Post by FRANK the giant bunny on Mar 21, 2011 15:31:33 GMT -5
THE STORY OF POWDER
The saddest movie next to The Elephant Man, all my life Ive battled with certain emotional problems, every six months or so I use to get severely depressed. When I first saw this movie it was during one such period.......There are some movies that bring a tear to your eye, but this was the only movie that totally broke me down.
Got a pizza in the oven and I'm just starting to watch the movie, I have not seen this film in several years, thats how powerful the film is, its one of those films that I can only watch a few times, for one reason or another. It stars Lance Hendrixsen and Mary Steamvirgin, Lance plays the sheriff if a small town and she a kind of social worker.
Got my tissues ready....well not really but it is one sad movie, an yet uplifting. The transfer for this DVD is awesome Ive come to appreciate the film even more, you can really see how white Powder's skin really is, and the paleness of his eyes really, as one of the character says of Powder...really spooky.
The film starts off with a pregnant women being rushed into the emergency room, later on we find out that she was struck by lightning. She later dies but the child (Powder) survives, he does however have several things wrong with him, at birth the doctors had him hooked up to a machine which measures Brain activity. A normal register would produce a series of wavy black lines, which chart activity, for Powder however the paper is blacked out, totally of the chart as it were.
The social worker at the local high school takes Powder there were, right from the start he is not welcome, particularly by one group of guys and their leader. Hendrixsen's wife is gravely ill, but she refuses to be taken out of her house, as she feels that there is something that she must do before she dies. Her husband and son have not spoken to each other in years, the reason for which is revealed later on in the movie.
In science class Jeff Goldblum is describing the tendencies and actions of energy and electricity, he takes out a Jacob's ladder to demonstrate how electricity travels, immediately things start to go a little strange, small metal items spin to life and fly across the room. The arc of electric current actually seeks out Powder, sending streams of electricity across the room, they strike Powder and lift him in the air, Mr Ripley smashes it and Powders falls to the floor.
This adds to his unpopularity in school, the only one who does not judge him is a fellow classmate named Cynthia. The specialists at the school tell him that their tests of his mental capacity determines that he has the most advance intellect that has ever been recorded. To Powder none of this matters, the only thing he is concerned with is getting back home. At school, and in general Powder simply does not belong.
While on an unauthorized hunting trip with his fellow classmates, Powder sees a small deer being shot and is very upset, the deer lays on the ground convulsing as the person who shot it hovers over commenting that it doesn't feel a thing. Powder walks up to the deer and places one hand on it, with the other he grabs the wrist of the shooter, with this action Powder allows the shooter (who happens to be the deputy) to know what the animal was feeling at that point. No one understands these actions and Powder is viewed as an oddity and perhaps a danger, particularly for those who lack the ability to understand what he is.
The only person other then the sheriff who tries to understand Powder is the teacher Mr Ripley. Ripley asks Powder if he ever read any Einstein and when Powder says that he has not Ripley begins to explain something that Einstein once stated concerning his beliefs.
"He said he believed in life after death, only because energy can never cease to exist, that it relays and transforms, but doesn't stop ever. He said that if we ever got to the point where we could use all of our brain, that we would be pure energy and wouldn't even need bodies."
Powder was once told by his grandma that the lightning that wanted to come to him (which is why they had like ten lightning rods on their roof) that it was God. Powder feels that it is calling to him and that it wants to take him home, being totally out of place within the world; farm house where he grew up being sold, Powder feels that there is only one option left for him......he will let the lightning take him home.
The sheriff, teacher and social worker find Powder back at the old farm and hatch a plan to take Powder somewhere he can belong, the deputy is set against this, and as Powder runs away they follow across the field. Suddenly the lightning strikes Powder as he runs along, tremendous currents build up as Powder is reduced to a flash of pure energy. As he had with some of the other town residents he imparts a portion of his advanced self to the three of them, his energy goes into them and they come to know what Powder knew. What they learn and what the viewer is meant to understand is that we are not really separate from one another, for everyone, indeed everything, shares a connection and is intertwined.
You've heard the expression...crying in your beer......well I'm sitting here crying onto my pizza....and its getting pretty damn soggy
THE GNOSIS OF POWDER
Now as to the Gnostic interpretation of this film, for the most part I will have to rely on my own personal opinions as to the possible meanings of the events portrayed within the film. In many ways the character of Powder represents Gnosis itself, as it is classically termed
"Gnosis is spiritual knowledge of the mystically enlightened human being, a special knowledge or insight into the infinite, divine and uncreated in all and above all. Gnosis is a transcendental as well as mature understanding. It indicates direct spiritual experiential knowledge and intuitive knowledge"
In another way Powder is a messenger of light (this time in a literally sense), he is the dispenser of the saving knowledge. It is through his enlightened nature that he allows others to experience the interconnectedness which exists between all life forms and by extension the divine itself.
The beginning of the film could be interpreted as a divine messenger arriving on earth in a very biblical fashion, he is essentially a spark of the divine which enters into a human being, he is born in physical form and from the onset is shown to be very different from the average human. This is an obvious analogy to the myth surrounding Jesus Christ, but unlike the messianic messenger the suffering that he endures (as he soon does) is not connected to his mission, clearly Powder has come to provide saving knowledge. This sets up the character of Powder as a representation of the "Gnostic Jesus"
We also can see within the film what in Gnosticism are known as the three soul types, that of the psychic, pneumatic and hyletic. Powder of course is the pneumatic (spiritual person), while the other three main characters, who are on Powders side and at least strive to understand him, are the psychics. Even though they are to a certain degree at odds with the possibility of a higher thought, they are at least capable and desirous of attaining enlightenment. The other people who inhabit the town, particularly those who go out of their way to persecute Powder, are very much hyletics (earthbound and materialistic beings).
With Powder's task now completed as it were, and with no place within materiality suitable for this unique being, he is allowed to go back from whence he came. The total knowledge that resides within him is not lost however, for it is dispersed into the world and into anyone who may come into contact with it, thus Powder fulfills his role as a messenger of light and deliverer of gnosis.