Illuminating All Opposition

“Fierce Light” is a phrase that documentarian/activist Velcrow Ripper lifts from bell hooks to describe what he sees as a powerful new grassroots movement springing up around the globe, one that uses spirituality and nonviolence to effect social change. It’s a form of spiritual activism modelled on the example of Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi — and indeed, Ripper’s interviewees in Fierce Light: Where Spirit Meets Action include former SNCC chairman and King associate John Lewis, and Leela Kumari, an Indian lawyer whose work is a continuation of Gandhi’s efforts to end discrimination against the lowly Dalit caste.

But that’s just the beginning of Ripper’s itinerary: he takes his camera to anti-government protests in Oaxaca, Mexico, to Vietnam in the company of exiled peace activist and Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, and to South Africa for a brief interview with Archbishop Desmond Tutu. There are stopovers at the Vietnam War Memorial and the 2001 protests in Quebec City, and probably a few too many slow-motion shots of water cascading over leaves and people carrying candles.

Ripper’s passion is unquestionable, and it’s hard not to admire his belief that true spirituality should be directed outwardly, towards actively making the world a better place, rather than inwardly, towards complacent self-satisfaction. But that doesn’t make Fierce Light any more satisfying (or coherent) as a viewing experience: Ripper takes his camera all over the world, but he gets the same interviews from everyone he meets, vague testimonials to the power of love and the necessity of peace, but few specifics of how these people managed to buck the odds, mobilize like-minded people, and put their beliefs into action. At one point, Ripper’s narration mentions the Baha’i principle that people should not be told what to think, but his film is essentially a long string of unchallenged assertions — Ripper expresses them in a very soothing voice with gentle music behind him, but that doesn’t make Fierce Light any less of an exercise in pamphleteering.

The only situation Fierce Light explores in depth is an extended protest at a vast urban farm in South Central Los Angeles that was established in the wake of the L.A. riots and has since become a valuable food source and gathering place for the neighbourhood’s poor, but which has been sold to a developer who plans to bulldoze it all and put up warehouses. The protests attract much media attention as well as a few celebrities, most notably actress Daryl Hannah, who camps out in a tree along with two other activists for several weeks — “beautiful weeks,” in Ripper’s words. To him, the protests show a community gloriously united against a powerful opponent, a shining example of “fierce light” in action.

But Ripper’s shortcomings as a filmmaker become glaringly apparent when you compare Fierce Light to The Garden, Scott Hamilton Kennedy’s Oscar-nominated documentary about the South Central Farm, which not only does a better job of placing the protests into their context within L.A. history, but also shows the infighting among the various protesters (not all of whom were acting out of altruism) and the simmering tensions between the blacks and the Hispanics affected by the sale of the farm. Kennedy is still on the side of the protesters, but his more nuanced, less willfully idealized depiction of their struggle will be much more enlightening and useful to anyone hoping to fight a similar battle in their own neighbourhood.