When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, Spike Lee

As the world watched in horror, Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans on August 29, 2005. Like many who watched the unfolding drama on television news, director Spike Lee was shocked not only by the scale of the disaster, but by the slow, inept and disorganized response of the emergency and recovery effort. Lee was moved to document this modern American tragedy, a morality play witnessed by people all around the world. The result is WHEN THE LEVEES BROKE: A REQUIEM IN FOUR ACTS. The film is structured in four acts, each dealing with a different aspect of the events that preceded and followed Katrina’s catastrophic passage through New Orleans.

The Bridge, Dir Eric Steel, USA 2006, 93 mins
Filmed every day during 2004, this film is about the suicides (and one survival) of people jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. Unflinching and inevitably controversial, The Bridge explores the darker depths of human nature and the human psyche.

Iraq in fragments, Dir James Longley, USA 2005, 94 mins, subtitles
A view of Iraq far removed from what we see on the news, expanding the frame of conventional documentaries with its personal perspectives, collage-like form and bold use of visuals and sound. Iraq in Fragments sets out to not just tell us what’s going on, but to make us feel it too.

Into Great Silence, Dir Philip Groening, Germany 2006

Wrestling with the great substance of devotion and divinity, Into Great Silence engages the deepest reserves of emotion and understanding—with seemingly little effort. Nineteen years after his first encounter with the monks of the legendarily strict and reclusive Carthusian Order, Philip Groening was finally granted permission to film their daily life within the Grande Chartreuse monastery in the French Alps. Living among them for several months, Groening’s lucid portrayal is characterized by the austerity of the monks; large portions of the narrative are entirely silent, the visuals gorgeously pure. The repeated motifs of prayers, meals and walks inform their own significance, every element of their daily life imbued with spirituality. There is a heightened reality within this meditative rhythm, which endows each sparse sound with a quality verging on the sublime. The steady sounds of shears crisply cutting a new monk’s robe, of gently insistent bells and of a saw patiently eating through a log resonate long after they leave the screen. Subtle yet poignant connections are made between the routines of the monastery’s interior and the seasons changing outside, while the unflappable determination of the elderly monks is balanced by the dedication of the younger ones. As time passes, little changes. There is a singularity of purpose in both their lives and in the film, creating, says Groening, “a film like a cloud . . . a film that, more than depicting a monastery, becomes a monastery itself.” The result is a meditative journey that is richly experienced rather than just observed, offering insights into a life of simplicity, silence and deep contemplation.