Spiritual Journeys


Reading about spiritual journeys, I believe it is right to say that every filmed we watched in class is a spiritual journey. Every character went on some sort of spiritual quest throughout their actions in the movie. Whether it was deliberate, like in Cold Fever, or there was a hidden spiritual journey, like in Apocalypse Now. Almost all of these spiritual journeys had the same sort of theme as well, which was something along the lines of overcoming obstacles to find god. Whether it was an untraveled road Big Fish and Cold Fever, a war zone like in Apocalypse Now and A Thin Red Line, or a character that the protagonist was guided by (for better or for worse), or chased like in Donnie Darko, Blade Runner, and The Jacket, every protagonist journeyed to find god or religion in some way shape or form. Cold Fever did a great job on warming us up on how to recognize spiritual journeys. And while this is a religions class, and there was some sort of religion in each film, not all films were obvious. I think The Seventh Seal, Babette’s Feast, and Blade Runner were some of the harder films to find the religious aspects of and the symptoms of a spiritual journey, but I would argue that every film is in some way a spiritual journey. You just need to look.

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