technical and artistic
Original Title: Erleuchtung garantiert Address: Doris Dörrie.
Country: Germany.
Year: 2000.
Duration: 89 min.
Interpretation: Uwe Ochsenknecht, Gustav-Peter Wöhler, Petra Zi.
Photo: Hans Karl Hu.
Assembly: Inez Regnier and Arne Sinnwell.
is the story of two brothers, two people dissatisfied and lost, one by choice and another practically pushed by circumstances, undertake a trip to Tokyo that they will find themselves.
Gustav is a man interested in the spiritual and personal knowledge. Practice meditation and feng sui expert. In his search for inner peace decides to travel to Japan where you want to stay in a Buddhist monastery.
On the other hand, his brother Uwe, a father, a selfish man, macho, seller of cuisines is abandoned by his wife, who one morning, without warning, leaving home with her four children leaving a note that says he does not seek it.
Uwe in his unconsciousness, it is totally surprised and alone, and desperate calls his brother for comfort and comes in your house just the night before he set off.
Fear and insecurity
Gustav is a man insecure and fearful. One of his greatest fears is being lost, and it is precisely this what happens in Tokyo, one of the busiest cities in the world where they do not speak your language well. And as happens in most catastrophic fantasies become reality when are more bearable than it previously thought. At first with his brother, but then only and no money, find a way to eat and even socialize. When the need to tighten ...
However, this is just the beginning of Gustav trip to the depths of fear and insecurity, because the greatest fear is what is inside, that is anchored in the body and originates in childhood or traumatic experiences. In this case, it is the fear of not doing well, err, which paradoxically leads to mistakes over and over again and suffer unnecessarily. Therefore, this journey is an inward journey that will perform with his brother and Buddhist monks of the monastery in which they are withdrawn. It is a journey without which it would acquire consciousness of fear with which he lives from day to day and unable to comprehend his life.
Questions for reflection:
I find it interesting to note the existence of cultures where it is known how to break through the fear, and integrate it into the person that it has the function for which there , alert the real danger to avoid. That is, you're not at the mercy of fear, is fear that makes the work of reporting potential dangers to which one decides whether or not to respond.
On the other hand, there are other cultures, like ours, where fear is used as a tool for control and subjugation, ie, it promotes being at the mercy of fear, and lost all reference the real dangers and thus casting off the power of conscious decision and action regarding our lives.
There
two, and both are known on the planet. And I wonder how the West is that we chose to live afraid? How is it that we prefer to submit, to be free? Are we paralyzed by fear? Is it possible to evade the fear of injection strategies designed deliberately?
abandonment and loss
Uwe suffers an unexpected loss, his wife suddenly leaves home with her three children. Is unexpected for him because, it seems, the glass of patience or tolerance for attacks on Petra, his wife, has been filled drop by drop, day after day, to overflowing, has had enough.
But while such decisions will gradually surmised, the act itself happen overnight and in this case because she goes by surprise in the morning to go Uwe has a wife and three children and when he returns in the afternoon anymore. There is no option to reply to petitions or questions, anything, in fact, is not aware that something went wrong in your marriage or even their level of aggressiveness or degrading treatment towards his wife.
him, incredulous, he begins to mourn and calls his brother for comfort, brother, with whom the other hand, seems to have more respect. But Uwe not someone share their emotions may not account friends circled those entrusted therefore currently in which is overcome emotional bond comes closest to his brother.
Uwe passes through the stages of grief and rage after the first denial. At first you can not believe what has happened, take a camera and goes from it to his wife, perhaps in an attempt to fill this need to understand, replicate, question, or at least be heard. Fantasea talking to her in an attempt to deny his absence and it is possible to do virtual addressing is she ever has done with the meat and bone Petra.
later come to rabies. Rage, rage, rage, rage ... to be felt in all its fullness to pass through. And it will be the trip is Uwe, who has needed it leave to be aware of their anger and debug.
Questions for reflection:
"Life gives you what you want but you need", this is something I heard a while ago from the mouth of a movie director when asked if he thought he would win the Oscar for which it was nominated. While this statement may, wrongly in my opinion, an excuse for not fully grieve the frustration that can result in the loss, it is also true that sometimes we need something painful happens, something beyond our control and there is no turning back. For it is these situations that we're left with no anchors which we used to settle our comfortable existence and force us to ask our lives differently, to change and decide to live more consciously and fully.
The change involves pain and discomfort, and although this was always difficult, there is increasingly less room for change in a society run to comfort, to keep giving us useless anesthetized and nursing fantasies of being that we do not quench but keep us in the illusion of being well fed. So we become greedy children who never have enough, and we're moving away After losing more of our needs and our basic and fundamental to reach a full and satisfying hunger. That is, we know how hungry we are, and how we are hungry and happy to let you know what it is to drink a glass of cold water when we are hungry or eat a hot meal when we're hungry. And it is no coincidence, then yes we cover a need, greed and power hunger of those who play God with the sole purpose of maintaining the fantasy of escape and death.
Two brothers
These two brothers are so different, of course, common ground, one is the decoration, which involved both professionally, but each in its style, and another is the great unconsciousness about themselves and their family and couple relationships.
So far both seem to believe that their family lives are going well, while their women are dissatisfied and seek each their own way out of this dissatisfaction. Uwe discover the reality of hit and feels the need to do something about drifting in this moment of vulnerability for the circumstances and joining the journey of his brother. On the other hand, Gustav seems to feel some dissatisfaction in his spiritual life that leads him to search for something different.
Both brothers are accompanied in their individual pursuits, which are intertwined not only at present but also its root, since each one has influence in some way in shaping the character of the other and that is how it mixes yesterday and today, helping to purify and unknown.
Questions for reflection:
In this film East and West agree on several levels: a German oriental practices introduced in Western life, two Germans live during a time in a temple Buddhist doing their personal process and adapting to the custom of the monastery, we see a country like Japan in rural areas that coincide with their customs easternmost austere and slow rhythms with the more Westernized Tokyo, full of encouragement and extremely fast.
And I wonder, what is East and what is west? Japan is East, an austere east and east loaded slow and fast. West Germany is a western fast food and disconnection with the inner world, and a meditator western perspective that incorporates energy in its decoration. Or East all it represents the yin and yang, inner wisdom, connection with the unit, the complex in simplicity. Or is the West's speed, disconnect the drive,
I have no answer, I suspect that this is not the question. I guess the question to me is what I want in my life?, Do I want to be connected or alienated?, "I feel the connection with all or live fragmented?, Do I want to live fast or slow?, What am I willing to do or what I'm willing to give up to follow the path you choose? I guess the question is how hungry I am and what I have hunger.
ttal Lizarraga
