Fierce Light: When Spirit Meets Action

It's difficult for me to dis this perfectly well-meaning guy with committed, if vague, political and religious beliefs. The first five minutes of the movie were the strongest, and yet they also revealed the film's flaw. At the start we learn about the filmmaker's friend, who went to Chiapas to film a peaceful protest and was shot. Afterwards, the foreign journalists all left, and the lone filmmaker, our narrator, stands alone against the stormtroopers. That is when my wife said, "I don't like his voice."

But why not? His voice is perfectly fine. I think it goes to the larger issue, which is that every filmmaker has a voice, just like every writer has a voice. And this voice is a little too centered on the filmmaker. When the filmmaker faced off against the troops, he said "I was scared." That kind of on-the-nose writing is a real buzz-kill.

Because when a stranger tells you "I'm scared," the first thing most people think of is, "You're probably just a wimp." A movie shows, it's not supposed to tell. A horror movie is not a description of a scary event, a horror movie is supposed to scare you, or its not a movie. And anyway, what is the filmmaker, a white American, what business does he have being scared? The people of Chiapas, talk to them and you will hear about how scary it is. After all, you did take a plane to get there.

So that's the problem, in a sense. A self-narrated piece has a dangerous tendency to accidentally portray the narrator as the hero in their own story, and in a documentary where people's lives are at stake, that can seem a little selfish.

A great way to interact with this film is to join The DVD Club - it's like a book club but for film, and is a part of First Weekend Club - a non-profit organization that promotes Canadian film. For October, Fierce Light is the Official Selection, and Velcrow, Cher Hawrysh (producer) and activist/journalist Judy Rebick and artist/activist Carly Stasko are online to answer questions and spark debate.

The DVD Club is free to join and is a fantastic way to extend the life of Canadian film beyond the cinema release date! First Weekend Club is a cross-Canada organization that promotes and celebrates great Canadian film. Check it out at www.firstweekendclub.ca/DVD-club

Dedicated to his friend Brad Will who was killed while filming protests against the State repression of a teacher's strike in Oaxaca, Mexico, Canadian filmmaker Velcrow Ripper's Fierce Light: When Spirit Meets Action is a celebration of those willing to take action in support of their spiritual beliefs. The film is the second installment of a trilogy on spiritual activism of which the 2004 award winning film Scared Sacred was the first. As to the motivation for the film, Fierce Light, Ripper says, "I began to look around and realize that my spirituality and my activism had been so separated, it was almost a schizophrenia in my life, so I felt the need to bring that together." After the opening segment in Oaxaca when Brad is tragically killed and Ripper's life is endangered by State Police, the film explores Mahatma Gandhi's "soul force" and Martin Luther King's "love in action" as the guiding force behind the American civil rights movement of the 1960s. The film shows the walk from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery and the violence and tear gas the marchers encountered along the way.

Civil rights activist, now congressman, John Lewis, says even after being beaten and left for dead on the Bloody Sunday March of 1965 in Selma Alabama, hatred and violence were never an option. Lewis recalls Martin Luther King saying to him, "we just gotta love the hell out of them." Ripper talks about the civil rights struggle in these terms, "What struck me most was that this was movement rooted solidly in love. Not the hallmark love that we have come identify with the word, but a fierce love, a love of unrelenting compassion, of unwavering nonviolence." Ripper's camera also takes us to India to visit the Dalit community formerly known as "untouchables", to Nobel Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu in South Africa, to the farmers in South Central Los Angeles and the protesters like actress Daryl Hannah and tree sitter Julia Butterfly Hill who sat in trees and marched and sang to defend the farmers right to grow their crops on a piece of land slated for development, and to visit with Buddhist monk and peace activist Thich Nhat Hahn as he leads the movement for reconciliation in Vietnam. There is also a segment on Buddhist teacher, author and counselor Noah Levine whose book "Dharma Punx" describes his awakening to compassion after a youth spent with drugs and violence.

Ripper interviews spiritual activist and author Gloria Jean Watkins known as bell hooks and has this to say about the meeting, "Fierce Light for her is awareness, fierce compassion, fierce love, opening to that which is, fully. The sacred is to be found in every moment, not in an isolated context, not in some distant enlightenment. It is in the flash of a red cardinal across the sky, in the new blooms of a lily in her garden." The focal point of the film, however, is the struggle by the South Central Farmers of Los Angeles to protect their 14-acre community farm in an industrial area in south Los Angeles from developers. In that farm, 300 families, mostly Latino, grew more than 100 varieties of fresh food and healing herbs for their community from 1994 until 2006.

Ripper shows the protests of singers Joan Baez and Willie Nelson, Hollywood stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Danny Glover, and Daryl Hannah, and politicians such as Ralph Nader and Dennis Kucinich against the order to vacate the land and the tears that flowed freely when the bulldozers came. While showing examples of people who put their bodies on the line for a cause, the director makes it clear there is not a single standard for activism. "When I talk about activism in the film and spirituality in the film", he says, "it doesn't have to be in any way, shape, or form the more visible forms of activism. It can be just the way we live our lives, how we relate to people, coming from a place of compassion." Fierce Light can become a bit cloying at times but it has a cumulative power that makes real the possibilities for our planet. While there will always be risk involved in taking action for one's beliefs, in the words of Anais Nin, "And the time came when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." That time is now.

As a long-time activist and some-time film maker, I attended Velcrow Ripper's latest film with an open heart and a critical mind. The subject matter is so important to express in a widely accessible way yet, in a world where we are necessarily kept from accessing this point of view, it will be a miracle if we can see this high quality film taken up for broad distribution and viewing. You, dear reader, can make that miracle happen if you insist that this film be show in your town, wherever that may be.

Fierce Light honours a diverse selection of activists who have committed deeply, fiercely and lovingly to initiating and following through with compassionate actions that create the world we need right now. From the famous and well-known personalities to people we may never hear of again, Fierce Light captures beauty and love in the faces and words of people just like we are in our collective dream of a world of peace and justice.

Gives hope and direction to all of those who feel they are alone in this world wanting things to change for the better. After finishing the film I felt like maybe there's a chance that humanity will make it through the current world crises and that is no small accomplishment! Fierce Light has taken social action and activism going on all over the world and through history and connected it all into a web of inspired action that transcends politics and religion. After seeing this film I feel less alone and more hopeful, like the world has many genuinely spiritual people trying to make the world a better place whether they label themselves that way or not. A truly powerful documentary and work of art with masterful direction and sound design.