Indigo

I visited the showing of Indigo in Amsterdam and I invited six friends to join me. Stimulated by the emails, the announcements from the Spiritual Cinema Circle and a trailer-DVD that was sent to me, I had high expectations. That was my first mistake and it reminded me not to expect anything in life. I agree with most of the negative comments about the movie and I am not going to repeat them. I would like to add the following:

1. The indigo child was turned into a super child by combining several rare but proved traits in one character. That made her as unrealistic as Raymond Rabbit (Dustin Hoffman) in Rain Man. The negative effect of this mistake is that viewers can no longer identify themselves with indigo children. They would think "they are definitely not me" rather than attempting to discover aspects of indigo children in themselves.

2. All interesting story lines came to a happy end when Ray (Neale Donald Walsch) prevented the indigo child Grace from being kidnapped by her father. Helas, that already happened after 10 minutes! The rest of the time was killed by driving to a safe place and smart answers of the super child.

3. In one of the last scenes a police agent showed up who appears to have stolen the money. Was that a coincidence too stupid to be true, the work of the super child or a failed attempt to correct a mistake in the script?

I don't mind the bad casting and acting. After all this is a low budget movie. But if you take that out, it is still a bad movie, technically and spiritually. Therefore I don't think it serves the producers to continue the one-sided promotion of the movie on their website and in their press releases. If they are lucky, this might only help them financially in the short term. But it will definitely ruin their reputation in the long term, which would be a pity for the spiritual community and the society as a whole.

The good things I see in this movie are the raising of awareness for indigo children and the learning experience.

Hopefully, the stakeholders are more critical privately than they demonstrate publicly. Only then their new project, a film about Neale Donald Walsch, can become successful.

But I could be wrong. Let's see.

I'd never heard of indigo children until a month ago, and just happened to see this movie while browsing at the video store. I thought it might help me learn a little more about this phenomenon.

Five minutes into the movie, I was sure it must have been a made-for-TV movie. Ten minutes into the movie, I was sure it was a really bad made-for-TV movie. Fifteen minutes into the movie, I was tempted to turn it off.

Technically speaking, the soundtrack was nothing but irritating. There was sappy violin music playing louder than the dialog. Add to that the fact that the grandfather whispered most of his lines, and you have a recipe for real irritation. My finger was worn out by the movie's end, having to continually raise and lower the volume.

The script was unoriginal and predictable, reminding me of a story a 6th grader might write. The movie taught me only one thing about indigo children, and that is the origin of the term (indigo for their "aura"). Beyond that, I'm supposed to believe there are a bunch of Jesus-like children in the world, healing the sick and seeing the future? If that's so, why has there been no media about these miracles? Better they should have interviewed some 'real' indigo children and their families, so we'd get a true sense of them and what they think and can do.

This movie was a big disappointment.

So, what did you think of "Indigo"? Personally, I think it was one heck of a marketing achievement. Imagine, a film that would otherwise go straight to video and sit on Blockbuster's shelf, selling millions of tickets and being shown in thousands of theaters, churches, etc .... all on one night. And, no worries about bad word-of-mouth killing sales. Also, what about that shameless preshow commerical for the "Spiritual Cinema Circle"? I noticed the flyer in the lobby for the SCC didn't mention price.... only if you hurry and sign-up now, you get a free book worth $15. Wow! I want their Marketing Director for a buddy.

Next to "Indigo," most student films I've seen ain't half bad. Certainly, the script, cinematography and acting wasn't much better... if any. In the interviews in the beginning, they said they "didn't water the story down so it would be acceptable for a wide audience." Right! That's why the script was about a drug deal that went bad... with an Indigo kid thrown in. I didn't connect with or feel anything for the characters. And, I certainly didn't come away with a better understanding of Indigo kids or feeling spiritually up-lifted... or any of the things the Producer, Stephen Simon, said the film was going to do. That's perhaps their biggest mistake... creating an expectation they didn't deliver on.

Also, if Stephen had used the adjective "extraordinary" one more time (I counted at least 6 times) to describe the film, I would have puked on the spot. Even the interviews were shot badly... bad lighting and composition, distracting background, etc. And, weren't they were all just too "cute" the way they touched each other? How about that bit after the film? Did everyone join hands and pray at your showing? It didn't happen at the showing I went to Saturday night.... and it was at a Unity Church, where they do that all the time. Somehow, I can't imagine people joining hands at the AMC Theater in Los Angeles?

The subject is definitely material for a good movie.... but Indigo ain't it. However, Inidgo does prove or confirm a number of things: 1) lame dialog and script - authors do not necessarily make good screen writers; 2) terrible acting - acting and directing should be left to professionals; 3) where there's a marketing strategy, there's hope.... for all filmmakers.

Let's face it, we've been had by a marketing phenomena... and it's just started. Think about it. What if only 100,000 people become part of the "extraordinary" spiritual movement, and sign up for the Spiritual Cinema Circle at $29 per month? That's $2,900,000 coming in each month!!

It's the "Blair Witch" phenomenon for 2005... where selling the sizzle is what counts. As a filmmaker, I hated the movie, but love their marketing savy. I will be submitting my most recent documentary to them. So, sign-up now for the Spiritual Cinema Circle and watch for my film on an upcoming offering.

I heard this movie was made for only $500,000 and shot in only 3 weeks or so. Keeping this in mind I feel on a technical level they did the best they could with such limited resources. I know if they had more money and time they could have gotten better actors or at least better performances out of the existing ones (i did notice most of the smaller roles seemed to have better actors than the major roles hmmm).

My biggest concern about this film is that it sets unrealistic expectations of the capabilities of indigo children. The girl in the film professes that she is actually at the lower end of the ability scale and that there are others much more gifted than herself.

I feel it would have been more fair to say she was more gifted than most and that the gifts of most indigo children actually center around having a more general deep intuitiveness and spiritual knowledge.

I worry that most people will now dismiss or overlook the indigo phenomenon when they don't see children running around predicting the future, healing the sick and communicating telepathically with other indigo children around the world via the etheric web.

I was disappointed in this film as the film did not live up to its intro. A great premise was marred by bad acting and uneven production values. Make no mistake, the premise for this film is compelling. While the film makes a fairly good case, the idea and need to further study and discuss the subject matter of indigo children (thanks to the intro) the film just doesn't deliver! It certainly seems that the producers are trying to feed off of their first born in this genre, "What the Bleep Do We Know..., Like Bleep it promises existentialist views of rather unexplained events and experiences in our life with a spin that was thought provoking and entertaining. A better film could have done that. Come on guys - don't kill a great start!