The cinema, at its best, is poetry expressed in a visual, kinetic medium. The nature of film is unique in that it has the ability to condense events from real time into just a few hours in a believable way, allowing the audience to gain a perspective and understanding of aspects of reality that are not normally evident.
Cinema is both a passive and an active process.
Paraphrasing the great director Bernardo Bertolucci, when people watch a film, they come together in a darkened room and have a collective dream. Even though the stimulus is the same, we all bring our own perceptions, beliefs and history to the images that are presented on the screen - every one of us experiences the same film in a different way. Akiro Kurasawa's Rashoman is still the best example of the way our personal history can color our experiences. In the film, four narratives reflect each character's perception of a traumatic event - the rape of a women. We often use film to better understand our own lives.