ART SUNDAY - ARTHUR BOYD

“Once people come to Australia, they join the team.” - Tony Abbott 

Arthur Merric Bloomfield Boyd AC OBE (24 July 1920 – 24 April 1999) was a leading Australian painter of the late 20th century. Boyd’s work ranges from impressionist renderings of Australian landscape to starkly expressionist figuration, and many canvases feature both. Several famous works set Biblical stories against the Australian landscape, such as “The Expulsion”, now at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Having a strong social conscience, Boyd’s work deals with humanitarian issues and universal themes of love, loss and shame. For example his “brides” series of paintings examine the issues of race and race relations, what it means to “Australian” and the prejudices of whites directed against blacks and half-castes. Boyd was a member of the Antipodeans, a group of Melbourne painters that also included Clifton Pugh, David Boyd, John Brack, Robert Dickerson, John Perceval and Charles Blackman.

The Boyd family artistic dynasty includes painters, sculptors, architects and other arts professionals, commencing with Boyd’s grandfather Arthur Merric Boyd, Boyd’s father Merric and mother Doris, uncles Penleigh Boyd and Martin Boyd, and brothers Guy and David. Mary Boyd, his sister and also a painter, married first John Perceval, and then later Sidney Nolan, both artists. Boyd's wife, Yvonne Boyd (née Lennie) is also a painter; as are their children Jamie, Polly, and Lucy.

In 1993, Arthur and Yvonne Boyd gave family properties comprising 1,100 hectares (2,700 acres) at Bundanon on the Shoalhaven River to the people of Australia. Held in trust, Boyd later donated further property, artwork, and the copyright to all of his work. The ‘Shoalhaven’ series of Boyd’s painting are iconic of the spirit of Australian landscape.

Boyd was a master at manipulating elements to express himself. He developed new techniques when he was still a teenager and later changed technique depending on his preferred style, media, location and what he was depicting. He would often use loose strokes of thickly coated brushes. He applied paint with his fingers and palm because it is quicker, while the body contact directly connected him with the painting. He believed this allowed for a greater sense of freedom and pleasure from the act of painting. His canvases often show this dynamism and testify to the involvement of the artist with his work with his body and soul.

The Bride series has rightfully earned a canonical place in Australian art history, due to its powerful pictorialisation of issues of social justice, rendered in a poetic style that blends figuration with an abstracted surrealism. It has been suggested that “The Bride series constitutes, together with Nolan’s two series on Burke and Wills and Ned Kelly, the most powerful visual images to emerge from Australian painting... in this century.” (U Hoff, The Art of Arthur BOYD, London, 1986, p.22.).

The original title of the series was “Love, Marriage and Death of a Half-Caste”, a title that was deliberately ambiguous. Rather than presenting a simplistic symbolism of a longed for union between white and black Australia, Boyd avoided a reductive simplification of the racial issues by making both the bride and bridegroom half-caste. The complexity of the narrative relations was deepened by the doubling of the bride figure in the form of an impossible phantom bride, who is the object of a dream-like desire that is destined to remain forever unfulfilled. Through the cycle of missed gazes that is the emotional core of this painting, Boyd evoked unfulfilled longing and a sense of isolation within the compositional embrace of the figures, in the process transposing contemporary social issues into poetic and painterly allegory.

The central theme of the Bride paintings is the dream of integration through love, an ideal which is stripped of its romanticism by the culture of racism and violence that is the fundamental reason preventing the lovers from union. Boyd first became aware of the plight of the indigenous Australians when he visited the Simpson Desert in Central Australia in 1951.

MY HUMAN FAMILY

“Tolerance is giving to every other human being every right that you claim for yourself.” - RobertGreen Ingersoll

I was amazed today while talking to an acquaintance to hear him spout forth some extremely vituperative racist comments while discussing the Middle East. This fellow, whom I know through another mutual acquaintance, had up until yesterday seemed rather pleasant and reasonable, but once this topic was broached, his prejudice coloured his every word and it was immediately obvious that his opinion was very strong, his facts minimal. My feelings were of immediate revulsion and the conversation stopped rather abruptly as he got on his soapbox and started lecturing me about the inherent inferiority of some people and the superiority of others…

Experience has shown me that trying to reason with such people is an absolute waste of time as logic, reason and facts are not heeded by them. Arnold H. Glasow states with good reason: “The fewer the facts, the stronger the opinion.” Not that any discussion was even allowed by my interlocutor. He ploughed on regardless, not interested in what my thoughts were, or even pausing to allow me to attempt to answer some of his questions, which proved to be rhetorical. A Hebrew proverb states: “Opinions founded on prejudice are always sustained with the greatest violence”, and his vehemence attested to this. I was in the fortunate situation of being able to make up my mind about him very quickly after this and he has been shed from my circle of contacts. His kind generates a feeling of distaste and his company will from now on be shunned.

Growing up in Australia in the 1970s as person of non-Anglosaxon background, I was able to experience the full brunt of prejudice in my school years. Children are often the cruellest adherents of such a mindset and of course the feeling of belonging to a group, the concept of “us and them” is very strongly ingrained in their mind. These were the days before multiculturalism, and being in a small country town where I was the only “different” one in the class made me an easy target. I learnt the hard way to defend myself, my heritage and my origins. I proved with deeds not words that I was equal or superior to my peers and over time, I was slowly accepted by them. However, it was not an easy journey and the most deplorable  thing on reflection was that the attitude of my schoolmates was also shared by some of my teachers. Not openly, of course, but on analysis it is apparent that their behaviour at the time could only have been motivated by such discrimination.

Often, of course, a neutral attitude and a failure to speak out, to raise one’s voice in opposition is as bad as being openly prejudiced, or even worse. At least if I encounter a racist who makes his views perfectly obvious, it is preferable to me than someone who says nothing leaving me in doubt as to where his allegiances lie. Martin Niemöller has to say the following about the matter: “In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they went after the homosexuals and infirm, and I did not stand up, because I was neither. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Finally they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up for me.”

All of us on this earth are all connected to each other by our humanity. There are more things that join us than things that separate us. Whether a Pacific Islander on some remote atoll or a banker in New York City, a housewife in India or a career woman in Germany, a Chinese government official or an African village dweller, a Saudi Arabian sheikh or a homeless Australian living in the streets of Sydney, all of us share too many things to allow religion, nationality, political allegiance, language, status or wealth to act as barriers. We all belong to the human family and if any two people from any place on earth are left on a desert island together they will discover innumerable commonalities as they try to cope with the basics of survival and peaceful coexistence.

My family is the human family, my home is the planet earth, my religion is respect and tolerance for all and my politics are coloured by social equity, racial equality and regard for all my fellow humans. My human family is one composed of billions of individuals, all of us different and varied, but so very similar to one another at the same time. We all have the same hopes and dreams and aspirations. Similar things give us pleasure and pain. We laugh and cry and experience the same range of other emotions as the other. William Allen White encapsulates all of this so aptly: “If each man or woman could understand that every other human life is as full of sorrows, or joys, or base temptations, of heartaches and of remorse as his own… how much kinder, how much gentler he would be.”

MOVIE MONDAY - DJANGO UNCHAINED

“You don’t fight racism with racism, the best way to fight racism is with solidarity.” - Bobby Seale
 
Quentin Jerome Tarantino (born March 27, 1963) is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, and actor. His films have been characterised by nonlinear storylines, satirical subject matter, and an aestheticisation of violence that often results in the exhibition of neo-noir characteristics. Tarantino has been dubbed a “director DJ”, comparing his stylistic use of mix-and-match genre and music infusion to the use of sampling in DJ exhibits, morphing a variety of old works to create a new one.
 
Tarantino grew up an avid film fan and worked in a video rental store while training to act. His career began in the late 1980s, when he wrote and directed “My Best Friend’s Birthday”, the screenplay of which formed the basis for “True Romance”. In the early 1990s, he began his career as an independent filmmaker with the release of “Reservoir Dogs” in 1992; regarded as a classic and cult hit, it was called the ‘Greatest Independent Film of All Time’ by Empire magazine. Its popularity was boosted by the release of his second film, 1994's “Pulp Fiction”, a neo-noir crime film that became a major critical and commercial success, widely regarded as one of the greatest films of all time. Paying homage to 1970s blaxploitation films, Tarantino released “Jackie Brown” in 1997, an adaptation of the novel “Rum Punch”.
 
Tarantino’s films have gained both critical and commercial success. He has received many industry awards, including two Academy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, two BAFTA Awards, the Palme d’ Or, has been nominated for an Emmy and a Grammy, and has been named one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World by Time Magazine in 2005. Filmmaker and historian Peter Bogdanovich has called him “…the single most influential director of his generation”.
 
Last weekend we watched Tarantino’s 2012 “Django Unchained”, starring  Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz and Leonardo DiCaprio. This is an offbeat “Western”, set in the Deep South, two years before the American Civil War. This gives Tarantino ample scope for making a brutal, bloody, terrifying, hilarious and awe-inspiring film masquerading as a buddy movie. Akin to “spaghetti Westerns” this movie is a “gumbo Southern”.
 
The first half of the film takes place on the road from Texas to Mississippi as bounty hunting dentist Dr. King Schultz (Waltz) recruits a slave named Django (Foxx) to help him find three outlaw brothers known by appearance to Django alone. After Django helps Schultz with his job, it’s time for the doctor to aid his partner to rescue Django’s wife Broomhilda, who resides at “Candyland”, an antebellum plantation run by the sinister and sadistic Calvin Candie (DiCaprio).
 
The film is excessive on all counts and there are points of awkward humour, lots of bloody, gory violence and much pandering to populist racist/anti-racist sentiment. At 165 minutes, it is a long and meandering film, yet it has its moments and it does manage to keep interest up through a number of devices – plot twists, violence, character surprises, oddball humour, violence, playing on our expectations and did I mention violence? The movie is a western, a drama, a tragedy, a comedy, an action, a thriller, a parody, an anti-racist paean, and in its heart a romance as well. Typical Tarantino, with a cherry on top.
 
Not surprisingly, the film has polarised viewers. We saw it and were engaged by it, although some scenes were quite horrific and did not please us at all. If you can’t stomach violence this film is not for you. The idea behind the film was interesting and Tarantino’s screenplay showed originality – in answer to his critics perhaps, that his movies are derivative and a rehash of old ideas in new garb. The film is not in the best of taste, but somehow engages and the viewer watches helplessly. I am loth to recommend it, and yet will do so – watch it if you have a strong stomach and can cope with strong themes and colourful language.

VALE, NELSON MANDELA

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.” - Nelson Mandela
 

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African anti-apartheid revolutionary who was imprisoned and then became a politician and philanthropist who served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. He was the first black South African to hold the office, and the first elected in a fully representative election.
 

His government focussed on dismantling the legacy of apartheid through tackling institutionalised racism, poverty and inequality, and fostering racial reconciliation. Politically an African nationalist and democratic socialist, he served as the President of the African National Congress (ANC) from 1991 to 1997. Internationally, Mandela was the Secretary General of the Non-Aligned Movement from 1998 to 1999.
 

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate was one of the world’s most revered statesmen after preaching reconciliation despite being imprisoned for 27 years. He had rarely been seen in public since officially retiring in 2004. He made his last public appearance in 2010, at the football World Cup in South Africa. Mandela had been receiving intensive medical care at home for a lung infection after spending three months in hospital.
 

Mandela was an inspiration not only for the people of South Africa but for everyone around the world who believed in race equality, freedom and fair treatment of all people. His life was a shining example of how a single individual can change the course of history and positively affect the lives of millions. A sad day for the world, but also a day for celebrating his many achievements.
 

Many South Africans, who love Nelson Mandela like a father, say that their grief was tinged with uncertainty, and some fear over what their future holds without him.

Vale, Nelson Mandela

MOVIE MONDAY - THE HELP

“I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.” - Martin Luther King, Jr.

At the weekend we watched the 2011 Tate Taylor movie “The Help”, starring Emma Stone, Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer and Bryce Dallas Howard. It was based on the novel by Kathryn Stockett, with a screenplay by the film’s director, Tate Taylor. The film was excellent and despite its 146 minute run-time it kept us engaged and entertained the whole time we were watching it. It has its mix of pathos and humour, light-heartedness and poignancy, sadness and happiness. Not having read the novel, this review is limited to the movie, which we thoroughly enjoyed.

The plot is set in Jackson, Mississippi, during the tumultuous 1960s, when civil rights had become a burgeoning issue in the USA. Skeeter (Stone) is a southern society girl who returns from “Ole Miss” determined to become a writer, and begins by getting a job as a newspaper’s household hint columnist, a topic she knows nothing about. As she turns to the black housemaids for advice, she decides to interview these black women who have spent their lives taking care of the well-to-do southern families. Aibileen (Davis), Skeeter’s best friend’s housekeeper, is the first to talk to Skeeter. This causes the dismay of Aibelene’s friends in the black community who are suspicious of Skeeter’s motives and afraid of repercussions. Skeeter places her childhood friendships on the line when she and Aibileen continue their collaboration. Several deplorable incidents involving the humiliation and victimisation of the black maids, cause more of them to come forward to tell their amazing and sad stories. Along the way, new alliances are made, old friendships are reviewed and new friendships forged.

This movie is a good example of how well a Hollywood movie can be made about an issue that is sensitive, controversial and quite thorny. It confronts and challenges the viewer, but at the same time it uses humour subtly, in order to relentlessly satirise and ridicule attitudes that caused so much misery and despair in the lives of so many people at those times. The humour is often scatological, but there is a good reason for this, given the whole issue regarding the use of separate toilets by the black and white people in the same households, which was quite a widely debated topic at that time and place.

The acting is excellent and Viola Davis shines forth in a magnificent performance as Aibeleen, the black maid. Octavia Spencer as Minny, another black maid, provides the right mix of humour and bravura, while Emma Stone, as Skeeter, puts in a good performance in what is a difficult role, one that could easily be sugar-coated. However, Stone’s performance is genuine and sensitive. Bryce Dallas Howard is great in her rendition of Hilly Holbrook, a social shark, displaying her full glory of ignorance, entitlement and superiority. Her minions and followers emulate her moves and adopt her views, hoping to gain her approval. The cinematography, costumes, hair and make-up are perfect in setting up the class differences and taking us back in time very successfully. The incidental TV and radio segments provide context and timing with the deaths of Medger Evers and JFK.

This is a film worth watching and it certainly motivated us to look for the book in order to read it.

MOVIE MONDAY - FREEDOM WRITERS

“More important than the curriculum is the question of the methods of teaching and the spirit in which the teaching is given” - Bertrand Russell

Novels and movies based on real stories seem to hold a fascination for people and they are quite likely to capture the imagination and generate interest, especially if they are stories that concern special people displaying courage and determination. We watched such a film at the weekend and it was just so: Engaging and involving, well-made and acted, and of course interesting because it was base a true story. The film was Richard LaGravenese’s 2007 “Freedom Writers” , starring Hilary Swank, Imelda Staunton, Patrick Dempsey, Scott Glenn and April L. Hernandez. It is based on the book “The Freedom Writers Diary” by teacher Erin Gruwell who wrote the story based on Woodrow Wilson Classical High School in Long Beach, California. The title is a play on the term “Freedom Riders”, referring to the multiracial civil rights activists who tested the U.S. Supreme Court decision ordering the desegregation of interstate buses in 1961.

“Freedom Writers” received mostly positive reviews from critics. It is a frank, albeit formulaic entry in the inspirational, inner-city teacher genre. Although the actors are too old to play high school students, and the pacing slow at times, overall the film works and argues for listening to teenagers. Hillary Swank gives an energetic, well-thought out performance and her interaction with the cast of young, unknowns that play the students is good. She seems believable as the dedicated, idealistic teacher who is not afraid to fight for what she believes in. Patrick Dempsey playing her husband tried to work with his short, almost cameo role, but he comes out as a little two-dimensional – after all this is not his story. Imelda Staunton playing the older and rather conservative teacher at odds with Erin Gruwell, plays her role well, although she comes out as a tad too intense at times. A good performance was put in by Scott Glenn, playing Erin’s father, but most impressive perhaps were the young students, led by April L. Hernandez who all put in excellent performances.

In a nutshell, the plot set in 1994 in Long Beach, California, concerns a young and idealistic teacher, Erin Gruwell, who is just starting out on her first teaching job. She will teach freshman and sophomore English classes at Woodrow Wilson High School, which, two years earlier, implemented a voluntary integration program. Many of the existing teachers are of the opinion that integration has ruined the school, whose previously stellar academic standing has been diminished, its good middle class white students largely replaced by students belonging to minority groups who will be lucky to graduate or even to be literate. Erin is unprepared for the difficulties she faces in her classroom, whose students live by generations of strict moral codes of protecting their own at all cost. Many are in gangs and almost all know somebody that has been killed by gang violence. The Latinos hate the Cambodians who hate the blacks and so on. However, they all seem united in hating Ms Gruwell. The movie centres on the building of bridges and establishing relationships that transcend social class and race.

We enjoyed the film even though it was at times raw and challenging, sometimes violent and confronting. Even though formulaic, the formula works because it represents reality and it describes a story that changed the lives of some people that would otherwise have been confined to illiteracy, violence or even an untimely death. Some of the stories of the individual students that are depicted are poignant and very sad, their young lives already scarred by hostility, brutality and savage cruelty. Erin Gruwell’s success comes from the fact that she managed to awaken within these students the ability to see the world differently through reading and writing. She captured the imagination of these students by getting them to realise their potential and by making them aware of situations that stir their consciousness and sympathies: The holocaust and Anne Frank; the race riots in the USA, the reality of gang violence and its consequences, which they all know first hand.

We recommend this film for viewing, although it can be quite challenging and sometimes even depressing. However, it paints a compelling picture of contemporary issues and shows that there are solutions possible, even to those problems that are often classified as “insoluble”.

DAY FOR TOLERANCE 2011

“I have learned silence from the talkative, tolerance from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strangely, I am ungrateful to these teachers” - Kahlil Gibran

Today we celebrate the International Day for Tolerance, which was created by Resolution 51/95, where the UN General Assembly invited Member States to observe the Day on November 16th each year. Activities are planned, which are directed towards educational institutions and the broader public. The day was created to provide an opportunity for everyone within the global community to rededicate their commitment to and responsibility in encouraging tolerance, respect, and cooperation among different cultures and people.

Tolerance is to deliberately allow to occur something of which one disapproves, such as social, ethnic, sexual, or religious practices. It means that we may not agree or like what we are allowing to happen, but we are willing to accept the differences between ourselves and others who are different from us. This attitude is especially important on the social level, allowing us to live our life free from racial and ethnic prejudice, embracing the willingness to live and let live non-judgmentally. Tolerance of course, does not refer to condoning illegal activities or allowing acts to occur that will physically harm individuals or psychologically damage them.

Tolerance is something that many people find hard to practise and even the most liberal and tolerant amongst us may occasionally catch ourselves lapsing into an attitude that reeks of some deep-seated prejudice that we may have long-battled to eradicate from within ourselves. Such is the nature of humans, the “us and them” mentality. This harks back to our caveman roots and the battle of survival where one had to stick together within one’s clan and protect the interests of the tribe, as this equated with survival. We have since become civilised but the caveman within still manages to overcome our refined, polished and über-socialised selves.

Religious intolerance is one of the prime causes of worldwide hostility. It is unfortunate that religious feeling, which deals with the higher spiritual matters is responsible for the blood-letting and the destruction that still occurs on a massive scale around the planet. Racism is another cause of widespread hatred and the pages of history are full of the blood stains of the various types of racial and ethnic cleansing that intolerance begets. And of course there are many other causes for intolerance, sexual, gender-based, social, political, intellectual and more…

On days like today we can reflect on how we can best create a society where there is a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward opinions and practices that differ from our own. Our differences make us stronger and more adaptable, better able to embroider fully and colourfully our social fabric. It is important for each of us to think about how we can use our differences as invitations rather than barriers. As the Day of Tolerance comes to a close, we should be able to think back and be satisfied that we have done something to open a channel of communication with someone from a culture or background other than our own. If we didn’t do anything today, what can we do tomorrow?

Tolerance is the foundation for mutual respect among people and communities, and is vital for building a single global society around shared values. It is a virtue and a quality, it is a way of life, it is a virtuous path, but above all, tolerance is an act – the act of reaching out to others and seeing differences not as barriers, but as invitations for dialogue and understanding.

7 SECONDS

“The African race is a rubber ball. The harder you dash it to the ground, the higher it will rise.” - African Proverb

Today was a lazy day. It’s nice to have lazy days once in a while. Sleeping in, having a leisurely breakfast, then enjoying the morning by taking a walk in the garden, smelling the late summer roses, the flowering ginger, the four-o’clocks, the jasmine and the carnations. Revelling in the colour of the orange zinnias, the yellow and brown marigolds, the scarlet salvias, the pink cosmos. Looking at the green growing things and listening to music playing on the radio and happy to be alive, and being grateful for such pleasures. We said we’d go out shopping, but we ended up staying in, relaxing, taking it easy and having a wonderful lazy day…

Tonight, a hit song from 1994, composed by Youssou N’Dour, Neneh Cherry, Cameron McVey and Jonathan Sharp. It was released as a single by Youssou N'Dour and Neneh Cherry, the song and remained on the charts for nearly half a year. It reached the top three in many countries, including the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Australia, Russia and Poland. The single stayed at the top spot for 16 consecutive weeks on the French Singles Chart, which was the record of the most weeks at the top at the time. Its title “7 Seconds” refers to the critical time after a baby’s birth, essential for its survival and it packs a strong anti-racism message.

MOVIE MONDAY - CHILDREN OF MEN

“Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see.” - Neil Postman

On Saturday night before my trip we got a chance to see a very good movie, which was quite powerful and confronting, but also hopeful in an understated way. It was Alfonso Cuarón’s 2006 film “Children of Men”. It was a stark, violent, harrowing science fiction story of a near-future dystopia, set in a post-apocalyptic England where the future is not so bright nor the world so brave and new.

The movie is set in 2027 AD, where because of an unexplainable, world-wide infertility epidemic, no child has been born for 18 years. Scientists are at loss to explain the reason and the population is gritting its teeth to cope with the mass desperation that this grim reality engenders. African and East European societies collapse and their dwindling populations migrate to England and other wealthy nations around the world in order to survive. In a climate of nationalistic violence and racial hatred, Theo Faron a London peace activist (now turned bureaucrat), joins forces with his revolutionary ex-wife Julian in order to save mankind by protecting a woman who has mysteriously become pregnant.

It is a film that actively questions our present society, its values and morals, its intolerance and lack of understanding. It looks at the problem of refugees, both political and economic, and the violence that can be generated in the wake of renascent nationalism, which is blighting many parts of the world nowadays. These problems are put into context and are given their relative importance by the hypothetical situation: “What if there were no more children born any more?” From this perspective, the other issues covered by the film become almost irrelevant as humanity is confronted with the grim reality of its own extinction – not with a bang but with a whimper…

I found the film especially poignant given the large number of stories that are regularly being aired now of babies killed, abandoned or thrown in the rubbish. The latest example was that of woman who gave birth in the toilet of an aeroplane, disposed of the newborn in the toilet rubbish bin and returned to her seat as though nothing had happened. Fortunately, the baby was saved but this action (whatever its motive) highlights our society’s ills on a fundamental level. The preciousness and sanctity of human life that is immediately obvious when one holds a newborn baby in one’s arms should inspire awe and humility. The film underscores this core idea of humanity that should be inherent in all of us. The disposal of unwanted babies is contrasted with the situation illustrated where no babies are born worldwide and the immense consequences for humanity that this has.

A particularly gripping scene that drove home the message particularly violently was one where the main characters wander into an abandoned primary school, which has become deserted, dirty, unkempt. Vestiges of children’s presence are seen in a few faded and torn drawings, abandoned stuffed toys thrown on heaps of rubbish and rusty playground equipment. “What if there were no more children?” the scene asks and one sees degeneration, decay, extinction.

On the flip side of this is the attendant misfortune of an ageing population and increasing number of elderly people who more than the few young ones see the world without children through eyes that were used to having babies and children around them all the time. People who should have been parents and grandparents see the world change for the worse, consumed by violence and anarchy and there is no hope of a better life, no salvation.

The acting was excellent, with Michael Caine taking great relish in his role as a marijuana-growing senior citizen looking after his invalid wife. Julieanne Moore has a small role, which she plays well, but the honours go to Clive Owen as the reluctant hero Theo Faron. Kee, the young pregnant woman is played ingenuously by Clare-Hope Ashitey and there are some good cameo performances by a variety of character actors. The cinematography is well done and the secondary theme of pollution and environmental despoliation is brought out in all of its awesome dread.

An excellent film, although full of violence and images that may shock some people, I recommend it most highly as a movie that will make the viewer think and ruminate upon many of the current issues that plague our society this day and age. The movie is based on the 1992 novel by P.D. James, and although the film is an adapted version, it is said to have pleased the author.

SOUTH AFRICA

“I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.” - Martin Luther King, Jr

The World Soccer Cup in South Africa has given the world the opportunity to glimpse the changed society of post-apartheid South Africa. I visited South Africa in the late 1990s when apartheid was still fresh and the bad memories still fresh. It was a revelation and I met some of the most amazing people I had met until then. It was a country that still displayed its scars but there was such a feeling of hope and optimism in the air that it was difficult not to be overtaken by it. Walking in Soweto and talking to the people was a revelation. Seeing faces full of dreams, confidence, dignity and positivity was a joyous thing.

Now that apartheid is well and truly over and the South African people have been allowed to fulfil their destiny, the celebration of the Soccer World Cup is a way of showing the world how their nation is capable of great things. The magnificent Soccer City stadium in Soweto in Johannesburg, with a design inspired by traditional African pottery and a capacity for 104,000 fans is a showcase of this country’s confidence and optimism for the future. A way of showing the world that the new climate of multiculturalism and equality will allow the country to move forward and upward.

Apartheid in South Africa was a system of legal social segregation that was enforced by the white National Party government of South Africa between 1948 and 1994. This was a shocking situation where the rights of the majority non-white people were curtailed and minority rule by the whites was maintained. Many basic human rights of the non-whites were ignored or actively suppressed and the rule was one of tyranny and repression, with non-whites victimised, disadvantaged, underprivileged, powerless, abused and maltreated.

June 16th has been observed as the International Day of Solidarity with the Struggling People of South Africa. This date was chosen to commemorate the massacre in Soweto on June 16th 1976, when hundreds of unarmed school children were brutalised and killed by the police as they demonstrated against the imposition of the Afrikaans language and the Bantu system of Education. The Soweto Uprising was a turning point in the liberation struggle in South Africa. Prior to this event, the liberation struggle was being fought outside of South Africa, mostly in Rhodesia (later Zimbabwe), South West Africa (later Namibia) and Angola. But from this moment onwards, the struggle became internal and the government security forces were split between external operations and internal operations.

For the state, the Soweto Uprising marked the most fundamental challenge yet to apartheid and the economic and political instability it caused was heightened by the strengthening international boycott. It was a further 14 years before Nelson Mandela was released, but at no point was the state able to restore the relative peace and social stability of the early 1970s as black resistance grew. Many white South African citizens were outraged at the government's actions in Soweto, and about 300 white students from the University of the Witwatersrand marched through Johannesburg’s city centre in protest of the killing of children. Black workers went on strike as well and joined them as the campaign progressed. Riots also broke out in the black townships of other cities in South Africa. Most of the bloodshed had abated by the close of 1976, but by that time the death toll stood at more than 600.

Fitting for this day, a poem by Maya Angelou, born 1928, an author, poet and an active campaigner for human rights and racial equality.

Still I Rise

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

Maya Angelou

AFRICAN LIBERATION DAY

“We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers. Our abundance has brought us neither peace of mind nor serenity of spirit.” - Martin Luther King, Jr.

African Liberation Day is celebrated on May 25th every year and on this day, many countries in Africa celebrate the hard-fought achievements of their freedom from European colonial powers. Many African countries and African communities around the world play an active role in organising events and celebrating African Liberation Day. Ghana, Kenya, Spain, Tanzania, the United Kingdom, and the United States are all involved in maintaining the momentum of this commemorative day. In Ghana, May 25th is a public holiday. Various activities organised include formal gatherings with panel discussions, street marches, speeches by political and social leaders, rallies featuring cultural entertainment, poetry, and speakers.

The special connection with Ghana is that in 1957 Ghana was the first African country south of the Sahara to secure independence from colonial rule. The newly independent nation took its name from an empire that flourished near that region between the 4th and 10th centuries. African Freedom Day was founded during the first Conference of Independent African States, which attracted African leaders and political activists from various African countries, in Ghana on April 15, 1958. Government representatives from eight independent African states attended the conference, which was the first Pan-African conference in the continent. The purpose of the day was to annually mark the liberation movement’s progress and to symbolise the determination of the people of Africa to free themselves from foreign domination and exploitation.

Between 1958 and 1963 the struggle for independence in Africa grew bigger and there was much support and activism not only in Africa, but also around the world. During this period, 17 countries in Africa won their independence and 1960 was proclaimed the Year of Africa. On May 25, 1963, 31 African leaders convened a summit meeting to found the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). They renamed Africa Freedom Day as “African Liberation Day” and changed its date to May 25. The founding date of the OAU is also referred to as “Africa Day”. African Liberation Day has helped to raise political awareness in African communities across the world. It has also been a source of information about the struggles for liberation and development.

An outline of the map of Africa, or the shape of Africa, is often used as a symbol for the day. Pan-African colors, may also be used for the day, and come in different sets of three colours. For example, the green, gold, and red colors used in the flag of Ghana or the red, black, and green colors adopted by the American-based Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA)

After about 500 years of the most brutal suffering known to humanity, the enslavement of Africa and the subsequent trade in human souls, which cost Africa in excess of 100,000,000 of her children, the masses of African People in the 1950s and 1960s finally were able to shout with a single voice: “Enough! Let us be free and able to shape our own destiny.” The bell of freedom that rang then, still reverberates and fills Africans everywhere with pride, determination and renewed energy for continuing to fight for what is their birthright: Freedom, dignity, self-determination, prosperity and

Happy African Liberation Day to all Africans all over the world!

AVATAR POLITICS

“All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.” – George Orwell

For Movie Monday today I’ll first talk about politics. Totalitarian democracy is a term made famous by Israeli historian J.L. Talmon to refer to a system of government where lawfully elected representatives maintain the integrity of a nation whose citizens, while granted the right to vote, have little or no participation in the decision-making process of the government. For example, the type of government that USA, or Australia or the UK have. This is in opposition to a direct democracy where the people participate directly in the decision making on a regular basis. Examples of this include Switzerland, where five million voters decide on national referenda and initiatives two to four times a year; with direct democratic instruments are also well established at the cantonal and communal level.

The “democracy” that most nations operate under is a representative democracy that if carefully administered attempts to take into consideration the will of the people as much as possible and reach decisions that please most (a consensus democracy), such as we have in Sweden, for example. Or if powerful factions begin to take control of government, the system becomes more of a totalitarian democracy, as happens in some countries where capitalism is rampant and a rich and powerful aristocracy move the strings and the puppet government moves. The people are placated by lip-service elections and much rhetoric about liberty and equality, while a small minority control government and its decisions so that the aristocratic minority benefits most.

Why all of this on Movie Monday? Because a couple of weekends ago we watched a highly political film. It was James Cameron’s 2009 “Avatar”. This director’s left wing sympathies are well known, so it was difficult not to view the film as a political statement. Or to not equate the Na’vi with the American Indians or the American blacks, or to not equate Pandora with Korea, Vietnam, Iraq or the other multitude of locations where capitalist interests have despoiled countries and people in order to make money.

The film is an allegory and as such can be interpreted on many levels. The more innocent amongst us may see it simply as a sci fi fantasy, boys’ own adventure with lots of action and even fighting robots and lots of explosions, yeah! Those with a guilty conscience, will no doubt say it is a cheap, sensationalist, left-wing piece of propaganda that bags white, middle-aged capitalists, who only want the best for everyone (and this of course can’t be done with some small sacrifices). Others may call it racist, especially when one sees the way the Na’vi are depicted - uncivilised savages who have to wait for a liberator in the face of Will, the “superior” and more civilised half-human, half-Na’vi Avatar. Whatever one’s point of view the film is worth seeing.

One thing we immediately realised when viewing the film is why it didn’t win the Best Film Oscar. Such a controversial political hot potato couldn’t possibly be selected for an Academy Award. Instead of a film where the army are very much the bad guys (Avatar), the Oscar went to the Iraq war heroes, the army depicted as good guys (The Hurt Locker). It is the choice of a totalitarian democratic state defending itself. It is a natural choice, especially in these times of insecurity, lost national pride, global financial crisis and an overwhelming sense of needing to reassert what people hold dear to their hearts – good old-fashioned values that built nations and created empires.

Avatar is too much of an inflammatory thorn in the side of imperialist great powers. Belgium in Africa springs to mind, Holland in Indonesia, France in the Pacific, Britain in India and Australia and the US everywhere else. It is a criticism of our financial systems and capitalism where (until recently, at least) greed was good. It is a lament for the harm we are doing to our environment. Cameron has been quite open about his motives in making the movie: “Greed and imperialism tend to destroy the environment,” he said in a recent interview. “It’s a way of looking back on ourselves from this other world.”

Dryden’s and Rousseau’s concept of the “Noble Savage” very much underlies the film and the Na’vi are depicted as in touch with their environment, in a holistic, universal, harmonious way that we humans have lost. Humans are painted with garishly evil colours, especially the “civilised savages” of the army and the heartless capitalists whom they protect. Scientists are given better press, as it is they who attempt to understand the Na’vi and approach them so that they may come closer to them.

What has been described as a flaw in the film, and even labeled as “racist” is that Will, the white man in a Na’vi body is the “hero” who liberates the Na’vi. Will’s Na’vi body infact is a mixture of human and Na’vi DNA. As a hybrid he identifies more with his Na’vi genes and is recognised and accepted as part of the Na’vi ecosystem. It is a case of dominant and recessive genes and the Na’vi wins out in more way than one. When we see Will’s Na’vi Avatar we do not see a human we see a Na’vi.

I could discuss the film more, but I shall stop here as it is more of a discussion that lends itself to debate rather than monologue. It is a good film and contains much to think about.

MOVIE MONDAY - INVICTUS

“Be nice to whites, they need you to rediscover their humanity.” - Desmond Tutu

Well back home today, but only for a short time as tomorrow I am off to Brisbane for a few days for work. I saw Clint Eastwood’s 2009 film “Invictus” on the plane on the way to Perth in my recent trip. I have gained a lot of respect for Eastwood’s directorial work in the last few years and this film was no exception, up there with “Unforgiven”, “Gran Torino”, “Bridges of Madison County” and “Million Dollar Baby”.

Firstly let me say that I don’t follow rugby and was not familiar with the real story on which the film was based. However, I was aware of Nelson Mandela’s return to power and this for me was the real story. The rugby story was window dressing (which rugby fans will probably disagree with), and for me a metaphor for South Africa, the country and its people, struggling to heal the damage done by decades of apartheid.

The film starred Academy Award Winners Morgan Freeman as South African President Nelson Mandela and Matt Damon as Rugby Captain François Pienaar. “Invictus” is a movie full of emotional highs and lows, passion and poignancy. It tells the story of Nelson Mandela's first years as President of South Africa in the 90’s, a riven country, which apartheid has scarred. In a master-stroke of unification of his people, Mandela used the country’s love for rugby to connect the whites and the blacks. The national team, the Springboks, have a poor record of winning but Mandela taps the captain of the team to rally his troops and surge into battle for the greater good of his country.

“Invictus” is a short 1875 poem by the English poet William Ernest Henley. The title is Latin for “unconquered”. The poem mirrors the spirit of the film and I give it to you here in its entirety:

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
                         William Ernest Henley

Freeman gives a wonderful performance and one sees that this role meant a lot to him. Damon is less convincing as he is not as hulking as the real rugby player Pienaar, perhaps, but the intensity of his performance does counterfoil Freeman’s cool, calm and collected Mandela. The personality of the leaders (of the country and of the team) is countered well, and the differences between black and white in the divided country are exposed for the world to see by Eastwood’s sensitive handling of the material that is more than 95% true.

I shall probably watch this film again, the second time not on a plane as I am sure there are many bits of dialogue I missed and the screen on a plane is poor substitute for the screen of a cinema or of a TV screen at home. However, even when watched in the less than ideal environment of a plane, the film was very good and I recommend it most highly.

MOVIE MONDAY - GRAN TORINO

“To live anywhere in the world today and be against equality because of race or color is like living in Alaska and being against snow.” - William Faulkner

Clint Eastwood has developed in his career from an “action hero” who played in spaghetti Westerns and bad cop movies to well-rounded artist who directs and acts in some of the best films to come out of Hollywood in the last few years. Yesterday we watched his 2008 movie “Gran Torino”, which he directed and starred in. It was an excellent film – gruelling and challenging to watch, but at the same time significant in its message. It made a serious comment on contemporary American society without overstatement, no trace of disingenuousness and with an honesty that one usually does not associate with Hollywood films. The screenplay by Nick Schenck is based on a story by Dave Johansson and it hits hard on all the right spots.

By way of contrast, the previous day we had watched Kevin Kostner’s 1997 sickly saccharine, patriotic extravaganza “The Postman”. This was a film that had good intentions, and as an idea it was great, but it is weighed down by so much sentimental schmaltz that it is hard to take it seriously. It was a contemporary Western in its scope and it had touches of pap that ensured the acceptance and endorsement of the patriots. It was such a predictable and emotionally manipulative film that it was offensive. What a difference from the gutsy and genuine “Gran Torino”.

“Gran Torino” is about prejudice and racism, primarily, but it also has as its theme cultural values of contemporary America, changing definitions of families, the blight of gangs and the vulnerability of youth. It is also about courage and about making decision that redeem our lives. Religion is also touched upon. Although I abhor violence in films, the violence in this movie was an integral part of the action (essential to the story, I would say), but it was not overt and excessive. The implicit violence was much more horrible and justly obscene.

The story concerns a recently widowed old man, Walt Kowalski (Clint Eastwood), who is embittered and grumpy and dissatisfied with his neighbourhood, in which he seems to be the only white American. He doesn’t get on with his sons or his grandchildren and his only consolation is his 1972 “Gran Torino” Ford car, which he keeps in mint condition. His next door neighbours are Hmong, whom he regards with suspicion, distrust and contempt, this view coloured by his experiences in the Korean war, for which he was decorated with a medal. Thao (Bee Vang) is the teenager son of the Hmong family who is being harassed by a local gang that his cousin leads. He attempts to steal Walt’s Gran Torino as part of his initiation into the gang, which he grudgingly agrees to as he was coerced and intimidated into joining the gang. Walt nearly kills Thao when he catches him, but slowly a special relationship develops between the two of them and Walt begins to realise that he may have more in common with the Hmong family next door than he does with his own family…

The movie develops into a terrifying climax in which the innocent pay a high price in return for justice and a chance of living the American dream. “Gran Torino” is a patriotic film, but it is gritty and hard-hitting and strikes at the root of the problem that prevents the America of today  from becoming the world leader that it was in earlier times. The United States is a country that was built by migrants. Walt himself is a “polack” and his best friend is a “wop”. He has worked all his life in a Ford factory making cars, and he himself was the one who built his Gran Torino on the conveyor belt. He has had a good wife, had a family, paid his taxes and has built a house, which he maintains in manicured condition. He sees his American Dream crumbling around him and he is willing to do something to fix it, as if it were a crack in the wall or a blown gasket in his car.

This is a great movie! Go out of your way to find it and watch it. Challenging and grim, but nevertheless full of hope and courage.

THE BLACK MADONNA

“Racism is man's gravest threat to man - the maximum of hatred for a minimum of reason.” - Abraham Joshua Heschel

Art Sunday today highlights the Black Madonna of Częstochowa. This is an icon of the Virgin Mary which is a Polish national symbol as well as a holy religious relic. It has been in the country for the last 600 years, but legend relates that the icon was painted by St Luke the Evangelist on a cypress table-top from the house of the Holy Family. The icon is documented to have been brought from Jerusalem via Constantinople and Belz, to finally reach Częstochowa in 1382.

The original image was repainted after being damaged in 1430, when Hussite raiders devastated the church in which the icon was kept. The painting was repaired, but ineptly as the original painting was encaustic (hot wax painting technique) and the restoration was tempera. The paint sloughed off and the solution was to repaint the picture after scraping the wood.

The painting is of the Virgin Mary and the Holy Infant in a pose known in the Orthodox Church as “Η Παναγία η Οδηγήτρια” (I Panayía I Odogétria, “The Virgin who Shows the Way”). The Madonna shows the way of salvation by directing attention to the Christ Child, who extends His right hand in benediction, while holding the gospels in His left hand.

The image of the Black Virgin is a recurrent theme and many shrines possess an icon or statue of a black Madonna. About 450 have been documented around the world, but mainly in Europe. Concerning why the Virgin Mary is depicted black, in Aramaic (the language of Jesus) black means “sorrowful”. Nowadays the Virgin Mary is often depicted as a black woman and thus points to the trans-racial universality of the Christian faith. This image of a black Madonna is easier for people in Africa, say, to identify with. In Japan, Japanese Christians depict the Madonna as a Japanese woman and similarly so in china, where her features are Chinese.

The image seemed apt for today, which is the international day against racism. The International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination was established in 1966, following a tragic event that shocks the conscience: The massacre in 1960 of 69 young students peacefully protesting against apartheid laws, adopted by the South African government, a brutal regime that applied the theory of inequality between races, regardless of humanity’s moral and ethical advances. Proclaiming this International Day for the 21st of March, the United Nations General Assembly called upon the international community to redouble its efforts to eliminate all forms of racial discrimination.

ONCE WERE WARRIORS

“We challenge the culture of violence when we ourselves act in the certainty that violence is no longer acceptable, that it's tired and outdated no matter how many cling to it in the stubborn belief that it still works and that it's still valid.” - Gerard Vanderhaar

We watched a very gruelling and confronting film at the weekend. I must admit that we had bought the DVD a couple of years ago but we were putting off seeing it as the jacket notes were rather graphic, however, all of the comments that I had heard about the film were very positive. It is from New Zealand, and is the 1994 Lee Tamahori film, “Once Were Warriors”. It is a film about decadence and loss of pride. About dignity and self-respect, about love and hate, and how all of these things are interwoven with violence and a reduction of the humanity of those who are caught in a web of powerlessness and spiritual degeneracy.

The action takes place in urban Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city. The story concerns itself with the Hekes, a family of Maoris living in a council house and caught between the unrelenting demands of two conflicting cultures. Jake Heke, the father, is a very violent man who frequently beats his wife, Beth, when drunk. This violence stems from his upbringing, the company he keeps and from his feelings of inferiority. Beth is of ‘noble’ lineage and he is of a ‘slave’ background. Jake obviously loves both his wife and his five children, but he is unable to show it in a way they can experience it. The macho man mentality and doing what he thinks is ‘manly’ get in the way of any show of emotion or tenderness towards his family.

The eldest son, Nig, is about to join a street gang and be initiated in the violence that he abhors in his father, while the second eldest son, Boogie, is in trouble with the police and faces court, which will put him into welfare custody. Jake's eldest daughter, Grace, is a sensitive and talented writer who in the youth of her 13 years already shows much promise and wants desperately to get in touch with her family, her culture, her emotions, her blossoming mind. The two youngest children are innocent and vulnerable and they cannot but witness the never-ending cycle of domestic and social violence they are exposed to on a daily basis.

Without spoiling the movie for those of you who haven’t seen it and wish to, all I shall say is that the feeling of tragedy that is ever-present from the film’s beginning finds release in a harrowing climax that has devastating effects for the Heke family and serves as a means of liberation for some of them, while for others it is the spark that sets off an explosion of self-destructive force that damns them eternally.

The film is a challenging one to watch and is full of bloody violence, which is never gratuitous but forms an integral part of the plot. Violence motivates and actualises the social groups that the Heke family lives in. We are introduced to all forms of violence and the film seemingly wishes to state its vocabulary by immersing us in the brutality that drives Jake and his mates, Nig’s gang and the street kids. The touches of tenderness that punctuate the film become all the more poignant and heart-rending when framed by all the cruelty and barbarity that tries to stifle out the humanity in each of the characters. The people that survive this environment must fight with all their might against violence and rise above it until it can no longer touch them.

This is a film you watch only when you are well-prepared for it and you must steel yourself to keep on watching without flinching. Ultimately, the message is one of hope and redemption. The survivors are only the strong, but those strong in spirit. Find it, watch it, it’s worth it!

GONE WITH WIND

“We used to root for the Indians against the cavalry, because we didn't think it was fair in the history books that when the cavalry won it was a great victory, and when the Indians won it was a massacre.” - Dick Gregory

Yesterday we got a lot done around the house and garden, so when it was time to sit down and watch a movie, we decided to watch a “golden oldie” that we hadn’t seen for years (no, make that decades!). It was the Victor Fleming 1939 grand old epic “Gone with the Wind”. This legendary film that won 8 Oscars and another 6 prizes, has dominated motion picture history for decades after it was made in the first half of the last century (doesn’t that make it sound even older!).

Epic describes the film not only in subject matter and production values, but also in duration. We watched the 238 minute version complete with Overture, Entr’acte and Exit music. The restored Blu Ray version is quite stunning in its colour cinematography and the film looks crisp and new, as though it has just left the cutting room. It is an old pot-boiler of a movie that pulls all the right punches and follows all the tried and true formulas. This explains its success, of course.

Given its melodramatic origin in Margaret Mitchell’s sprawling novel, the film follows the trials and tribulations of the love-life of spoilt rich girl/poor girl/rich girl Scarlett O’Hara quite well, while at the same time attempting to bring to life a few pages of American history. Romanticised it may be, but nevertheless, the essence of the times has been recreated quite well (with a 30s slant). The nostalgic ante-bellum grandeur and inequity is contrasted with the horror of the civil war and the last part of the film that deals with “America the Land of Opportunity” and the rebirth of the South from its ashes is a grand acknowledgement of American culture.

Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh make for a formidable pair and they both do a fine job of acting in this movie. Nevertheless, this is not a two-lead movie. Equally convincing are Leslie Howard and Olivia de Havilland as the other pair of lovers and the rest of the cast have been chosen with equal appropriateness. There is caricature and over-acting, surely, but remember this is a 1939 film! Criticisms have also been levelled at the film regarding its portrayal of race relations, however, in any social document – especially be it a newspaper article, a novel or a film – there will be points of view and personal prejudices that must be taken into account when one reviews it and interprets it.

The music of the film is perhaps another indicator of its age. Max Steiner’s melodramatic and saccharine sweet score that underpins most of the movie is punctuated by pieces of local colour (no pun intended), which nevertheless prove to be more effective. I mentioned previously the Overture, Entr’acte and Exit music, which is a great indicator of film-makers’ self-congratulatory pats on the back. If you remember, Ben Hur used a similar device, as did many other epics that Hollywood judged to be grand enough to have this type of treatment.

Considering when the film was made, its cinematic impact was immense and the influence it exerted on subsequent movies is quite considerable. And rightly so. This is Hollywood in its heyday, showcasing what can be done with talent and money. A film to watch and learn from, not only cinematically, but also socially, politically and allegorically.