ACT OF GOD
Directed by Jennifer Baichwal
Produced by Baichwal, Nick de Pencier & Daniel Iron
Written by
Released by Zeitgeist Films
English, Spanish, Yoruba & French with English subtitles
Canada. 76 min. Not rated   
 

On its surface, Act of God presents itself as a documentary about lightning, and spectacular footage of electrical storms accompanies first hand accounts of deadly lightly strikes, stirring wonder and our appetite for an explanation. But the film, as its title implies, approaches the phenomenon from a more mystical (dare I say, anti-intellectual) perspective. It is not the effect of lightning on a human body, but its influence on our pagan beliefs that interests director Jennifer Baichwal.

The pith of the film is in author Paul Auster’s engaging input. His own childhood experience with lightning influenced his work, which deals with randomness and coincidence, and he muses about the difficulty of seeing death by lightning as a random rather than a divine event. Improvisational musician Fred Frith—whose brain waves are charted in a neurological experiment—has a less obvious role in the film. Though his music aptly parallels electricity and restless weather, his connection to lightning (brain waves=electricity=lightning?) is truly pulled out of thin air.

The film surrounding these personalities is a contrived spackling of unremarkable personal narratives meant to explore our enigmatic relationship with nature. The director travels deep into South America to linger on the story of five children struck dead by lightning during a religious celebration under a mountain top cross. Is there any wonder that a profoundly Catholic community would cling to the supernatural undertones of the event? A self-described bully recovers after a near death lightning strike and reinvents himself as a spiritual healer with an ear to the other side. Substitute lightning for any other mechanism of death and this story is a dime a dozen. In another rural village, lightning is personified as a tribal God, and the populace still indulge in folklore that the weather is the result of his will. Well, weather powers and pagan Gods are like peas and carrots, and this example is in no way special.

Lightning is undoubtedly a singularly fascinating phenomenon, but this documentary does little to distinguish it from any other act of God, be it a tornado, a disease, or even a stray bullet. Though the film is self-admittedly less concerned with the how and why of lightning than its place in human consciousness, this consciousness is shoddily explored. Instead of illuminating something truly interesting and deserving of intelligent consideration, overworked and uninteresting narratives are slapped together to reaffirm that we use faith to make sense of mystifying world.  I think we already knew that. Yana Litovsky
November 4, 2009