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Dear Future Children: Fight for the Future

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Future children, take note. You can make a difference.

The latest documentary by Frank Bohm, Dear Future Children follows the lives of three young political activists who yearn for change at a time when protests are on the rise around the world. With a burden for democracy, Pepper fights for freedom in Hong Kong while Hilda joins the battle against the consequence of climate change in Uganda. Meanwhile, Rayen takes to the streets of Chile in order to speak out for social justice and reform. As each youth rises to the challenges before them, they become increasingly faced with dangers that threaten their mission and their personal safety.

In Children, Bohm has chosen wisely with his subjects. Each of them demonstrates a youthful enthusiasm for their respective causes and a willingness to do whatever it takes in order to make it happen. Though all three stories differ in their vision and context, Bohm does an excellent job of tying their stories together by focusing on their common passion for reform. This is not a story about one particular social movement but on a generation who want to see change and a healthier future. 

Amongst the most humbling aspects of the film is its emphasis on the cost of having a ‘calling’. As these warriors for social justice set out in the battle to seemingly impossible task of changing the world, they inevitably find themselves in the midst of political turmoil. Though each situation differs, the cost for their work becomes higher than they’d imagined when they began their journeys. 

For some, the cost comes in the form of political oppression. For others, the cost could be death.

In every case, Children highlights the incredible risks that these youth are willing to take in order to achieve their goals. There is a resiliency to them that keeps them moving forward, regardless of the challenges that they face. Regardless of their cause, Pepper, Rayen and Hilda all understand that their fights are bigger than they are. Without over-exaggerating, they truly are attempting to bring about change that will help the generations after them. As such, they are taking the long view in regards to the challenges they face and walk boldly forward when they are required.

At the same time, the film also allows us to see them in moments of vulnerability, suffering and even fear. While they may be willing to fight for what they believe in, they are also human. The loss of human life weighs on them. Fear of judgment and attacks eat away at their souls. In this way, Bohm has acquired some truly remarkable footage as well. Balancing scenes of dangerous protests with intimate moments where they mourn those they’ve lost, Children shows the innocence and mortality of its subjects. These are not invincible superheroes. Instead, they are merely young people who have dreams about their own future.

They are young people that want to live in a better world.

However, this is what makes them so remarkable. To these particular youth, they are willing to accept the call with courage, despite the potential dangers and cost. Seeing a future where the world is a better place, they understand that true cultural change requires them to accept risk, even if it scares them. They recognize that courage is not the absence of fear but the willingness to keep going despite it. While they bear the weight of the emotional burdens that comes with these types of activism, their commitment to the end result is what drives them.

Their hope outweighs their anxiety.

It’s these youth that make Dear Future Children worth watching. Caught with Bohm’s amazing footage, their stories inspire. Although they face overwhelming odds and potentially devastating consequences, the incredible passion for the future that drives them is truly remarkable and sends an encouraging message to the next generation as well.

To hear our interview with director Frank Bohm, click here (YouTube) or here (audio)

Dear Future Children is available in theatres and on demand on Friday, October 29th, 2021.

First Reformed – A Pastor’s Dark Night of the Soul

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“Will God forgive us?”

A pastor’s grief, guilt, and growing crisis of faith gives rise to First Reformed, from writer-director Paul Schrader. Schrader has delved into faith before in films like Hardcore and The Last Temptation of Christ (for which he wrote the screenplay). He has also sought to plumb the dark places of life with scripts such as Taxi Driver and Raging Bull. In First Reformed all of this comes together.

Ernst Toller (Ethan Hawke) is the pastor of a historic church in upstate New York. It is now little more than a tourist stop with a very small congregation. The church operates under the auspices of a nearby megachurch, Abundant Life. After church one Sunday, Mary (Amanda Seyfried), asks Toller to counsel her husband Michael (Philip Ettinger) who is severely depressed over environmental issues. Although Toller tries to lead Michael to see hope, eventually Michael succumbs to his despair. This adds to Toller’s already dark mood.

Toller had been a military chaplain and had encouraged his son to go into the military as well. After his son was killed in Iraq, Toller has lived with guilt and seems to be trying to live a life of penance. He lives a Spartan existence and seems to put off any who would seek to care for him—especially the choir director at Abundant Live (Victoria Hill) who carries a torch for him. The only person he can find any connection with in his world of darkness is Mary. As Toller’s mood continues to spiral down and his health seems to be failing as well, he decides to take a drastic action to bring attention to the environmental issues that concerned Michael.

At one level, First Reformed is a study of a crisis in faith faced by an individual. Toller’s struggle with guilt over his son, a pessimism about where the world is headed, and his failure to find happiness in life seems to have cut Toller off from any sense of God. As he journals (which we often hear in voice over) Toller says the things he writes are much like the things he says to God “when he is listening.” Through all this he must continue to serve the church week after week.

But this film also raises the question of how is the church to act faithfully in a world facing crises. Toller’s little church is about to celebrate its 250th anniversary and Abundant Life is planning a big event. One of the biggest donors is Edward Balq, an industrialist who doesn’t want global warming or the environment talked about. He wants to make sure politics are avoided in the anniversary celebration. Toller is beginning to question how the church cannot be involved in such issues. It falls on Abundant Life senior pastor, Pastor Jeffers (Cedric Kyles) to try to keep Toller in line.

What of the question of political issues in church? It should be noted that First Reformed was a waystation on the Underground Railroad. Obviously political issues have mattered here in the past. But Jeffers, although appreciating where Toller is coming from, must also try to appease those who give generously to the church. This can often be a struggle for those who believe that God’s message speaks to many of the woes that face the world. There are always those who do not want the prophetic voice of the church to be heard.

Pastor Toller’s spiritual anguish, I think, is an exaggeration of a malaise that afflicts much of the church and society. It is not a lack of faith (either for Toller or the church at large). We become so overwhelmed by the griefs and pains of life that we feel paralyzed to address the deep needs of the world around us. After all, we can barely deal with our own problems as we watch the church seeming to be in a death spiral of its own and society falling apart in anger, crudeness, and incivility. This film speaks to the struggle of how to live out the faith we hold to in a time that challenges our faith and values.

Photos courtesy of A24

Before the Flood – Is It Too Late to Deal with Climate Change?

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gardenBefore the Flood opens with a Heironomus Bosch triptych, “The Garden of Earthly Delight”, which Leonardo DiCaprio tells us is one of his earliest memories because a print of these paintings hung over his bed as a child. On the right, the painting is a scene of Eden, on the left a depiction of Hell. In the middle a very involved scene with various people who are in the midst of life—perhaps living out the sins of the world. That makes for an interesting setting to talk about the dire aspects the world faces because of climate change.

Many may not know that U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon designated DiCaprio as a Messenger of Peace focusing on climate change. Before the Flood is a way we get to see what that means for him. To be sure, he is banking on his celebrity to travel the world and meet with many people, some of great power, to discuss the causes and possible solutions to climate change. Among those he meets with are President Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry, and Pope Francis. He also sees first hand some of the destruction that is causing climate change and is being caused by climate change. Like Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, this is intended to bring to light the dangers we are facing.

One of the differences between this film and the earlier documentary is DiCaprio’s personality. Early in the film he notes that he may not be the best person to serve as a Messenger of Peace because he is so pessimistic about our being able to respond to climate change. In the Q&A with director Fisher Stevens and writer Mark Monroe after the screening I attended, they spoke of DiCaprio’s darker vision and their more optimistic views as they were making the film. I think that tension helps to give the film some balance rather than being only gloom and doom.

Those who follow climate change may not find a lot of new information in this film, but it is often put forward in new easily understandable ways. For instance, I kind of liked the comparison of a ½ pound hamburger having the same carbon footprint as driving 42 miles in my Prius (a bit less that I put on the car when I drove to and from the screening).

One of my thoughts while watching the film was what the carbon footprint of this film was, since DiCaprio was traveling so much to see so many places in the world. The producers thought of that as well and paid a voluntary carbon tax to offset what the film was adding to the climate change problem. They also offer a website where people can calculate their own carbon tax. (A carbon tax, by the way, is one of the key ways being considered to help cut emissions.)

One section of the film points to the spiritual aspects of climate change. DiCaprio gets an audience with Pope Francis (who issued an encyclical, Laudato Si’, dealing with the issue. While we only see a bit of footage but hear no conversation, DiCaprio later summarizes their meeting.

Besides its theatrical release, this film will be broadcast by National Geographic Channel, commercial free, in 171 countries around the world on October 30. They were clear they thought it important for it to be seen before the U.S. election.

The film returns at the end to the Bosch triptych. It serves as a metaphor not only of the spiritual aspects of Paradise and Perdition, but also of how close we may be coming to living in a world that becomes its own kind of Hell. And we are reminded that it is in the middle part of that set of paintings that we live now, and have a chance to determine what our world will be.