Movies with the potential to enhance spiritual growth
Submitted by jenhowel on Tue, 10/29/2002 - 11:42
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- FIGHT CLUB - Yes, Fight Club. This movie has the sort of destructive energy that cleans out all the bullshit in your head, readying you for a new, purer and simpler existence. In Fight Club the main character ditches his apartment, job and possessions; faces his violent dark side; comes to grips with his own mortality; and ultimately rejects his violent tendencies and reaches out to experience love. Yet most people just see the fighting. If only more people would latch on to "the things you own, own you", or "you are not your job".
- BARAKA - This movie, more of a meditation really, takes you from the spiritual enclaves of various religions, through the truly enormous variety and splendour of nature on this planet, and then, with the horrible nauseating creak of a tree falling (the first time I really SAW a tree being felled), it thrusts you into the often troubling realities of this world we've created. From war to commerce to the realities of where that cigarette a man's smoking is coming from, to the realities of the chicks that are either rejected (killed) or lay your eggs.By the end of the movie, a snow monkey placidly hanging out in his steam bath in an unknown mountain range seems to have all the answers.
- STAR WARS TRILOGY - You can watch this movie on many levels, and most people just watch it for fun and entertainment. But there are universal messages all over this movie, such as the dangers of giving in to anger. Luke's whole trajectory, from impatient impulsive farm boy, to calm, focused, loving Jedi Master may not be as exciting as the space chases or light saber fights, but is the main thing that holds the trilogy together. The best spiritual moment - when Luke refuses to kill Darth Vader and by so doing, wrests the good from the depths of his soul.
- Ghandi - An obvious choice, this movie shows you how any ordinary person can go from living the life expected of them to doing remarkable and unusual things which end up changing the world. After viewing the movie, I was inspired to read Ghandi's MY EXPERIMENTS IN TRUTH, his autobiography and this book is proving even more profitable.
Author Comments:
I'm sure this list will grow.
I'm also sure that any movie can/cannot be a step towards spiritual growth depending on the eye of the beholder.
But these are some movies that I think cannot fail to impart something meaningful that will help the viewer to live a better life.
I would have to include Good Will Hunting.
David Brin has written a ton about the philosophy of Star Wars. I'm afraid most of it is negative, but it's all very interesting stuff that never really occurred to me.