Bella: A Powerful New Pro-Life Movie, but Will Christians Accept It?

In Passion: Films, Faith, and Fury, a recent British documentary on the history of religion in film, a Christian filmmaker was interviewed on his involvement in the 1979 epic film Jesus. Also known as The Jesus Project, the film has been translated into hundreds of languages and show at gigantic screenings across the globe. The filmmaker described the project as being inspired by Christ’s own example of reaching the crowds through parables. Neither the documentary or the interviewee heeded the glaring paradox: Jesus isn’t a parable at all, but a literal retelling of Luke’s Gospel. This anecdote highlights an established trend in Christian filmmaking. Rarely do Christian filmmakers produce films which are actually parables, metaphors, or otherwise lacking in overt Christian values or agenda. The emphasis on explicit message over subtle metaphor has impoverished many Christian films; realism and moral complexity are often lost beneath the desire to provide a neat and painfully obvious Christian message. Rod Dreher summed it up best when it described the moral blandishments of the Left Behind series as “The Gospel according to Ned Flanders.”

Metanoia Films, a new production company, has bucked this trend in their debut film Bella, which is slated for release in select markets mid-August. Its artistry and depth makes it a powerful testament to the culture of life, though paradoxically it’s not clear whether it will be lauded by many pro-life Christian viewers. Starring Mexican soap opera star Eduardo Veràstegui, Bella traces a day in the life of Nina, a young waitress who contemplates having an abortion. Nina’s position is a compelling one and her suffering is real and intense. So convincingly has Metanoia rendered Nina’s existential crisis, that many of the less observant abortion advocates see it as movie that lies within the purview of their ideology, though uncomfortably so. Their short-sightedness can be forgiven—since when has a Christian movie’s message been transmitted without fuzzy treacle?

Conflicted, alone, and steeped in a culture that lacks faith and a firm grip on natural law, Nina’s initial choice of abortion is obvious. In an age guided by the value of personal autonomy, Nina sees the birth as doubly destructive to both herself and her child. What can possibly penetrate the ideological and emotional wall that circumstances have erected within Nina’s tortured heart? The answer is clear for many pro-life activists: love, mercy, and God’s grace. The circumstances faced by many women in Nina’s position is more often than not complex, rarely alleviated by logical argument or fear of damnation, though many still try to use these to dissuade women bent on abortion.

Bella derives its power from its depiction of God’s grace working subtly and mysteriously within Nina’s troubled heart. In one particular scene, a blind man asks Nina to describe what she can see; he forces her to concentrate on the beauty she doesn’t feel like perceiving. This scene sums up the whole action of the movie: the opening of Nina’s soul and heart to grace, love, and beauty. The primary instrument of grace is Eduardo Veràstegui’s character Jose, a character rarely seen in today’s cinema: a truly virtuous and self-sacrificing soul. He is present for Nina in her hour of need and creates the haven of love and mercy that opens her heart to the possibility of life. For those women who identify with Nina, it presents a similar opportunity for grace to penetrate their desperate and hardened hearts. At the Toronto Film Festival, whose prestigious People’s Choice Award Bella won, a woman was so moved by Bella she decided to keep her child and name her Bella.

Surprisingly, many Christian pro-life advocates are not receiving Bella with open arms. At a recent screening of Bella, the MC tried to rally the Christian crowd by asking everyone who supports Metanoia Film’s efforts to stand up: barely half the crowd rose from their seats. Secondly, I received an acerbic e-mail from an intelligent Catholic film critic which lambasted me for a passing comment on my blog which identified Bella as a pro-life movie. The critic’s main objection to Bella was its ambiguity. “The film,” the critic bristled, “never mentions the life of the unborn child which seems to me inexcusable for a film made by Catholics….. People who are pro-life see the film as being pro-life, because they are told going in that the film was made with pro-life intentions. But people who are pro-choice think it is an affirmation of a pro-choice worldview.” In other words, this critic would only be placated if the movie had had an explicit Christian message.

A truly pro-life movie then is one which resembles a logically incisive pamphlet; this approach might score some points in the perpetual political power struggle, but its doubtful that it would have any effect on the Ninas of the world. Bella is powerful because it resonates on an emotional and spiritual level, penetrating through the half-baked NARAL arguments inculcated in so many women. Ultimately, reality doesn’t reflect tidy messages, and God’s grace is a mysterious reality. This movie, by not following the trend of Christian films which double as propaganda, will affect the lives of women struggling with abortion.

Cool Stylistic Elements in The Decalogue, Part II

Kieslowski's motivating passion in filmmaking was the state of common man and his response to the complexities of modern life in the wake of WW-II. After suffering censorship for his social documentaries, Kieslowski turned to fiction films but maintained his passion for probing the state of common man. His cinematic style in the Part II of the Decalogue (read yesterday's post for a plot summary) reflects a commitment to realism as Kieslowski endeavors to hold up a mirror to the souls of modern Polish people. We feel as if we were present in the story, spying upon the ordinary, mundane lives of normal people and their imminently real moral and psychological dilemmas. Here are a few interesting Stylistic Elements in Part II that communicate Kieslowski's story:

• Lengthy takes: Kieslowski holds the camera on his character for longer than we're used to, forcing us to endure the awkward pauses and silences that occur naturally in daily life. Since the long take exhausts the image visually, we're forced to intellectually examine the pregnant pause and to use our imaginations to penetrate the character's thoughts.
• The first shot of Part II establishes the austere and monolithic Warsaw apartment block, the setting for all 10 Decalogue films. Moving in and out of the frame in the foreground of this shot is a gardener who busily rakes the grounds. This shot, while seemingly mundane, reveals an important stylistic element employed by Kieslowski throughout the movie. The gardener’s movement, unfettered by the static frame, hints at a larger reality not captured by camera’s lens. An openly framed shot like this one suggests an incomplete visual idea, with important information missing or cut off by the unaccommodating frame—the camera becomes mere window into a larger world. Kieslowski does this for the sake of a subtle realism. The Polish world he films is real, not carefully composed on stage, and exists despite the camera.
• Unbalanced compositions: Kieslowski doesn't carefully compose and balance the visual weights (line, shape, movement, texture) of his images. Objects, characters, and action are not always arranged in the most visually compelling way. For example, we naturally center the object of interest when we take a picture. In Part II, Kieslowski violates this inherent sense of balance within us. The main characters are often shot at the fringes of the frame. This is another example of his subtle realism.
• Emotion is never forced by speeding up the rhythm of the editing or by using close-ups. The drama is powerful enough that Kieslowski doesn't see the need to manipulate the emotion out of the audience.
  
• While Kieslowski tends to shot his films in a realistic and unobtrusive way, he occasionally violates this tenet for symbolic purposes. In one scene, for example, he shot an extreme close-up of a glass shattering, symbolically reflecting the inner anguish of the scene. In another shot, Kieslowski inspects every crevice of the invalid husband's hospital bedroom without an establishing shot. Typically, when directors pursue realism, they generally give the viewer an establishing shot before breaking down the components of the space through closer shots. In this scene, Kieslowski creates a unified space in our mind entirely through close-ups of various cracking crevices which emit slow drops of water. This emphasizes in our mind the decrepit state of the invalid and inculcates despair for the husband's recovery.

Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Decalogue

Several years ago, I had the opportunity to see Our Lady of Czestochowa and found it impossible to imagine her in any other country besides Poland; her countenance embodies the suffering of a people who have had the misfortune of settling down permanently on a level plain sandwiched between Russia and Germany. The Polish soul, laid bare by tragedy, is the canvas on which brilliant filmmaker Krzysztof Kieslowski probes the complexities and paradoxes of human nature.

Kieslowski began his career making documentaries in the seventies which truthfully probed the lives of everyday city dwellers with no regard for the standard Party rhetoric. Needless to say, though he didn’t intend to be overtly political, he quickly made enemies with the monolithic Soviet state. Disillusioned with the prospect of telling the truth under a Communist regime, Kieslowski turned to fiction films. Though a self-proclaimed agnostic, Kieslowski’s films exhibit a hunger for the truth that lies beneath the surface reality, an appetite which makes his films intellectually and spiritual challenging.

I had read in several places that the masterpiece of Kieslowski’s career is widely considered to be The Decalogue, a series of ten films made in 1988 for Polish television. The ten films were inspired by the ethical imperatives of the Ten Commandments and the effect the commandments have on modern men who cease to believe in the God behind them. I recently had the chance to see the first three and was very impressed by his talent and depth of insight.

I only have time to write about one, so I’ll choose the second installment. Part Two features a distraught woman’s plea to an elderly doctor for a prediction on the fate of her critically ill husband, who lies comatose in a hospital bed. It turns out she’s pregnant by another man; if her husband is going to live, she will have an abortion. If not, she wants to keep the baby. This thrusts the doctor into an unpleasant role of having to play God with two lives. I’ll stop the spoilers there, but I hope that is sufficient to intrigue you. Kieslowski has an incredible skill for dramatizing his ideas, taking complex reflections on human dignity and integrating them into a compelling conflict. Unlike the Wachowski brothers’ lame philosophical opus in the last two Matrix movies, you’re never aware of being lectured to. Tomorrow, I’ll post a brief reflection on a few of my favorite stylistic elements of Part II. Cinematically, I’m convinced Kieslowski is one of the best.

Yo! Yo!

I finally was able to watch Rocky Balboa after agonizingly missing its theater release. All things considered, it's simply a bad movie and nothing more than Stallone's own self-indulgent nostalgia... but I loved it. It has a contrived plot, an insipid antagonist (Mason "The Line" Dixon is no Mr. T), and an ambiguous and somewhat unconvincing motivation for Rocky's return to the ring... but I would gladly watch it again. It may have been sentimental tripe on the part of Stallone, but I imagine I wasn't alone in loving every second of it. What guy wouldn't gladly indulge Stallone? Who cares if he has no real reason to get back into the ring? It's pleasure enough to see the Italian Stallion back in action even though he lumbers around the ring like a 60 year old whose make-up artists weren't able to cover that fact up.

It's no Rocky IV, of course--there really is no replacement for Apollo Creed, a juiced Russian, and Cold War tensions. I'm not sure it matters though. I was too filled with nostalgia of the old days to care about a mediocre plot. I wouldn't be surprised if this was a common sentiment. It's also interesting to note the Catholic undertones of the movie. Apparently Stallone has had a reversion experience to his Catholic faith-- the next Rambo is about a hardened atheistic Rambo undergoing conversion to Christianity in the midst of Muslims. I didn't believe it when I heard it, but JP Catholic has a connection close to Stallone that say his reversion to Catholicism is very real.

Crazy Communist Director

It took only two weeks to derelict on my promise of a full movie review each Friday. I did finally finish my article on Bella, but must polish my pedantic prose and abundant non-sequiturs before publishing. I received an acerbic e-mail from a Catholic movie critic who took exception to a passing comment on this blog that identified Bella as a pro-life movie; thus, I want it to be as polished as it can be before publishing. In the meantime, I've got some great posts planned.

Last week I posted on The Lives of Others, an awesome German flick about the conflict between East Germany's state security and an artist. It illustrated the tension between art and Communist state. Today I want to post a clip from Sergei Eisenstein's The Battleship Potemkin. Eisenstein was one the foremost Communist film propagandists, and one of the finest directors history's ever produced. Even a talented propagandist like Eisenstein couldn't escape eventual censorship though, which was such a devastating blow to his tremendous ego that he promptly suffered serious health problems (an illness which eventually killed him). Eisenstein innovated a whole new style of editing. His "collision montage" strove for as much pictorial, temporal, and spatial discontinuity as possible, breaking many established tenets of film. Watching Eisentein is a disorienting experience. Each image in an edited sequence differs drastically in lighting, movement, and composition, while he also has no inhibitions against distorting the audiences' perception of time and space.

Eisenstein is the perfect director for anyone who suffers from Attention Deficit Disorder. He loves to string together radically contrasting images, which collide so rapidly that you feel like you've come down with epilepsy. This scene from Odessa Steps is famous for his distinctive editing style. The scene is really fun to watch, and Eisenstein's editing makes the action take longer than it would in real life. I'll post more on this tomorrow; now I'm off to catch a plane to Minnesota!

Click here for the scene.

Unparalled Wit

My post on the classic Decalogue films, which are ten brilliant Polish movies based on the ethical tenets of the Ten Commandments, was unfortunately filled with more tangents than substance...even more than usual. I wasn't able to finish it last night and had to shelve that project while I write my review of Bella for tomorrow's post.

I decided to use today's post to wax nostalgic about my favorite movie reviewer Steve Sailer, whose wit and insight are unparalleled. Check out his incisively funny reviews of V for Vendetta and The Davinci Code. Just don't drink anything while reading, some of his more devastatingly funny passages can cause your sinuses to explode. He's the primary reason I keep subscribing the The American Conservative.

The Lives of Others

Last night, my wife and I went to The Lives of Others, a German film about the secret police in East Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall. We were blown away...it's arguably the best film I've seen in years-- artistic excellence, penetrating insight into human nature, and a thrilling story are only a few compelling reasons to catch this movie before it leaves theaters. No other movie has so powerfully captured the spiritual oppression and despair that naturally emanates from Marxism's flawed conception of human nature. It is rated "R", however, and for a good reason. The more salacious scenes are not gratuitous though, and are carefully filmed so as to reveal poignant insights rather than to prick our nerve endings. One particular lascivious scene, for example, is carefully filmed in a repugnant way in order to expose the spiritual death that occurs when serving such a corrupt regime and setting the stage for that character's spiritual regeneration. I have so much to say about this movie and will write a review as soon as I finish my review on Bella.