It deals with the authentic problems of Iranian development.”

leading to the ongoing working tension that flows from the social divide and which is made present in its Royal arrival, raising up the need for a people and Country to find their voice and identity in a slightly different way than normal.

New Wave and New Iranian Cinema: Distinct Styles and Modern Voices
More films start to get made in the 60’s after a largely silent period, leading to a period of New Wave films that would set the stage for the revolution as an “intellectually” based movement. This is defined though, once again, by a movement coming from outside it’s national borders (a Persian Literature movement, which held a distinct, sociopolitical romanticism). Here we see the legacy of Farrokhzad taking further root, with author Rose Issa writing,

“(Iranian film) champions the poetry in everyday life and the ordinary person by blurring the boundaries between fiction and reality, feature film with documentary… This new, humanistic aesthetic language, determined by the film-makers’ individual and national identity, rather than the forces of globalism, has a strong creative dialogue not only on home ground but with audiences around the world.” (Reel Fiction)

It would be soon after that we find the development of The College of Dramatic Arts, (1963), and the infamous story of The Cow (directed by Masoud Kimiai and Darius Mehrjui), the film that was smuggled out helping to establish the New Wave as a distinct New Iranian Cinema with a continued emphasis on a visual literacy, poetic imagery, and a fusion of fiction and realism. And it is out of this that we find the Iranian Revolution redefining the landscape as a whole. I found this lengthy descriptive from the Tavoos Quarterly regarding this transitioning from the first period to the second period to be helpful:

The storylines become simpler and easier. The dramatic turns are so matter-of-fact that they seem childish even to an average spectator. Of course the content still reflects the clash of tradition and modernity, but the narrative forms and themes have changed. The cinema of those years tried to compensate the shortcomings of society, thus, the most important social problem of those years being the growing gap between rich and poor, cinema attempts to close the gap through a fantasy approach. Of course the content of many films of the early sixties (and even later) still reflect the clash of tradition and modernity through new narrative forms. If the gap between classes in society is increasing, the classes are being reconciled in these films.

If in social reality, traditional values are being crushed by the forces of modernity, in these films, on the contrary, we witness a different phenomenon: many an urban woman who improves her life through knowing authentically traditional men, who takes refuge in religion and moral principles and thus reaches salvation; many a man who avenges women disgraced by citizens of no value, who rebels to regain values lost; and the dishonored women who have been victimized by men, who have through sheer will and effort defended their individuality against defamation.

All these various themes were already present in the cinema of the fifties, but in the sixties they become its main focus. Revenge, reconciliation of classes, and more than anything else, the tyranny of destiny, fatalism and religiosity are the dominant elements of narratives and themes. This very predestination which governs the lives of each character, rebellion against oppression and victim-adulation overshadow the content of the films (those of the first period as well as later films). They are so Irano-Islamic that there are no outstanding precedents in any other art form or period of art history in Iran… The importance of the cinema of these two periods lies in their focus on the social problems of Iran, and the socially critical mentality that is inherent in all of them. Consequently Iranian cinema of the fifties and sixties is a social cinema.

And yet, even in this time of change and in light of the revolution, the tension between social and capitalist interest remained and remains a demonstrable mark of Iranian Cinema, meaning that as the industry has developed from this point, it has continued to develop from the outside constantly pushing inward in an effort to capture, protect, and define a distinctly Iranian identity over against censorship and encroaching Western ideals. Rather than a consistency in policy, the consistency comes from a shared devotion to the cause of film and culture. This is where we find a persistent devotion to the raising up of modern voices, with the ebb and flow of the Iranian Cinematic development within its borders constantly being forced to bend to outside socialist concerns (such as in the election of Mohammed Khatemi, who provided the artists with more creative freedom within the borders of its Country).

Here we find another popular story in Iranian Cinematic History, the story of the 18 year old female Director Samira Makhmalbaf and her film The Apple which debuted at the Cannes Film Festival. Author Hamid Dabashi speaks of witnessing this moment, which helped reshape the public perception of Iran.

I was at the festival that year and saw how the global perception of Iran changed overnight from a bearded angry man (Khomeini) to the bright smiling face of a young film-maker. It was a transformative moment in the global reception of Iranian cinema and, with it, Iran itself.”

This is what is so interesting about Iranian Cinema. While it develops in international spaces with a real desire to build a National identity, the International stage at the same time is looking inward and measuring the face and shape of Iranian cinema based on what appears to be a confusing mixture of censorship and modernity giving way to a disorganized industry and a problematic culture. This is what makes Iranian filmmakers so integral and so important in their efforts to establish Iranian culture from the outside looking in. They had to do this while very much being stereotyped themselves. Which is why The Apple, and subsequently the undeniable and incredible rise of Asghar Farhadi, becomes so important. They are embodying Iranian identity through their representation and their art, and bringing it from those international places both to their home and back to these international places. “The global staging of Iranian film was a crucial component that inspired successive generations… outside Iran, and from the fertile ground of its transnational origins, a new generation of Iranian film-makers has emerged, chief among them Ramin Bahrani (Chop Shop, 2007) and Shirin Neshat (Women without Men, 2009). These directors, who have deep roots in the most enduring aspects of Iranian cinema, now carry its future into uncharted territories.”

This is where it is mind boggling and absolutely inspiring to consider that there are more graduates (from local film schools) and more female Directors than “most countries in the West”. This flips the script on how modernity happens and how cinema develops. The Diaspora, which collapsed many a global cinematic identity and culture, refused to see it as a set back, and did so in the face of danger, potential arrests, judgments and stereotypes, constantly having to adapt their language to constantly shifting and sporadic censorship, and ever shifting laws and lawmakers.

At the same time, imagine their relationship to the dominant voice of capitalism (privatization), democracy, and freedom of speech- America- has also been shaped through sociopolitical realities by way of ongoing hostilities, thus pointing them back towards the censorship within their own borders, and you have a cinematic industry that is built from the trenches and against enormous odds. And yet these filmmakers shine as bright lights, a way of travelling inbetween the competing forces of censorship and encroaching and powerful Western, capitalist ideals. An industry built as a social cinema, from the people, for the people, and while ironically built from the outside looking in, built with a love and care and concern for the culture and sociopolitical reality on the inside, both historical and present.

This is an excellent article for imaging the future of the industry, which looks even brighter as Farhadi continues to pave the way, proving that he is far from alone, and that Iranian filmmakers do not need to feel isolated in their shared endeavor:
https://www.tiff.net/the-review/the-future-of-iranian-cinema

Here is my Letterboxd watchlist of Iranian Films:
https://letterboxd.com/davetcourt/list/film-travels-2020-iran/

SOURCES
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Close Up: Iranian Cinema, Past, Present, Future (2001) Hamid Dabashi
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Gönül Dönmez-Colin, Cinemas of the Other, Intellect
Hamid Reza Sadr, Iranian Cinema: A Political History
Najmeh Khalili Mahani, Women of Iranian Popular Cinema: Projection of Progress
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A Social History of Iranian Cinema, Volume 2 The Industrializing Years, 1941–1978 by Hamid Naficy