The recording of the zoom discussion for Week Three is here: : https://zoom.us/.../-vZWcrre8UxJTZXkxE7QXJQHMsP3X6a8g3Ae...
Please note the password to access the recording is here: 9z*py2%#
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS FOR I AM BELFAST
1: What did you notice or remember the most?
2: What questions did you have?
3: How did it change your understanding of northern Ireland, the Troubles, and/or the peace process?
4: Did the film inspire you to want to change anything about yourself or the world?
OUR NEXT CONTINENT: Europe
OUR NEXT FILM: I am Belfast (2015) - Written and Directed by Mark Cousins
Our film from Europe is very close to my heart, because it’s about the city where I was born and raised. I am Belfast is a deeply personal travelogue into the soul of a city and her people; totally unique, and capable of both mourning and joy fun inspiration. It’s like nothing else I’ve ever seen, nor anything else I’ve ever felt seen by. You can watch the trailer below.
And here’s my Introduction:
WATCH I AM BELFAST AT ANY OF THE LINKS BELOW
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Gareth’s reflections on I AM BELFAST
I was born into a story that isn’t true.
What seemed to matter most was who was wrong (it wasn’t us), who was right (take a guess), and how we would fix things (by defeating “them”).
Now I was fortunate, in that my family of origin wanted to protect me from the insidious effects of eight hundred years of sectarian division and the then contemporary civil conflict in and about northern Ireland. They encouraged me to stay out of the divisiveness, and get into the messy and challenging work of seeking peace, and ultimately reconciliation.
Our family suffered, truly, during the violent conflict; suffers still, the legacy of being formed in a context of constant tension followed by explosions - both literal and figurative. And we are just one family - everyone was affected. I remember well buses boarded and bags searched on the way into the city centre; streets cordoned off because a car was parked where it shouldn’t be; the news report of an act of violence. The relief when we heard the reporter say that “police believe the crime was not sectarian”, meaning that it was “ordinary” crime, and therefore unlikely to be followed by a tit-for-tat killing.
And I remember the marches for peace and the prayer meetings for peace and the rumors of dialogue between sworn enemies for peace and then the astonishing moment in 1994 when the paramilitary organizations called ceasefires. The uncertainty leading to the all-party negotiations lasting nearly four years. The agreement that committed all parties to exclusively nonviolent means of achieving political ends, the extraordinary system of cooperative government that over two decades on is still evolving, but sometimes actually works. Human rights and equality legislation that continues to transform our society for the better. And the legacy of conflict - bereavement, physical and mental torment, economic deprivation, and the tentative ways in which we relate to not only our former enemies, but our current neighbors, some of whom live with literal walls between them.
I remember the individuals who embodied what it is to be human - Gordon Wilson who sought peace, telling the IRA the day after they killed his wife that he bore them no ill will, but pleaded with them to turn away from violence. Mairead Corrigan Maguire and Betty Williams and Ciaran McKeown who focused the latent energy against violence into a peace movement that nearly five decades on continues to provide a humble presence and energy for a better world. Alan McBride who continues to work to support victims and survivors of violence, withholding retribution from those who caused the killing of his wife and father in law. John Kyle who invited me as a teenager into peace building activities, introducing me to a world where we began to recognize that violence only ever truly ends with talking. May Blood who knew that meeting the needs for equity, dignity, and a living wage would remove most of the ostensible justification for “war” among our peoples.
And I remember also the magnificent landscapes and seascapes, the rural splendor, the wonderful little towns, the delights of Belfast’s Botanic Gardens and Ulster Museum, Opera House and pub traditions.
Then along came I am Belfast - a film totally unique in my experience, where a son of a city walked every single street of that city, seeking to know her better. And an image emerged - what if our city was a person? What if Belfast was a ten thousand year old woman who, having seen it all, is better able to remind us of what we’re missing?
That Belfast is not backward - she can hold her own with the intellectual traditions of Paris, Rome, and London.
That Belfast is not ugly - even our graffiti can be a museum piece, and the light in a puddle (and Lord knows, Belfast gets a lot of puddles) can be as gorgeous as any in Tuscany.
That Belfast is wounded. And can be wounding too.
But that there’s no good reason in heaven or on earth to harm our neighbors in order to get what we want.
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I love the dignity this film conveys on my city - the way Mark Cousins portrays Belfast is a deliberate effort at moving beyond cliché (the image of the Hollywood sign in his magisterial fifteen-hour long history of cinema The Story of Film is another example: instead of showing it head-on, he reflects it in a Christmas tree bauble, for that it is what it so often is: a trinket, a party piece, a shiny object that may actually be empty). And the story in I am Belfast, not exactly a linear narrative, but a scattering of soul-notes, is an invitation to look, and look again at something that even those of us who were born and raised there might never have truly seen before. A city of industrial grit and exquisite architecture, of violence and reconciliation, of bigotry and the rainbow.
My favorite scene is probably the funeral of “the last bigot”, although it doesn’t become my favorite until Mark says that he recognizes the bigotry within himself. Not to assume that Mark’s bigotry - or mine - is equally harmful - but that to deny that I have the capacity for such bigotry would risk not only harming others, but missing out on the gifts of self-revelation. Of connection to the whole. Of the truth that there is no “them” - there is only us.
If I am Belfast teaches us to look again at a city we thought we knew, it doesn’t have to stop there. I can think of at least two possible paths we might take, illuminated by this way of seeing. We could ask ourselves what a sequel set in our town would do. What do you truly know about your place? Certainly things that only you know - but what if you were to walk every single street, with a curious mind? If your city was a ten thousand year old woman, what might she want to tell you? And we could ask ourselves also, what would be the content of a film called I am Me? What are the landmarks on the street map of your soul? If you were your own mentor, your own sage, what gift might you give yourself?
FOR FURTHER VIEWING
It's a good thing that we're not selecting only one film to represent any entire continent - that's an impossible task. Cinema began in France, but is unthinkable without the way in which it exploded into full bloom in Germany, Italy, and England. My life has been enhanced by the perspectives of the Swedish Ingmar Bergman, Czech Miloš Forman, Russian Andrei Tarkovsky, Scottish Lynne Ramsay, Italian Luchino Visconti, the French Agnès Varda…
Limiting myself to no more than five films per country, the list is already long; and could be much longer - but here are some cinematic wonders from Europe.
Austria: Revanche
Denmark: Babette's Feast, After the Wedding
France: Jean de Florette, La Règle du Jeu, Faces Places, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Holy Motors
Germany: Nosferatu, Toni Erdmann, Downfall, Das Boot, Wings of Desire
Iceland: Rams
Ireland: Ryan's Daughter, Good Vibrations, Once, The Field, Calvary
Italy: Life is Beautiful, 8 1/2, Cinema Paradiso, The Leopard, The Great Beauty
Poland: The Dekalog, Cold War, The Mill and the Cross
Russia: Andrei Rublev, Leviathan, Russian Ark
Spain: All About My Mother, The Devil's Backbone, The Spirit of the Beehive
Sweden: Fanny and Alexander, The Seventh Seal, Tillsammans (Together), The Emigrants, Everlasting Moments
UK: The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, Ratcatcher, Mr Turner, Local Hero, Barry Lyndon