(no subject)
Last night (which was my birthday!), I saw We Were Children at the Vancouver International Film Festival. I can not find the words to describe just how amazing the movie was. Wow. Given the subject matter (First Nations children being taken from their homes and families and undergoing horrific abuse at the residential schools), it was a heartbreaking movie, but it was beautiful as well. It was an absolutely fantastic movie, and will probably get a lot of publicity and win several awards. Definitely one of the best movies I have ever seen. It was the world premiere of the movie, so there was a Q & A after the film with some of the film makers and Lyna Hart, one of the Survivors who told their story in the film.
I don't think I have ever cried while watching a movie or TV show, or reading a book, although I have come close, but after the film, when the film makers asked any Survivors who were in the audience to stand up, I teared up when there was one older woman who stood up at the back, and she looked so triumphant at having survived the atrocities forced upon her. I just couldn't help it.
Something that I have come to realize over the past couple of years is that a lot of Canadians are totally unaware of what happened to the First Nations people in Canada. While I may not know all the details (I was shocked to learn from the film that the last residential school closed in 1996), it's something that I've always known about, at least as a teen and adult (I can't remember that far back!). I have no idea where I learned it from--school? Newspapers? The news? (There wasn't the internet when I was a teenager.) But until recently, I totally thought it was something that Canadians knew about, just like everyone knows about slavery.
Anyway, if you ever get a chance to see this movie, see it!
On Sunday evening, I saw When the Bough Breaks, and OMG, what a fucking waste of time. My thoughts can be pretty much summed up as, "What is this, I don't even." The movie was two and a half hours long (why didn't I walk out when ants crawling around were filmed for 20 seconds?!), and nothing happened. Well, at least I don't think it did, because if something happened, I missed it.
The film was supposedly a documentary about a family living in poverty in China. Well, at least that's what the synopsis says. And yes, there was a family. And they were poor. And living in China. So I guess that's what the movie was about--I'll just go with that, because I don't have any other theories. There was a loose story line throughout, about trying to find enough money for the son's tuition, but even that was confusing. And I'm still not sure if the son went to the school or not--you never could understand what was happening (there was not one school scene, although I think the boy and one of his sisters may have moved out of the home for a while and lived in the city where the boy supposedly went to school). And then the movie abruptly (if you can really call two and a half hours "abrupt") ended with a scene of the two sisters walking in the snow. The movie seriously made no sense, and I swear there was a fourth, younger child at the beginning of the movie, who seemed to have disappeared halfway through.
I don't think I have ever cried while watching a movie or TV show, or reading a book, although I have come close, but after the film, when the film makers asked any Survivors who were in the audience to stand up, I teared up when there was one older woman who stood up at the back, and she looked so triumphant at having survived the atrocities forced upon her. I just couldn't help it.
Something that I have come to realize over the past couple of years is that a lot of Canadians are totally unaware of what happened to the First Nations people in Canada. While I may not know all the details (I was shocked to learn from the film that the last residential school closed in 1996), it's something that I've always known about, at least as a teen and adult (I can't remember that far back!). I have no idea where I learned it from--school? Newspapers? The news? (There wasn't the internet when I was a teenager.) But until recently, I totally thought it was something that Canadians knew about, just like everyone knows about slavery.
Anyway, if you ever get a chance to see this movie, see it!
On Sunday evening, I saw When the Bough Breaks, and OMG, what a fucking waste of time. My thoughts can be pretty much summed up as, "What is this, I don't even." The movie was two and a half hours long (why didn't I walk out when ants crawling around were filmed for 20 seconds?!), and nothing happened. Well, at least I don't think it did, because if something happened, I missed it.
The film was supposedly a documentary about a family living in poverty in China. Well, at least that's what the synopsis says. And yes, there was a family. And they were poor. And living in China. So I guess that's what the movie was about--I'll just go with that, because I don't have any other theories. There was a loose story line throughout, about trying to find enough money for the son's tuition, but even that was confusing. And I'm still not sure if the son went to the school or not--you never could understand what was happening (there was not one school scene, although I think the boy and one of his sisters may have moved out of the home for a while and lived in the city where the boy supposedly went to school). And then the movie abruptly (if you can really call two and a half hours "abrupt") ended with a scene of the two sisters walking in the snow. The movie seriously made no sense, and I swear there was a fourth, younger child at the beginning of the movie, who seemed to have disappeared halfway through.