NEWS FEATURE: Lights, camera, afterlife: a new film explores life _ and love _ beyond death

c. 1998 Religion News Service UNDATED _ Popular films like”City of Angels”and”Ghost”filled their stories of earthly romance with angels and other ambassadors of the afterlife.”What Dreams May Come,”one of the most anticipated films in a season ripe with movies exploring spiritual themes, turns the tables on traditional portrayals of the nature of life _ and […]

c. 1998 Religion News Service

UNDATED _ Popular films like”City of Angels”and”Ghost”filled their stories of earthly romance with angels and other ambassadors of the afterlife.”What Dreams May Come,”one of the most anticipated films in a season ripe with movies exploring spiritual themes, turns the tables on traditional portrayals of the nature of life _ and love _ after death.

In the film, which opens nationally Oct. 2, Robin Williams and Annabella Sciorra star as Chris and Annie Nielsen, two deeply devoted baby boomer”soul mates”who take moviegoers on a dizzying tour of hell before being reunited in heaven and being reincarnated on earth to love once again.


Williams, who received an Oscar for his performance as a caring counselor in”Good Will Hunting,”here seeks guidance after his untimely death leaves his disembodied soul both emotionally and spiritually lost.

Much of that guidance comes from Albert, a New Agey avatar played by a beaming Cuba Gooding, Jr. (“Jerry Maguire”), who dresses in white and spouts simplistic sermonettes like,”Thought is real, it’s the physical that’s the illusion,”and,”You didn’t disappear, Chris, you just died!” Only the good-natured banter between disciple and guru _ at one point, Chris jokingly calls Albert”Buddha”_ keeps the dialogue from devolving into a trite metaphysical tract.

As Annie, Sciorra (“Jungle Fever”) delivers a wrenching portrayal of a soul who endures a tortured existence both before and after her suicide. After a few fleeting scenes in which she exudes a youthful vivaciousness, Annie takes viewers through the despair of insanity, the sorrows of widowhood, and the horrors of hell.

But the main stars of”What Dreams May Come,”which is based on a 1978 novel by Richard Matheson, are the visual effects and digital animation artists who bring the book’s lengthy descriptions of other worlds to vivid, vibrant life.

Hell, which is inspired by the haunted, obsessive paintings of Hieronymous Bosch (c.1450-1516), overflows with writhing bodies, gruesome scenes of war, and a sea of disembodied, murmuring heads. Heaven is a many-hued dreamscape based on the ecstatic work of Sandro Botticelli, 19th century romantic painters, and the psychedelic-styled, day-glo poster art of Peter Max.

Alternately stunning and shocking, these visual effects show cinematic magic can be employed for more than mere thrills and chills.”I’m fascinated by the idea of using computer technology to create something other than an explosion or a raptor,”said Williams, whose mother’s Christian Science beliefs are, in some ways, akin to the film’s theology.

The meaning of”heaven”and”hell,”along with just about everything else in”What Dreams May Come,”is completely up to the individual.


There’s no biblical God passing judgment on people’s lives, and certainly no angels with harps, but rather the continuation of earthly life on another plane. Or, as Albert tells Chris in one of his mini-lessons:”You’re creating an entire world here.” In the introduction to his novel, author Matheson claims all of the book’s details were”derived exclusively from research.”He also provides a lengthy bibliography _ an oddity in the world of fiction _ which cites more than 80 esoteric and occultic titles, including the Tibetan Book of the Dead, works associated with Transcendentalism and Theosophy, and books by Emanuel Swedenborg, Edgar Cayce, and assorted Eastern or Ascended masters.

According to Phillip Lucas, an associate professor of religious studies at Stetson University in Deland, Fla., and the general editor of Nova Religion, The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions, both the novel and the film draw most of their inspiration from two important 19th century American movements: spiritualism, which advocated contact with the spirits of the dead; and New Thought, which viewed the mind or the mental world as the primary reality of human existence.”This movie reflects an anxiety that is present in all cultures about what to expect after death combined with a desire to find a view of the afterlife that is more comforting and more consoling than the traditional hellfire and damnation vision,”said Lucas.

The film is the brainchild of producer Stephen Simon, who brought Matheson’s romantic time-travel tale”Somewhere In Time”to the screen in 1980 and had been itching to film”What Dreams May Come”_ a book he claimed”changed my life”_ ever since.

In 1994, Simon met writer-producer Barnet Bain at a conference on metaphysics, and in 1996 the two formed Metafilmics, a production company devoted to making films about spiritual themes. “We are approaching not only the end of a decade, but the end of a century and the beginning of a new millennium,”says Simon.”This film presents a great deal of hope about the true dignity of humanity and our power to love, which is most certainly an antidote to fear and desperation.” And other movie makers are using the camera to explore spiritual trends. Last month saw the debut of Simon Birch, a movie about a midget messiah based on John Irving’s novel,”A Prayer for Owen Meany.” Oct. 9 is the opening date for”Practical Magic,”featuring Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman as witches with man problems. After that, Eddie Murphy stars in”Holy Man,”about a televangelist/telemarketer, and Michael Keaton stars in”Jack Frost,”about a reincarnated snowman.

DEA END RABEY

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