If the key image of spiritual awakening in the Christian tradition is the Apostle Paul’s encounter with Christ on the road to Damascus, I would suggest that Roy Neary’s encounter on a dark country road with a UFO is cinema’s “Road to Damascus.” Close Encounters of the Third Kind portrays the meeting of human and extra-terrestrial life as an awakening to transcendence. For those who encounter the ETs—or those who wish to, like François Truffaut’s Lacombe—the experience compels them to actions they scarcely understand, to abandon their present life in the pursuit of communion with the unknown. Few films have offered an articulation of spiritual longing and wonder, but here Spielberg portrays spiritual awakening using the idioms of his time.
—Anders Bergstrom
Arts & Faith Lists:
2017 Top 25 Films on Waking Up — #22