http://libweb.lib.buffalo.edu/emro/emroDetail.asp?Number=3886

Reviewed by Justin Cronise, University at Buffalo, State University of New York 

  Highly Recommended    
  
Date Entered: 1/12/2010 

Fierce Light: When Spirit Meets Action is a tremendous accomplishment from award-winning filmmaker Velcrow Ripper (Scared Sacred). Fierce Light is a powerful film combining compelling interviews and footage from around the world of profoundly moving images of beauty and vitality, as well as those of shocking violence and destruction. Like Scared Sacred, Fierce Light is both a heart-wrenching and inspirational journey to places of conflict around the globe. The film begins with the spine-chilling footage taken by friend and fellow media activist Brad Will, during which he was shot twice and killed by gunman (believed to be public officials) while documenting the teacher's protests in Oaxhaca, Mexico in 2006.

Ripper’s film is a moving dedication to Brad Will, peaceful protest, and compassionate activism. The concept of “fierce light" expands on what Gandhi called "soul force," or the awakening to positive and compassionate action in the face of great suffering and need. It is described as a spiritual activism that is based on the best innate qualities of humanity, and is presented as a powerful global movement that starts from within each person.

Taking a central focus of the film is the highly publicized and controversial debacle/situation of the eviction and destruction of the South Central Farm in Los Angeles (also the subject of 2008 Academy Award-nominated film, The Garden). Ripper also takes viewers to India, where the lowliest struggle for existence; post-Apartheid South Africa; and Thich Naht Hahn’s (see below) return to Vietnam to heal the wounds of the Vietnam War. For more information, there is a detailed synopsis available from the film's corresponding Web site.

The film features a number of eloquent interviews, among which include: spiritual leader Archbishop Desmond Tutu; Congressman and Civil Rights hero John Lewis; Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker (The Color Purple); actor/activist Daryl Hannah; famously-exiled Vietnamese Buddhist monk and peace activist Thich Naht Hahn; environmental activist Julia Butterfly Hill, who stayed aloft in an ancient redwood tree for two years to save it from loggers; and "Dharma punk" Noah Levine.

The film is very well made, with excellent quality audio and video, and is carefully edited and sequenced so that it presents a gripping tale from beginning to end. Fierce Light is highly recommended for public libraries and general audiences. Academic libraries may also consider the film useful for supporting curricula in ethics, human rights, and activism (socially, politically, and environmentally). Broader themes covered include human interaction and sociology, spirituality, and urban and multicultural studies.

Awards

• 2008 Vancouver International Film Festival – National Film Board’s Most Popular Canadian Documentary Award