A scene from the documentary Act of God, part of the Silver Docs film festival this month in Silver Spring, Md.

Owlie Skywarn terrified me as a child. Mr. Skywarn was the shrieking, easily agitated, anthropormophized owl-star of Watch Out! Storms Ahead!, published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The alarmist owl warned of me violent weather phenomenon that was hell bent on destroying me, my family, and my pet hamsters, Fred and Ginger. Within a few weeks of getting this treatise on "Weather As A Force of Pure Evil in Your Young, Easily Extinguished Life," I was frightening my church picnic into an early departure (“Funnel cloud! I think!”) and desperately planning for Biblical floods, blinding blizzards, and Category 5 hurricanes. Hurricanes. On my family's farm. In far west Texas.

Owlie’s most horrifying tale was that of Roy Sullivan, a U.S. Park Ranger who was struck by lightning seven times. When giant cumulonimbus clouds crept over the valley and thunder rumbled down the desert hills, I believed that my destiny was to become the young, Hispanic, desert-dwelling version of Roy. To avert such a fate, I would retreat to mother's walk-in closet, with several pillows over my head. As you surely must know, a closet and a few inches of polyester fiberfill provide total protection from up to 1 billion volts of electricity. Right. Had I watched Act of God at that young age, I would have demanded an immediate family relocation to an underground shelter in San Diego. Jennifer Baichwal's visually stunning film is part straightforward documentary on those among us affected by lightning, part artistic expression of human awe and grief at the hands of nature. You will not find much in the way of how lightning works. What you will discover, through a series of globe-spanning narratives (some absolutely horrific) accompanied by the improvised sounds of Fred Frith, is how this violent force of nature can permanently affect the minds and lives of those affected by it.

By the time the film touched on a community in Mexico heart-breakingly shattered by a strike during a religious pilgrimage, the Owlie panic-induced child crept back into my adult mind. And as it continued with a frighteningly beautiful time-lapse sequence of storm clouds billowing and glowing like a monstrous life form, I remembered (and no longer questioned) the absolute fear and awe of that child ... the one who shook and covered his ears and quietly cried under the magical pillows in his mother's act of God-proof walk-in closet.

-Ruben Rodriguez

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