mother son

Shirley Adams

annette — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Interlacing themes of poverty and perseverance in the Cape Flats area of post-Apartheid South Africa, Oliver Hermanus explores the relationship between a mother, Shirley, and her quadriplegic son, Donovan, as he slips into depression after having been shot in his neighbourhood.

Having given up her job to care for her son, and having been abandoned by her husband, Shirley struggles to support Donovan’s mental and physical well-being and at the same time take care of herself. Due to high medical bills, she is forced to rely on the help of her neighbours and the meagre money her errant husband leaves her sporadically in the mailbox. Caught between coping after being abandoned by her husband, dealing with the police who are trying to capture the person responsible for the shooting, and consoling Donovan as he struggles to come to terms with his permanent disability, Shirley’s life is both overwhelming and erratic.

Shirley, played by well-known South African actress, Denise Newman, is strong and resilient in her efforts to support Donovan, going so far as to steal, doing whatever she believes necessary to protect her son. She is also a very proud woman, and is reluctant to accept any help, including shunning the help of a white personal support worker named Tamsin (Emily Child), interpreting her service as charity. She does, however, swallow her pride and later accepts Tamsin’s help.

Donovan (Keenan Arrison) is for the most part quiet throughout the film, though not without effect, seeming to live almost entirely in his head. Keenan does a fantastic job of portraying the deep anguish a young person feels when their life is irrevocably changed by an incident out of their control. The relationship between himself and his mother is both touching and stifling. Few words are exchanged between them but the tension in their relationship is very palpable when they’re in the same room. Anguish and pain, fear and desperation are etched in their movements, making this a very absorbing film.

Hermanus’ use of close-up camera shots, particularly on Shirley, gives this film the stifling, erratic and intimate feeling, making the audience feel what the character feels. This, I felt, was the most important element of Shirley Adams. Furthermore, the lighting chosen by Hermanus, particularly in the scenes shared by Shirley and Donovan, is sombre and dark, well chosen to contribute to the overall effect of the film. The themes of poverty, struggle and perseverance were effectively communicated throughout. Shirley and Donovan live in a poor neighbourhood in Cape Town, an area designated by the Apartheid government as being for “Coloured” people only. The conditions for the people living in the Cape Flats have not changed much since the official end of Apartheid and the daily lives of “Coloured” people in this area continue to be a struggle. Hermanus’ film is raw and socially relevant because it depicts the circumstances of the reality that many face.

Hermanus does a wonderful job highlighting the sacrifices one makes in the role of a mother, especially a single mother. Although Shirley’s life is changed completely, her sacrifice for her son and the strength she shows despite insurmountable challenges is something worth taking away from this film.

Written by: Toni Francis, October 3rd 2010

Reborn: Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1963

admin — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 17:01:00 +0000

By David Rieff, Susan Sontag

Picador

When reading fictionalized journals, one never experiences the sense of the guilt that results from a real intrusion into someone’s private thoughts and personal life. The fictive writer simply does not exist. When the journal being read belongs to someone who has had a very real public persona, the reader will always experience a few uncomfortable moments. In reading Susan Sontag’s journals, this feeling is amplified tenfold. Firstly, these are the journals of a young woman who eventually became a famous writer and intellectual—the journals start when Sontag is only fourteen years of age. Secondly, the fact that her son, editor and author David Rieff, edited the journals for publication and glimpsed his mother’s private garden is a bit daunting.

From the outset, the thorny question of the dual son-editor role that David Rieff plays should be addressed. Any editor would have chosen to trim down the journals, which span sixteen years of Sontag’s life. This period, and the resulting length of the journals, would be excessive for any publication, and Rieff plans to issue two other tomes covering the rest of her personal writing. In choosing to publish the journals in the first place, the decision to “censure” some of its parts seems questionable. Censure is a term Rieff clearly rejects, citing “the literary dangers and moral hazards of such an enterprise.” But, how could he not let his own emotions act as filters to his mother’s journals’ contents? Rieff sometimes selects “a few representative entries,” while other times he omits complete sections intentionally (as with Sontag’s notes about her trip to Italy) and includes thoughts that had been redacted in the original journals by Sontag herself. Inexplicably for someone so prolific in her journal-keeping, there is a notable absence of notebooks for the years 1951-1952, the years Sontag was first married.

Sontag’s journals were clearly not meant for an audience, contrary to some journals of other famous authors. In his (often moving) introduction, Rieff recognizes that his “decision [to publish] certainly violates [his mother’s] privacy.” The notebooks consist of Sontag’s private thoughts and experiences, and also of random lists, facts, and information. They were most certainly kept by the author to remind herself of some of these pieces of information: films seen, books read, or to be read. It could be argued that the fact that she abbreviates some of her lovers’ names meant she was concerned about possible readers (or snoops) and she also codes some words/ideas with an “X” which Reiff does not (cannot?) interpret.

Sontag’s journals provide some fascinating insight into the author’s development from late adolescence into adulthood, and provide rare glimpses into very private aspects of her life: her homosexuality, her divorce, and various other life experiences. Her “feelings” and personal insights, which we normally associate with a personal journal, are only a minor element in the journals, but probably what most readers will seek the most in her private writings. Although much of the material starts off with a date and the editor provides some guidance in deciphering the entries (possible locations, for example), one only gets the sense, but for brief moments, that we are “along for the ride” with Sontag. As all who have attempted to write journals know, the writing is often sporadic, linked to decisive moments in life and/or strong emotions. For Sontag, as they are for most people, these notable periods were the beginnings of her studies in university and of her writing, her homosexual adventures, the birth and raising of her son, and some of her travels. These snapshots show a different side of Sontag, one that does not always match her public persona. She questions her reactions to love and carnal pleasures, motherhood, marriage, and filial relationships, among other things.

Usually, the publication of journals or correspondence takes place many years after a person’s passing. Sontag passed on in 2004 and this publication allows us to discover another side of her, since the journals were the vehicle for, as she called it, her “sense of selfhood.”

Written by: Sophie M. Lavoie, February 3rd 2010

Amreeka

admin — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 17:01:00 +0000

Directed by Cherien Dabis

National Geographic Entertainment

There are a plethora of films which recount the arrival of distinct ethnic groups to America, ranging from the Eddie Murphy’s pathetic Coming to America to the Charlie Chaplin’s classic The Immigrant to the Patricia Riggen’s subtle Under The Same Moon or Jim Sheridan’s In America. However, no situation seems as tense as the arrival of visible minority immigrants to the United States post-9/11, where tense circumstances await them.

Amreeka is a the debut feature-length film by Cherien Dabis, named by Variety magazine as one of its “Ten Directors to Watch” this year, and we can indeed look forward to her next feature length film if her first is any measure of her talent. Dabis has worked in television, writing for Showtime’s The L Word and has also written and directed several award-winning short films. In Amreeka, Dabis’ writing underscores the subtleties of one who has bridged many cultures at once, a personal insight that she most likely gained during her childhood and adolescence in both the U.S. and Jordan, and as the daughter of Palestinian parents.

Dabis’ film questions the differences between the uneasy racial situation as it exists in the United States and the situation lived by the Palestinians in the Occupied territories. Nisreen Faour, a talented Palestinian theatre and television actress, is exceptional as the mother in this film; it is she who negotiates the departure for the United States with her son, the very promising young Melkar Muallem in his first movie role. Hiam Abbass, a famous international actress whom readers might recognize from such Hollywood blockbusters as Munich and Babel, is ever-talented in the role of the sister who has been living in the United States with her doctor husband and raising three girls.

Part of the film’s brilliance is that it is meant to unsettle viewers at various levels—Dabis often uses humour as her weapon. Whether it is in the encounters (at Israeli checkpoints, at the U.S. customs, during a job interview with a racist or in the visual of the Mom in her fast food uniform), in the stereotypes (the mom’s naivety, the fresh-off-the boat clothing debate, the terrorists) or in the general melodrama, there are many cringe-worthy moments. One circumstance that personally made me cower was the weight of gender in the mother-son relationship, especially in the film which has been touted as the story of an “indomitable” single mom who makes it on her own. There are a few condescending moments when the son patronizingly pats his mother’s shoulder during her hopelessness, saves the day by lending her money, and makes her believe in a paternalistic way that everything will be alright.

Sadly, the film does not seem to imply that the general condition of immigrants in the U.S. will evolve for the better. There are brief flashes of “openness” in the mom’s male friend, her dropout co-worker from the fast-food joint, and the lady at the bank who finally gets her a credit card (the American dream!). However, in the final scene, the family unit folds back into itself (with the male friend) and drives from the fast-food drive through to a Palestinian restaurant in Chicago to enjoy a blissful “traditional” meal, complete with hookah and dancing. In this turn of events, Dabis’ symbol is not lost; the errant Palestinians make their own mini-homelands wherever they may be, no matter how hostile their environment.

_Review by Sophie M. Lavoie_

Written by: Sophie M. Lavoie, December 26th 2009