The guys who read about the scheduled cell group activity with Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa were intrigued as to what exactly was going to happen on the January 24 meeting. I gave as little information as I could on my Multiply calendar because I wanted to surprise the guys in the cell.So we gathered together last Saturday at 4pm in the yellow room in our church building, and in attendance with me and the Lord were Charles, Louie, Elisha, Jason and Ronnie Jr., and, of course, the late Akira Kurosawa, who was anything but late [I wish I could say the same about the "other guys" who came to the cell. hehehe].
We had a wonderful time in praise and worship before we viewed Akira Kurosawa's Dreams. As always, burdens were lifted and cares were cast off in the presence of the Lord. We drew closer to God and He drew closer to us. The presence of the Lord was awesome.
Then, we proceeded with the film showing. There was one Famoso Guerrero who was really eager to press "play" on the laptop to get the movie started. I had to pacify his excitement by telling him to be cool and relax [FG was gushing with enthusiasm].
So, I turned off the lights and hit the play button and we started watching "Sunshine Through the Rain", the first episode in the series of eight "dreams", told in the form of short films [read the synopsis of the first dream].
The room was really quiet with a few whispers here and there, coming mostly from our invited guest and fellow DGen'er [FG!] who was eager to find out what was going on in this first dream. Sunshine Through the Rain was more of a fantasy-type, fable-like dream and it generated a question from the audience.
"I thought all Japanese films were supposed to be scary?" said one of the muffled voices in the room, who has obviously seen way too many scary Japanese films starring the likes of Sadako and Toshio.
"Shhh! Try to pay attention to the film guys, so you'll get the message of it," was my reply to this query.
Their eyes were glued to the wedding procession of the foxes who, according to the woman in the film, conduct this activity every time the sun shines through rain -- hence the title of the episode.
Afterward, the film came to it's open-ended conclusion and the lights came back on. It was discussion time.
I was very excited about what each of the five guys in the cell saw or derived from the film, as I myself have gotten so much revelation and insight from this part of "Dreams". My first question to the group was: what did you like about the short film? What element -- whether visual or thematic -- caught your eye?
Two of the guys in the group -- Jason and Elisha -- said they liked the foxes. I assumed they meant the wedding march as well. Cool! They liked the foxes. Who wouldn't? I mean when you choreograph a wedding march like that, what's not to like? [you gotta see it to know what we're talking about ;o)]
"Anything else?"
Ronnie said he found the film to be a very lonely one. I guess he meant the tone or the atmosphere of it. And to some degree I agree. He also noticed the issue of submission to authority as represented by the woman instructing the young boy to stay out of the rain to avoid seeing the fox procession, because they get "very angry" when someone does. Astute! I noted that as well.
Louie, on the other hand, was smoking hot -- nag aso-aso -- with revelation. I wasn't even able to ask my second question [which was supposed to be about the kingdom principles or insight they got from the film] and he was already firing off. I was secretly laughing at seeing his eagerness and enthusiasm. Lingaw ko.
"So much for my notes," I told the group, as Louie practically shared to the guys what I jotted down on my notebook. Hahaha! But it was all good. Nalipay ra ko with how the Lord spoke to him through the film and how it showed his depth of perception.
Meanwhile, Charles pointed out the young boy's hesitation in the film -- whether to obey the woman and stay indoors or to disobey his authority figure and wander off and check out the foxes' wedding ceremony. Charles said the boy's body language [again, you have to see it to know what we mean] conveyed the inner conflict we have each time we are presented with a choice.
It was a very enjoyable conversation and much longer than I could transcribe here but toward the end, I asked the guys what they saw in the final shot of Sunshine Through the Rain [pictured above].
Louie was quick to point out that it was about hope, thus rendering my notes useless... again! Hahaha! I didn't tell him right away that he was right but waited for the others to reply. The other guys associated the presence of the rainbow with the flood -- the great flood and Noah -- [they thought there were flood waters behind the rainbow in the picture]. Ronnie said something about the end being incomplete [bitin] -- we were never shown if the boy found the foxes -- and forgiveness for that matter -- or if he indeed used the knife to take his own life, to which I said, "that's the cool thing about open-ended conclusions: they open up room for discussion and speculation and it stirs up the viewers imagination."
I went back to Louie and told him he was right. The image was about hope. Then I asked him why he came to that conclusion.
"It's in your notes," he said pointing to my notebook.
"Yeah, I know that! But I'm asking you and I want to know what you think," came my reply.
Louie started to explain his answer, which was way too theological and complicated for me [hahaha], and the guys and I were too blown away with the way he pronounced "plateau" and "artistically" that we all had a good laugh. He was describing the picture in detail and what each detail meant, but I told him to simplify his answer because the answer in the image was very simple.
I explained to the guys that image was about hope because of the presence and implication of the "rainbow". It represented the nature of God as a covenant keeper and that no matter what trials, testing and storms in life we go through, even as a result of our disobedience, God's promises are always there for us. More importantly, He keeps every word of those promises.
Then somebody breaks out in song: "All Your promises won't let go of me!"
And I said, "Amen! That's it!"
I really loved what the Lord did for us that afternoon. He showed me and the guys a lot of things. Among the other things that we noted in the film were as follows:
+ Sin starts out small, but once you indulge in it and get caught up in it's web, you will find that it gets bigger and bigger to the point that you get glued to it. [depicted in the film when the boy first sees the wedding march making a smokey entrance and later fully parades in front of him]
+ Sometimes we never get the gravity of our sin until it looks us in the eye and we see how far we have been taken by our disobedience, which then causes us to realize the truth and flee from sin. [depited in the film when the foxes catch the boy ogling at their wedding march, causing the boy to run from them]
+ The wages of sin is death. When the boy goes back to his house, the woman tells him one of the foxes visited and left him a knife. The boy was supposedly to kill himself with it for seeing something "he should not have" [man, haven't we done this too many times in our lives! hahaha!].
+ Never take the delegated authority -- of your parents and leaders -- for granted because it keeps you covered and protected.
+ We Christians are called the bride of Christ. One of the things the Lord revealed to us that afternoon was that as a bride, we can choose to be either married to Christ or married to sin.
We ended the meeting by praying for each other... and that constitutes another blog entry altogether.
For now, I want to give God all the glory for what He is doing in the lives of these young men. He is the true Cell Group Leader, the Trainer, the Teacher. And He's doing a great and mighty thing in this Davidic Generation.
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By the way, the name "Akira" means "bright", "intelligent", or "clear".
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