So... how was The Sapphires? (and other stuff)
So, as I was saying, I saw the film The Sapphires. It's not a great movie, but it is a likeable, good movie. Especially I liked... well, the thing I liked first was recognising things in it -- the shower-block with corrugated iron walls and the big shower rose felt really familiar, and I guess the light, and the layout of the country town. It looked so much like rural Australia, or the bottom right-hand quadrant of rural Australia, anyway. But that was just a personal response, the warmth of recognition and I guess identification, to some extent.
The film itself - yes, I liked that, too. I liked its warmth and good-heartedness, and of course its recognition of Aboriginal women's history, and the Cummeragunja community (yes, he's a bloke, not a woman, but it's his mother's country he's singing about. This old-timey singer died last year, the same year the film was released, and is ...ah me! much missed, including by people like me who never met him). I love Deborah Mailman, who plays the group member with the least impressive voice (you know the film's about an Aboriginal girl singing group who head off to Viet Nam in 1968, don't you?) and she gives a sterling performance in this. And I really like the actresses whose names I don't know, who play the older women in the community; they give a really terrific feel for life in an ex-mission community (and also in the city, a bit) in the 1950s and 1960s. It's not hyper historically accurate, the language is more 1990s than 1960s, the Viet Nam aspects aren't really well evoked, but... it's heartening, it's got gumption, it's upbeat, it's smart as a tack (Deborah Mailman!) if not true in every particular, it's true enough in the broad sweep of things, and it's just great to see a movie about (okay, a bit fictionalised) four real and gutsy women. :)
And then there's the other stuff I mentioned in the heading. In order:
1. My, but it's hard to restart a story that has been interrupted. :( Not that I've managed to restart it. Then there's the horrible part when I read things I wrote not all that long ago, and think despairingly "I wish I could write as well as that now". Does that happen to anyone else?
2. Did you see the story about prairie dog language? We are so close to recognising that animals think and feel. And when we do - oh, there should be huge changes!
3. Some months after beginning to use "being human" as a tag, meaning things I was writing about just people being people,and the human condition and .. that sort of thing...I discover there's a television series (two! UK and US) of that name. Apologies to anyone who was misled by the tag. :)
The film itself - yes, I liked that, too. I liked its warmth and good-heartedness, and of course its recognition of Aboriginal women's history, and the Cummeragunja community (yes, he's a bloke, not a woman, but it's his mother's country he's singing about. This old-timey singer died last year, the same year the film was released, and is ...ah me! much missed, including by people like me who never met him). I love Deborah Mailman, who plays the group member with the least impressive voice (you know the film's about an Aboriginal girl singing group who head off to Viet Nam in 1968, don't you?) and she gives a sterling performance in this. And I really like the actresses whose names I don't know, who play the older women in the community; they give a really terrific feel for life in an ex-mission community (and also in the city, a bit) in the 1950s and 1960s. It's not hyper historically accurate, the language is more 1990s than 1960s, the Viet Nam aspects aren't really well evoked, but... it's heartening, it's got gumption, it's upbeat, it's smart as a tack (Deborah Mailman!) if not true in every particular, it's true enough in the broad sweep of things, and it's just great to see a movie about (okay, a bit fictionalised) four real and gutsy women. :)
And then there's the other stuff I mentioned in the heading. In order:
1. My, but it's hard to restart a story that has been interrupted. :( Not that I've managed to restart it. Then there's the horrible part when I read things I wrote not all that long ago, and think despairingly "I wish I could write as well as that now". Does that happen to anyone else?
2. Did you see the story about prairie dog language? We are so close to recognising that animals think and feel. And when we do - oh, there should be huge changes!
3. Some months after beginning to use "being human" as a tag, meaning things I was writing about just people being people,and the human condition and .. that sort of thing...I discover there's a television series (two! UK and US) of that name. Apologies to anyone who was misled by the tag. :)