Artwork by Chris Bentley
“The Field,” my latest short story, a haunting and timely parable, appears in Insomnia & Obsession magazine. Click here to read an excerpt. Click here to purchase the story.
EXPERIENCES ON THE HILL KEEPS BRINGING DIRECTORY BACK
Sean Bloomfield
Before he made a film that follows seven strangers as they travel to a spiritual village in Bosnia-Herzegovina to investigate its miracles, Sean Bloomfield made the journey himself. “Something there moved me,” he recalls.
The filmmaker and author has explored religion and spirituality in previous works, but his experiences in the village of Medjugorje remained with him. In 1981, the Virgin Mary reportedly appeared before six local youths there. In the years since, thousands seeking miracles and enlightenment walk the village’s jagged hillside to the spot marked with a statue of Mary.
“It was either the biggest hoax or a miracle,” Bloomfield remembers thinking. He would make more trips there.
In returning last year to Apparition Hill—the name given the sacred spot and the title of his new documentary—Bloomfield wanted to make the experience as authentic as possible for viewers.
READ MY REVIEW OF THE DOCUMENTARY
Bloomfield, a Florida native, selected his cast from a slew of video submissions. He settled on seven from the United States and London: two atheists; a widowed father of nine; a Catholic latecomer; a terminally ill wife and mother; an on-and-off drug abuser; and a man suffering from the debilitating disease ALS.
Bloomfield’s camera watches these volunteers as they embark on a two-week pilgrimage, each seeking something—a renewal of faith, a pull into something beyond secular security, self-awareness, a life-saving miracle.
Besides peeking into the lives of the cast, Bloomfield’s camera allows us to peer into a specific place, this small village, which seems to glow in its spirituality. As we watch, we get accustomed to the village’s geography and the rhythms of the community—priests, tourists, visionaries and filmmakers alike move through Medjugorje with a sense of intimate purpose.
“There are so many stories there,” Bloomfield says. “There’s something about this place, but more so the people.”
In addition to the cast, the documentary weaves in a tapestry of locals: an area physician who begins to believe in a power beyond her medical training; a recovering addict who makes the place his home and now helps others; a tour guide and mentor who lends a sense of history; and of course the “visionaries” who first claimed to see the Virgin Mary.
One such visionary, Mirjana Soldo, is significantly featured in the documentary. Sixteen at the time of her visitation, Soldo has devoted her life to her pilgrimages and to bringing a message of hope to the world-weary. Her story captivated Bloomfield.
“As a teen she was persecuted,” he says.
Stella Mar Films
It wasn’t easy being a person claiming to have met the Virgin Mary, much less so when that person is a teenager. In the documentary, as Soldo communes with Mary, a look overtakes her, tears stream down her cheeks, she begins to smile like she’s tapped into something profound. She has told her story in a book; Bloomfield feels there is more to tell. “I would like to continue her story,” he says.
How will a film so unapologetically spiritual be received?
“We tried to make it objective,” Bloomfield says. “We just tried to record the story. We didn’t want to impose on the audience what to take away from the film.”
Audiences seem to be responding positively. It’s gaining a word-of-mouth following on social media and is selling out limited screenings.
And what about his cast? Most seem changed by the experience.
“We stay in touch,” Bloomfield says. The group maintains a private Facebook page to stay abreast of each other’s lives. “We’re like family,” he adds.
Up next for the director are plans to document the experiences of a youth festival on Cross Mountain in the same village. It was shot by a second crew at the same time Bloomfield was filming Apparition Hill.
In this time of a bruising presidential campaign and a divided nation Bloomfield believes the film is timely.
“There are things that transcend human problems,” he suggests.
Check here for screening dates and locations.
| Marvin Brown’s Movie Review Archive
Apparition Hill (2016)
Rated PG-13
Stella Mar Films
Apparition Hill, the site where the Virgin Mary reportedly appeared before six local youths in what is now Bosnia-Herzegovina, is without doubt a place of inspiration. Is it also a place of healing, enlightenment and miracles? Well, every year, thousands seeking those rewards trek up a jagged hillside in the village of Medjugorje to the spot marked with a statue of the Blessed Mary.
Director Sean Bloomfield joined seven strangers on a two-week trip to Medjugorje and up so-called Apparition Hill to document experiences filled with urgency and desperation, curiosity and skepticism, hope and joy—ultimately providing the cast, and possibly viewers, with multiple levels of insight.
READ MY INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTOR SEAN BLOOMFIELD
Bloomfield selects his cast from a potpourri of video submissions: two atheists, Pete, who prefers finding 
life’s meaning in science and logic, and Mark, who craves knowledge beyond understanding but can’t get there through spirituality; Rich, a widowed father of nine; Jill, a Catholic latecomer needing to strengthen her weakening belief; Holly, a terminally ill wife and mother whose husband Matt decides to join her on the trip; and Ryan, a sad on-off drug abuser who’s been in and out of prison. There’s an eighth participant, Darryl, who suffers from ALS. His condition confines him to a wheelchair, necessitating a separate, earlier journey to Medjugorje for him that serves as a side story in the documentary. He has a video chat with the rest of the gang to express his views on the journey he’s taken as it prepares to trace his steps.
Along the way we meet Ben, a former addict who now resides in the community, and Miki Musa, a local guide who was featured in a previous Bloomfield documentary.
We take several pilgrimages with the cast—to the weeping Statue of the Risen Christ that resides behind the town’s St. James Church, to the Blue Cross at the base of Apparition Hill, to the sacred spot itself and still further up to the hilltop where we find a holy site honoring Christ Himself—and we learn more about each along the way. The members seem to approach the experience with open minds, I must note. Certainly, our attention is drawn to the two atheists and Holly, who has Stage 4 cancer.
We regard Pete and Mark closely because we sense if they change, if they believe, there is something powerful going on here. They’re both presented as skeptical but fair-minded enough to give the pilgrimage a chance. We regard Molly, who comes dangerously close to missing the trip due to her health, as the ultimate test case for these proceedings because of her bright smile, because of her relentless optimism, because she seems to be a wonderful wife and a loving mother. With her, as she smile through tears, we truly hope for miracles (even as Holly claims she’s seeking only peace and enlightenment). Her struggle gives the film an undercurrent of suspense and sadness that might not have been the director’s intentions.
The documentary attempts to take a nonjudgmental look at the cast and the community, but it’s a hard sell. Peeking into these lives is personal, and you just can’t move through Medjugorje without being swept along on its spiritual current. Catholicism runs deeply in this village. The cast attends Mass repeatedly, prayers are spoken, rosaries are counted, novenas are undertaken.
Of the six Herzegovinian children who claimed to have seen the Virgin Mary in 1981, the documentary focuses most on Mirjana Soldo. Sixteen at the time of her visitation, Soldo has basically devoted her life to her pilgrimages where she communes with Mary. We watch this visionary immerse herself in prayer and are simultaneously perplexed and moved. She is in a place beyond us as tears stream down her cheeks, her eyes look through this world and a knowing smile overtakes her. And yet, she later expresses what she sees, hears and feels is not beyond us.
The film’s ending, powerful and raw, brings a journey to its inevitable conclusion, then Bloomfield tags on a sweet coda as a salve.
Lives have been challenged and changed, and clearly, the film hopes, not just for the cast we’ve observed.
| Marvin Brown’s Movie Review Archive
Letters from Baghdad (2016)
Unrated
Between the Rivers Productions
Gertrude Bell, unknown by me, was an English writer, traveler, spy and archaeologist who seemingly conquered the Middle East at a time when women were hardly seen fit to gain higher education.
Letters from Baghdad details her remarkable movements though the Mideast, growing in legend as she did so, culminating in her taking a vital role in establishing the modern state of Iraq. That’s right, a British woman of the 1900s blazed a trail through Syria, Arabia and Mesopotamia while many woman of her age and upbringing were married, raising children and defined by their husbands.
The documentary, codirected by Sabine Krayenbühl and Zeva Oelbaum, is presented in an epistolary format in an effort to squeeze history and texture from Bell’s actual letters. The method is further supported though cinematic techniques: as Bell speaks (voiced by actors Rose Leslie as a girl and Tilda Swinton as a woman) her missives are brought to life via filmstock-aging effects, vistas rendered in sepia tone and still photos given the Ken Burns effect. The film’s like an ancient postcard brought to life. Actor reenactments and spectacular archival footage round out the illusion we’re watching a documentary of the day.
Since her early years, Bell seemed to possess not only a thirst for knowledge, but an obsession with the otherworldliness of the Middle East—its people and culture, landscapes and, eventually, politics. Very quickly her twin passions are evident: the foreign culture she couldn’t shake and her accommodating father Sir Hugh Bell. Gertrude seemed to cleave closer to her father after the death of her mother when she was but 3 years old. She wasn’t without a woman’s touch, however. Her eventual stepmother Florence Bell, an author and progressive woman in her own right, pushed her to expand her mind.
As Bell spent increasingly more time in the Middle East, with guides in tow, she traversed sandy nations as a cartologist and documentarian; her writings, photography and maps would become assets during World War I. She became a British spy and an outspoken critic and enemy of the Ottoman Empire.
That modern-day Iraq and its strife has connection-points to her long-ago adventures is startling, a reminder in this uncertain election season that an individual dabbling on the world stage can trigger long-reaching consequences in the geo-political theater. Hear that, Mr. Trump?
Letters is certainly palatable to history buffs and Arabophiles, but those with a malfunctioning attention-span gene might not find this diverting enough to join Bell on her journey.
| Marvin Brown’s Movie Review Archive
Lazy Eye (2016)
Rated R
T42 Entertainment
Dean is not so concerned with the lazy eye condition he’s had since youth. What frustrates him, though, is a recent necessity for progressive lenses. As he’s rounding middle age, Dean struggles to see things in the distance and up close. His condition becomes an analogy of sorts that plays out as he reconnects with an ex-boyfriend.
Tim Kirkman’s Lazy Eye is a pleasant and diverting romantic indie drama despite its stage-play feel. It’s a short, focused film and that feels right.
Dean (Lucas Near-Verbrugghe), a married and complacent graphic artist, decides to steal away to his Mojave Desert vacation home with the seeming intent to put work tensions on pause. Unbeknownst to his coworker Mel (Michaela Watkins, who joyfully makes the most of her limited screen time) and Dean’s often-absent husband, the weekend getaway is actually a rendezvous with Alex (Aaron Costa Ganis), a long-ago lover. In flashbacks cleverly intercut with Dean’s ruminating present, we learn that the men reconnected through carefully worded and playful emails. A span of 15 years separates them—certainly a longer time than the men were together.
Dean’s libido is ignited at the prospect of Alex actually showing up (though Dean’s love of self-love suggests it doesn’t take much to get him going), and their initial reunion brings not-unexpected carnal abandon.
Soon after, glowing and happy, the men began to talk, and talk. Walk and talk. Swim and talk. Eat and talk. There are issues to be hashed out over this weekend: Why did they break up? Why did Alex fall off the grid? Why reach out to Dean after all this time? Why is Dean settling in his career, and perhaps his marriage? Were the men ever even compatible?
I don’t mind the talk because it’s mostly interesting and pressed me to consider my own feelings on lost love, career choices and indecision. I’m am reminded of Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise (1995), a film mainly concerned with following two people around as they discuss life, love, success and failure and what it all means going forward.
This film’s basically comprised of snapshot moments (and wonderful location photography) of their relationship’s start (their meet cute in an East Village bar with Dean sketching Alex’s picture on a napkin; Alex, meanwhile, is a flighty recent college graduate), breakup (Dean’s obsessive hunt for answers after Alex dumps him; Alex’s deception in their relationship), reunion (a waitress intrusively comments on them being a cute gay couple), and conclusion. Kirkman uses facial hair as a transitional device: In flashbacks the men are clean shaven to contrast their bearded contemporary looks.
Even though Dean is the main character I gravitated toward Alex. Dean initially seems to be the more focused adult. He has the respectable job and husband, while Alex seems roguish and mysterious. But then we realize Dean is the one who’s circling his life, cheating on his spouse and selfishly wanting … everything. Alex seems to have lived the carefree life and is trying now to zero in on something more—children and lasting love, perhaps.
But ultimately this is a study of Dean’s progressive-lens life. We watch him struggling to keep the distant past, up-close present and near future in perspective.
Oh, and the dead rats made me smile.
| Marvin Brown’s Movie Review Archive
Bloghouse- Featured Book of the WeekMy short story “The Wet Knot” appears in the anthology Strangely Marvelous Creatures, edited by Robert Pope. Click here to purchase.
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