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I hesitated to include the Korean film Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter ... and Spring in my list only because of my limited grasp of the film's Buddhist sensibility. But this work of beauty and commitment to the unity of all life demands to be included.

Director Kim Ki-Duk's film covers the lifetime of a young Buddhist boy in training to be a monk. Shot entirely on a remote lake where an aging monk lives on a houseboat, it depicts the seasons as background for the boy's personal growth, downfall and emergence as an adult teacher. The monk's teaching techniques seem harsh ("You will carry guilt in your heart as a stone"), but the quality of life on his houseboatshrine leaves the viewer inspired and hopeful.

Control Room is the best documentary of the year, easily surpassing Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 because it reveals, but does not argue, its thesis: Westerners must pay attention to the Arab perspective if they are to understand the Middle East. Director Jehane Noujaim's documentary focuses on a few days of interviews and news reports in Arab television network al-Jazeera's headquarters in Doha, Qatar. U.S. Marine public information officer Lieutenant Josh Rushing, doing his best to put a positive spin on the U.S. invasion, exposes his own innate honesty as he acknowledges the U.S. public's lack of understanding of the Arab perspective on the U.S. invasion.

I was initially turned off by the relentless violent flogging of the helpless rebel in Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. But a half year later I cannot deny that what Gibson depicted is found in the Gospels. He is not the first interpreter to employ his art to shape his vision of Christ's passion. Nor can we ignore the fact that James Caviezel as Jesus, and Maia Morgenstern as his mother, convey the humanity of the son-mother relationship in a manner rarely captured in previous Jesus films.

Viewers see mother and son play together during a morning break from his carpenter work, and feel a mother's anguish as she races to the side of her son as he falls under the burden of his cross. Jesus' temptation in the garden evokes the reality of that moment. Gibson wants you to know that when the devil tempts, he speaks with soothing promises.

You need not accept Gibson's theological worldview to acknowledge that he is a talented film artist. Does he do justice to the resurrection? Of course not. But neither has any director before him.

Finally, the year's best children's film: The Polar Express tells Santa's story from a new perspective, mixing awe, wonder, humor and just a sprinkling of danger, none of it life-threatening.

COPYRIGHT 2005 The Christian Century Foundation
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning