dialogue – Brent Marchant

‘El Houb’ fights for recognition and acceptance

Imagine being forced to live your life completely on others’ terms, never doing what you want, no matter how strong your desire. Sounds pretty dismal, right? Yet, for those in certain communities, that kind of coercion can be an everyday circumstance. The isolation can be positively crushing, removed from what suits you and being forced to pursue your dreams in secret, if at all, for fear of the repercussions. And, in the meantime, you’re likely to find yourself behaving in uncomfortable, unnatural ways, tantamount to living a lie.

Brent Marchant2023-08-02T00:26:14+00:00June 21st, 2023|Conscious Creation, Drama, Foreign, LGBTQ+, Movie Reviews|

‘Lola’ charts the road to reconciliation

When life doesn’t pan out as we hoped and believed it would, it can be disillusioning, if not devastating. It can even lead to tremendous strain among those who thought they could count on one another when it came to living up to expectations. Such exchanges can turn into seemingly irreparable estrangements filled with bitterness and no hope of reconciliation. But need that be the case?

Brent Marchant2022-07-13T13:35:47+00:00June 4th, 2022|Conscious Creation, Drama, Foreign, LGBTQ+, Movie Reviews|

‘Mass’ outlines a process for healing and forgiveness

Getting past the pain in our lives is an arduous undertaking. Recovering from a terrible tragedy can be exceedingly difficult. Even talking about it can be grueling. But that’s what needs to happen if the survivors of such atrocities want to get past them.

Brent Marchant2022-03-29T09:31:15+00:00February 20th, 2022|Conscious Creation, Drama, Movie Reviews|

‘Worst Person’ advises care in judgment

Passing judgment is something that, for what it’s worth, seems to come all too easily to most of us. That’s especially true when someone engages in acts that affect us negatively, and, in some cases, such blame may be genuinely deserved. But what happens if such effects result from acts that originate with honest, benign intentions?

Brent Marchant2022-02-16T08:00:06+00:00January 18th, 2022|Character Study, Comedy, Conscious Creation, Drama, Foreign, Movie Reviews, Romance|

‘The Loneliest Whale’ pleads the case for connection

Imagine having something to say, but no one is able to understand you. With no active dialogue or meaningful feedback involved, the “conversation” soon turns one-sided. And, if no responses are forthcoming any time soon, loneliness and sadness are bound to set in. The feeling of isolation this creates could easily become overwhelming. It’s a truly disheartening situation. But, in this case, this scenario isn’t describing something that one of us is experiencing; it’s an account of what might very well be happening to one of our fellows in the animal kingdom,

Brent Marchant2021-10-16T01:10:36+00:00September 14th, 2021|Conscious Creation, Documentary, Movie Reviews|

‘My Dog Stupid’ wages a war on discontent

“My Dog Stupid” (“Mon chien Stupide”) (2019). Cast: Yvan Attal, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Eric Ruf, Pascale Arbillot, Ben Attal, Adèle Wismes, Pablo Venzal, Panayotis Pascot, Oscar Copp, Lola Marois, Sébastien Thiery, Franz Lang. Director: Yvan Attal. Screenplay: Stéphane Guillon and Dean Craig. Story: Dean Craig, Yvan Attal and Yaël Langmann. Book: John Fante, West of Rome. Web site. Trailer. Most of us feel dissatisfied with our lives from time to time. Sometimes we have only a vague sense of what’s irking us, but often we have a clear picture of the irritation. Still, even with such an awareness, we frequently lack an understanding of how to fix the problem. Perhaps looking to the source of that discontent can help us figure [...]

Brent Marchant2020-09-18T05:30:45+00:00August 13th, 2020|Comedy, Conscious Creation, Drama, Movie Reviews|

‘Styx’ tackles morality on the high seas

“Styx” (2018 production, 2019 release). Cast: Susanne Wolff, Gedion Odour Wekesa, Felicity Babao (voice), Alexander Beyer (voice). Director: Wolfgang Fischer. Screenplay: Wolfgang Fischer and Ika Künzel. Web site. Trailer. When confronted with difficult situations, most of us probably do our level best to do the right thing. Were we to do otherwise, we’d likely have trouble living with ourselves, so earnestly taking steps to accommodate the circumstances often comes naturally, almost like a knee-jerk reaction. But what do we do when we’re faced with something particularly troubling, a scenario in which we’re up against seemingly impossible odds? Such circumstances push us to take a hard look at ourselves to see just how far we’ll go, a conundrum faced by a [...]

Brent Marchant2019-04-21T17:30:40+00:00March 20th, 2019|Conscious Creation, Drama, Movie Reviews|