Gathering Ground

Paula J. Sanders

It's the movies that have really been running things in America ever since they were invented. They show you what to do, how to do it, when to do it, how to feel about it, and how to look how you feel about it.---Andy Warhol

Let’s be artistically and brutally honest; anyone in 2013 can make a movie. Just point and click your way through YouTube…the all-access to technology truth is out there and people are actually impressed. (According to the number of views received anyway). I am simply not convinced that every moving picture out there is actually “art”.

 Friday night, I received an opportunity to have a private viewing of Benjamin Ward’s film The Soul Gatherer written by the extremely versatile actor, director, producer Mark-Brian Sonna (http://www.mbsproductions.net/) . Unlike most of the copycat, “look I have too much throw away cash and time on my hands independent movie”, this was actually a film; a really interesting film. An intriguing film as well. A thinking film.

Religious scholars, psychoanalysts and sociologist could spend hours disseminating the symbolism, metaphor and human condition and reason behind the haunting lens of this film and never come to a defining conclusion of its possible full meaning. That is what makes this such an captivating effort.

T his film was rendered from a dream, birthed on the theater floor and finally brought to a passionate climax on screen, the viewer is immediately set a drift into a dark and rainy night of flooding emotion, regret, remorse and the innate human desire to have back what has been lost. Watching this film takes patience and a touch of voyeurism. We want to see the inside of other peoples pain but we don’t want them to know that we are actually enjoying it manifest itself into purposeful destruction right before our eyes. One by one each person trapped inside of the lack luster walls, seemingly safe, from the torrential rain, faces down their own personal pain revealing itself as Gideon, which means “destroyer” in Hebrew. Yet, as the story unfolds, it becomes more of a destructive anti-savior of all fatefully involved.

Aesthetically, The Soul Gatherer is filmed in black and white, which hails back to the days of film as art followed by the commitment to entertain. The sound f/x, the perfected silence between dialog and music cues, provides an uneasy, yet subtle tension, scene by scene, which is what makes the story move effectively forward. It draws you in. You have to know. Finally, the message, well just as in the film itself, you will have to find your own meaning, remember, this is a thinking film. This is subjective art, not spoon fed commercialize story telling. You will either get it or you won’t’ but it will get you.

 For more information about The Soul Gatherer go to www.strangermornings.com.

A Night of Survival with the Monika Korra Foundation

by Paula J. Sanders
Dallas --- There are times when the best way to celebrate survival is via artistic expression. That is my opinion and I witnessed this theory turned fact at the Continental Lofts of Deep Ellum at an event From Victim to Survivor sponsored by The May Kay Foundation and presented by Monika Korra and six other amazing survivors of sexual assault. According to her blog: “After she was kidnapped and raped in 2009, she decided she would not be defined as a victim the rest of her life and began speaking up about the rape. Monika found that not only did she empower herself, but her voice gave other Survivors their voice back.”

The festive evening was filled with music, song, spoken word poetry and audience captivating dance. As a companion to a night of creative celebration, three artists contributed their visions to the happening. Including Dallas’s favorite photog Hal Samples, who presented haunting yet profoundly beautiful portraits of the surviving women merged into various city buildings and landscapes. It was a grand statement of strength and resiliency within these women survivors.

Erica Felicella contributed her work in simplistic framed photos which tell almost the entire story of what the seven survivors overcame simply by capturing the emotion with her lenses. While David Redish, provided an enlightening video of each woman bathed in a white minimalist background of simplicity and realistic beauty.

The unofficial, officiating host spoken word extraordinaire Michael Guinn and his lovely wife Mantreece were in perfect tune for the evening thrilling guest with their undeniable poetic connection.

Kristin Ravenau enchanted the crowd with her gift of the sweetest violin ever. While the SMU Meadows Division of Dance gave a captivating and soothing lyrical performance before a crowd of awestruck audience. Rounding out the night was an emotionally charged threesome performance by the Favion Herrera Dance Company presenting a dance fueled with passion and ghostly undulations which stilled the swarming crowd who gathered to honor the courage of seven strong survivors.

What a night.

For more information please click: www.monikakorra.org

Hidden Hills: Where everything is out in the open

Set in the back drop of the fabulous and colorful 1960’s is the eye opening, independent film HiddenHills. The story opens with the featured couple, Whitey and Drew played very well by Tim O’Leary and Ted Trent, host a small bridge party, but something is a little off. That is when the whispered conversation between happily married interracial couple Arnie and Oriental Oscar (C. Stephen Foster and Feodor Chin) reveal that Arnie witnessed a heterosexual couple necking while on a secluded beach in Catalina! Yes, necking, almost in public!

Suddenly we realize, we are not in Kansas anymore. This is an open and honest story where your flaws are your good traits and it’s the norm to reveal that you are openly looking for a sugar daddy. The acting is straight out of those 1960 kitschy movies complete with a sultry intro song and a haunting little composition “Does my baby love me” that pushes the motif of the story forward when Drew is torn with proposing to Whitey because they are not the ideal couple. They are two white men who love each other and that sort of love is just not tolerated in their prim and proper little world. Whitey’s best friend Millie played by Karen Forman is as cute as a button and wears those 1960’s duds well but, she’s not like everyone else in her world. She is attracted to men; poor girl. However, Whitey and Drew stand by their good friend as much as they stand by their love for each other. 

There are great one-liners and moments of honesty that will make you shiver before you laugh, but you will laugh. Enjoy your little visit to Hidden Hills!