Written and Directed by Brooke Burgess.

Philosophy, theology, modern paranoia, conspiracies and the human desire to forge a journey for truth; Are you brave enough?  

Broken Saints is a seven-hour romp through a moving graphic novel.  It is painted with outstanding cells and imagery that is married to the bubbles of dialogue that are both read and narrarated by haunting voices asking questions of why, where, when.  As a child says through the story, “God is mad.”

Each act, each episode begins and ends with various quotes from Anais Nin to Radiohead, Shakespeare to Gaiman. These quotes seem to outline and lead us into expectation of the story, the chaos and the dreams that will set the tone of each episode and tends to fall short.  We follow four could be extraordinary people through their journey to find the ultimate truth through obstacles seen and unseen.  Each of the players is as different to each other as their quest is the same.  An Islamic Militant, an American Techno-Atheist, a Buddhist Monk who found resolution in Shinto and a young women from the Fijian Islands. 

With nothing but dreams, experiences and signs to guide them, they find their way to each other in order to continue their journey.  Coming to ask themselves if knowing the truth is worth the path taken.

My personal state of mind when I began this seven-hour journey was not the best.  And admittedly, watching it seemed to only make me more thoughtful, more depressed and just in a need to feel.  Feel.  Something, anything.  As a philosophy student, I’ve come to learn that philosophy by itself is dramatic.  There is no belief in philosophy, there is no truth, and there is no path.  Only questions without answers.  And in this tale it seems to take on the overwhelming effect of drama in order to tell a tale of a journey that has no end. 

What Broken Saints does do however is get under the skin of the modern day.  It is the anti-thesis to such things as the Cyberpunk Manifesto, William Gibson, as well as any sheep dreaming androids we may or may not come across in our lives.  Or is it the ultimate truth of it? The answer would be yes if it lacked the theological aspects of it all.  God’s revenge on the modern day. 

As I sit here typing this I am trying to say more.  But Broken Saint’s and the writing of Brooke Burgess lead me to believe that this tale is different for any state of mind, for every person, for every thought and belief.  What it means to me will be different than what it means to my neighbor or my best friends.  What will it mean next year when I take this journey again? Or the year after that?

I want the time spent on this series for now returned to me so I can go spend it on reading something with more legitimacy and less arrogance.

“You must be the change you wish to seek in the world.”

                                    -Ghandi.