Alí Allié  

filmmaker, U.S.A.

I got into film when I was twelve years old. My best friend had an 8mm film camera and we started with stop motion animation using clay and toys. We shot all kinds of stuff and learned the art of patience! Later on in high school I started using video when camcorders came out.

The school had a local public access cable station on the campus and offered a video production class for two hours a day. My friends and I took advantage of that facility, and shoot things in the studio, around school, football games, etc. We would get together on weekends and were always working on something. We were lucky to have access to a television studio and video editing equipment and teachers that let us do what we wanted.

It was that sort of freedom that energized us. It gave me the drive to take advantage of every opportunity to the fullest. I began directing half-hour multi-camera live-to-tape talk shows at the local access station. One was a talk show with a boring host, the other was a children's program called "Story Time with Mother Goose".

Even though these programs were stiff, they gave me valuable experience that led me to figure out what I wanted to do with my career.

...So, in the early years my work was purely form over content. We were mimicking action shows that we saw on TV. We had guns shooting at each other and cars driving around. I think it is good to get that out of your system when you're young. A lot of people who start making films later on in their life get stuck in that adolescence. I read the American Cinematographer Magazine and it is amazing how sincere and noble-minded most well-known cinematographers are when they poetically describe their art. Yet later on when you see the film and the scene they were describing, many times it is so spiritually dead that the end result seems paradoxical.

...Of course, you have to copy when you first start out. But it is the mature filmmaker who goes beyond that stage and imagines the destiny of one's images. If you imagine that the image you just created will be copied and sent to 100 people that you most respect, you ask yourself whether you would be proud of it or not. I'm not talking about fellow filmmakers, I'm talking about anyone in the world who has a solemn design for change - people like Nelson Mandela or 'Abdu'l-Bahá.

I think what artists worry about is not so much meeting the standard of the spiritual message or the ‘production value’, but rather depicting something that is 'true'. True in the sense that the film is about what you feel, and is not something contrived. True in the sense that it admits to not having all the answers...

...The irony is that in order to get to a high standard, we have to cast away expectations. A major challenge is the internal process of sometimes having to take an opposite course to end up where you think you want to get. The only way to do this is to have faith that your spontaneity can and should go in all directions (at once), and to forget about the work being good. By traveling down as many (simultaneous) paths as you can, you eventually and assuredly discover something you didn't contrive and whose purpose does not stem from the work being something you "should" do, but rather something that is refreshing. Then you know that you have it. And it can be very, very simple.

A two-minute work can have a lot of impact. I did a one-minute film called Oración/Prayer that was about a Mexican woman praying. That film was shot on a single 100 foot roll of 16mm film (about three minutes of film) as an exercise to see what I could do knowing that I was limited to that. The piece showed at a Bahá'í Youth Conference in Phoenix. It is very fulfilling to do a small piece that has a lot of meaning. I think a better way to look at film is to look at it in smaller pieces. Sometimes when we don't think of the film as a collection of scenes, it becomes a sort of dinosaur we're trying to drag by the tail, instead of a series of small films that have a common thread....

One of the reasons I made El Espíritu de mi Mamá/Spirit of my Mother (my most recent film) was to reverently pay attention to my inner creative voices. I think to the extent you value your creative mind's unconscious suggestions is the degree to which your subconscious will continue to support you....

Creatively, the 'juices' are there all the time, but if we don't take them seriously we can't open any floodgates. I think we should reverentially pay attention to our subconscious mind by writing down everything it tells us and following up on its ideas, as if it were a commandment...
We should treat great ideas with the same importance as our stomach crying out for food....

SvK: ...For me, being an artist is more to do with the way we look at things and analyse them than with how much paint or film we use. Our feelings about our work are affected by the environments we live in. Film is a hard world that is distorted by the Hollywood monopoly. We see celluloid and immediately our expectations switch into 'hollywood' mode. That's why I love Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. Sure it's Hollywood in outward appearance, but it turns the Hollywood scenario on its head. The film is a comedy in my view as much in the sense of Dante's (a story of morals/the religious) use of the word as in making us shake in laughter. I mean, for example, at the end when they peer into the suitcase, wide-eyed, I ask myself, and just what is a story (life) anyway? So for me, this film stimulates us to challenge the way we look at life.

...There are definitely two modes of seeing film. There's the ‘Star Actor Mode’ where you know you are watching an actor portraying something and the film is entertainment because you are watching an artist at work. Thus, any discomfort projected by the actor is contrived and intentionally manipulated by the film(maker). However, without a ‘Star Actor’ the question of manipulation becomes more vague. If we have never seen the actor before, there is a higher chance that we believe what's going on as a reality. I really don't believe in ‘acting’ anymore (even after studying, performing and obtaining a B.A. in Theater Arts) because what you are really seeing on screen is the skill of an actor for whom you are merely suspending your disbelief. That doesn't challenge the viewer as much.

Likewise, film directors can get carried away flexing their muscles, which is considered ‘good art’. A good film study article to read is Ray Carney's The Path of the Artist. He says "real art is not about yanking the viewer around, playing with expectations, or showing how ingenious you are, but reverentially exploring something you don't understand."

Many times we confuse cleverness with true innovation. And cleverness is surely the most valued quality in American cinema. It is important to ask ourselves, is that all we can do? Films that play with expectations can be very enjoyable. However, we must ask whether the film leaves us appreciating what the film is saying or more admiring how the filmmaker is saying it, and which is more important?

I don't believe art should imitate life necessarily. I believe that putting something on film is more important than doing something in life -- to me it has a greater significance.

Just the process of filmmaking itself testifies to this. The fact that we might film the same scene ten times is evidence that we are willing to expend a greater number of real, living moments in order to capture a fraction of them on a piece of film.

I'm not completely convinced that violence in film is directly related to people committing violence in life (in other words learning from films), but since I see film as better, greater and higher than life, perhaps more films should be libraries of the high points in humanity's spiritual journey and existence. 'Abdu'l-Bahá wrote in The Reality of Man that the difference between humans and animals is that humanity is capable of a spiritual life. Humanity is capable of overcoming the animal instincts, therefore not doing so is to forfeit our humanness. I believe film has the power to strengthen our humanness.

...There is a place for all films, but no place for endless clones of them. Shoghi Effendi hints that we don't need to focus on what other people are doing, but what we can do to be unique. We can figure out a way to ask why people kill and do drugs without glorifying it. I don't believe filmmakers intend to glorify what they depict, but it's inescapable. For any image displayed in a film, the film necessarily argues on behalf of that image. Anything shown in a film is condoned by the simple act of showing it.

Many people would disagree with me, arguing that the only way you could show what evils to avoid is to show what they are and their effects. I don't think that works. We are already inundated with images of drugs and killing. But, I think people would strain to recall when they were last offered a cinematic image suggesting detachment, sacrifice or that there is something beyond this plane. These are things that people do need to be reminded of. As Bahá'ís we do have the extra responsibility of considering our art as more than entertainment, but as vehicles for social and spiritual change. I think that spiritual change is far more important than social change. I think it's a Bahá'í's job to teach that spiritual change comes first and leads to social change, and not vice versa. Many films that have their roots in social change end up only preaching to the converted. The film may energize people to take action, but without a spiritual stronghold, convictions fade and unity is difficult to maintain. I do like films with social messages...

Many of the great filmmakers came from countries whose regimes censored films; for example, the Polish filmmaker, Krzysztof Kieslowski. Many of these films are very powerful because the artist was forced to communicate their ideas by subtle means, often using comedy. In a free society such as Hollywood, where almost anything goes, that is lost...

I try to remember the concept of dramatic irony: when the characters playing a tragedy, that becomes comedy; when the characters are playing a comedy, the result is tragic. (That's what is so tragic about the new American Culture -- we are living sarcastic, slapstick lives.) I experienced this paradigm in a video I made called Desperate, which was about a young man (myself) who was desperate for love. He went around trying to find a girlfriend. I acted in the piece myself, using a script based on my own journal. I was dead serious in that I was laying my raw feelings on the line. When I showed the film to a large audience, people thought it was hilarious. They congratulated me saying that was one of the funniest things they'd ever seen. I very sheepishly said "Thank You". In this way, perhaps it was a true comedy because it wasn't conceived as such. The result was surprising and embarrassing, but still met the standard of something that was true.

A key goal is to break out of the adolescence and do things for somebody and something other than yourself. It is delightful to go out and film something, bring it back and watch it on a screen. You are in awe of it because you just created this living thing. Because of that it is easy to get caught up in one's self, thinking that you created the object of your image instead of just taking a picture of it. In many instances it becomes a field for catharsis for those who have frustrations or feel the need to expose their neuroticism as self-therapy. This is manifested in all kinds of ways, including in unnecessarily bizarre behaviors of screen characters that may have no purpose except to tantalize. Unfortunately, it gets forced on audiences who become accustomed to consuming it, as if projecting dysfunction is what you are ‘supposed’ to do with art.

...Filmmaking as an entertainment business is very competitive. Even as independent filmmakers, there is part of us that longs to be recognized, given a huge budget and praised for what we do. Dr. Martin Luther King gives an interesting sermon on this subject called The Drum Major Instinct where he suggests that the human desire for praise and attention is a greater impulse than the sexual instinct and that the misuse of this instinct is the cause of racism (pushing others down in order to pull yourself up). Racism is a symptom of the need for superiority more than it is about difference in color. When I first heard that sermon, I remembered thinking that I always thought of myself as special and important (that I was going to do something great). That speech changed my thinking because I realized that the ideal of artists from all walks of life making art is more distant than we think because the means to produce film is not available to all....

We all have the responsibility to remain artists, with all the paradoxes, ironies and synchronicities that make us what we are and what we continuously must re-define ourselves as. Being an artist is sometimes like trying to be no where and everywhere at the same time. Often we do something great only when we are unaware of it.

There have been a few special events in my life (in art) that have all happened in the process of editing. I can think of three or four moments where I've been editing something, usually for a long time, and there comes a moment where your own self gets drained out of you and something else fills in, like an artistic and spiritual energy. It usually comes in the middle of the night where some truth becomes revealed in your decision-making. You realize that you are really creating. You are putting images together, back to back, and creating a different meaning - sometimes a meaning that you had no idea was there in the conception of the piece. Those are the most important spiritual moments that I've experienced and they've usually been on Bahá'í projects and my most recent film.

Almost all my works are influenced by my involvement in the Bahá'í community, but mostly by the Bahá'í teachings. The teachings are the only thing that is worth making a film about. You can be doing things to get skills and experience, but I think you have to realize that any work you do is going to live longer than you are. When you give birth to a film, you're giving birth to something that's going to be around for longer than a human lifetime, so maybe it better be based on something spiritual and something worthwhile. And if you create something that is deep enough, it's going to be enjoyed by people and souls from all kinds of different planes. I don't think the audience for your work is only people on this earth. I think that there are souls from the next world you have to consider as part of your audience.

The film isn't a documentary; it's no one's story in particular. Even though it deals with a very small cultural group, the themes are universal. In making the film, I sought to contrast the perception of life between the material realm of the United States and a natural and spiritually tangible world in Honduras.

The film begins dramatically in the United States where outsiders to the culture must ‘act’ to adapt. However, the dramatic style of the first half recedes as life becomes more real to the main character during her journey back to Honduras. Thus, the film begins to take on a more observational mode in order to allow a participatory experience in the Garífuna rituals, yet in the end returning to a dramatic and reflective characterization.

Originally my wife Johana, who is Garífuna, and I started this project as a small film, but I had a dream that propelled the film into another arena. I dreamt of the main character sitting on a beach conversing with her mother who was coming out of the waves. When I decided to try to incorporate it into the film, I began to discover a spiritual layer to the story that wasn't there from the beginning. Also, to my amazement, I later found out how central the ocean, motherhood, and dreams are to the Garífuna culture. That's when I realized I had to pursue bringing the dream into the film. It doesn't actually appear in the film, but that's the creative process - one thing leads to another.

When you're going to make a film that deals with aspects of another culture, ideally you want to spend time researching before you do it. I approached this project in a different way. There can be certain clarity of vision in not knowing about something as long as one is open. Sometimes we educate ourselves so much in words that we think we know everything. I believe it is more important to have a purity of motive and mind. So, for this project I was concerned with exploring what it is like to not know about something. The main character mirrors the way the film developed. The film explores a culture while the main character explores that culture. It doesn't have a pre-conceived agenda of taking you from point A to point B and in the meantime educating you about something. It's an experiential work dealing with a person's wandering and wondering. The film goes wandering, and by the time it gets to the end there is a spiritual fulfillment. It is less of a film, and more of a religious experience. If one sees it with expectations of being entertained, it may be disappointing.

However, if one approaches it as an experience, it can be ewarding because the audience is invited into the ritual at the film's climax. This was one of the main concepts I experimented with: that a "religious" film could be made that wasn't burdened by denomination or trivialization.

Critically, El Espíritu de mi Mamá received mixed reviews, most reviewers said it was confusing but valuable in a cultural context. I feel it's one of those works for "those with eyes to see and ears to hear". I received a lot of positive feedback from the Garífuna communities in New York and Los Angeles. It also has spurred some Garífuna people to start working on projects of their own. I think doing this film made me realize the importance of understanding your roots, even if you're not particularly proud of them. It gives you more understanding of yourself, even though you might not admit it's as important as it really is.

During the shooting I always worked with a small crew, just one to three people. If you are working with sensitive issues and people who haven't acted before, it's important not to have many people around. The reality of capturing images is that you are just looking through a lens and the only thing that gets recorded for eternity is what's within that tiny rectangle. It doesn't matter if it takes fifty people to get the shot or just two. The important thing is to roll film as many times as we can in this lifetime, and have some direction as the chips fall at whatever angle they may.

I was recently reading Rúhíyyih Khanum's book Prescription for Living and here's an exerpt: "This is what we do during our everyday life; we make the film; it is small, one little picture after another -- but it is us. It flicks into record ceaselessly; before we have time to either really enjoy or appreciate or properly value a view -- an experience -- it is already recorded and we are busy with the next one. When we die the film is projected. A great magnification takes place. Things we never realized we were taking appear on the screen: down in the corner we may have got the village dump (we did not want it in -- but there it is!) and in a bed of flowers we may suddenly discover butterflies hovering and glimmering about, an unexpected touch of beauty, an added joy to us now. Needless to say the village dump is some bad habit, some cruel act, some deliberate breaking of the law, and the butterflies are a deed of kindness, a sacrifice, some fortunate inauguration in our character we made, perhaps not realizing at all how beautiful it would turn out when projected on the screen."

Excerpts from Arts Dialogue, June 2001, pages 10 - 16.