what did the pope mean?

last week pope benedict quoted from a 14th century document which uses deeply intemperate, and in the pope's own words, 'shockingly brusque' language to condemn those who link religion and violence. he may or may not have intended to offend muslims. i suspect not - the comment was made in the context of an academic paper, and it is likely that it was assumed that the comments would not be heard by anyone not present at the gathering. while this may be evidence of naivety on the part of the former cardinal ratzinger, or perhaps arrogance, i frankly find it hard to believe that he expected never mind intended the reaction to the way his words have been construed in the press.

the fact that there have apparently been militant and even violent protests in response tends to prove the point that those who would use religion to endorse violence against the human person need to be engaged with, at least in terms of the kind of dialogue that academic popes may not yet be capable of, and better still in terms of religious leaders articulating a religious path that is both authentically spiritual and pro-actively non-violent, rather than the kind of practice that passes for mainstream religion in the west - which these days, in spite of some noble exceptions (e.g. yesterday's intervention by rowan williams regarding the crisis in childhood), tends toward either insipid and unengaging, or nationalistic and so blindly supportive of violence that it becomes about as far away from the teachings and way of jesus as it's possible to get without coming back in the opposite direction.

the queen and i

just saw stephen frears' film 'the queen' - a strange and rather splendid movie, with helen mirren in what is immediately out of the gate as the front runner for performance of the year.

we're used to seeing nothing of the 'real' royal family, and portrayals of them on-screen tend toward the satiric - but frears is too mature a director for that - while there is almost no way we could possibly judge the veracity of the story in this film - that of how the queen responded in the immediate aftermath of the tragic death of princess diana - this film manages to make convincing human beings out of - especially - elizabeth windsor and tony blair.

there was a sense of something like relief among the audience i saw it with - as if we have been bursting to see these public figures behave like real people. the communal feeling might best be summed up as socio-psychological dam bursting - as finally got to see humanity behind the usual steely public demeanour. blair comes out of the film as a calculating man, alistair campbell as a political machine, the queen as a woman of stature and dignity who represents something rare in contemporary society - someone who believes that their life exists for the sake of something bigger than themselves.

now i would not want to go much further than that - the monarchy is not an institution that i would invest a lot of time endorsing - but there is something about this film that made me feel that i understood more about the epochal cultural changes that have happpened to britain, ireland, and europe in the past ten years.

harvey keitel, osama bin laden, and the ministry of disney

so, abc television's drama 'the path to 9/11' aired last night - i only caught a few minutes of shaky hand-held camerawork so wasn't sure what to make of it. the film has been criticised for putting the blame on the clinton administration for not being wise to the threat. there's also an interesting christian missions connection to the film in the form of its director - check out david l cunningham and see what you find if you're interested.

would love to hear from any of you who have seen it - what's it like?

little miss sunshine: funny and smart, smart and funny

'little miss sunshine' is, i suppose, what they call 'this year's sleeper hit' - a beautifully observed comedy in the truest sense - something about what real life is really like. i won't say much about the plot, other than it's a very dysfunctional family (or maybe it just seems that way - i've only encountered a couple of families that seemed functional) on a road trip. as is usually the case in this kind of film, the journey is the destination, but the joys and sorrows of this journey manage to take in a critique of the american dream, father-son relationships, ambition, teenage angst, the sexualisation of almost everything in our society, and ultimately the truth that it is in broken moments when we are both most human, and possibly most lovable.

it's also profoundly funny.

but it's that last point that stays with me - when we are most broken, we are perhaps most able to be ourselves. at the same time, when we it seems like we have lost everything we held most dear, that's when we can make an exuberant gift of our usually hidden abilities to take risks. if this sounds ambiguous, it's because i'm trying not to give away too much of the film...so go see it and let me know what you think.

where has wim wenders' mojo gone?

saw 'don't come knocking' last night - new film by wim wenders and sam shepherd - great pedigree, great photography and music, great territory - lonely man wandering through the american west - that both wenders and shepherd have worn well before.

so it was sad to see that, as with many other older directors, the late vintage wenders only made me want to return to his earlier films - at least two of which - 'paris, texas', and 'wings of desire' - can be legitimately called masterpieces. both of them deal with the sense of being 'outside' the mainstream, of not being able to 'fit in', making serious mistakes, and trying to atone because of them.

'don't come knocking' just doesn't convince. wenders, like woody allen, and, i fear, martin scorsese, appears to have got caught in a rut of doing only things that he has done better before...by this token, you could make a case that steven spielberg is one of the riskiest directors working in the mainstream today - consistently challenging himself to do something new. if only someone could persuade woody allen to slow down and make fewer films, or wim wenders to make a non-narrative film in ireland, or scorsese to forget catholicism and gangsters for a while...