Rites of Transformation Films
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The next step in the Hero’s Journey after Separation from their “childish ways” is to experience a breaking apart. Breaking up of the belief system they were given in their families and to take some kind of “leap of faith, into the unknown.” So, we know this next ritual requires developing faith in something bigger than what can be seen and know and includes having hope.
To help us identify a Rite of Transformation film we will look for the following elements, seasonal transitions and themes:
healing of some condition that prevents desired change (hero has a sense of breaking apart; goals and outcomes are unknown)
Self-regulation through self-transcendence
An ordeal (sense experience leads to insight)
Disempowerment and humiliation, abuse of power
Relations with self, and higher power, others are incidental
Changes are internal, mindful (gnosis, spiritual knowing)
Wisdom (union of the dualities of life)
Empowerment through surrender of control (a quantum leap into the unknown)
Disciples, followers who carry on
Images of cruciforms, earth, night, darkness, birth (tunnels, water, blood, feces), turbulence, rain, thunderstorms
Seasons from fall to winter
The following films have a Rite of Transformation at their core:
1. Braveheart
2. Blade Runner
3. Dune
4. Shawshank Redemption
5. The Grinch (with Jim Carey)
6. Castaway
7. The Matrix
We will look at Castaway with Tom Hanks to see how the protagonist changes from the start to the end of the film. As Carl Jung would say, “the archetypal hero is an ‘educator about life.”
The movie begins with Hanks as a company manager who is an expert on shipping times and working for a fictional, FedEx like company. He is all about numbers and the efficient movement of supplies and boxes around the globe. He has a fiancé that he loves but shows little appreciation and affection towards.
He begins his journey into knowing by being awakened, literally, as the airplane he is on begins to crash into the Pacific Ocean during a huge storm in the middle of the night. He barely makes it out alive, the sole survivor of the entire crew.
He makes it to shore on an obscure and tiny island. He manages to survive on coconuts and water he collects on giant leaves. He is utterly alone and possessing unlimited amounts of the one thing he once considered to be limited and precious: time.
In his first days on the island, we see his failed attempts to spear fish and procure food. Over time his pudgy, undeveloped body changes (transforms). He is now lean, muscular, with sun bleached beard and hair. He has become expert in his fishing skills, highly attuned to the natural world, unlike his previous self. He looks like a holy man who has been wandering in the desert. He has gained mastery over his environment, no longer disempowered.
Later he climbs to the highest point of the island and surveys the unending vista of the ocean surrounding him. After his rescue and reuniting with his girlfriend he shares that he climbed up there with hope that he would find something good floating to him on the tide. A birth of hope in his difficult circumstances.
Eventually he makes his way beyond the reefs that had prevented his escape by using part of a portapotty (reference to feces) as a sail to help him. After being picked up by a huge tanker he is on his way home. On the flight back he is escorted by a friend who has shared about his wife’s cancer diagnosis before the plane crash. She is now deceased. Hank’s character shares deeply from his heart and owns up to how ineffective and unhelpful his earlier remarks were about trying to find her the best doctor. He says, “I tried to fix it, offering a referral rather than being there for you. “His humanity shines through as he has become more a man of feeling after having suffered his own isolation and loss on the island. Another “a ha moment”: Friends and family matter and being there for others in their time of need is one of our prime missions in life. This is more of the life wisdom he has gained from his ordeal.
The final scene shows him at a crossroads, literally, where he finds himself with four options on how to proceed. He encounters a woman in a pick-up truck, who, unbeknownst to him had created the artwork that was in the only package he chose to not open on the island. He decided that he would return it when he made it home. Another sign of his growing hopefulness. She stops, greets him and asks if he is lost. He replies in the negative, as he, in truth, has found himself. He is a seeker now. On a journey to fill his life with meaningful experiences.
I highly recommend you watch this or any of the other Rite of Transformation films to assist you are your own Hero’s Journey.
Next we will look at Rites of Incorporation films.
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