[Brahma Kumaris] In the film Hope, what strikes me is when Amal Basri says, “Oh my son, welcome to life again, we are lucky.  And he slept in my arms again like a small bird.” 

HOPE is a story of a journey to ‘freedom’.  A story of courage, endurance and self-empowerment through frightening, challenging and violent storms.

Amal’s story demonstrates with sharp emphasis that life’s journey can be filled with overwhelming challenges.  Her story inspires heartfelt compassion at the suffering she and others have undergone.  It also reminds us of our own human frailty.  At such times, the only thing that will support us is our own inner journey, our eternal inner strength and our immortal relationship with God, the Supreme.  The most important journey we can take is the journey within to the truth of who we really are.  There is a place within, just beyond every day consciousness, where spiritual empowerment begins.  From this place we begin to remember things about ourselves that we once knew, but had long forgotten.  We start with enjoying moments of silence and begin to savor periods of introspection and reflection.  The past fades into the past and in this silent reflection we are completely in the present moment and we can connect with God.

Amal says:  “I ask my God why I am still alive?”

My feeling is that God does not design anyone’s journey or destiny, but if I have a clear connection with God, God can surely guide my journey.

For over seventy years, the Brahma Kumaris have been helping to bring people of different faiths and cultures together, believing that a deeper understanding between faiths, based on acceptance and respect, will contribute to a culture of peace and non-violence in our world community.

So I would ask you, the reader - what does it mean to you, “Welcome to life again”?

[The Shaman] We all wear false masks. We pretend to be someone we are not. We believe the mask will give us the confidence we lack and bring us the happiness we yearn for.
 
But as the Shaman points out, quite the opposite takes place. People wear masks to hide the truth. They don't want to show how frightened or vulnerable they are. They fear being unloved, and that fear slowly becomes a cancer in the mind.
 
The news however is good. In Hinduism there is a belief that inside every human being is a divine Self, which is a place of peace and happiness. If a person learns to meditate they can access this divine Self and find a true source of happiness and well-being. Then they will no longer need to carry a false mask.

In viewing the 5 films, Hope was the only one that has remained in my thoughts so many days later. As a mother of young children, how could I not relate to Amal’s story, and certainly… we all love a good cry… and cry I did!!!

Amal is one of hundreds of women, children and men trying to flee the dangers and suffering of Iraq to come to Australia, the land of ‘paradise’. The story is told by Amal herself, which I found so penetrating as it’s told with haunting music and amazing art work. Amal tells of the tragic day in October 2001, when the illegal vessel on which she was travelling to Australia, sank.  Amal was one of forty-five survivors and she poses the question … ‘I ask my God, why am I still alive?’

‘Why me?’ is a question I’m sure we have all asked ourselves at different times, whether it’s a tragic death in the family, or a miracle, and it’s in posing questions like these that we can often answer depending on our faith and belief. For Amal, it’s God’s wish that she be saved so she can tell the story of all the women, children and men of Iraq that suffer, and the dreams they have.  

From a Buddhist point of view, the understanding of ‘Karma’ (that is, the Law of Cause and Effect), would provide the explanation that Amal survived because of her past thoughts, speech and actions -- that it was not her Karma to die. Furthermore, it may be her Karma to also help her people, and that she has the best conditions to tell her story; this documentary provides such a vehicle.

It made me feel that regardless of what political views or religious beliefs you may have, as human beings we can all recognize Amal’s suffering, the miracle of survival. We can also be passionate in supporting the wish that those suffering in their home country be free from such causes, for example,  the Tibetans who continue to live in exile. The study of Buddhism helps us recognize that everyone suffers, that we all seek happiness, and that religious or spiritual practice can help one discover a path that suits differing cultures and personalities. His Holiness the Dalai Lama certainly promotes the need to respect all religions and beliefs, and that we all have the universal responsibility to help others, and if we can not… certainly not to harm them.

The story also involves her son, which cannot be told by anyone else but Amal…
so I’ll leave it to this amazing, universal mother of the world to share it with you. Tissues are recommended.

[Hope] The film is about the sinking of a boat carrying refugees to Australia, in which 353 lives were lost. The people were refugees from Saddam Hussein's Iraq. The film is narrated by the main character, a woman who survived the tragedy. It is an incident that deserves to be remembered.

The disaster occurred during the election campaign of 2001, just after the Tampa incident and September 11. Anti-Muslim and anti-refugee feelings were running high, inflamed by the Howard government. Suspicions remain that authorities in Australia knew of the boat's existence and position and therefore would have been aware of the danger it was in. Nothing was done by them to assist. Such was the nature of Howard government that it is not unreasonable to suppose that this was a deliberate and culpable policy of neglect, as was suggested in the book by Tony Kevin (A Certain Maritime Incident).

It is a story of the woman's survival through a terrifying night in the water. She begins her story by asking her god why she survived. In the end we find, to our great joy, that her son also survived. It is a great temptation for religious people to describe such circumstances as miracles of survival. From an atheist perspective, this is wrong. If one believes divine intervention had saved these people, then why did God cause the others to die?

To atheists there is no divine intervention because there is no divine being. There is just a sequence events that have both natural and human causes, not supernatural ones. It is our purpose in life to make the best of it we can -- for ourselves and for others. These are the only lives we will ever have.

This December festival covers a wide range of topics exploring various aspects of what it is to be human: some cute, some amusing, some dark and confronting, and some distressing.  I’ve picked out two which I see as portraying hope.

Amal’s story, in Hope so simply and eloquently told through her own images, is confronting when juxtaposed against the story we have all been told from the government’s point of view.  What does this say about us as people?  What does it mean we have become as a nation?  Amal speaks of ‘recording’ the lives of those around her, about to drown as the boat begun to leak, and we see the event through her bird’s eye view, above the unfolding drama.  This makes it personal, and makes us accountable. Daring to hope against these experiences is raw and powerful.

By contrast, The Shaman is much more light-hearted: a little bit The Mighty Boosh meets Dr Phil. Impressively shot in 48 hours, it follows a familiar story line: Gormless and socially clueless character obtains guide to negotiate life, learns to reject his own self-doubt and fear and listen to the ‘universe within’ and, now enlightened, lives happily ever after. The meaning of life, the universe and everything in a compact 6 minutes and 15 seconds: therein lies the comedy.

We know this guy is a loser from the first shot of him finding himself the recipient of an empty roll of toilet paper – and can laugh, knowing we’ve all been caught in that situation.  His ‘fear phantom’ whispers negative thoughts as he blunders his way around the party, encountering the masked and fearful would-be actors. The stereo-typical characters are over-played in a similar way to a sit-com.

However, I find there is a confusing switch between tones, which renders the film corny and undermines the ‘message’ that is given.  When Howard ‘opens the door’ to his inner guide, the tone becomes instructive and when watching the film, the quandary is then whether we are to laugh or to suddenly begin taking his message seriously. The problem is that the Shaman’s observations reduce the characters even further to the masks that they are portraying, and so make it less believable at the time when it needs to be more so. No one is ever just a mask. The Shaman’s point of view becomes imposed upon the characters. Consistency of tone would allow us to then laugh at the Shaman rather than make him the hero, as in The Mighty Boosh. As it is, it seems a little Disney-fied.

Having said that, The Shaman is an endearing character and the final tranquil scene by the ocean prompts me to make a mental note to revisit St Kilda beach. His parting words are particularly joyful and resume the playful tone:
“You just live in a little rock in the galaxy – what are you afraid of?” On this hopeful note the film ends.

Hope, of course, has a long tradition in the history of Christianity. Here I would like to pose some questions when you are watching these short film that come out of my own faith tradition.  As a favourite Christian writer of mine, Bob Goudzwaardz states, it is important not to impose our own view on an existing reality if we want to understand it, as this is risky for ourselves and others, because we then fail to uncover our own prior assumptions. Beginning instead not with our own ideas, but with reality itself, observed truly and verifiably, is key: “This attitude of radical openness to reality is also a matter of faith.”

So here are my questions: Do the producers of The Shaman really engage with the material they are presenting, or impose their own set of views and values on the material?  Are they open to what the material is saying to them, in order to come to more understanding of it?

[Hope] A brilliant short film. On so many levels I found it challenging to my own faith tradition. It forced me to spiritually/theologically ponder many important issues. Part of the quality of this production is the way it presents the emotive topic of boat people, by stripping away the politics and addressing a woman’s journey. Her journey was one from fear to hope. On one level, this meant fleeing Iraq to Australia. On another level, it was a spiritual journey of her faith. It reminded me that we all must have hope for a better life. Part of this includes a hope beyond the physical realm. Unfortunately, it also reminded me that there are those, like the people smugglers, who make hope evaporate like water on a hot day.
 
As I reflected on her journey, it made me ask: “What is the hope I have?”  Is it for safety from oppression, or for playstations from Santa? Or, as Amal alluded to, does hope go beyond the now to the distant future - an afterlife or “paradise”? Surely, if we consider such a distant hope, that hope should shape our life for today. Perhaps we are just too comfortable in our safe Australian culture to stop playing our playstations and consider the questions Amal was forced to reflect on.

Thanks for the challenge.