Pierced to the Heart

"You can't measure the success of a [film] on how many tickets it sells. You can only measure it in how many hearts it changes." — Hayao Miyazaki …more »»

Pierced to the Heart gets a new home!

Over time, we will be moving content from this site to a new web address: Life Love Illusion (lifeloveillusion.com). The new name and format support a broader range of exploration. During the (long) transition, you will be automatically redirected for articles we’ve moved. Other articles will remain available here.

What’s the deal here?

Have you ever had a blinding flash of clarity about a better life or a better world? A moment where you thought, “Hey, maybe there’s life before death”? It can change you, and it can start with a moment in a movie.

That’s what is about: finding life through film. Whether a film is old or new, we turn things around: We spend less time critiquing a film and more time asking if the film can critique us. With any film, we:

Focus first on how a film embodies the best in life — good, true, beautiful things — even if its filmcraft falls short.
Tone down (but don’t ignore) our critique of a film’s failings.
Allow a film to show ugly sides of life if, by doing so, it might help us see the best in life more clearly.

Why? Because life is better when the world’s a better place, and that starts with us. Whether on DVD or in a theater, we have a good time with film and we want movies to help us get better. Other bits you’ll find on the site:

The latest film talks
The three parts of a film talk
Good books and quotes
How to learn more about it

A angle on film is about how we change from the inside out and how film can help us do that. It works like this:

Change from the inside out

Heart. On the inside, in our hearts, is who we really are. A film can show us the best things in life and move us toward loving them.
Beauty. Our hearts move with Beauty — good, true, pleasing things. A film can help us feel the joy of real Beauty or the pain of Beauty's absence.
Love. As a film moves us toward Beauty, we can find and live love and relationship with those around us.

Be thoughtful about film

Find a film's heart. Seeing a film, we want more than the fun of the moment. We also want the film's heart to move us toward the best in life.
Take care with content. We see films that dive deep into ugly issues of this life, and thus show ugly things, but we don't want to enjoy ugly content for its own sake.
Consider what to watch. We see a broad range of films, yet we aim to choose better films that enrich our lives with Beauty in the moment and that also help us get better.

I hope you'll join us.

Randy Heffner
organizer

Talk about great films: After Life (1999)

Before viewing talk
Imaginative, compassionate, and perceptive, Kore-eda Hirokazu’s After Life creates a crucible of sorts to distill a person’s life down to its essence — or at least its essence as seen …more »»

After viewing talk
Kore-eda's intimate observation and deliberate pacing in After Life draw me beyond its central notion (choosing a single memory) and into a longing … more »»

…more »»

Before viewing talks

Before viewing

More in-depth talks about great films

Doubt (2008)

Before viewing talk
The simple title Doubt captures the film’s exploration well. The story deals with certainty and doubt around certain events, but the film evokes an exploration of doubt that runs deeper than the story. But, whether one engages at the story level or …more »»

After viewing talk
Doubt reinforced for me the dangers of prematurely moving into a position of certainty. In the film, the core issue of doubt versus certainty revolves … more »»

An Unfinished Life (2005)

Before viewing talk
An Unfinished Life is rich with diversity of relational contexts and emotional perspectives. In its exploration of forgiveness and responsibility, one central conflict is echoed and reflected in multiple …more »»

After viewing talk
After watching An Unfinished life, and seeing played out before me its multi-faceted exploration of blaming and forgiveness, I hope I am more senstive … more »»

Lars and the Real Girl (2007)

Before viewing talk
Lars and the Real Girl asks big “what if” questions about how we, the “normal”, might love those with mental illness. It would be easy for the film to take the premise over the top into staged gags and crude jokes, but it doesn’t. …more »»

After viewing talk
For me, the impact of Lars and the Real Girl went beyond the film’s top-line theme of forbearance and love in the face another’s mental illness. I … more »»

The Big Kahuna (1999)

Before viewing talk
The Big Kahuna insightfully explores the nature of true concern for another individual in the context of friend-to-friend banter, interactions with coworkers, personal crisis, and Christian evangelism. …more »»

After viewing talk
I came away from The Big Kahuna with a stronger desire to be sensitive enough to see another’s pain, to get to know them where they are, and to show … more »»

August 3, 2009, 15:41 UTC (updated July 22, 2020, 12:24 UTC)
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