I Am – Directed by Tom Shadyak. Documentary. A spiritual civics lesson about the family relation in the internal human anatomy and everything in the world, as a Hollywood broad comedy director seeks the truth of what has gone wrong with the world. 76 minutes Color 2011.
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I wanted them all to shut up.
For my sense was that every single one of them were talking about something that they knew about but never had experienced, rather like a person born blind discussing blue.
But my frustration was also that I already knew what they were talking about but that I too had never experienced it – Universal Connection, Universal Identity. Acts of charity, kindness, decency don’t do it. They are excellent, of course, but for me they arise not out of a natural constant inclination such as breathing but as an occasional inspiration born out of circumstances. A rush of fellow feeling or the need to assist must be acted upon, but that is only part of what this film touches upon.
For one thing, it enters into the Heart-Math Institute where scientists explore and document the vibrational relations between mood and influence of mood, where they graph the music lying between one heartbeat and the next.
So don’t be put off by the words “spiritual civics lesson”, for there is real information here. For, when you watch Howard Zinn and Desmond Tutu speak you can see in them the grounds of the universal relation upon which they are discoursing. You don’t need their words, maybe; all you need is to sit in their presence and watch them.
Yet their words are not the occasion for our listening, or even our watching. The words, the film are the occasion for experiencing in us The Thing Itself. Go.
Bruce Moody is the author of the book, “Will Work for Food or $: A Memoir from the Roadside” about his years of homelessness. He now has a small apartment, is in his seventies and resides in California. He is a friend of mine. I’ll be bringing more of his reviews of films new and old, soon. Thank. Dr.E