The Return of Navajo Boy

“The Return of Navajo Boy” [dvd; 2000]

I love how the desert presents itself as one thing but, if you come closer, it can open again and again until you understand that the first view is only a façade and that so much more remains hidden than is ever revealed. At first “The Return of the Navajo Boy” appears to be about what it means to the Cly family to have a silent film, “The Navajo Boy,” brought to them by the son of the Anglo filmmaker. Elsie Mae, the oldest living member of the Cly family, once again sees her grandparents, her father, her mother, and her baby brother who was taken by Christian missionaries. For Elsie Mae, the film is a way to show younger family members their history and traditions. It also contains a healing ceremony for Elsie Mae’s mother who died of lung cancer, one of the diseases that plague this part of Utah's Monument Valley. Thus, for Elsie Mae’s brother Bernie, the film becomes part of a strategy to organize and pressure the government to make just compensation for uranium mining which continues to poison the area’s water and land. Footage from an insufferably smug and patronizing Kerr-Magee promotional film highlights the environmental racism that is far from limited to the heyday of the mines. Then the story twists again and one more layer is revealed as the fate of the lost baby brother is discovered.

[Gem rating: banded onyx, turquoise and obsidian]

Burnt Oranges

“Burnt Oranges” [dvd; 2005]

The flavor of a burnt orange is smoky and bittersweet, and so is this invitation to share the sensual, nurturing experience of a journey home to Argentina. Still, we are reminded early in "Burnt Oranges" that there is a distinction between “what we remember and what cannot be forgotten.” Poetic narrative, written by Monica Flores Correa and spoken by Silvia Malagrino, structures the film and is based on letters by the two friends who fled their country at different times. Precise, wistful and nostalgic, the narrator hopes to find the Buenos Aires of her past and understands that we are all exiles from the homeland of memory, but her evocation of exile is more than simple sentiment. Malagrino left at a time when countless other Argentineans were being disappeared during the “Dirty War,” and the journey to reclaim her past becomes part of Argentina’s journey to find the Disappeared. Up to 30,000 people were killed by the military regime that came to power in 1976.

At the heart of "Burnt Oranges," we find the Mothers of the Disappeared, the women who refused to deny that their children were missing. When no one else could resist the regime, they came together in Buenos Aires’ Plaza de Mayo and marched to demand the truth from their government. I cannot say enough about them, these ordinary women who showed extraordinary love, courage, strength, and resolve. Through these women, the film takes us to the profoundest truth of memory: the Disappeared never ceased to be present. The Mothers came together and reached through their common loss to give their vanished children new life and meaning, and to wrench a precious serenity from unimaginable pain.

Deftly weaving image and music to narrative, editor Sharon Karp engages us emotionally and visually in Malagrino’s journey home. When the camera rises from the streets of Buenos Aires to the sky, the sun itself echoes the central image of the film. "Burnt Oranges" extends the documentary genre to explore the dimensions of truth, memory and love, and the relationship of these to sanity and resolve. If the true work of history is to construct memory that can resist the coercion to erase the past, this film performs superbly. [edited by author]

[Gem rating: moonstone with emerald]

Grbavica: The Land of My Dreams

“Grbavica: The Land of My Dreams” [dvd; 2006] The film begins with the camera showing faces in a group of women listening to one of them tell her story of the Bosnian war. The legacy of war is the theme of this movie and at its heart is Esma and her teenage daughter, Sara. Their relationship contends with all the usual tensions that beset a teenager and a single mother, but there is a further complication. Sara believes her father is a “shahid,” a war hero who died defending Sarajevo, but in fact, Esma became pregnant in a Chetnik rape camp. Mirjana Karanovic as Esma and Luna Mijovic as Sara are spellbinding as they struggle to hold on to the love that connects them. In a time when the necessity for historical truth defies hopes of reconciliation with heartbreaking frequency, this film reveals the dilemma at an excruciatingly intimate level.

[Gem rating: fire agate]

The Story of the Weeping Camel

“The Story of the Weeping Camel” [dvd; 2003] is for people who like animal stories and faraway places. Nominated for an Oscar, this documentary shows the dilemma of a nomad Mongolian family whose Bactrian camel rejects her newborn. The film offers a view of the daily life of a contemporary culture with roots still nourished by a deeper source. When the camel colt visibly begins to weaken after its mother thwarts all the attempts to make her accept and feed the baby, the herders try one last method, music. The improbable - to a Western mindset - solution is quite wonderful and soul nurturing to see.

[Gem rating: dark pink tourmaline]

Greetings, Earthlings.

This is the first post.

7/12/2010