Seeing is believing on this delirious tour SUSAN WALKER ENTERTAINMENT REPORTER
Mana: Beyond BeliefWritten
and directed by Peter Friedman and Roger Manley. 90 minutes. At The
Royal, 606 College St., opening at the Varsity VIP on Aug. 5.
A movie without dialogue or narration is like a dance without music. The spectacle speaks a language of its own. Mana: Beyond Belief is
not wordless, but nothing much is said by way of explanation. Some
scenes are presented with no remarks at all; it's like a global flip
around the dial of a dozen different Discovery Channels.The
brief introduction comes from a Maori priest in a New Zealand
rainforest who explains the meaning of the word "mana." Roughly
translated, it means authority or prestige. "It means we are living in
the realm of creation. This rock holds a lot of mana. It makes you feel
there's something of power there." Revered objects, either natural or
manmade, can have mana. Human beings have mana. "Every culture on earth
carries its own mana," the priest says. The next image we see is the
Statue of Liberty.And so, as if responding to a challenge,
directors Peter Friedman and Roger Manley, accompanied by skilled
cinematographers Van Theodore Carlson, Jacques Besse and Eric Guichard,
set out in search of mana. What they bring back is visual mana, to use
the biblical language, footage shot in high definition video and
transferred to 35 mm. Mana is not Baraka. Shrewd
editing conveys the idea that there are many forms of belief. When the
camera takes us from a dance involving ancestral worship in Benin to
the solemn hymn singing accompanying a procession into the Italian
church that houses the Shroud of Turin, it's a subtle reminder that our
beliefs about religious belief are very Eurocentric. There's
also belief, as in Believe it or Not. In Memphis, Tenn., the Elvis
impersonators are gussied up and tattooed as they might be for a solemn
ritual. These men of all ages and nationalities wear glass-beaded white
shirts with high collars, or ducktail wigs or decorated wide belts. The
King sings "Walk a Mile in My Shoes" in the background. Talk about
religion. Friedman, based in New York and Paris, has been making films since 1984. His works include The Life and Times of Life and Times (1998) and Death by Design (1995).
He calls his production company Strange Attractions. A writer and
curator particularly known for his work on Outsider Art, he's seen a
few strange attractions himself, and his photographs have been
collected in several works including The End is Near (1998) and The Modernist Eye (2000). Mana
is not simply presented in the spirit of scientific objectivity.
There's real humour when it comes to belief in America. Howard Coble, a
congressman from North Carolina, explains how he arranges to have
constituents' flags flown above the Capitol building in Washington.
"It's the birthplace of freedom," he confirms. It's the "dome that
represents freedom worldwide." You'd never hear that sort of jingoism
from an Englishman about the Magna Carta, which predates the Capitol by
more than 500 years.And what about the cultural objects we treat as sacred? The Man With the Golden Helmet
had lots of mana when it was hung in a Berlin museum in a separate
presentation room, surrounded with velvet curtains. But after experts
discovered Rembrandt did not paint it, the picture went back on a wall
with the rest of the collection. From the paper Mercedes-Benz
burned in Malaysia as an offering to a departed loved one, to skulls
purported to be those of Marie and Pierre Curie in the possession of a
dealer in body parts, to the acreage in Wisconsin where a character in
a pith helmet, like someone invented by Roald Dahl, gives a guided tour
of the magnificent Forevertron, Mana is a delirious tour.Seeing is believing.
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