| THE LOST CHILD |
[Jul. 21st, 2006|12:26 am] |
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Disclaimer: I guess I can't judge movies without thinking about their context and what they mean to me. The more context I have for a movie, the more likely I am to have a great deal to say about it. My reactions are personal and idiosyncratic. I do not rate movies here. Ratings are for Netflix. This is my place to discuss the impact of a movie on me.
THE LOST CHILD
This Hallmark Hall of Fame movie is based on a book called Looking For Lost Bird by Yvette Malenson. Looking For Lost Bird is a non-fiction memoir about Malenson's kidnapping from the Navajo reservation as an infant with her twin brother so that they could be sold to couples without children. The movie is a fictionalized account containing fictional characters. I read Malenson's book a number of years ago, and my reaction to it colored my view of the movie. A review on Netflix rightly pointed out that The Lost Child is a sanitized version. Yes, of course. It's a Hallmark movie. Yet even in this movie, we see that the adoptive mother knew that the child she called Rebecca had a mother and had written down the mother's name. Since this wasn't an official adoption, she had to know that there was something wrong with it. When I was reading Looking For Lost Bird, an adopted woman told me that she thought it was wrong to look for her birth parents. Her adoptive parents who brought her up and loved her are her real parents, she said. I would never dismiss the value of adoptive parents, but this child was stolen from her family, not voluntarily given up. I was outraged when I read about Yvette Melanson. One reason why I was particularly outraged is because the family that adopted her was Jewish. If anyone should understand that an ethnic minority needs its children to survive, it's the Jews. I am of Jewish heritage myself and I am familiar with Jewish history. Jewish children were stolen from their families and forcibly converted in Portugal after these families had been expelled from Spain by Ferdinand and Isabella. Jews should not be instrumental in a Navajo child losing her heritage. That is truly vile.
Rebecca's quick acceptance by her Navajo relatives in the movie is admittedly unrealistic, but I found it moving because of some strong performances by Native American actors some of whom are favorites of mine from other movies. I found this movie on Netflix by doing a search for Irene Bedard who played Rebecca's sister, Grace. Tantoo Cardinal as Rebecca's aunt was also wonderful, and so was Michael Greyeyes as Rebecca's father, a Navajo holy man. I saw a review of this movie that objected that these actors aren't Navajo. I feel it's important that Hallmark Hall of Fame cast some of the best Native American performers working in the acting profession.
Michael Greyeyes' character Yazee had a relationship with Rebecca's husband Jack that evolved over time. It was realistic that Yazee had problems accepting Jack as a son in law. It was also realistic that Jack had problems accepting the idea that his wife is Navajo and that the reservation might be the best place for their family. His background with ranches allowed Jack to find a connection with the land. I thought Jack's moment of realization shared with Yazee that the reservation really is a special place was a great scene.
Another point that I saw in a Netflix review that I wanted to respond to is that the reviewer thought Rebecca gave up on finding her brother. I didn't have that impression. In fact, Rebecca said that she was putting off her Kinaalda, the Navajo women's rite, until she could find her brother. It would have been nice if the movie could have included Rebecca's reunification with her brother, but there is only so much that a two hour TV movie can do. The Lost Child chose to focus on the integration of Rebecca, her husband and daughters into reservation life. I thought this was a valid focus that worked for the movie.
The challenge by Rebecca to the reservation school's neglect of ongoing sexual harassment of girls may seem like she is imposing her values to some viewers. Me, I think, that standing up to sexual harassment is a good value for the Navajos to adopt, and actually not all that mainstream. I've seen a mainstream trend to view any feminist concerns as PC, and therefore retro. A culture like the Navajo where women own the land, should assert the value of women and girls by refusing to accept sexual harassment in their school. I liked the connection that Yazee made between Rebecca's struggle against sexual harassment and Rebecca's mother's courageous ride to gather up the family's herd in a bad storm. Yazee was helping to integrate Rebecca and Rebecca's perspective into family history. In this way, what Rebecca did became a Navajo thing to do because she was behaving like her mother.
I felt that The Lost Child addressed a number of issues that I find significant in a way that really got to me. I cried while watching The Lost Child. This is definitely among the most memorable movies of 2006 for me. |
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| june reads |
[Jul. 7th, 2006|03:17 am] |
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posted this on aol's thriller board
Shomeret's June Reads
JDChronicler
I thought I'd ramble a bit about this being half way through the year. Despite my complaints about some months, I think this has been a very good year. I have nine A rated novels so far which are top ten of 2006 candidates. I don't recall ever having that many A rated at this point in the year before. Only three of them are M/Ts though. I think I may be having a temporary shift in focus and reading fewer M/Ts this year. We'll see how things develop.
1)Memory In Death by J.D. Robb (futuristic mystery)337 pages. Source: Library Started: 5/31 Finished: 6/3
Why Read: This deals with the history of the MC Eve Dallas. I'm interested enough in her to want to know more.
Comments: I liked the characterization and background on Eve. I also thought that Roarke was more prominent than in the previous two I read (Ceremony in Death and Visions in Death, the two paranormal oriented books in this series). I still think I know very little about Roarke. Where do we get as much background about him as we do about Eve? I get the impression that he's the supportive man who is largely behind the scenes. In a way, that's refreshing. How many supportive women are there in fiction who are barely visible? I'll give this book a B.
2)A Moonlit Knight by Jocelyn Kelley (medeival romance) 290 pages. Source: Rhapsody Book Club Started: 6/3 Finished: 6/4
Why Read: So I saw this woman posed with a bow and arrow on the cover in the Rhapsody brochure, and a guy who looks like a younger version of the second Robin Hood from my favorite Robin Hood series. The woman was clearly a Lady Marion type. Then I read in the brochure about a secret order of women trained to fight at an abbey in order to serve Eleanor of Aquitaine. "Wow!"
I said. There actually was a troop of fighting women who went on crusade with Eleanor,so there could be a historical basis for this. This is the third book in the series. I don't know how I missed the other two. I'm thinking of ordering them from Amazon if this is really as good as it looks.
Comments: I really liked the concept of the abbey that trains women to fight and the fact that a Japanese woman is one of the instructors. I'd love to know her story. But it was hard for me to care about who was going to win the civil war between Henry II and his sons. That's the subject of this novel. For one thing, I know the period so the victor isn't in doubt. For the other, I'm not a fan of any of the contending historical personages. I didn't find them particularly sympathetic in this book either. So although I really liked the heroine, it gets a B. I did order the previous two volumes in the series which sound more interesting. One of them involves a Welsh legend, and another occurs during the conflict between Henry II and Becket.
3)Megan's Mark by Lora Leigh (paranormal romance) 295 pages. Source: Rhapsody Book Club Started: 6/4 Finished: 6/7
Why Read: The heroine is an empath. The hero has feline DNA. Sounds wonderful.
Comments: The context is interesting. The humans with feline DNA were developed by the military as assassins. The book deals with their mistreatment by the military and their struggle to live their own lives free of military control. Both the heroine and hero go through a process of growth in the course of the novel, so I liked them better in the end but their relationship was atrocious for a good 3/4 of the book. That's why I'm giving it a B-.
4)Malinche by Laura Esquivel (historical fiction)188 pages. Source: Library Started: 6/7 Finished: 6/9
Why Read: Yet another book about Malinche. I read one by Frances Sherwood last month. Laura Esquivel's jacket copy gives the impression that she knows nothing about any novels dealing with this subject. She should be aware that Latino author Rudolfo Anaya wrote one even if she isn't aware of the Anglos who've written books about Malinche. This one sounds like my preferred verison of her. She isn't an Aztec. She hates them and wants to help the Spanish overthrow them. Frances Sherwood's idea that she was an Aztec ends up making her seem like a passive wimp. So I think I'm going to like this book better.
Comments: The narrow focus on Malinche/Malinalli is very intense. We get her feelings, thoughts and beliefs almost exclusively. It's a very interesting perspective. There's a bit of focus on Cortez, her conquiztador lover, but Esquivel makes no effort to understand his motivations or give him his own cultural context the way Sherwood did. If anything that's a strength of this book for me. Previous novels about Malinche had too much Cortez in them, and he doesn't interest me. I liked seeing Malinche's thoughts about religion, philosophy and history. Esqivel portrays her as a very remarkable woman and I think she must have been. I also liked the way the book ends. Many writers about Malinche see her as a personification of La Llorona, the weeping woman of Mexican folklore. Esquivel doesn't see her that way. I'm giving this a A rating.
5)Asian American Dreams by Helen Zia (sociology) 319 pages. Source: Library Sale Shelf Started: 6/9 Finished: 6/12
Why Read: I bought this book for $2 from the library and thought I'd give it to my housemate Mary who is very Asian American identified. It turns out that she read it and actually has the book. I started looking at it and it seemed very interesting, so I decided to read it. In order to make the library math work out, I had to put aside a mystery by Sujata Massey which I'd taken out because I couldn't find anything better at the library. I suppose it's not a great loss for this month's reads and I'll eventually read it. I put the same book back on the shelf when I was at the library today, though. Asian American Dreams is much more likely to be significant.
Comments: I got an education. I knew nothing about a great deal of this book's content. Some of the things I did know were placed in context, so I could understand what these events meant to the Asian Americans who experienced them. I thought it was an excellent overview. I donated this copy to the library of the Asian American Woman Artists Association, an organization that Mary belongs to.
6)Always Time To Die by Elizabeth Lowell (romantic suspense) 390 pages. Source:Library Started: 6/12 Finished: 6/16
Why Read: This book had an excerpt serialized in one of my e-mail book clubs. I was interested in the fact that it takes place in New Mexico and has a bit of New Mexico history content. The last time I read Elizabeth Lowell was Moving Target. I think she's a very good writer, but she rarely deals with subjects that interest me.
Comments: This book was very readable and well written. But I guessed the surprise ending a bit in advance. I liked the characters--especially Carly, the historian. Rating B+ The + is for the characters and for the underlying historical theme.
7)Burning Tigress by Jade Lee (paranormal Victorian romance) 337 pages. Source: Supermarket Started: 6/16 Finished: 6/17
Why Read: The cover is a huge turnoff because it's the sort of cover that is so standard for romance these days, but I decided to check out what looked like an Asian American writer. It turns out she's half-Chinese and she uses Asian mystical content in her Tigress series. I may be catching up on this series via Amazon if I like this one.
Comments: I thought it was wonderful. The hero is a Chinese Taoist adept who is a servant to an English family in Shanghai during the Victorian period. The heroine is the daughter of a baronet who is devoted to her epileptic brother who may also be autistic. There's some very interesting paranormal content. There's a great deal of sex, but it's seen through Taoist eyes. This book deals with mysticism, the clash between Chinese and Western cultures and the class system in both these cultures. I'm giving it an A. Mentions of characters from two previous novels in the series make them sound fascinating. So I'm definitely catching up on this series.
8)Widdershins by Charles De Lint(urban fantasy) 560 pages. Source: Library Started: 6/17 Finished: 6/21
Why Read: It's a Newford novel by Charles De Lint. He's my favorite fantasy writer because I prefer fantasy that deals with themes that are issues in the real world. De Lint has Faerie in his books, but they usually center on real world issues and how they impact humans in Newford.
Comments: De Lint wrote this to tie up loose ends for his characters in the previous books at the request of his fans. De Lint wants to move on and write about different characters. I wish he wouldn't, but I understand why. It was all very happily ever after in this book and there was some great character content, but it didn't have the kind of intense thematic focus that I find in his best books. So I'm going to give this book a B+
9)Mourning Dove by Aimee and David Thurlo (American Indian mystery) 320 pages. Source: Library Started: 6/21 Finished: 6/24
Why Read: The Ella Clah series has been one of my favorites though I would like to see it get out of its rut and deal with issues other than the ones that I've been seeing in these novels. This may be the book that goes in a new direction.
Comments: The concept of someone using Navajo myth as a code is similar to the Navajo code talkers of World War II, but the one in this book is a personal code. The murder victim is the creator of this code and it must be broken in order to find out whodunit. That's really interesting. I also liked other Navajo cultural content in this book. But I don't think this novel had the emotional power of the best books in the series. So I'm giving it a B+.
10)The Tale of Murasaki by Liza Dalby (historical fiction) 423 pages. Source: Library Started: 6/24 Finished: 6/28
Why Read: I'm interested in the world's first woman novelist, Lady Murasaki. I've also been a fan of Liza Dalby, the first Western geisha.
Comments: There were a few interesting sections and I learned a few things about Japanese culture, but I'm wondering about Dalby's scholarship. Mary, my housemate, pointed out that she wasn't in Japan very long to do research for this book and she wonders how long Dalby was in Japan to study geisha arts based on a rather minor but strange error that she made in this book. She apparently didn't speak to any Japanese academics one on one about either the period or Murasaki because there's no mention of anything in the acknowledgements about academic contacts in Japan beyond her attending a few lectures at the Murasaki Shikibu Society. Mary suspects that Dalby doesn't know enough Japanese. I'm wondering if Dalby is like Sujata Massey who has built a career on some superficial knowledge of Japanese culture. So I'm rating this book C- It occurs to me that Mary's perspective is causing me to hold books about Japan to a higher standard. In some ways this is good, but it also means that I enjoy most books written by non-Japanese about Japan a good deal less than I did in the past.
11)The Traveling Death and Resurrection Show by Ariel Gore (paranormal circus fiction) 217 pages. Source: Library Started: 6/28 Finished: 6/30
Why Read: This book was serialized by one of my e-mail book clubs. It's about a woman with stigmata in a traveling freak show. I've always been interested in stigmata as a religious phenomenon. I'm also interested in circuses and freak shows.
Comments: I was much more enamored with this book before Frankka left the freak show and went on what turned out to be a Catholic retreat. I had nothing against the retreat per se, but the plot came to a halt. I liked the author's style. There were a few good insights and some of the saints' stories were wonderful though decidely heretical. The reading group guide asks what we think of Frankka's ability to produce stigmata. The way it categorizes causes me to realize that Frankka was outside the usual categories. The book's concept is interesting, but my attention started wandering about 2/3 of the way through. So I'll give it a B-. This book is not recommended for traditional Catholics. It's probably five times more offensive to them than The Da Vinci Code.
So I read some amazing books and some not so amazing ones. I'm hoping that my library math becomes more favorable in July, so I some of my books can come out of the closet and be proud of being books. So far that hasn't happened.
Shomeret |
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