Film and Story
Although frequently created for entertainment, films have the power to transform. The screen is a window into our culture—its beauty, flaws, and complexities. Films act as a dream for collective society and reflect our culture's living myths.
“The essence of film is not about what appears on the screen, it's about the way the screen becomes a window, a window through which, ultimately, come the movements of the archetypal psyche. Peel off the tinsel and you find out we go to the movies to engage the gods.”
Glen Slater
In the films ' characters and stories, we experience the archetypes, the universal patterns of human experience. We relate to the characters' challenges, often finding compassion for them and ourselves. Through them, we may also find solutions to the problems we are facing.
Film expands our ways of thinking and also offers new possibilities for being both individually and collectively.
In my published paper in Ecopsychology, I explore how The Shape of Water illuminates the cultural foundations of our current ecological crisis. The film sheds light on the cultural shadow and its role in our predicament while presenting an alternative way of relating to the world—one that holds the potential for healing.