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.
Z -- Magician Of All Worlds
The shadow side
Pretending 'as if', saying things half heartedly, having a multidimensional personality, thinking in pictures, all-around entertainer and magician, making dreams visible, being pulled into the animal unconsciousness, being hysterical, being retarded, without orientation, feeling helpless
The light side
Comprehension of being human, consciously moving into the depth of human unconsciousness, being able to orientate oneself, being entertaining, being fanciful, being magic, mystical, unique, all-embracing, creative, in contact with the evolution of life, brilliance
Movies with these themes
Memento
Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce) wakes up in an anonymous motel room, oblivious as to why he is in the room. He begins to have a phone conversation with an unknown caller, in which he relates the story of Sammy Jankis (Stephen Tobolowsky). Sammy suffered from anterograde amnesia, which prevented him from forming new memories. Leonard was an insurance fraud investigator assigned to determine if Sammy's condition could be covered under his insurance policy, by being a physical injury that prevented him from forming new memories.
During his research, Leonard discovered that anterograde amnesia sufferers are still able to condition themselves to perform certain tasks. After Sammy repeatedly failed a conditioning test, Leonard concluded that Sammy's memory loss was psychological, not physical, and the insurance claim was denied on grounds that Sammy was not covered for mental illnesses. Under the impression he could be cured if this was true, Sammy's wife came back to the insurance agency, asking Leonard if he believed that Sammy is faking his short-term memory loss. Believing she wanted some kind of answer, Leonard diplomatically restated the insurer's position: he believes Sammy is physically capable of creating new memories. Sammy's wife, a diabetic, tried to confirm her belief that Sammy could make new memories and asked him repeatedly to give her an injection of insulin, every 20 minutes. After a few minutes he unknowingly administered an overdose sending his wife into a coma. Sammy was later confined to a mental institution, incapable of remembering her death.
Whale Rider
The movie's plot follows the story of Paikea Apirana ("Pai") at the age of 12 who is the only living child in the line of the tribe's chiefly succession because of the death of her twin brother and mother during childbirth. By tradition, the leader should be the first-born son — a direct patrilineal descendant of Paikea, the Whale Rider — he who rode atop a whale from Hawaiki. However, Pai is female and technically cannot inherit the leadership.
Pai's grandfather Koro Apirana, or Old Paka as his wife Nanny Flowers calls him (an affectionate corruption of "old bugger," per the book), the leader of the tribe, is initially angry at losing his grandson and being left with a "worthless" female. While he later forms an affectionate bond with his granddaughter, carrying her to school every day on his bicycle, he also resents her and blames her for many of the troubles facing the tribe. At one point Pai decides to leave with her father because her grandfather is mistreating her. She finds that she cannot bear to leave the sea and returns home. Pai's father refused to assume traditional leadership; instead he moved to Germany to pursue a career as an artist. Pai herself is interested in the leadership, learning traditional songs and dances, but is given little encouragement from her grandfather. Pai feels that she can become the leader although there's no precedent for a woman to do so, and is determined to succeed.
What Dreams May Come
After meeting in Switzerland, Chris and Annie marry, having two children: Ian (Josh Paddock) and Marie (Jessica Brooks Grant).
Years later, after Ian and Marie are killed in a car accident, Annie becomes mentally unstable and attempts suicide. She is institutionalized, and although the couple nearly divorce as a result, she eventually recovers. However, on the couple's "Double-D" anniversary (the day the couple decided not to divorce) Chris is involved in a car accident, dying a short time later.
Chris awakes in the afterlife, adjusting to his new environment with the guidance of a man named Albert (Cuba Gooding Jr.), whom Chris believes to be his friend and mentor from his medical residency. Both are surprised when a Blue Jacaranda tree appears in Chris's personal section of Heaven, which matches a tree in a new painting of Annie's. Albert indicates the couple are soul mates, receptive to each other's thoughts even after death.
The Man Who Fell to Earth
David Bowie plays Thomas Jerome Newton, a humanoid alien who comes to Earth from a distant planet seeking a way to ferry his people from his home planet to Earth.[4] His home planet of Anthea is experiencing a terrible drought.[5]
Newton uses the advanced technology of his home planet to patent many inventions on Earth, and rises to incredible wealth as the head of a technology-based conglomerate, World Enterprises Corporation, aided by leading patent attorney Oliver V. Farnsworth. Secretly, this wealth is needed to construct his own space vehicle program in order to ship water back to his home planet.
The Big Blue
The film charts the competition and friendship of real-life champions Jacques Mayol (played by former model Barr) and Enzo Maiorca (renamed in the film to "Enzo Molinari", and played by Reno). The action is divided into two timelines - the nascent rivalry between the two divers as children, and (as adults) their final competition at the world free-diving championships at the Sicilian town of Taormina. Mayol's search for love, family, "wholeness" and the meaning of life and death is a strong undercurrent of the latter timeline.
Charlie and the Chocolat Factory
In a chocolate factory, a purple-gloved hand (Willy Wonka's) places five Golden Tickets randomly among hundreds of Wonka Bars on a conveyor belt, which are then boxed and shipped across the world. Near the factory, Charlie Bucket lives in a small, dilapidated house with his parents and four grandparents. Mr. Bucket provides the only family income by screwing caps on toothpaste tubes at a nearby plant, and family meals consist only of watered-down cabbage soup.
Charlie has long been enthralled with Wonka and his chocolate, so much that he has built a scale replica of his factory entirely out of defective toothpaste caps sneaked home by Mr. Bucket. Grandpa Joe tells Charlie about the time he worked for Wonka, and how Wonka was commissioned by Prince Pondicherry to build a palace entirely out of chocolate, which promptly melted in the boiling sun after he ignored Wonka's advice to eat it. Plans to rebuild it were curtailed, however, due to problems concerning spies amid Wonka's staff, who stole his secret recipes and used them for their own businesses. As a result, Wonka fires all his workers and shuts down the factory, which later inexplicably reopens despite no new workers being hired.
The Illusionist
The film begins in medias res as Chief Inspector Walter Uhl (Giamatti) recounts the story of Eisenheim for Crown Prince Leopold, following Uhl's visit to the theatre to arrest Eisenheim during what appears to be necromancy passed off as a magic show.
Eisenheim was born the son of a cabinetmaker in Austria-Hungary. One day when he was a teenager, Eisenheim (played as young man by Aaron Johnson) meets a traveling magician along a road. The magician performs several tricks for him and then, according to various accounts, both the magician and the tree he was sitting under vanish. Eisenheim becomes obsessed with magic tricks after this.
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.
Latest
Read about the transforming power of man's sexuality when experienced with an attitude of surrender...
Breathe in, breathe out, but let it be love coming in, going out...