Act of God (2009)

I rented the DVD of this film. The documentary itself is probably a 7. It knits together narratives about people who have experienced getting hit by lighting or relatives that died when stuck. Then there is a part about Shango I really liked a lot. There is a good mix of religion and logic in this film, which is contrasted by the extras of the DVD, like Peter Greenaway's original short Act of God, same name and subject. Greenaway explains how in his film, which is better than the documentary in my humble opinion, how he couldn't find a single person when his film was made in 1980 that thought they were being punished by God when hit by lightning.If you like Greenaway, you should rent the DVD. The DVD also has Fred Frith adding the soundtrack and some of the visuals. Fred Frith has played with John Zorn and Brian Eno, just to name a few and employs some experimental guitar playing, like him pulling a rope around one guitar sting and then playing the rope with a bow or playing a brass ashtray with tiny light bulbs in it on the guitar. The extras include a longer performance, complete with giant dancing pillows. The new documentary is only 75 minutes long and conveys the ideas of being stuck by lighting well. It's low budget and is good for what it is. But the extras of the DVD raise this movie up to a 9. A must see.

I was interested in seeing this movie because of the tag-line "A look at the metaphysical effects of being struck by lightning." This movie has absolutely NOTHING to do with scientifically documenting claims of metaphysical events as regards lightning strikes. Yes, there are people who relate a spiritual experience as a result of being hit by lightening, but it's purely their memory and interpretation. When they hooked the one guy up to the EEG, I thought for a moment they were going to actually show how his brain wave pattern has been changed. Nope. They just showed the difference between doing a rehearsed activity and a creative one. The only reason the movie got even a two from me was for the excellent presentation of the devastation and the human element of lightning strikes. The guy with the experimental guitar stuff pretty much single-handedly turned me off of this movie.Very disappointing, but then again, I tend to prefer a scientific approach to documentaries.

First of all, this film is worth seeing simply for its cinematography. It is replete with awe-inspiring time-lapses of mounting storms and Olympian lightning displays. Further, I enjoyed the film for it's almost anthropological investigation of different ways in which we (as both individuals and communities) deal with such an absurd phenomenon as being struck by lightning. Such views as agnostic, atheistic, catholic, skeptic, and fatalist are represented. Many of those interviewed are lightning strike survivors who technically died for some time before being resuscitated. Plus, it features as its guiding narrative thread the author and near death survivor Paul Auster and improvisational musician Fred Frith. Definitely worth seeing.

'Act of God' is a film about lightning. There are stories, some miraculous, others tragic, of people who have been struck by it; various people interested in it, or more generally, in the effects of electricity on the human brain, tell us why; and there is also some footage of storms. But there's no science, and no structure either; and the choice of material never seems other than random, the selection is too broad to make the film seem personal, but too sketchy to make the film definitive. The director is clearly in awe of in his subject, but ultimately doesn't appear to have very much to tell us about it, although getting hit by a bolt is clearly a bad idea. In truth, as a viewer, I was bored.