News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Lisa Clausen never wanted Sisters Movie House to be just another theater. She wanted to provide the Sisters community with films that would not simply entertain, but also challenge and even disturb people, make them think in new ways about the world around them.
This week, Clausen is taking what some might consider a risky plunge with the movie “Paradise Now,” a film that humanizes an act that most Americans find inhuman, repellent and incomprehensible: suicide bombing.
The story follows two impoverished Palestinian mechanics as they agree to immortalize themselves — and escape their dreary lives — through a suicide bombing attack in Tel Aviv, Israel. The two men go through the ritual preparation for the act and set forth on what turns out to be a very complicated mission.
Clausen says the film lets audiences wrestle with a depiction of “why people are compelled to carry out things that we think are just crazy.”
She decided to pick up the film on the recommendation of Sisters patrons Al and Pat Neufeldt, who had seen “Paradise Now” during a holiday in Hawaii.
“I was at a wine tasting at the Arts Center and Al & Pat came up to me and were so incredibly emotional about the impact the film had on them,” Clausen said.
With Iraq seething on the verge of civil war and Israeli-Palestinian tensions ratcheting up in the wake of a Hamas victory in Palestinian Authority elections, Clausen realizes that suicide bombing is a sensitive subject. Not everyone is in the mood to understand what might drive a person to immolate himself and a dozen others as an act of martyrdom and political warfare.
Yet that’s precisely why she thinks it’s important to run the film.
“It just seems that it’s such a timely film with everything that’s going on in the world,” she said.
Clausen believes film has a unique ability to create empathy for the outcast and understanding for the incomprehensible.
“I like when a film can really challenge people and even make them uncomfortable — that’s an okay thing,” Clausen said.
She found that principle operating in herself when she watched “Brokeback Mountain,” another controversial look at outsiders.
“Yes, that film made me uncomfortable, especially at the beginning,” she said. But becoming involved in the characters’ story ultimately created empathy for their struggle with thwarted love.
Clausen hasn’t really taken a lot of heat for airing some controversial independent films. She said she got a little bit of criticism for not being clear enough about the content of “Brokeback Mountain” in her newsletter (though you’d have had to be living in a sheep camp in Wyoming not to have heard about it).
Films such as “Syriana” — a searing depiction of the oil industry — and “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room” have done very well for the first-year theater.
Criticism “hasn’t been ‘I’m going to boycott you if you show this film,’” Clausen said.
As for the films reflecting a particular cultural and political bent, Clausen points out that Sisters Movie House also aired “The End of the Spear,” a film with an overtly Christian fundamentalist message.
She also noted that “the biggest film we ever had was ‘Chronicles of Narnia,’” which was widely viewed as a Christian allegory.
She vows to screen challenging films across the spectrum of political and religious belief.
Which brings up an important aspect of the cultural issues raised by screening controversial films in a polarized society with religion at the forefront of national discussions even for non-religious people:
“We are a community of faith — and faith has many faces” Clausen said. “From a film perspective, I guess I’d like to have all those faces seen and heard.”
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
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