|
|
||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||
Higher Powers Film Synopsis In June 2003, artist Peter Harris began asking people a series of questions relating to the theme of higher powers. Three months into the filming, his sister was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Three weeks after this, his father was also diagnosed with terminal cancer. What began as an experiment became an urgent personal quest for answers. With no budget and a cheap camcorder, Harris approached a variety of people, whether unknown, famous or even infamous, who each have their own take on higher powers. The list includes Uri Geller, David Icke, The Venerable Akong Tulku, "Dear Deidre" Sanders, gangster Dave Courtney, movie maverick Ken Russell, Boris Johnson, Jamaican music legend Lee 'Scratch' Perry, political activist Peter Tatchell, the anti-abortionist Reverend Joanna Jepson among others, as well as an array of unknown characters including musicians, artists, poets, a transvestite, a police chief, a priest etc. Whilst Harris remains largely off camera for the interviews, his own interpretations of these themes and of the answers given are explored through short video pieces which punctuate the various sections of the film. Some of these pieces involve collaborations with the interviewees, for example a spoon-bending encounter with Uri Geller, or a poetic call to creative arms at Speaker's Corner with Lee 'Scratch' Perry. Elsewhere Harris combines his own material with film and music samples from his own personal history of popular culture, for example Van Gogh's suicide in 'Lust for Life' is spliced together with a mythical death crow of Harris's creation reciting Hamlet, all to the soundtrack of Public Image Limited's despairing 'Theme'. Or in 'Crutch', where Harris himself appears encumbered with symbols of his various dependencies, low-fi slapstick meets with horrifically convincing special effects in the final explosive outcome. Although the film addresses serious existential and spiritual questions from very subjective perspectives, the work transcends the genre of the documentary and exceeds biographic scope to demonstrate the poetic, humourous, emotional, emancipating and redemptive powers of art. Eschewing the contemporary trend for ironic detachment, Harris's empathy for his interviewees and his commitment to the search for belief makes for a genuinely moving film. This unselfconscious approach to his work has also along the way led Harris to create what must be an entirely new genre of film-making. |