Watching Movies of Life - the Movie Meditation
These descriptions of certain emotional states of mind are intended to encourage us to watch specific aspects of our life as if they were a movie. A five star movie in this list is not rated necessarily as a highly entertaining, mainstream movie. Instead, a good movie suggested here may more accurately reflect the drama of life in all its facets -- the shadow of an emotion as well as its positive side. Find out what moves you and learn to simply let it be. Meditation is watching, unidentified and non-judging.
R -- Free Like A Bird On The Wing
The shadow side
Jealousy, being neglected and ignored, being full of hatred for each and everyone, in principle saying NO, hating the mother, being resistent, being in rebellion, being different than the crowd, repeatedly seducing the father, hating dependency, love of darkness and death, loving what one hates, being addictive, from hope to desperation and back, it is all about life and death ...
The light side
Being independent, feeling free as a bird on the wing, being strong as a tree, feeling loved, being rebellious against deficiencies, transforming jealousy in love, being an individual, living alone, being independent of outer circumstance, understanding death
Movies with these themes
Georgia Rule
Rebellious teenager Rachel Wilcox (Lindsay Lohan) screams, swears, and drinks; she is, in a word, uncontrollable. With her latest car crash, Rachel has broken the final rule in her mother Lilly's (Felicity Huffman) San Francisco home. With nowhere else to take the impulsive and rambunctious girl, Lilly hauls her daughter to the one place to which she had sworn she would never return: her own mother's house in Idaho. Matriarch Georgia Randall (Jane Fonda) lives her life by a number of unbreakable rules — God comes first and hard work comes a very close second — and wants anyone who shares her home do the same. Now saddled with raising the young woman, it will require each patient breath she takes to understand Rachel's fury.
Georgia arranges a job for Rachel as the office girl of Dr. Simon Ward (Dermot Mulroney), the local veterinarian, who also unofficially treats people. His two nephews Sam and Ethan are often at Georgia's house. Simon does not show interest in Rachel or other women, so she thinks he is gay. However, Simon's sister Paula (Laurie Metcalf) reveals that he is still mourning the death of his wife and son who were killed in a car collision three years earlier. He refuses to have sex with Rachel even when she tries to seduce him, but feels some passion for her mother Lilly, whom he has dated in the past...
Fried Green Tomatoes
Evelyn Couch (Kathy Bates) meets an elderly woman named Ninny Threadgoode (Jessica Tandy) in a nursing home waiting room. Ninny tells her the story of the now-abandoned town of Whistle Stop, Alabama, and the people that lived there - specifically the tale of the relationship between Imogen (Idgie) Threadgoode and Ruth Jamison, the two women who ran the Whistle Stop Cafe. As the story of Idgie and Ruth (and a missing person, Frank Bennett) develops, Evelyn Couch finds herself being empowered by the stories of the strong-willed Idgie and the fiercely loyal and independent Ruth. She also finds a true best friend in Ninny...
The Breakfast Club
The plot follows five students at fictional Shermer High School in the widely used John Hughes setting of Shermer, Illinois (a fictitious suburb of Chicago based on Hughes' hometown of Northbrook, Illinois, which was originally called Shermerville; Shermer is a street in Northbrook, and the school in Northbrook, Glenbrook North High School is on Shermer), as they report for Saturday detention on March 24, 1984.
The students pass the hours in a variety of ways: they dance, harass each other, tell stories, fight, smoke marijuana, and speak on a variety of subjects. Gradually they open up to each other and reveal their inner secrets (for example, Allison is a compulsive liar and Brian and Claire are ashamed of their virginity). They also discover that they all have strained relationships with their parents and are afraid of making the same mistakes as the adults around them. However, despite these developing friendships, the students are afraid that once the detention is over, they will return to their very different cliques and never speak to each other again...
Lost and Delirious
Mary is a new student at the all girls' boarding school, and dorms with Paulie and Victoria (nicknamed Tori). In an effort to get the shy Mary to break out of her shell, Paulie and Tori involve her in their activities, such as running in the mornings. When they hear that Mary's mother has died, Paulie nicknames her "Mary Brave."
Mary observes the intimacy between her two roommates. Peering out a window at night, she sees them kissing on a roof. Paulie and Tori's relationship is close and Paulie is full of life. At one point she turns a quiet afternoon on the campus into a music-blasting dance party and spikes the punch. In another moment, she defends Victoria from a frustrated math teacher who humiliates her when she does not understand basic maths...
10 Things I Hate about You
Cameron James (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), the new kid at Padua High School, is given a tour of the school by Michael Eckman (David Krumholtz), who is an audio-visual geek and former leader of a clique of future MBAs. Michael provides Cameron with information on the school’s various cliques. During the tour, Cameron spots the beautiful and popular Bianca Stratford (Larisa Oleynik) and is immediately smitten with her. Michael warns that Bianca is shallow, conceited, and worst of all, not allowed to date. Michael does, however, inform Cameron that Bianca is looking for a French tutor.
At the Stratford residence, Bianca’s outcast older sister Kat (Julia Stiles) receives a letter of acceptance to Sarah Lawrence College. Her protective father, Walter (Larry Miller), is distraught by the news, as he wants Kat to attend college nearby. Kat distracts her father by revealing that Bianca was given a ride home from school by Joey Donner (Andrew Keegan). Bianca begs her father to allow her to date, but to no avail. Kat's aversion to dating prompts the father to come up with a new rule: Bianca can only date if Kat is dating...
Remark
Although the movie list is inspired by Tibetan Pulsing typologies on the human mind, it does not claim to be completely accurate in its assessment.
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