What Then Is Love?

Hello again Everyone!

Here’s the Morning Monday Mislet (MMM) letting you know of a riveting television season which will start as part of the Contemplative Cinema Club.
The season kicks off this Tuesday night (November 25) in Clarendon St. Spirituality Centre, Clarendon St (back of Brown Thomas carpark), Dublin, at 7pm.
Whilst last season’s exploration was about belief, this season’s theme is around radical or extreme uncertainty.
The ability to bear uncertainty and remain sane is one of the the hallmarks of the mystical life. However, since we are not all mystics, all of the time, these films look at the human condition encountering extremity and the resulting spiritual fallout which happens psychologically, socially, politically.
Again the format remains in using drama as the stimulus for spiritual conversation. I, for one, enjoyed very much our inaugural season of the CCC (we love our acronyms around here) and I’m really looking forward to sharing, reflecting and conversing on the following cutting edge T.V. dramas/documentaries.
I think it’s apt that the season should close with ‘Planet Earth’ – a Christmas carol if ever there was one.
So, I hope something in this season might be of interest for you, and that you feel most welcome to come on down and join in some pre-Christmas conversation.
With warm (will I say that again?), warm wishes on this cold November morning!
Christine

Touching the Void, (2003) BBC Films. Kevin MacDonald. (25th Nov)
Touching the Void is the story of two British mountain climbers whose climb up the Siuls Grande Mountain in Peru led to extraordinary events. In May 1985, Joe Simpson and Simon Yates ventured up the unclimbed west face with “no margin for error, no helicopter rescue and no 999″. Simpson slipped down an ice cliff and landed awkwardly, smashing his tibia into his knee joint and breaking it. What ensued left one man clamoring for his life and the other having to make the agonizing decision to leave his partner to die. This ‘triumph of the human spirit’ relies on the candid honesty of both men relating their stories. Yates’ admission that he spent most of his journey down the mountain trying to think up a story that would make him “look better” makes him surprisingly sympathetic.Meanwhile, Simpson’s account of sitting alone in an ice crevasse waiting for death while musing on the existence of God is harrowing, particularly since he came to the conclusion that he was completely alone in the universe

Boys from The Blackstuff (1982) BBC Films. Written by Alan Bleasdale (2nd Dec)

Boys from the Blackstuff follows the stories of five unemployed tarmac layers (hence ‘the black stuff’) after they have lost their jobs due to the events of the original play. Set in Bleasdale’s home city of Liverpool and reflecting many of his own experiences of life in the city, each episode focused on a different member of the group. The series was highly acclaimed for its powerful and emotional depiction of the desperation wreaked by high unemployment, and was noted by many reviewers as a critique of the Margaret Thatcher administration, which was seen as being responsible for the fate of many of the working class unemployed, although most of the series had actually been written in 1978.”[A] seminal drama series… a warm, humorous but ultimately tragic look at the way economics affect ordinary people… TV’s most complete dramatic response to the Thatcher era and as a lament to the end of a male, working class British culture.”[1]

CONSPIRACY (2001). BBC Films. Frank Pierson.(9th Dec)
Conspiracy is the historical recreation of the 1942 Wannsee Conference, in which Nazi and SS leaders gathered in a Berlin suburb to discuss the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question”. It is Nazi Germany, 1942. The Russian Front has bogged down in snow and mud, and the Americans have entered the war. For the first time, defeat is a possibility. In light of this, fifteen high-ranking members from all areas of the Nazi government – soldiers, economists, administrators and lawyers – are brought together by order of the Fuhrer in a luxurious mansion in Wansee, Berlin. No records of their meeting will be kept, and they will not reveal the substance of their discussion to the outside world. The issue before them is to determine a solution – a final solution – to the Jewish problem. Lead by SS-General Reinhard Heydrich, this group of high ranking German officials came to the historic and far reaching decision that the Jews of Europe were to be exterminated in what would come to be known as the Holocaust. This is a record of the meeting which led to one of the most horrific and shameful episodes in human history.

Planet Earth, (2007) BBC Films, David Attenborough.(16th Dec)
Planet Earth is an Emmy Award and Peabody Award-winning BBC nature documentary series narrated by David Attenborough and produced by Alastair Fothergill. It was first broadcast in the UK from 5 March 2006. The series was co-produced with Discovery Channel and the NHK in association with the CBC, and was described by its makers as “the definitive look at the diversity of our planet”. It was also the first of its kind to be filmed entirely in high-definition. The series was nominated for the Pioneer Audience Award for Best Programme at the 2007 BAFTA TV awards.

The evening begins at 7pm and usually lasts until 9.30 – 9-45pm, and includes tea/coffee/biscuits and fruit!
Donations accepted.