The
Power
and the Guru
by Howard Schumann
Mickey Lemle's documentary Ram Dass, Fierce Grace
is a portrait of Ram Dass (Richard Alpert), author, 60s guru, spiritual
teacher, cohort of Timothy Leary, and author of Be Here Now,
one of the most influential books of the 1970s. The film begins in the
present, as Ram Dass deals with the effects of a massive stroke he suffered
in February 1997 that left him physically incapacitated, and with impaired
memory and speech. Interweaving current conversations, interviews with
people in his life, and archival footage, Lemle then looks back at his
childhood, the controversy surrounding his research with Timothy Leary
in psychedelics at Harvard, his studies in India with Neem Karoli Baba,
who renamed him Baba Ram Dass (Servant of God), his work with the Seva
Foundation in social action projects dedicated to relieving suffering
in the world, and his impact as an author and guru to millions of followers.
Several
examples are shown of his compassion and his ability to feel the pain
of others. In an early sequence, his beautiful "Rachel's
Letter" comforts a family after their daughter was murdered.
In the final sequence, Ram Dass listens to a young woman struggling
to overcome her grief at her boyfriend's violent death. She brings him
to tears when she tells him about a dream she had in which her boyfriend
speaks to her from beyond with a reassuring message.
When
Ram Dass received the "fierce grace" of being "stroked," he admits he
did not have any unusual spiritual epiphany. He recalls, "Here I am,
Mr. Spiritual, and in my own head I didn't orient toward the spirit.
It showed me I have some work to do." He has written about the stroke
in his latest book, Still Here in which he talks about slowing
down, and finding out about the "everything" that is out there. For
Ram Dass, aging has become a gift. "I was galumphing through life before
the stroke," he says. "I'm at peace now more than I've ever been. The
peace comes from settling in to the moment."
Enhanced
by the music of Krishna Das, the documentary is more than just a bio-pic
or a meditation on the process of aging, it is an inspiring portrait
of a man whose life can be summed up in one word -- service. Ram Dass
has said, "What one person has to offer to another is their own being,
nothing more, nothing less." In Ram Dass, Fierce Grace, Lemle
has given us Ram Dass's being, nothing more, nothing less. That is a
gift of love.
Fidel
Castro is a survivor. Having outlasted nine U.S. Presidents and survived
numerous assassination attempts by the CIA, Castro has ruled Cuba for
43 years and, whether you love him or hate him, he must be considered
one of the most important political figures of the 20th century. Fidel,
a documentary by Cuban-American journalist Estela Bravo, is a sympathetic
portrait of the Cuban leader that was commissioned by Channel 4 in Britain,
and won the Distinguished Achievement for Excellence in Documentary
Filmmaking from the Urbanworld Film Festival in New York.
The
film spans a period of 40 years of Castro's rule, from his early childhood
and college days to his Presidency of Cuba, and includes interviews
with Harry Belafonte, Nelson Mandela, Alice Walker, Gabriel Garcia Marquez,
Sydney Pollock, and others. Rare footage shows him swimming with his
bodyguards, working in the fields cutting sugar cane, visiting his childhood
school, hanging out with Ted Turner and Jack Nicholson, and talking
with Elian Gonzales, the six-year old boy who became a rallying point
for Cuban exiles in Miami.
Released from prison after serving two years of a fifteen-year
sentence, Castro took a ragtag army of volunteers and went to the mountains
where he recruited farmers, women, and working people and fought a decade-long
guerilla war that led to the overthrow of 
American-backed
Fulgencio Batista in 1959. Unfortunately, Ms. Bravo shows us very little
of the war or the reasons behind the popular uprising (better depicted
in the film I
Am Cuba). Once in power, Castro began a series of agrarian
reforms that included nationalizing the foreign refineries, and seizing
U.S. owned businesses such as Chase Manhattan Bank, United Fruit Company,
and Texaco Oil. American dismay led to the establishment of the U.S.
embargo in 1960, Castro's embrace of the Soviet Union, the establishment
of a Communist dictatorship, and the suspension of democratic elections.
Though at times revealing, I found Fidel on the
whole to be overly simplistic. Bravo extols Castro virtues on almost
every front, including his support for free health care with surgical
procedures 
unavailable in other Third World countries, and Cuba's universal education
for all its citizens up to the tertiary level. These accomplishments
are important, yet many contentious issues are simply ignored. Bravo
never mentions that homosexuality was considered counterrevolutionary
and subject to imprisonment and forced labor until 1988, nor the Human
Rights Watch Report in 2000 that states that Cuba has routinely imprisoned
and/or harassed "peaceful opponents of the government." I recognize
that many of the well documented abuses have come about because of Castro's
desire to protect the revolution, knowing full well that the U.S. has
channeled millions of dollars to dissidents in hopes of destroying it,
yet these are issues that cry out for fuller examination. While Castro
has become a symbol of courage and independence for millions of Third
World people, he is neither saint nor demon, but a man of deep contradictions
and complexities whose full story waits to be told.
"We
cannot live for ourselves alone. Our lives are connected by a thousand
invisible threads, and along these sympathetic fibers, our actions run
as causes and return to us as results"
--Herman Melville
In a recent experiment, physicist Alain Aspect discovered
that subatomic particles can remain in communication with each other
regardless of the distance between them, violating Einstein's theory
that no communication can travel faster than the speed of light. Some
scientists believe that these particles remain in contact because their
separateness is an illusion and that all matter is infinitely connected
at a deeper level of reality. This organic approach to Systems Theory
and the interconnectedness of all living things is the subject of the
1990 film Mindwalk by Bernt Capra. Written by Floyd Byars and based partially on the book The
Turning Point by Fritjof Capra, Mindwalk is a 90-minute conversation
between a scientist, a politician, and a poet, each having taken a step
back from their profession to ponder the direction of his or her life.
The
movie is set at the monastery of Mont St. Michel off the Normandy coast,
and the remoteness of the island provides a perfect background for reflection.
Jack Edwards (Sam Waterston) is a U.S. Senator and unsuccessful candidate
for President. He has come to Mont St. Michel to meet with his friend
and former speechwriter, poet Thomas Harrison (John Heard) to ask for
help in his reelection bid. The two meet scientist Sonia Hoffman (Liv
Ullman) who recently left her research job at a U.S. university protesting
how her research was being used. Prodded by her daughter Kit (Ione Skye)
to get out and meet people, she goes for a walk to the monastery and
meets the others.
Each
character has a different outlook on life. Sonia strongly maintains
that the mechanistic approach of Descartes is no longer relevant and
should be replaced by a holistic system similar to that of Eastern mysticism.
Jack is a politician who relates to concepts in terms of how they may
appeal to voters. Thomas is a romantic who would rather dispense with
both theoretical science and practical politics. The three talk, and
talk some more, on subjects ranging from the destruction of the Amazon
rainforest to the world of atoms and electrons, but this never becomes
tiresome, because each challenges the others to see the world from a
different perspective. The interchange takes place on a personal level
as well, and the result is a deeper understanding of each other's life.
Mindwalk's philosophical approach may not appeal
to everyone, but I found it to be a highly stimulating and often humorous
film that left me feeling uplifted. Now if people throughout the world
with opposite points of view could simply walk and talk for a few hours
together on an island retreat…oh well, I can dream, can't I?
©2003 Howard Schumann
CineScene
