Wake Up

So I was bored, decided to look through the Netflix recently added section and found this gem.  Wake Up follows Jonas Elrond and his struggle to find meaning to a phenomena he claims to have woken up with one day.  Jonas can see the dead, angels and demons.  He can also see energies, or people’s aura’s as it is sometimes referred to.  He was just a normal guy, and overnight his entire world changed.  Scared by the visions he is seeing he sets out to prove his sanity, not only to his loved ones, but to himself.  The documentary follows Jonas on his search over the coarse of three years.

When I read the description on Netflix (I know….I should have learned by now to ignore them completely, but I occasionally can’t help myself), I was worried.  I wasn’t really sure if I wanted to watch a doc about a guy that was obviously losing his mind.  I thought it would just be too sad, and hard to watch.  Well none of that turned out to be true.  Jonas is incredibly intelligent, and his story while seemingly crazy in nature, is told to us the viewer in a completely calm and believable manner.  He goes to great lengths to find out what is happening to him.  Visiting mystics, psychiatrists, enlightenment camps, energy photographers, has his brained scanned for abnormalities, and goes on a spiritual quest in the woods.  No real explanation is given for what has happened to him,  And understandably so.  No one anywhere understands these things yet, or can even prove they exist. The reason is hinted at though.  Jonas lost his nearest and dearest friend Rob in a tragic motorcycle accident.  It has obviously stuck with him, and he is unable to let go of the pain.  Is this the reason for his new gift? Who knows, but it is discussed as a possibility.

I was engrossed from the beginning.  I found myself not only cheering for Jonas to get the answers he so desperately wants, but cheering for his girlfriend whom you can tell has been greatly effected by his new “gift”.  I took from this film a few things.

*Society today is incredibly different from anything that has ever walked the Earth before us.  We have never been so connected, and yet so distant before.  That is terrifying.

*There is so much we don’t understand in this world.  And we cannot dismiss phenomena that we don’t understand simply because we don’t understand it.  Man has treated certain things with fear since the beginning of time.  Now science is able to register these strange happenings.  We still don’t understand it, we still don’t even know exactly what these things are.  But some of the things are able to be photographed, or even measured with new tools.  Eventually we will know the answers, but until then is it really in humanities best interest to just brush these events off?  Label the people that experience it as crazy?  It is reminiscent of the fear ancient people must have felt when they experienced lightening for the first time.  There is a logical explanation for lightening, but long ago no one understood what it was, or why it was happening.  It looked like God himself was scorching the earth.

I honestly left this film breathless, and comforted.  It also left me feeling that everything is just so trivial, don’t sweat the small stuff.  As chaotic and stressful as modern life is we do still possess the ability to enjoy the small things, the things that really matter in the end.   It is easy getting caught up with your twitter, and your phone, and facebook, and this and that.  But at the end of it all that shit just doesn’t matter.   You matter, your family and friend’s matter.  And leaving this world in a better state than you found it….that should matter.

West of Memphis

I like many have been following this story for years.  For those of you that are unfamiliar with the story of the WM3, it is a complete tragedy from start to finish. Three sweet little boys were brutally murdered in 1993 in West Memphis Arkansas. Three teenagers were arrested, charged and convicted of the murders. One of which, Damien Echols, received the death penalty.  The investigation and trial was a modern day witch hunt.  Not a single bit of evidence connected any of them to the crime.  There is a lot to the case and if you are interested I suggest viewing this documentary as well as the Paradise Lost trilogy. which covers in great detail the initial investigation and the trial in the first film.  The WM3’s incarceration and the fight to free them in the second film, and finally their release in the third film.

The case is sickening, and an injustice of the worst kind.  Three children were murdered, 3 young men’s lives were seemingly ruined, and 6 families were destroyed.  Thankfully the WM3 have been freed, but to do so they have to enter an Alford Plea., which if you don’t want to click the link means someone can plead guilt but maintain their innocence.  So in the eyes of the law these three men are child murders.

I didn’t think there would be much more to see as the Paradise Lost documentaries are incredibly well done, and did an amazing job of documenting that case. But  West of Memphis includes a slew of information that I hadn’t already heard or seen.  This case was politically driven, which isn’t surprising to hear.  What was surprising however were the lengths some of those involved were willing to take to get the WM3 behind bars, just to further their careers.  And the complete disregard they seemingly had for justice that the victim’s and their families deserve.

I suggest to anyone who has been following the case to see this.  I suggest anyone interested in the justice system to see this, and anyone interested to see just how corrupt it can be to see this.  The West Memphis case is important, and should be to every single citizen in the United States.  If this could happen to these three young men, and to these families it could happen to any of us, and that is terrifying.

I believe without a doubt that the three men known as the WM3 are innocent, and am happy to see them finally freed.  I hope more than anything though that the real killer, or killers of the youngest victims are found and justice will finally be served. Those little boys shouldn’t be forgotten, and among all of the fury to set one wrong right, the imprisonment of the WM3, I feel the poor little boys have been inadvertently swept under the rug.  Stevie Branch, Christopher Byers, and Michael Moore mustn’t be forgotten.

Related articles

• West of Memphis Checks in on Blu-ray and DVD (dreadcentral.com)
• The West Memphis 3 Have Been Freed (buzzfeed.com)
• Damien Echols On ‘Life After Death’ (radioboston.wbur.org)