I'm sick. I'm pouting. And what I do when I'm sick and pouting is curl up in my rocking chair with a cup of soup, my knitting, and either a book or a stack of movies. This past week or so, it was movies - some of which even had redeeming social value. Check these out, if you get a chance.
Land of the Blind is a satire about terrorism and revolution, set in a military prison. It's hard to avoid parallels with our current political situation -although I suppose we weren't meant to avoid them. This movie is too hard for when you're sick, just for the record, but definitely bears watching. If people actually see it, it's going to unleash a hailstorm of critique. And it has Ralph Fiennes, so... there's that.
Amu features a young Indian-American returning to foreign-to-her India. There she confronts the truth that her privileged life in the US stems from the Hindu-Sikh violence that erupted after Gandhi was assassinated in 1984.
Divorce Iranian Style is tragic and hilarious at the same time. It's a look into divorce court in a culture where women have no voice and the lengths the women go to to make the system almost work for them. Watch it and see if you think it's pulling on the old movie Divorce Italian Style with Marcello Mastroianni.
The Girl in the Cafe is the weakest of the four films, I thought, but the easiest to obtain commercially. And really, it's quite good. It explores two things I care about a great deal -the power of a comparatively powerless person to make big changes in the world and the role of international aid agencies in generating substantive change. Bill Nighy is quite charming in this one.
Next up in my mental queue: Dreaming Lhasa, Eat the kimono, and Hidden Faces.
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