Cameron Browne- Cold Fever

When watching this movie in class I felt like it was boring. Towards the end it was better and I found that I thought about what the movie meant the rest of the day. It was more that a movie that just talked about a Japanese businessman rather it was a movie about his spiritual journey to Iceland. I believe that moral for the story was about striving for goals but the real reward was when something magical happened out of the blue and one not knowing it made that impact on their life. The Japanese men, Hirata, needed to go to Iceland to perform a spiritual ritual at the river were his parents died. It was important in Japanese culture for a ritual to be performed at the site of death seven years after the death took place. In this film Hirata travels in Iceland on his own spiritual journey to find meaning in his life. I do believe that at the time he did not know how much the journey would actually change him as a man. Along the way he meets different people that aided him in his quest. This example of meeting people along the way is found in the packet, The Journey Symbol, where it explains that spiritual journeys have helpers that assist in ones pilgrimage. During his journey he meets a lot of symbolic people but I believe the most significant was the old man. The turning point in my eyes was the part in the film that the old man left Hirata and made him cross the bridge to the river by himself. This part is important because before Hirata was being guided on his journey but now Hirata is leading himself on his journey. Hirata is the only one in charge and is the only one that can help him make the ritual successful. Once Hirata made it to the other side the old man watched over him carefully. I believe that the bridge acted as a metaphor for man vs. nature and man vs. man. The old man wanted Hirata to perform the ritual by himself and knew that was the only way it could be done. After the old man waved to Hirata it was like the old man was telling him goodbye and letting him go on his journey. This journey was the beginning of something special in Hirata.
This can be explained by Lane’s four axioms. The first axiom is “sacred place is not chosen, it chooses” is showed through Hirata. Meaning the Hirata didn’t choose where we went on his spiritual journey or where the ritual had to be held. The river was an honored place and should remain that way because his parents died there and I believe he realized that on his journey. The second axiom is “sacred place is an ordinary place ritually made extraordinary” is showed in many ways in this film. The part when Hirata is actually performing the ritual at the river. It shows that any piece of ordinary land like the side of a glacier or a piece of ice from the frozen land can be made extraordinary by what might have happened there. The third axiom is “sacred place can be tred upon without being entered” can be showed my Hirata’s journey in Iceland. He went there to do one thing and only that one thing. I don’t believe that he knew that he would go back home with a different aspect on his own life. He didn’t take in the beauty of Iceland or the sacredness of the river where the ritual was performed in honor of his parents. And lastly the fourth axiom is “sacred place is both centripetal and centrifugal, local and universal” was shown by the growth that Hirata experienced on his journey. He became in touch with his spiritual views while one his quest to perform the important spiritual ritual for his parents. I thought that the movie was slow at time but the end result was a great outlook on how important a spiritual journey is to a man, when he himself doesn’t even know it.