Can one put Samsara into words? That sounds like a dare.

There are few things in the world of film that gets me quite as excited as the cinematic term, "70mm". Indeed, I have often judged, quite unfairly, a city's level of development and civility solely on the basis of whether or not it has an IMAX cinema. Harsh, I know, but then I am not a diplomat. Sadly, however, life (and I hasten to add the adjective, my, to the noun, life) is changing. All around the world, IMAX screens are closing, which is hardly surprising considering that we have become so complacent with ingesting low resolution imagery of an even poorer sound quality - we now listen to symphonies compressed into neat little binary codes, whereas IMAX still boasts 8-channels of individual, uncompressed sound. The Youtube Generation they call us, or perhaps that is what we call ourselves. Who, after all, boycotts Youtube?

To have found a documentary, then, shot entirely on 70mm in 25 countries has piqued my interest to say the least. And to have watched a clip from that film, albeit streamed through Vimeo on a tiny screen, was an experience not unlike watching Planet Earth for the first time. Samsara, it seems, follows a similar format to documentaries such as Bodysong (2003) and the Qatsi Trilogy; Koyaanisqatsi (1982), Powaqqatsi (1988) and Naqoyqatsi (2002). Though I find this format to be a welcome change from the sensationalist, and therefore popular, Michael-Moore-ish style of documentary filmmaking, it does require one to engage with the imagery more than perhaps any other style of filmmaking. To me, it reflects something of the silent era, particularly the Soviet approach of the 1920s - every image heavy-laden with commentary, allusion and symbolism.

"Can you put this video into words?" is the challenge posed by True Activist, a website dedicated to film news. It is a question few writers manage to shy away from, especially writers drawn to the subject of film. So, let's give it a bash.

The clip presents us with a process, one that defines us as a consumerist species. It starts with chickens being plucked up in a factory by a vehicle not unlike a small harvester. Cut to the chickens pouring into boxes, which are neatly stacked away into shelves from whence the chickens are killed, their intestines scraped out and their parts separated and packaged, all in some sweat shop populated by scores of purple-and-blue-clad factory workers. At a higher frame rate (slo-mo), we catch a glimpse of a pair of Mongolian-descended eyes peering over a mask, contemplating, we believe, everything. A few moments later, she senses the camera on her and her brief brush with her own humanity vanishes.

The clip transports us to a colossal turntable, where the udders of a great circle of cows are being sucked dry. Next, we see gargantuan gilts laying pinned down on their sides, each assigned ten or so piglets who suckle them. Inevitably, the film cuts to giant porcine carcasses hanging from a rail, moving from worker to worker as they are gutted and their innards removed and discarded..

In true Eisenstinian fashion, a remnant of Soviet-era technique, the film then offers a juxtaposition. We witness the life of the predator in time lapse, scavenging the spoils of the aforementioned processes, inside a Costco, which eerily resembles the factories from whence everything came. Pile upon pile of meat and dairy are placed on the conveyor belts that carry them to the cashiers, obese mall rats cram mouthful upon mouthful of junk down their throats, until the sequence ends with a shot of a man's belly being prepped for liposuction.

The film's message is in no way ambiguous. In fact, like the Soviet-era films, one might criticise its style for being too obvious and for underestimating its audience's intelligence. But the fact remains, though we suspected the circle of life in the 21st century to resemble something like this, my guess is that we never considered that it might be quite so inhumane. Never before have I seen human greed portrayed in such a frank, objective and brutally honest manner. One hopes that films such as these might change the world, but in reality we know that they appeal only to a niche market - intelligent films made for intelligent people - but the saddest fact of all is that no matter how intelligent its audience, every member of that audience is in some way guilty of the film's accusation. One might even go as far as to to say that the filmmakers themselves were driven to a great deal of introspection in the making of it.

Films such as Samsara play a very important role in archiving human history. They should shape it, but if we're honest, they only observe it. What we do with their observations is what really matters. One only wonders when our observations will lead to action.

Hanfred Rauch

www.hanfredrauch.com

Feedback for "The Shadow Guardians"

Well, there have been quite a few developments concerning "The Shadow Guardians" of late. I had been meaning to list it on The Black List for quite some time and so, about a month ago, I took the plunge. For the site to host the script, it's $20 a month and $50 to get a professional script reader to evaluate it, which is quite good considering that some script readers will charge you from $600 for their wisdom.

I was very happy with the feedback I got from the anonymous reader. The script scored 6/10, which would seem disappointing (and it was), but after some reflection and marinating in the reader's comments, it made complete sense. I am not a professional scriptwriter (yet), especially not one experienced in writing action sequences, with which "The Shadow Guardians" is peppered. A helpful comment from the reader was that my descriptions read more like prose. One does attempt to put a personal stamp on one's work, but in this case, I realised that I would have to adapt my screenwriting style to fit into the Hollywood mold more, that is, to write in a staccato style and above all, to write sparsely. The trouble with "The Shadow Guardians" is that the story is too rich for a breakthrough screenplay. In reality, this would amount to a 3-hour film, which is entirely what I set out to do, but as the reader pointed out, it is very unlikely that any studio would drop $200 million on a tent pole concept by a newbie.

My conclusion is that I must resort to that ever-haunting virtue that emphatically describes my screenwriting career right now - patience. The reader was very complimentary of the story, which was my primary focus, but when all is said and done, this is not the type of story that finds its way onto the silver screen without an existing fan base in another medium. "The Shadow Guardians" was always meant to be a book trilogy - perhaps it only took this detour to make that clear.

On that note, I also Googled the name (which has been registered with both WGA and The United States Copyright Office, by the way) and it turns out that "The Shadow Guardians" is already a book series, albeit a supernatural romance series featuring werewolves and damsels. Oh well, back to the drawing board, as they say. It will be back, even if it does become a book and takes another name.

Hanfred Rauch

Discovering Korean Cinema's Revolutionary Spirit

I was recently asked to write an article on Korean film, which filled me with some degree of dread. Though I had been living here for two-and-a-half years, I am ashamed to say that I have not made enough of an effort to acquaint myself with it better. But a project always provides great incentive. Though the specifications of the article limited how deeply I could delve into Korean cinema, I came to some very interesting insights about Korean culture through its films.

The Japanese occupation of Korea in the 35 years leading up to the end of World War II is common knowledge to anyone who has Wikied Korea, but what I found heartwarming to discover was when I learned how cinema was used as a communication tool between the masses. During the silent era, Japanese authorities would monitor the live, on-stage narrators of the films that were screened to the masses, but as soon as they left the cinema, the narrators would, through skillful use of language, inject anti-authoritarian commentary into their narration. In this way, it echoes Nazi occupation of France during the same period. There is always something delicious about the use of film as a tool for subversion.

Something else I never knew was that during the anti-government revolts in South Korea during the 1980s, South Korea came dangerously close to falling under military dictatorship. At the time, the country still functioned under a feudal system. The implications, had things gone the other way, are difficult to imagine. The Korean Peninsula very nearly had two separate fascist governments.

It comes as no surprise, then, that a number of Korea's most famous directors, like Park Chan-Wook (Joint Security Area, Oldboy, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Stoker), can be seen as mavericks. It explains why their films are built on a sense of rebellion. This revolutionary spirit, in a sense, likens the 80s generation of Korean filmmakers to auteurs such as Pedro Almodovar of Spain, who hails from a similar protest era against Franco. One might even consider the similarities between modern Korean cinema and the films of the German Expressionists of the 1920 (The Cabinet of Dr.Caligari, Nosferatu, Metropolis), who used their fantastical stories and cinematic landscapes as allegories for political ideologies.

Looking at film history, it was always in the waves that we found some of cinema's most exciting and memorable work. The most famous of these was the French New Wave of the 1960s that saw a young band of filmmakers emerge out of Parisian working class society and capture the essence of the time. Not only did they make films, but they also wrote and theorised about them, breaking new boundaries from an educated standpoint. So infectious was their enthusiasm for cinema as a means of telling personal stories that it brought an end to a deeply conservative era of Catholic-infused censorship in the U.S. It sparked a new generation of filmmakers in America that went on to influence modern Hollywood in a very important way. Scorsese, Spielberg, Lucas, Jack Nicholson, Warren Beatty and Woody Allen all hail from this period.

But for awhile, it seemed that the film world had become devoid of waves. This is perhaps what excites the world so much about the comeuppance of Korean film. Korea's filmmakers are similarly informed. They debate and theorise and, because of their home audience's demand for constant change, they avoid complacency. Trends never last long, which means we can always expect something new from Korean films. It would certainly seem that the Korean Wave is at its peak.

Hanfred Rauch

The Rock Garden Enters Pre-production

If I have been rather less active on this blog of late, it is because I have been occupied with two writing projects that have provided me with great joy and kept me quite busy.

A Fearless Man (the book I'm working on) has been gaining momentum. After adding 40 pages to it since the beginning of the year, I realised that the time had come to redesign the world of its setting. More research on the medieval period provided me with new insights that changed my initial approach to the story. I have since gone about re-researching the world region I have set it in, despite the fact that it is imagined. The result has been a rather surprising study of Latin and German to forge the place names of the towns, cities, regions, rivers and mountains of the world of the story. Character illustrations also ensued, which I will share on this blog in due course, as well as map design, which I derive infinite pleasure out of.

Also, and perhaps more excitingly, The Rock Garden is entering pre-production. I'd abandoned the notion of short film writing since leaving film school, but my great friend, Verster du Plessis, coaxed me into developing his latest film project with him. So far, the story has undergone five rewrites and the script is currently on its fourth draft. What has fascinated me about the project is that every draft has differed vastly from the previous one. Each draft was also film-able as a story on its own. In other words, the tone and story shape of each was whole, but quite different from each of the others. The current draft, however, ended up being the most exciting one of the lot, as it juxtaposes a fairytale reality with a predominantly realistic one.

I also wormed my way into illustrating the film, which is a feature within the story. This will prove a great challenge, as it must compliment the overall tone of the film and not undermine it. In time, nearer the completion of the film, I shall map out the writing process of The Rock Garden, as it has certainly been an interesting one.

Hanfred Rauch

An Atheist Church. Question Mark.

It certainly seems like one of the 21st century's biggest coming out parties so far. In Britain in particular, its importance as a cultural phenomenon has been cemented over the last decade by high profile public figures, including authors, entertainers and broadcasters such as Richard Dawkins, Ricky Gervais and Stephen Fry, to name but a few. Similarly, in the US, publications like Sam Harris's Letter to a Christian Nation have opened a very discernible door that seems to shake much of what the United States was founded on. Christian values, to a large extent, still inform American morality, but what has definitely started to happen, is that people worldwide are at the very least considering a world without the church.

My crisis of faith occurred when I was 14. To put things in perspective, I went to a very traditional, English South African high school for boys where many of my friends were devout Catholics and the rest belonged to some version of Protestantism. During my years there, the school also had two Jews in attendance as well as two Taiwanese Buddhists, all four of whom were exempt from going to chapel on a Sunday night - an arrangement that I interpreted as more of a privilege than a religious disposition. It was on these nights, while inspecting the grain on the chapel's ceiling beams while hearing "God is holy" being chanted in the background that I began to ask questions. One such night, I asked the school reverend whether I could have a word. I revealed to him my doubts about God's existence, which were met with wide eyes.

After a few seemingly routine questions, he proposed his solution, which was that the void I'd been feeling (quite possibly my words) may have stemmed from the fact that I was receiving God's word in English and not my mother tongue, which is Afrikaans. He sent me on my merry way with a sample of the Gideon's Bible (in Afrikaans), possibly feeling that he'd solved the problem and that he knew his overstock would one day come in handy. It goes without saying that I am unsure of what exactly happened to that bible and the pamphlets aimed at those who ask questions after I left that chapel. What I had learned that night was that I was to face the question of my own spirituality alone. I have always been very impatient with treading down paths that I know will lead me back to where I started. Nevertheless, the next decade was a highly self-exploratory journey for me in which I sought answers in everything scientific, historic, Buddhist, Zen and philosophical. In the end, I find myself without any one school of thought, but the virtues contained in almost every life's philosophy is worth considering.

I agree that those who are not religious, or rather, specifically not Christian, should not be forced to explain themselves. On matters of spirituality, I believe that it is one of the most personal journeys any of us can face. In the same vein, I also believe that anyone who has chosen not to follow a religion should not ridicule those who do. I cannot deny that the non-religious have faced endless judgment and continue to, but to return that judgment bears little fruit other than some self-fulfilling temporary fix. What we are all in search of is truth. For some of us, truth may present itself in stories like those of Moses, David, Jonah and the Whale, Noah's Ark, the birth of Christ and so forth. For others, truth may only be found in science. It is my opinion that no matter how strongly we feel about our core beliefs, we cannot deny another what they believe primordially, for such a person would have to deny himself.

Upon reading about an "atheist church" in North London, I was utterly intrigued. It is indeed a bold step for those of little faith. My first thoughts were positive, because I felt that there was at last a place for those who needed to feel a little less ostracised for what hey believed in. But then my thoughts turned inwards and I asked myself whether I would attend such a place. I think part of the reason why The Church did not appeal to me was because I am uneasy with sharing very personal processes as part of a group. I once had an experience while living in London in the late 1990s where I was approached my a Christian cult. When I made myself scarce, they kept calling my work number, accusing my colleagues of lying about my whereabouts. If ever I thought a group scenario could work for me, and I shan't deny my naivety at that age, my first and only encounter of a cult beat it out of me.

I am not accusing the atheist "church" of being a cult, but to me, turning away from religion essentially meant turning away from the group. I do not see myself as a recluse, but I do like to find my own way. I can, however, see the appeal of a "church" for atheists. My wife used to play in a church band despite not belonging to the church itself. She pointed out to me during this time that the church was, above all else, a community. It was a place designed to bring people of similar minds together. When one walks away from that, one simultaneously walks away from a sense of solidarity. To some it might feel like a blessing, but many people lose their sense of belonging in the process. Some need the guidelines provided by their community. For this reason, I feel that the atheist church may very well fill a void, but my fear is that it stands to reintroduce ritual to a group that abandoned it for a reason.

I am not sure how it happened, but Heraclitus's philosophy that no one steps into the same river twice, resonated with my core belief. I am seldom more convinced of anything than I am of the fact that we are in a perpetual state of flux. Perhaps we do not change in broad strokes, at least not as quickly as we do when it comes to the details. In other words, we might change our style, but we do not necessarily change our nature. In time, however, the details may nudge us away from our personal truth. I might submit the brainwashing process, or the effects of prolonged exposure to criminal minds as evidence of this theory. It is for this reason that I find ritual to be detrimental to our individual truths. We should question our lives frequently. We should "spring clean" our beliefs and routines to air them out from time to time. If we fail to do that, we become complacent about the things that matter most to us, whether we know it or not.

Alain de Botton cautioned against calling atheist congregations churches, believing that congregations of atheists were necessary. I quite agree, but when there is a call for something church-like and one is specifically told not to call it that, that is unfortunately what is will become. Furthermore, why does the atheist congregation of North London meet in an old church whose aesthetic has not changed? The comment it makes is not hard to miss. Perhaps it is a quirky enough setting for a group of people who define themselves as not Christian. Perhaps everyone who has ever turned away from Christianity is defined as such, but do we really need to be, or could we be about something else?

However the idea of an atheist church might sit with us, I suspect that as the notion of atheist congregations takes off, atheism might become known as something else in future. Those spiritual nomads amongst us who choose to keep it personal might one day find the actions of the atheist group disagreeable. And that is not so strange. Almost every religion in existence has formed as a result of another.

Hanfred Rauch