The flyer came around. "War (blah, blah, blah)...beautiful story (blah, blah, blah)...Go see it." I had my reservations that I'd love it as much as the flyer said I would, but it was high on the local culture's radar, so I tagged along, unsure of how much I would enjoy it, but thought it would be good to at least be a part of this piece of local activity. At very least I'd be able to say, "Yeah, I've seen it."
I was wrong. I very much enjoyed this movie. It is very well done. Part of the local excitement is that the movie's director has local roots. They have done well to be excited.
The story is very well done: not so much gore shoved in the audience's faces that we needed to put defenses up to get through the movie, but enough hints and skirted images that we both knew what was going on and couldn't ignore it. The weaving of the different story threads was well balanced and cut/edited well.
I don't know that I'd call the story "faith-centered" because I think that term is part misleading for what this movie is and part mixed with preconceptions about what such a movie with that label would be. I think "faith-laced" is better. It's how my life works--not just "Jesus on Sunday morning," but Jesus and God and faith interlaced throughout all my week, through all parts of my life--or at least I'd like to think it is. I'm a sinner along with the best of hypocrites, just never far from God's forgiveness either. And that's where this movie does the faith-lacing well. It successfully departs from the faith-genre-acting style that comes across canned to me. This is acting in the style of real-life, and brings faith into its life situations as faith should in real-life.
And it's point? It's not the salvation pounded out in same-new ways. It's the message of how God likes to take the broken pieces and do beautiful things with them because He can. Because He does. Because broken He can work with because it shows His beauty and strength. Which, oddly enough, is the title of the movie.
Go figure.
Final tidbits: the ending scenery of Rwanda is beautiful. I'm not sure, but it looked like the theme song was performed by at least three different singers (neat!). The story is based on a true story. How much of the movie is a true and how much adjusted for movie telling purposes? I can't say, but I can say that I recommend this movie.
I don't know how widespread this movie's distribution is, but if you're looking for a beautiful, "decent" (it goes beyond decent--good is the word here) movie that supports a beautiful idea (that God uses broken things in beautiful ways), then consider going to your local movie theaters and requesting this movie come. Then spread the word to everyone you know to go see it. I think it is worth supporting this movie.
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