The obligatory Dhamma themed movie thread

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Mkoll
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Re: The obligatory Dhamma themed movie thread

Post by Mkoll »

David mentioned this one awhile back, Edge of Tomorrow. It's much like Groundhog Day except the protagonist is dying instead of waking up and it's a sci-fi action movie rather than a romantic comedy. Tom Cruise gives a very good performance, playing (partly) a cowardly, slimy role as opposed to the usual "brimming with confidence" character he is wont to play.

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Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa
Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa
Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa
Bundokji
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Re: The obligatory Dhamma themed movie thread

Post by Bundokji »

"The Stranger" by Albert Camus 1967
And the Blessed One addressed the bhikkhus, saying: "Behold now, bhikkhus, I exhort you: All compounded things are subject to vanish. Strive with earnestness!"

This was the last word of the Tathagata.
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Dhammanando
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Re: The obligatory Dhamma themed movie thread

Post by Dhammanando »

The Great Legacy



“The film is a mystery tale about a young girl who is given a great legacy by her Father on his death bed. The way to regain that legacy involves the girl in many adventures and plot twists, and a lot of Dhamma and meditation along the way.

“The film is made on a budget which included one camera, mainly amateur actors, and a whole set of great ideas, which brings the Dhamma right home to where they live, and below the main film is a set of interviews with the maker and some of the actors.”
— Ven. Ānandajoti
Yena yena hi maññanti,
tato taṃ hoti aññathā.


In whatever way they conceive it,
It turns out otherwise.
(Sn. 588)
Gintoki
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Re: The obligatory Dhamma themed movie thread

Post by Gintoki »

The Golden Child
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Bundokji
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Re: The obligatory Dhamma themed movie thread

Post by Bundokji »

Amal, an Indian movie in English language, the story is about contentment. The movies is available on Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEH2G4j ... 372D58D936" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
And the Blessed One addressed the bhikkhus, saying: "Behold now, bhikkhus, I exhort you: All compounded things are subject to vanish. Strive with earnestness!"

This was the last word of the Tathagata.
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samseva
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Re: The obligatory Dhamma themed movie thread

Post by samseva »

The Tree of Life (Click to view trailer)

Not Buddhist in and of itself, but the concepts of anicca and dukkha are present throughout the movie.
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Dhammanando
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Re: The obligatory Dhamma themed movie thread

Post by Dhammanando »

Interpreting "Dhamma-themed" rather liberally, here is Pashana Bedhi from the 1968 BBC children's serial The Herbs. When I was about three, Pashana was my very first exposure to Indian religiosity in general, and in particular to the celebrated simile of mistaking a rope for a snake.




  • “Suppose a timid man is pursued by a snake in a forest and flees from it as fast as he can, then if he sees a length of rope in the place he has fled to, he is fearful, anxious and will not even look at it.

    “Here is the application of the simile. The time when the bhikkhu has the gross physical matter as his object is like the time when the man was threatened by the snake. The time when the bhikkhu surmounts the gross physical matter by means of the fourth jhāna of the fine-material sphere is like the man’s fleeing as fast as he can. The bhikkhu’s observing that even the matter of the kasiṇa is the counterpart of that gross physical matter and his wanting to surmount that also is like the man’s seeing the length of rope in the place he had fled to and his unwillingness to look owing to fear and anxiety.”
    (Visuddhimagga, ch. 10)
Yena yena hi maññanti,
tato taṃ hoti aññathā.


In whatever way they conceive it,
It turns out otherwise.
(Sn. 588)
mal4mac
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Re: The obligatory Dhamma themed movie thread

Post by mal4mac »

"Black Narcissus"
- Mal
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Vanda
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Re: The obligatory Dhamma themed movie thread

Post by Vanda »

Zen - The Life Of Zen Master Dogen
“Don’t go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, ‘This contemplative is our teacher.’ When you know for yourselves that, ‘These qualities are skillful; these qualities are blameless; these qualities are praised by the wise; these qualities, when adopted and carried out, lead to welfare and to happiness’ — then you should enter and remain in them.”
- Kalama Sutta, Anguttara Nikaya
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phil
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Re: The obligatory Dhamma themed movie thread

Post by phil »

I was blown away by seeing Godfather 2 the other day for the first time in a few years. Hard to think of a movie in which the impact of the kilesas is laid out in as masterful a way. I guess Coppila would be thinking more in terms of the cardinal sins, but it is certainly the work of a man who has great insight into suffering and its roots.
Kammalakkhano , bhikkhave, bālo, kammalakkhano pandito, apadānasobhanī paññāti
(The fool is characterized by his/her actions/the wise one is characterized by his/her actions/Wisdom shines forth in behaviour.)
(AN 3.2 Lakkhana Sutta)
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phil
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Re: The obligatory Dhamma themed movie thread

Post by phil »

Just saw Everest. Reminded me of the monkey and that monkey trap. Monkey Trap Mountain!
Kammalakkhano , bhikkhave, bālo, kammalakkhano pandito, apadānasobhanī paññāti
(The fool is characterized by his/her actions/the wise one is characterized by his/her actions/Wisdom shines forth in behaviour.)
(AN 3.2 Lakkhana Sutta)
WorldTraveller
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Re: The obligatory Dhamma themed movie thread

Post by WorldTraveller »

The craving [for power] has no limits!


Zero Days (2016)
A documentary focused on Stuxnet, a piece of self-replicating computer malware that the U.S. and Israel unleashed to destroy a key part of an Iranian nuclear facility, and which ultimately spread beyond its intended target.



Movie trailer:
dharmacorps
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Re: The obligatory Dhamma themed movie thread

Post by dharmacorps »

My suggestion is Mindflesh, a British film from 2008-- definitely of the horror genre. This movie is explicitly Buddhist.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0964529/

A pretty crazy psycho-sexual body horror film about attachments. I watched this with a non-Buddhist who found it confusing, but it made perfect sense to me.
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Coëmgenu
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Self-clinging, and the philosophy of "ghosts" in Osgood Perkins' new film

Post by Coëmgenu »

On the subject of the philosophy of self-clinging there is a marvellous film recently released on Netflix called I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House, written by Osgood Perkins. I don't know if Perkins is a Buddhist or not, but the plot concerns a young woman who is reborn as a ghost as a direct consequence of extreme self-clinging at the moment of death. The philosophical parallels are very fascinating.
I have heard myself say that a house with a death in it can never again be bought or sold by the living. It can only be borrowed from the ghosts that have stayed behind.

To go back and forth, letting out and gathering back in again.

Worrying over the floors in confused circles.

Tending to their deaths like patchy, withered gardens.

They have stayed to look back for a glimpse of the very last moments of their lives.

But the memories of their own deaths are faces on the wrong side of wet windows, smeared by rain.

Impossible to properly see.

There is nothing that chains them to the places where their bodies have fallen.

They are free to go, but still they confine themselves, held in place by their looking.

For those who have stayed, their prison is their never seeing.

And left all alone, this is how they rot.

I did not know it at the time, but the house that stands at the end of Teacup Road in the town of Braintree, Massachusetts, was such a house. A house that holds a seat for the memory of a death.

The staying place of a rotted ghost.

At the time of my arrival in the first part of August, the house was occupied by Iris Blum, the author of 13 novels. The kinds of thick and frightening books that people buy at airports and supermarkets.

Of her books, I have read fewer than nine pages of only a single one... and all the while suppressing a very bad taste. I am not even sure of the title.

From where I am now, I can be sure of only a very few things.
The pretty thing you are looking at is me.
Of this I am sure.

My name is Lily Saylor.
I am a hospice nurse.
Three days ago, I turned 28 years old.
I will never be 29 years old.
(I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House, Osgood Perkins, opening monologue)

The film has very fascinating "Buddhist-seeming" overtones, especially in the way that life as a ghost is framed as a "reincarnation" of sorts, incomplete and caused by self-clinging at the moment of death. The line "held in place by their looking" really struck me. The ghost-birth of the being formerly named Lily Saylor is not Lily Saylor, merely the shade of self-clinging itself. That struck me as an oddly Buddhist sentiment.
What is the Uncreated?
Sublime & free, what is that obscured Eternity?
It is the Undying, the Bright, the Isle.
It is an Ocean, a Secret: Reality.
Both life and oblivion, it is Nirvāṇa.
binocular
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Re: Self-clinging, and the philosophy of "ghosts" in Osgood Perkins' new film

Post by binocular »

Coëmgenu wrote:The film has very fascinating "Buddhist-seeming" overtones, especially in the way that life as a ghost is framed as a "reincarnation" of sorts, incomplete and caused by self-clinging at the moment of death. The line "held in place by their looking" really struck me. The ghost-birth of the being formerly named Lily Saylor is not Lily Saylor, merely the shade of self-clinging itself.

That struck me as an oddly Buddhist sentiment.
Or just some good dramatic writing.
Hic Rhodus, hic salta!
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