Alexey Arestovych – Psychological training based on the analysis of the film Avatar

A film seminar on the film “Avatar” with Alexey Arestovich: a continuation of the “Fairytale Therapy” seminar

Have you ever thought that your life could be an epic story like Avatar?

After all, every person has their own ideals, their own dreams, and their own values.
And living YOUR life WORTHILY means being able to realize YOUR ideals, dreams, and values ​​using THIS material—
the material of your specific life.

Usually, no one knows how to do this.
People aren’t born with instructions for self-knowledge. We’re not taught to understand others.
Society shapes us as elements of the production system.

From school to retirement age, we are taught to be workers, to live like workers, to communicate like workers.

And to avoid bitter regrets at the end of your life for wasted years, you need to make some effort. This effort is an effort to understand yourself.

In my classes, I teach techniques that allow for self-exploration.
One of the most powerful techniques is the analysis of archetypal myths, images, qualities, and narratives.

At the Fairytale Therapy seminar, we studied archetypes-images and archetypes-qualities.

In the second part of this seminar—a film workshop—we’ll explore plot archetypes. We’ll be focusing on the hero’s journey.

Avatar: A Story That Rewrites Destinies. The Plot.

Avatar (2009, USA) is an epic science fiction film directed by James Cameron and starring Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana.

By the middle of the 22nd century, humanity had almost exhausted the natural resources of the overpopulated Earth.

The film takes place in 2154, when humanity is mining a valuable mineral on Pandora, a habitable moon of a gas planet in the Alpha Centauri star system.

The film’s hero, Jake Sully, a paraplegic former Marine, arrives on a strange planet and is implanted into the body of an alien creature.

“He looks like an ordinary guy you can have a beer with, but he ends up being the one who changes the world,” James Cameron said of the film’s protagonist.

He follows the classic hero’s journey – from complete incapacity, weakness, and yet with inner dignity, to riding the archetypal Red Dragon monster and leading a successful uprising of the locals against the invaders.

From a paralyzed veteran to the savior of Pandora’s world, his story tells exactly what we need.

The hero’s journey within each of us. Key themes and conflicts.

This film seminar isn’t just about the film. It’s about each of us. About our journey to self-discovery, our purpose, and the power that lives within each of us.

We will be exploring the archetypes of the plot, the so-called “Hero’s Journey”: what it means to live, what it means to realize oneself, what it means to act, what it means to act based on, what we have to face, what choices we make and how to change.

We will explore the film along the following lines: external events, internal life, and their interdependence.

We can highlight the following things for ourselves:

– the primary confusion in a person’s inner and outer life, the conflict between its different parts, its dissatisfaction with this situation;
– a series of external trials, behind which lies the internal need to integrate one’s inner world, psyche, into a single whole;
– the principle that organizes this movement.

Translating this into artistic language, we can say that a hero is always a person with a torn soul.

By engaging in struggle, helping and fighting, the hero seeks a way to piece together his wounded soul.

You may not consider yourself a hero and lead what you consider to be an “ordinary” life.

But, whether you like it or not, for your soul you will always be a hero who must realize himself and save it – the soul, fulfilling its destiny, NOT leaving your life on the sidelines.

Transformation through film analysis in three key areas:

1. Cinematography: We’ll explore how cinema helps us explore profound themes.
2. Personal Experience: We’ll discuss how to apply what we’ve seen to our own lives.
3. Conclusions about society’s culture in the context of the seminar topic: We’ll discuss what “Avatar” reveals about our society and culture.

Objectives of the film seminar

Cinema is a distillation of life. Experiences that would take years to experience in real life are condensed into two hours and vividly conveyed in a film.

At the film seminar, by speaking to the subconscious in a language of vivid images it understands, we explore what it means to be human, to make choices, and to change.

A film seminar isn’t a shared viewing of a film. It’s a workshop based on the film itself.
During the class, I’ll give you terminology, a model of the situation, an explanatory framework, and a general understanding of what it means to live your life WORTHILY.
To live YOUR life.

Don’t let the dusty layers of societal expectations obscure your true self. It’s time to shed them and see the real you for a moment!