Miracle in Rwanda: The miracle is Forgiveness

I was fortunate enough to be invited by friends from Couples for Christ to the Philippine premiere of Miracle in Rwanda. It was entertaining, poignant and very meaningful. It was a one-woman play wherein Leslie Lewis Sword brings to life the harrowing yet deeply moving experiences of Immaculée Ilibgiza.

The basic story is one of survival. In 1994 the plane bearing Rwanda's Hutu President was shot down, this triggered his tribesmen to exterminate their long time enemies the Tutsi's. The genocide to follow is the most brutal of our time, almost a million people killed in three months. Hutu militia armed with machetes tore through the Tutsi's villages, killing in cold blood, in broad day light and raping and pillaging along the way. Immaculée Ilibgiza was a daughter of a devoted Catholic teacher/businessman who hid in a stifling hot bathroom with cramped in with seven other women for those three months.

Leslie was Immaculée. She has a real gift for storytelling, coupled with the ability to become the different characters in the life story of Immaculée was a truly unique experience. I remember watching Hotel Rwanda wherein Don Cheadle plays a heroic hotel manager who gave sanctuary to some Tutsis refugees who were fleeing from genocide at the hands of their Hutu neighbors. While that story was about generosity this one was about grace. While cinema has the ability to tell great stories, theatre fleshes out the drama, as if adding another dimension. Is it depth? Is it the innocence and immediacy of another's face too close to disregard? Whatever it is this one made me feel differently about a story I thought I knew.

To be sure Leslie had something to do with it. She has such a feel for the deeply emotional points of Immaculée's story. The genuine fear, the courage to survive, the trust in God and in His instrument the pastor all these struck a chord. But the really powerful stuff is in the transformation in Immaculée herself, as she transcended the very human drive to bear a grudge, and hold on to the hurt of losing her family, and her people. She was even able to forgive the man Felicien who butchered several members of her family.

Leslie was thoroughly engaging, as she showed us the different faces of our humanity. Her face livid one moment when she is a Hutu butcher, and the picture of helplessness when she is Immaculée. She also channels the Huti pastor who gives Immaculée refuge, a French soldier, Immaculée's father, and as the story's spirituality became apparent she also became Mother Mary's apparition and the loving presence of Jesus Christ. She played all these convincingly, the way Eddie Murphy would without the make-up.

I appreciated the simplicity of the production, hardly any props just masking tape marking the claustrophobic three by four feet wherein she hid, at times mere inches from rabid Hutu butchers who were constantly searching the pastor's house. Leslie choreographed the logistics of the whole production so well the different characters she played interacted so fluidly.

In the end she brought to the stage a great story, in a simple yet impactful way and she also had a deeper message of hope and love rooted in the Catholic faith. A definite must see!

My new profile pic

was feeling a little artsy so I posted this pic

Inception pulled a $165 M heist at the box office, director Nolan at the top of his game

One of the most anticipated films of the year Inception was a spectacle, a psychological thriller and a thinking man's action movie. At the helm is veteran storyteller Christopher Nolan and he has lured audiences again into a dream world only he could imagine. In his cunning style of starting the film with the ending, he taunts viewers by taking them for a ride to which they already know the outcome and still pull the rug from underneath them with a plot twist.

Like any mastermind he only works with the best in the business, he has rounded up the usual suspects, actors with whom he has worked in the past Michael Caine is Miles, the mentor of Leonardo Di Caprio's Cobb and the mark, Cillian Murphy who played The Scarecrow in Nolan's Batman Begins.

The cast includes veteran Ken Watanabe as Saito, the overseer and employer, he is joined by some new faces Ellen "Juno" Paige as Adriane the dream world architect, Joseph Gordon-Levitt (500 days of summer) who plays Arthur the point man, here he makes his debut as an action star. Excellent support was provided by Dileep Rao as Yusuf the Chemist who concocts the drugs that allow them access to the mind's innermost workings and much needed wit and humor came from Tom Hardy playing Eames, the Forger who could impersonate anyone in the world of the unconscious. Marrion Cotillard is Mallorie, Cobb's dead fiancé whose ethereal beauty complicates the already convoluted plot with her control over Cobb's psyche.

Nolan is at his best, his ability to tell an engaging heist story with such attention to detail in a completely plausible manner shows how much he respects his audience's intelligence. And in that respect Inception is his most ambitious film yet, it's a masterpiece told in multiple-layers of reality whose characters and plot propels the story forward at breathtaking speed. Whole worlds of illusion are created, structures which cannot exist in reality are created and blown up in such glorious detail that one is left mesmerized. And to keep the viewers at the edge of their seats action sequences of immense proportions, are masterfully edited so as to flow with the tiered plot. Finally, the audience is cued to experience the appropriate emotions such as; anticipation, fear, and excitement at key instances by Hans Zimmer's brilliant musical score.

As far as films which play mind tricks go, Inception is up there with David Fincher's Fight Club, the Wachowski brothers' Matrix Trilogy and Nolan's Memento. Indeed he is creating a body of work that will cement his name in the pantheon of the greatest directors, with unforgettable titles such as The Dark Knight Franchise, The Prestige and Memento he is proving himself to be a master at telling stories in an engaging yet non-linear fashion. His treatment of his films is in stark contrast to the Hollywood formula, he expects his audience to keep up with the myriad details in his films, with the motives of his characters and to the consequences of their actions to the ensuing dénouement. One gets a sense that he really takes great pains into his filmmaking and his dedication and sincerity shines through his every production.

This generation has a debt of gratitude to storytellers like Nolan because his films are the true shared experiences, they are the modern campfires wherein we gather and take in the new mythology, with heroes like his which speak to us because they are just as psychologically messed up as we are. Nolan invites us to look at the nobility and heroism of the human spirit in the face of adversity and when we watch films like Inception we are struggling right there in that labyrinth with his characters, such that when the conflict is resolved we feel their satisfaction.