SUMMARY
Worship band Hillsong United has produced 24 Albums, their song Oceans has platinum status and their album Empires (2015) debuted at number 5 on the Billboard Top 200 chart. It is estimated that their songs are sung by over 50 million people in over 60 languages every Sunday. What is success? What is Art? What is worship? In "Hillsong: Let Hope Rise" members of Hillsong United grapple with these questions as their show, debuting 4 never before heard songs, approaches.
MY THOUGHTS
For the film connoisseur, this movie doesn’t have a lot to offer. It’s not a film that carries its audience through a story in an effective way. There isn’t much of a story to tell and the story that there is to tell is told in the first 15 minutes of the film. The cinematography is serviceable but isn’t going to win any awards.
The rest of the film is more of a meditation on the meaning of worship, art and success. I don’t imagine that this will relate to most audiences. I am interested in this subject matter and even I felt it got boring at times.
Of course, if I am honest I am not a fan of the modern music movement in church. Many of the songs in that movent have their origin with Hillsong or others artists who are emulating Hillsong.
This is perhaps, strangely, why I did enjoy the movie. Through the interviews and interactions with the band and their families, I felt like I got a glimpse into their hearts. I can’t say they ever sway me in the sense that I felt like joining a church with their music styles, but I don’t think that is their goal anyway.
Unexpectedly, the film does sway me in two ways, and for that I would call it a success.
BREAKING THE CYNIC
The first way this film sways me, is that it moves me from a place that is antagonistic toward their music to a place that is much gentler. Friends of mine will know that I have a hard time hearing much of this modern worship without rolling my eyes. The repetition of choruses which seem ambiguous and often more like romantic love songs than worship songs rubs me the wrong way. I find the lyrics trite, the melodies and music basic. When it is at it's best, it bores me.
But watching this film I see stadiums of people singing to God. I know that there are many that are drawn to the emotionalism and the spectacle; that many of the experiences people are having is because of clever manipulation of elements like lights, kick drums, and beat drops. These things create responses in people whether God is moving in a song or not.
The artists in the band even struggle with this as they recognize that people get amped up and excited at secular concerts too. What makes their shows any different?
I could see in those artists a genuine desire that the people in their stadium would see past them and see God. At those moments I felt that they were pointing at Him and that is something I had not seen in such a powerful way before, from a contemporary worship band.
Ultimately, I found myself at moments believing and praying that God would somehow use this to reach out to people who need him.
Yeah. That's what I was thinking. In a movie theater.
That’s a big deal for me. I’m not proud of it (ok, maybe I am a little) but I am a pretty cynical Christian. Yet this film did break through that exterior and get at my heart and that’s saying something when I’m predisposed to be annoyed with the subject matter and already have negative experiences with it.
ART AND WORSHIP
The other way this film touched me was that it briefly (too briefly in my opinion) touched on issues of art and worship which I don’t believe people grapple with enough. This is a topic which I find myself thinking about often.
As an artist and a Christian I wonder often about whether there is a difference or not between worship and art, and what that difference might be. One of the singers in the film says he wants their music to be as good as what the secular world puts out because God deserves the best. I agree with this sentiment but also struggle with the implications of that statement.
Who says what is best? The audience? Is a song that sells out stadiums more pleasing to God than one that turns people away? These questions are hard ones for an artist. This film doesn’t have any answers but watching these artists try to figure out what to do, does tap into something in me which makes prompts the continuation of that thought and not just take for granted that the art I produce is always what is best simply because I feel it is.
It reminds me that the art I produce does have an effect on people. Is that effect one that I would be happy with? Another of the singers says that when he writes, he’s putting words in the mouths of thousands, and it’s not something he takes lightly. You can see him working behind his eyes to grasp the enormity of his decisions as an artist.
VERDICT
While this film isn’t going to be a classic or Academy Award winner, it did get me thinking. It is slow and has very little plot, but as a meditation, it got me to look closer at a band I had dismissed. The questions they are asking are the very reason I started writing movie reviews and are among my favorite topics of discussion. The film made me think about the nature of art, it’s power, it’s weaknesses, and the people who produce it.
In my mind that makes it worth seeing, especially for Christians.
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