Spiritual Cinema
"Movies containing spiritual, metaphysical, conscious or similar messages or themes".
Simon Keyes explains the idea behind Spiritual Cinema.
It is the extraordinary power of cinema, high or low, serious and exploitative, to move and disturb us that we should celebrate and embrace in all its diversity. Films can fertilise our inner lives and provide a counter-balance to that compartmentalisation of our "religious" selves that Thomas Merton dubbed our "personal holiness project". The feelings and shadows that films (well, perhaps not quite every movie) incarnate in us give us privileged access to the world beyond our immediate experience. The sights and sounds of cinema can resonate in the realms of the unconscious and the archetypal like no other medium, and there is much for us to learn about ourselves in this experience.
Below is a list of "the best of" this genre...
Powaqqatsi (1988)
7.3/10
Director: Godfrey Reggio
"Life in Transformation". As a follow up to "Koyaanisqatsi", this visual montage shows how the Third World societies have been exploited. Beautifully... Read more
Powaqqatsi ( Blu-ray ) (1988)
7.3/10
Director: Godfrey Reggio
"Life in Transformation". As a follow up to "Koyaanisqatsi", this visual montage shows how the Third World societies have been exploited. Beautifully... Read more
Powder (1995)
6.6/10
Director: Victor Salva
Starring: Mary Steenburgen, Sean Patrick Flanery, Lance Henriksen, Jeff Goldblum
A rural teen (Sean Patrick Flanery) whose skin is ghostly white and whose nickname is Powder, is the local pariah; he's scary, shy, brilliant and seem... Read more
Renegade ( aka Blueberry ) (2004)
5.2/10
Director: Jan Kounen
Starring: Vincent Cassel, Juliette Lewis, Michael Madsen, Temuera Morrison, Ernest Borgnin...
This loose adaptation of Jean 'Mobius' Giraud's comic series 'Blueberry' stars Vincent Cassel as the lawman whose past comes back to haunt him when th... Read more
Rikyu (1989)
7.3/10
Director: Hiroshi Teshigahara
Starring: Kyoko Kishida, Rentaro Mikuni, Tsutomu Yamakazi, Yoshiko Mita
Breaking a self-imposed silence in the cinema for seventeen years, Teshigahara Hiroshi made this brilliant comeback with this striking film. Late in t... Read more
Rosetta / La Promesse (1999)
Director: Luc Dardenne, Jean-Pierre Dardenne
Starring: Emilie Dequenne, Fabrizio Rongione, Anne Yernaux, Jeremie Renier, Olivier Gourme...
'Rosetta' (1999, 90 mins) Winner of the 1999 Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and widely hailed as a masterpiece, 'Rosetta' is an extraordinary... Read more
Samsara (2001)
7.8/10
Director: Pan Nalin
Starring: Christy Chung, Shawn Ku
Indian born filmmaker Pan Nalin makes his directorial debut with this sensual, elegant look at sex and spirituality. Tashi (Shawn Ku) is a brilliant y... Read more
Samson and Delilah ( Blu-ray ) (1949)
6.8/10
Director: Cecil B DeMille
Starring: Angela Lansbury, George Sanders, Hedy Lamarr, Henry Wilcoxon, Victor Mature
Journey through time to a gloriously extravagant setting of lust, violence, and treachery in this Oscar-winning adventure from legendary filmmaker Cec... Read more
Sansho the Bailiff (Sansho Dayu) (1954)
8.4/10
Director: Kenji Mizoguchi
Starring: Kinuyo Tanaka, Yoshiaki Hanayagi, Kyoko Kagawa, Eitaro Shindo
One of the great films, 'Sansho the Bailiff' is set in the harsh feudal world of 11th-century Japan and is based on an ancient legend. When a humane l... Read more
Satantango (1994)
8.5/10
Director: Bela Tarr
Starring: Peter Berling, Janos Derzsi
Internationally acclaimed filmmaker Bela Tarr's epic rendering of Laszlo Karsnahorkai's novel about the decline of Communism in Eastern Europe, is a u... Read more