Sound of My Voice (2011)

nTitle: Sound of My Voice (2012)

nDirector: Zal Batmanglij

nCast: Brit Marling, Christopher Denham, Nicole Vicius

nReligion is a mental state that one reaches when one searchesnfor the meaning of life; when one searches for the answers to all thosenunanswerable questions. The universe we live in is so vast and complex that bynnature it is filled with many of these unanswerable questions. We beingnthe thinking creatures we are find it difficult to believe that some questions outnthere simply have no answers. We like to know where we stand. Let’s face it, wenwant to know it all. Sadly, the truth is we simply do not know thenanswers to everything. This ‘not knowing’ creates a void that some cannot stand; so in order to continue, society created fake answers to these unanswerable questions. They do put the mind at ease, after all, existentialism can benharsh on the human mind! These fakenanswers are what we call religion. You can choose to believe in them, or not.

nSad part is that there are certain fruit cakes out therenthat know how religion works and how to take advantage of others by using it. Thesenlow lives thrive in taking advantage of peoples needs for answers, peoples neednfor purpose. They’ll tell you what you want to hear, they’ll make up anfantastical tale that will consume your soul, and since you need that voidnfilled, you completely fall for it, hook, line and sinker. The depths to whichnyou’ll sink is entirely up to you, and a lot will depend on your mentalnstrength, if you are easily led astray you could fall for these teachings. Thisnis why I am a supporter of the analytical and inquisitive mind. I am of thenidea that we should never accept things they way they are given to us, that we mustnalways analyze what we are presented with, in my mind I think we should alwaysnquestion. Nothing is too sacred to question it. If you cannot question it, thennsomething is definitely wrong. Blind acceptance is NEVER a good thing. This isnone of the themes that Sound of My Voice explores, the idea that we shouldnnever believe blindly in anything.

nThere’s always those of us out there that understand and seenreligion for what it is. In a way, it is a basic human need. The need to assignnauthorship of the universe, of the world we live in, of life…to something, tonsomeone. This is an idea that has been explored in a lot of films, mostnrecently in Ridley Scott’s Prometheus (2012). Logic tells us that there has tonbe something bigger, that everything we know must have come from somewhere. Someonenmust have decided that trees would clean oxygen for us, that we should have sunnduring the day and moonlight during night. Someone must have come up with thenidea that we’d need water to drink; food to eat, it seems that the planet wasnperfectly made to sustain us…logic tells us that everything is too perfectlynset in the world for us not to believe in something. But it’s like I always say,njust because we don’t know how everything came to be, does not mean we have tonmake answers up. The real answer still lies out there, just beyond our reach. Wencan create different hypotheses for the origins of life, but the truth is wenjust don’t know. Until we find out; until we truly know, I think it’s safe tonsay, we should just accept the mystery of it all, embrace it.

nSound of My Voice analyzes how religion asks you to believe,nblindly, without a strand of proof on things that make no sense whatsoever. Thisnis otherwise known as faith; which is why I never really separate cults fromnany old religion, to me they are one and the same. Cult is just another wordnfor religion. A cult is a religion, a religion is a cult. What is supposed to differentiatencults from old religions is that they incur in practices that are strange ornbizarre. To be honest, all forms of religion have a strange or bizarre elementnto them. Mormons have to wear a special kind of underwear to have sex for Christnsake! What about talking in tongues, is that not strange and bizarre? Religions,ncults, or whatever you want to call them are simply a way of thinking andnliving that they want you to accept. How similar are cults and age oldnreligions? They don’t want you to question, they don’t want you to analyze,nthey simply want you to cleanse your mind from all critical thought. What theynwant is for you to hand your mind (and money) over to them. In Sound of MynVoice, the cult leader is this woman known as Maggie, who says she is from thenyear 2054, and that all sorts of bad things are awaiting humanity in thenfuture. If you follow her, she will lead you to salvation from the comingnapocalypse. She’s got secrets from the future which will help her lead you tonsafety, typical cult leader behavior. She lives in a basement, breathes out ofnan oxygen thank and she’s amassing followers, which confirms the fact thatnanyone can come up with the lamest idea and surely enough, someone will believenit and follow.

nThe way the film is structured, it’s got great suspense tonit. The two filmmakers who want to make a documentary about Maggie’s cult innorder to expose them, seem naïve enough; we feelnlike they are actually putting themselves in peril for their film. Their ideanis to infiltrate the cult and film some of the cults secret activities. That’snanother thing about cults, they don’t like for people to know what’s going onnwithin their gatherings. This is so because they know that their activities wouldnbe labeled as crazy by the rest of the world. But that’s what Sound of My Voicendoes; it takes us right in there, right in the middle of this crazy cult thatnworships this woman from the future. I enjoyed how the film analyzes some ofnthe crazy behavior that goes on within certain religions, like say for examplenthis whole ‘speaking in tongues’ thing that we find in some Christian sects isnso totally nuts! It’s like letting your brain just totally go and handing itnover to somebody else. The whole idea of trying to get people to be ‘perfect’nwhich of course is something impossible to achieve, because life isn’t perfect.nIt’s made up of one misstep after another; the idea that religious leaders lie tontheir flock and that if you ask enough questions, said lies will surface clearnas water. Loved how the film touches upon these themes.

nThe only real problem for me with this movie was BritnMarling, the actress who plays the religious leader. You get the feeling thatnhad the role been played by a more experienced actress, it might have workednbetter. Her performance, in my book, was not the best thing about the film. Also,nthe ending kind of leaves you hanging, you left wanting a bigger revelation. Butnkeeping things simply is understandable when we take in consideration that thisnfilm was made with very little money. Most of the film takes place entirely in one room! But here’s the thing, the screenplay isnso interesting, and the Maggie character gets freakier and freakier as timenpasses by, that I let that go and just went with the flow; which of course saysngood things about the writing for this film, which by the way was done by BritnMarling herself, along with the films director, Zal Batmanglij. So in manynways, what we have here is a religion bashing film that at the same time isn’t.nThe same thing happens with Prometheus for example or The Last Exorcism (2010).nThese are films that portray Christianity as being false, yet at the same timenthey don’t entirely bash it. They kind of play it safe that way by validatingnboth schools of thought, keeping both the believers and the unbelievers happy.nI suspect this is merely done to avoid getting boycotted or blacklisted bynbelievers, but in the end, what this kind of film really wants to do is makenthe believers question their believes, expose them to the possibility that whatnthey’ve been taught their whole lives has always been one big fat fairy tale.

nRating: 3 ½ out of 5