It’s no secret that the last decade or so has ushered in a profound change in how many of us interact with our world. Next year will mark the ten year anniversary of the iPhone’s introduction, and in the years between then and now we’ve witnessed the ebb and flow of any number of new ways to connect with each other: our quiche is on Instagram, our gifs are on tumblr, and all of our moms — for some reason, it’s always moms — are on Facebook.
Now, I’m the last person to complain about this. Twice I’ve stood in line during pre-dawn hours to snag a new phone on launch day, and I can legitimately say that smartphones and tablets have changed my life for the better, helping to reignite my passion for illustration (jackjohnbrown.com for the curious), reconnect me to old friends and find new collaborators, and — perhaps most importantly — provide an occasional on-demand episode of Curious George to calm a cranky toddler.
And yet for all that — because of all that — it feels more important than ever to stay connected to life offline. That idea of staying in touch with the world away from our screens is at the heart of a few films coming to the area this week.
At the Academy of Music in Northampton, the world premiere of Sanford Lewis’ documentary an intimate dance will screen on March 26 at 7 p.m. The locally-produced film follows three Valley residents as they find themselves transformed by the world of dance and contact improvisation, a form of interactive movement that combines social dance with martial arts and mindfulness.
To the uninitiated, it can seem like a weird scene: people rolling over one another, gently pushing and pulling at each other’s bodies as they lift, roll, and mold their forms together. (The physical intimacy of the improvisations can be surprising when first you see it, but without it the form would be much less than it strives to be.) But for those who practice the form, it is a way to find vitality, dignity, and more in their own bodies, and as they explore their own weight and momentum, and grapple with what it means to truly touch another human being, what starts off as a single gesture grows into a deeply felt dialogue. Filmed in dance studios around the Valley, Lewis’ film should prove both familiar and eye-opening to area filmgoers, a look into a world we might be aware of without realizing how rich it has become.
Over at Amherst Cinema, two films explore people’s strong connections to the Earth and its mysteries. Embrace of the Serpent is Ciro Guerra’s film about Karamakate, an Amazonian shaman who is the last of his tribe. In it, the shaman strikes up a friendship with two scientists, one German and one American, who visit him over the course of four decades. Inspired by the travel journals of explorers Theodor Koch-Grünberg and Richard Evans Schultes, Guerra’s film delves into our relationship with the land (the men were searching the Amazon for a rare, sacred plant) and with each other: the scars of colonialism are still fresh here.
In Icelandic director Grimur Hakonarson’s film Rams, two estranged brothers find that they must come together again to save their ancestral sheep lineage from extinction. Gummi and Kiddi live and work side by side, and the sheep they raise are awarded prize upon prize, yet the brothers haven’t spoken to each other in forty years. But when Kiddi’s stock is infected with scrapie, a virulent disease that attacks the brains and spinal cords of the sheep, they realize that, unless they can work with each other once again, the government will come to kill off their herds — a fate they both see as far worse than having to talk to each other again.
Jack Brown can be reached at cinemadope@gmail.com.