Category Archives: 1980s

Person: Rigoberta Menchú (1959-)

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Rigoberta Menchú is a revolutionary Mayan activist from Guatemala who grew up as the Guatemalan Civil War (1960-1996) was escalating across the country. In 1982, a Venezuelan anthropologist interviewed the then-23-year-old Rigoberta and compiled her words into the book I, Rigoberta Menchú. Rigoberta speaks with a matter-of-factness about the many horrible and violent events she witnessed, saying her story is the story of all poor and indigenous Guatemalans. With this book, an international spotlight was put on the violent state of affairs in Guatemala. Rigoberta was later awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992 for her activism.

Rigoberta attributes her revolutionary roots and the resiliency of indigenous communities to several factors.

One, the extreme suffering and poverty experienced by most indigenous communities. Indigenous people were often terribly discriminated against and exploited by lighter-skinned Guatemalans of European descent. In her testimony, Rigoberta shares many moments where she felt she and those around her were treated worse than animals, being described as “dirty Indians” who were poor because of their laziness and ignorance.

Young Rigoberta

Rigoberta explains how people living through such hard times do not get to have a childhood—always working, not having the chance to go to school, and never eating enough. By the age of 8, she was working in the fields alongside her mother, earning money to help support her family. Before that, she was helping with childcare, fetching water, and caring for their animals. Rigoberta said she was scared to grow up after watching crying mothers bury their sick and starving children. Rigoberta rightly acknowledges that revolutionaries are not born out of something good, but rather out of wretchedness and hardship.

Two, there is huge cultural importance of community and the land. She recalls her elders telling her, “Land belongs to everyone, not one person,” and that, “No one should accumulate things the rest of the community does not have.” In her culture, at the age of ten, there is a ceremony of adulthood where one makes a promise to their elders to contribute to their community. She also speaks of how her people are rooted in corn and the land. Because of this, when their shared land was threatened, communities were prepared to fight to defend their land.

Three, Rigoberta’s father, Vicente Menchú, was a big influence on her. Vicente was a leader in their community, and he worked with unions and the CUC (Comite de Unidad Campesina, or the Peasant Unity Committee) to unite peasants through their shared oppression by the wealthy. Rigoberta, as her father’s favorite, accompanied him on many of his visits to the city. She recalls her father often lamenting the unjust removal of the democratically-elected Árbenz from power back in 1954.

Because of his organizing activity with these groups and eventually the guerillas in the mountains, Vicente was targeted and arrested by the government. Illiteracy in Spanish (due to it not being their native language as well as not having the opportunity to study in school) meant indigenous people were particularly at the mercy of the system. Rigoberta aptly notes that, “Prison is a punishment for the poor,” when she recalls how her family was forced to pay money to lawyers, translators, and bureaucrats for a year and a half before her father was set free. Her father was later kidnapped and tortured by landowners and again arrested in 1977 for being a communist and enemy of state.

In 1980, Vicente joined others from the CUC in the occupation of the Spanish Embassy in an attempt to raise awareness internationally of the state of affairs in Guatemala. Police were sent in and set the embassy on fire, resulting in the death of Vicente and all 36 other activists and diplomats present.

Violence plagued her family. Rigoberta’s mother was also kidnapped and raped before being killed in 1980. The military captured Rigoberta’s little brother and other guerillas, brutally and publicly torturing them for being communists and “terrorists” from Cuba or Nicaragua. The military told all the surrounding villages that they had to watch or else be considered accomplices of the subversive actions of the guerillas. Furthermore, the justification was that, “Indians are ignorant,” so they are susceptible to the beguiling words of communism. Many soldiers likely did not know much about communism either, just simply that communists were the enemy and were hiding in the mountains.

Rigoberta’s little sister also joined the guerillas when she was 8. Rigoberta said she went many years without seeing her until they were reunited in Mexico, both among the tens of thousands of Mayans from Guatemala who were forced to flee to Mexico during the civil war.

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Rigoberta began her organizing in the fields of sugar cane, coffee, and cotton. Most peasants spent part of each year working on farms owned by rich landowners. It was very exhausting work; peasants were paid based on how much they harvested, but were penalized and received deducted pay for everything from damaging a plant to any food or drinks consumed. Workers had to live in austere and inhumane conditions, were often credited for less weight harvested when being paid, and sometimes were even kicked out without pay. Rigoberta recalls once forsaking payment to clean up the body of a woman who was violently killed with a machete by the son of the landowner.

Map of the various languages spoken within Guatemala

Despite all of the peasants working on these farms being from indigenous communities, there were always barriers because families from different areas spoke different languages and had cultural differences. Therefore, despite their shared pain under difficult work conditions, the workers were still isolated and divided. With 22 languages spoken among various indigenous groups, Rigoberta actually chose to harness Spanish, the language of their shared oppressors, to unify and organize indigenous peasants. Rigoberta had a bit of privilege to have the opportunity to learn some Spanish through her time at a Catholic boarding school and during the time she spent working as a maid for a rich family in the city. There was a fear among indigenous communities that having their children learn Spanish at the “white man’s schools” would change them and cause them to abandon their people. However, Rigoberta understood the power of language as a critical tool and learned to speak and read Spanish in order to navigate the system of the oppressors and communicate with many different people. Rigoberta was able to build solidarity among different indigenous communities because, despite their differences, she saw how they were all connected to the land and shared the same oppression.

At their prime in 1980, the CUC organized a strike among farmworkers that garnered the win of more than doubling the minimum wage. This strike lasted for 15 days and included over 70 thousand workers across sugarcane and cotton farms.

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Beyond the farm, Rigoberta also talks of organizing indigenous communities on their land. When Árbenz’s land reform was reversed, the government ordered to have land taken away from indigenous communities and given to rich landowners; government soldiers began to invade villages to kick people off of their land. Some people were given the option of either leaving their land or staying to work as an indentured servant. Predatory lawyers and government officials would offer to help peasants keep their land, charging them as they encouraged them to keep cultivating the land; meanwhile, the peasants had already unknowingly signed their rights to their land away on a document that they could not read. (This abuse of the illiterate was seen during elections as well, when all the workers on a farm were forced by the landowner to check a certain box on a paper, unknowingly casting a vote for President on a ballot that they couldn’t read. This was one way the dictatorships dealt with Arévalo’s expansion to suffrage.)

Rigoberta’s community was initially allowed to keep their land, but their shared land was divided by the government into small separate plots, which were not enough to live on, and they were told one could be arrested if they even cut down a tree not on their own land. This was an intentional effort to weaken the community and destroy collective structures. Her village refused these changes and began to organize to be able to fight back, developing traps and security against the landowners and soldiers that would come to terrorize their village and take their food. With the strong sense of community and connection to the land, the whole village was ready to all die together.

When Rigoberta felt assured that her village had organized sufficient defenses, she went to the communities of other women she had met while working on the farms to teach them these same strategies to protect their land.

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Rigoberta talks a lot of “bad ladinos.” Ladino is the word for people of mixed European and indigenous descent, but is understood as those who have turned away from their indigenous roots, using whatever power they have gained to abuse their own people. Many of the farms that peasants had to work on were owned by ladinos; Rigoberta’s image of the ladino landowner is, “very fat, well dressed and even had a watch.” She says the government is made of ladinos and for ladinos. Some ladinos acted as hired ears for the military to provide information of the activity of communities and guerillas in the mountains to the government.

As seen throughout history and across the world, deep and deliberately sown divisions along racial lines have weakened efforts by the poor and working class to fight back against the rich. Even poor ladinos would say, “I’m poor, but at least I’m not Indian.” As Rigoberta began talking to indigenous and ladino peasants alike, she understood the shared struggle of being poor and exploitation by the rich. Activists and groups such as the CUC had to intentionally work to bring both poor Mayans and ladinos into the movement.

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Throughout her testimony, Rigoberta discusses some of the traditions of her people, though remains wary of revealing too much in fear of the destruction or appropriation of the customs and culture of her people. Given the long and violent history of colonialism, there is a very real fear of the loss of culture; indigenous communities must find the balance between the conservative desire to preserve traditions and the need to adapt to changing times. The extreme and violent times of the civil war meant having to break from cultural traditions, as the community no longer had time for ceremonies.

Rigoberta talks of gendered traditions and how men and women were typically kept separate. She says women cooked, managed money, cleaned clothes, quilted, encouraged men, supported children, and have a unique connection to the earth as mothers. As with their ceremonies, gender divisions were eroded during the extreme times of the war, as everyone had to unite and be prepared to fight back in any way. Women and children protested in solidarity with the men, fully aware that the army was vicious enough to kill them all. Rigoberta recalls her mother saying to her, “I don’t want to make you stop feeling a woman but your participation in the struggle must be equal to that of your brothers.”

Rigoberta discusses how she debated the idea of getting married and having children. As a revolutionary, she was fighting for a better future for the next generation, but she knew the nature of the revolutionary work meant she could die at any time, leaving behind children or a widower. She also had the fear that a concern for personal happiness would selfishly pull her energy away from the needs of her greater community.

Rigoberta mostly praises her traditions, but does mention how she faced some machismo and sexism from other revolutionaries (including other women) who believed women could not be a fundamental part of the revolution. Rigoberta insisted that women fight alongside men because men need to help deal with the additional realities of rape and violence that women faced. She also believed strongly that any change without women would not be a victory.

San Andrés Xecul Catholic Church in Guatemala

Throughout Latin America, Catholicism had a strong presence and was incorporated into the traditions of most villages. Rigoberta recalls praying together in Latin or Spanish, even though they did not understand the words. She felt that Christianity had not replaced their beliefs, but rather was another form of expression. Rigoberta attended some Catholic school and was a catechist. In her testimony, she references Judith as a woman who fought for her people, David as the shepherd boy who wished to live off the land, and Christ as a humble man who was persecuted. She relates the way that Christ lives on through his apostles whenever they tell stories of him to how her elders live on in their children.

Rigoberta was very religious, asserting that as a Christian, she refused to accept the injustices and violence committed against her humble people. However, she also acutely points out the hypocrisy of a supposedly Christian government carrying out the massacre of people. She says there are two kinds of Catholicism: one for the rich and one of the poor. She also says she fears that Catholicism and the promise of the land for peasants in heaven taught her people a passiveness and acceptance of violence and injustice that made them vulnerable to exploitation.

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Rigoberta rebelled as an indigenous Mayan, a woman, a peasant, and a Christian. All of these parts of her shaped her revolutionary politics and desire to build intersectional solidarity. In 1981, Rigoberta was exiled and convinced to seek refuge in Mexico. She states how defeated she felt when she was forced her to abandon her country while the fight was still continuing.

After Rigoberta was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, there was controversy due to some historical inaccuracies of her internationally-renowned story. One professor released a book that picked apart several details, primarily the omission of her access to education at a Catholic boarding school when she was young and the fact that she had not personally witnessed her brother’s torture and death that she described in detail. He also raised concerns about people using Rigoberta’s story to glorify leftist resistance and downplaying some of the more violent actions of the guerilla forces such as the use of bombs. There was some discussion about rescinding her Nobel Peace Prize for the inaccuracies, but it appears that the overall consensus today is that her testimony—told as shared experience in a style common among indigenous communities—is the communal story of many indigenous people of Guatemala who lived through the Civil War. (Rigoberta states as much when she says her story is the story of all poor indigenous Guatemalans.) Many agree that this focus on specific inaccuracies does far-reaching damage to her credibility, perpetuates the long history of silencing indigenous voices, and problematically equates the violence of the guerilla forces with that of the military regime. Though certainly flawed and at times violent, the guerilla resistance did not commit the multitude of human rights violations that the U.S.-backed government and paramilitary in Guatemala did throughout the Civil War.

Rigoberta is still alive and now is 60 years old. She got married in 1995 and has one son. She continues to fight for women and indigenous rights as a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador. She co-founded the Nobel Women’s Initiative, which strives for “a democratic world free of physical, economic, cultural, political, religious, sexual, and environmental violence” as it affects women and all of humanity, and is a part of the PeaceJam Foundation with other Nobel Peace Laureates such as the Dalai Lama XIV, which wishes to inspire young people to work towards peace. Rigoberta has also gone on to write her own books, advocates for affordable medications and health care for Guatemalans, and is working to raise awareness of climate change.

Movie: Jesus of Montreal — Jésus de Montréal (1989)

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Jesus of Montreal was directed by Denys Arcand, who also directed The Decline of the American Empire and The Barbarian Invasions, and some call these three movies his trilogy. Although Jesus of Montreal won the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at the Cannes International Film Festival, compared to The Decline of the American Empire (nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award) and The Barbarian Invasions (won the Academy Award), its popularity in Japan was one step below the others, and I hear it is difficult to get it on DVD. All three works are certainly very well-made, but I feel that Jesus of Montreal is my favorite of the three. This movie intellectually explains Christianity, is a humorous love story with charming characters, has interesting story development, and is original and artistic. I think this movie has elements that appeal to Japanese people.

Quebec, as represented by Montreal, is unique within Canada. Because it was originally a French territory, the official languages even now are English and French, and the predominant religion is Catholicism. Resentment towards the federal Canadian government is strong, and they have a unique socialist system that was established by means of an election. Until recently, there was quite a violent anti-Canada independence movement, and even still, there is about equal support for the Quebec sovereignty movement and for the party in favor of staying within the Canadian government. My friend who is a lawyer from Quebec said his neighborhood when he was a kid was poor, and riots happened quite frequently.

First, Quebec intellectuals, as represented by Denys Arcand, underwent a revolution to break free from the influence of Catholicism, and chose Marxism to support their revolution. However, they gradually became disillusioned with Marxism, too. This disillusionment is symbolized by the hospital seen in The Barbarian Invasions that is run with socialist principles, where helping patients is secondary to bureaucracy and patients are always left in the hallways.

Jesus of Montreal criticizes Christianity as a religious authority, but the tone is very smart, refreshing, and full of charm. In this movie, there are two plays within the story, and the plays within the main story make up about one-third of the whole movie. I almost stopped watching this movie because the first play within the story was too absurd and boring, but I think the boringness is Denys Arcand’s criticism of some untalented artists who arrogantly smile and say, “Can you understand the greatness of this piece of art?” when they make boring piece like this one. The second play within the story was very beautiful, and I was unexpectedly drawn in.

This movie starts with Daniel—an actor who is extremely talented, but not interested in mainstream commercialism, and does underground theatre work—being asked by a priest of a big Catholic Church to produce a play that depicts the life of Jesus. The priest says, “Do it however you like,” so he seems like a very supportive, understanding, and kind person. Daniel recruits a woman who works at a homeless shelter and was an upperclassman at his drama school, an actor who works as a stand-in in pornographic movies, an actor who seems difficult and only partakes in plays that he really likes, and a young actress who appears in cheap-looking commercials that try to attract viewers using only her body and is looked down on as “someone with no acting ability”; with this crew, Daniel creates a wonderful play, and he receives high praises from the audience and critics. The actors working with him realize their talents as actors for the first time, and they are excited and happy.

However, due to Daniel’s interpretation of Jesus as, “a man with a strong and kind spirit and not the Son of God, but the child of a Roman soldier and Mary,” the priest gets pressure from a superior in the Catholic Church; worried that he may lose his position, the priest tries to discontinue the running of the play. Through this, it becomes clearer and clearer that the priest who appeared to be respectable at first glance, is in fact quite unholy. The movie ends with a tragedy that is caused by the conflict between the protesting audience and the church trying to stop the play.

I think Daniel symbolizes what Jesus would look like if he were born in modern times. The actor who performs in the boring play at the beginning of the movie, when praised, points to Daniel saying, “There is an actor better than me,” resembling John the Baptist’s prediction of the arrival of Jesus. The way the four actors cast their jobs aside to work with Daniel resembles how believers at that time threw away their assets to follow Jesus. The actress who specializes in commercials and is scornfully told, “Your acting ability is only your ass,” gives unconditional love to Daniel, who treats her with respect—particularly reminiscent of Mary Magdalene. The moment Daniel dies is like when Jesus is on the cross. The miracle of Jesus bringing back the dead and giving sight to the blind happens after Daniel’s death. Also, after Daniel’s death, there is a scene where the talented lawyer proposes that the two actors that followed Daniel closely create a theatrical company to convey Daniel’s great achievements. These two actors seem to symbolize Jesus’s apostles, such as Peter or Paul. “We are happy to start a theatrical company if it is not commercial and it has direct interaction with the audience, as was Daniel’s intention,” the two answer, demonstrating a sincere desire to carry on the spirit of Jesus; but something like, “This could be a great success,” also glimmers in their eyes. This may be an omen for what their future may hold, parallel to how the Christian church that started with a modest feeling became corrupt as a big political organization after the Roman Empire officially recognized it.

Anyhow, this movie is very enjoyable and it resonates with the heart. I’m glad I didn’t stop watching in the first 2 minutes…

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Movie: Pelle the Conqueror — Pelle Erobreren (1987)

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This movie is not the story of Pelé, the renowned former Brazilian soccer player. Martin Andersen Nexø, a communist and proletarian author from Denmark, wrote the original Pelle Eroberen (Pelle the Conqueror), which was published in four parts between 1906 and 1910, and these books were adapted into a movie in 1987.

The boy Pelle and his father leave their homeland Sweden, and immigrate to Bornholm—a Danish island just a stone’s throw away from Sweden; they find work on a big farm taking care of cows while living in the farm’s barn along with the cows. Life there is incredibly harsh; the movie is filled with a persistent feeling of hopelessness from the beginning to the end, and the characters face failures one after another, as soon as any form of hope begins to sprout. Then at the very end, the movie finishes with Pelle leaving behind his father—who had given up hope for life—as he sets forth into a new world alone and at last breaks free from the farm. The movie continuously shows images of cold wind and the frozen ocean for two and a half hours, so I think many people may have a chilly feeling after they finish watching this movie. This movie makes me wonder how this boy—who doesn’t have any money in this foreign country, has no family or friends, and, if things don’t go well, could freeze overnight in this cold country—could survive. The title of Pelle “the Conqueror” seems ironic.

In my head, I thought, “Because it has a serious theme, it will be a good movie,”; the thrilling development and beautiful cinematography compelled me through two and a half hours, and I was made to think, “Since it won several awards such as the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and the highest prize at Cannes, surely it’ll be a masterpiece.” But if someone were to look me straight in the eye and ask, “Did you really like this movie? Were you truly emotionally moved by it?” my answer about this movie would be, “Truthfully, I didn’t like this movie that much.”

Briefly what is wrong is the stereotypical and inconsistent way of depicting the characters. Regarding the stereotypes, you can compare this movie to Heneke’s The White Ribbon, which depicts the life of farmers during the same period. In Pelle the Conqueror, everything bad that happens to the farmers is due to the mid-level manager in charge of the farm. This manager gives his employees barely enough to eat, and he mentally and physically abuses his employees. This farm manager is like the devil, and the farm owner just gallivants around. Anyhow, the ruling class is depicted uniformly ugly and cruel. By contrast, when you watch The White Ribbon, the landowner isn’t exactly considerate towards the tenant farmers, but he makes every effort to improve the productivity of his farm, and is sure to keep his tenant farmers healthy and productive. Although the tenant farmers feel bitter about the difference in social status, they know it is the landowner who gave them their jobs and feeds their family, so they can respect the owner even if they don’t like him; in addition, the workers’ futures are insecure if their landlord were to disappear. So to speak, they have a symbiotic relationship. Also, The White Ribbon doesn’t depict the tenant farmers as being pure and innocent. Pelle the Conqueror claims that all of the ruling class is evil while the laborers are always the victim, and everything depicted in this movie is based on the theory of class struggle—inheriting the belief of the author Martin Anderson Nexø, who never doubted Marxism and communism until he died.

In terms of the inconsistent way of depicting the characters, the protagonist Pelle is a diligent, good boy, and he is liked well enough by the adults on the farm, but Pelle tells a boy who is poorer than him, “I’ll give you money if you let me whip you,” and then Pelle severely whips the boy until Pelle is bored and not interested in whipping anymore; there may be viewers who are sickened by watching this. The poorer child doesn’t have much going for him, but he is kind and, in one way, has skills to survive, as seen by how he teaches Pelle how to take care of the cows. At some point, this boy changes to being depicted as mentally retarded. Also, the bullying between the children is horrific. I have watched a fair number of Northern European movies, and surprisingly many of them include scenes of children bullying each other. Of course, bullying among children may exist in any time or place. However, why is it necessary to push bullying up to the front when making a movie like this? In addition, this movie shows the filthiness of the living conditions of the farm workers for two and a half hours, and this further depresses the viewers. Pelle and his father excrete their feces in the cow barn, and then sleep in a nearby stall at night. They don’t change their clothes much except into their one good suit for church, and always wear the same clothes that they don’t wash. I’m surprised they don’t also suffer from an epidemic or infectious disease. I wonder if they are particularly abused because they are immigrants.

Pelle is favored by the farmer’s wife and is selected for the position of being trained as the manager. The audience feels relieved that Pelle and his father can at last be happy, but Pelle, after hearing his father’s words—“You are finally given easy work here. You work with just words, and only have to say what to do. We are blessed,”—decides to not accept the position and runs away from the farm. In other words, the message that seems to be implied is, “By not joining and instead deciding to fight the ugly, exploiting ruling class, Pelle is the true meaning of a conqueror and a winner.” There is no message to improve your life, step-by-step, by completing your job diligently, even though it is hard. Even if the misery depicted was the reality of those times, what is the value in modern times of making this movie that is about class struggle? By 1987, Denmark and Sweden had already achieved a model welfare nation.

Perhaps the meaning of the word “conqueror” comes from the words that Erik, a coworker at the farm who loved Pelle, always said: “First, immigrate to America; then conquer the world.” Following the Industrial Revolution that happened from the 18th century until the 19th century, a series of advancements in agricultural technology occurred across Western Europe, the monetary economy spread, and big changes were happening in the European social structure. Most farmers that were operating independently to support themselves fell from being an independent farmer to being a low-wage worker. The difference between the rich and the poor became more and more severe, and Irishmen, Germans, Scandinavians, and Italians steadily immigrated to the new land of America. The reason for immigration may have differed slightly—people from France and Germany immigrated because of political persecution, while Russian Jews immigrated because of religious persecution—but all people immigrated to a new land in search for possibilities that were not available in constrictive Europe.

Perhaps life for Pelle after leaping from the island could be similar to Titanic’s Jack Dawson (played by Leonardo DiCaprio), who is similarly a fictional character of around the same age living during the same time. Jack Dawson was around 20 years old in 1912, dreamed of flourishing in America, and embarked on the Titanic. He wins a poker game of tough bidding against two Swedes who dreamed of immigrating to America, and gets a free boarding pass ticket for the Titanic.

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Movie: Missing (1982)

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This movie depicts the pursuit for the whereabouts of the journalist Charles Horman by his wife and father after his disappearance during the chaos that followed the Chilean military coup d’état in 1973; they search for several days in the capital Santiago before arriving at the conclusion that Charles may have been executed because he knew of the secret involvement of the CIA with the coup d’état.

Charles Horman is a real person, and since he was born in 1942, he is the same generation as President Clinton and President Bush (the son), who were born in 1946. This generation is known as America’s baby boomers, and this generation was greatly influenced by the anti- Vietnam War movement and the hippie movement. In this movie, Charles Horman is depicted as a strongly curious, but slightly rash author of juvenile literature, but in reality, Charles Horman was a writer who was properly trained in journalism after graduating from Harvard. This movie is based off of Thomas Hauser’s book that was published in 1978, which investigated Charles Horman’s death.

During the American-Soviet opposition in the global Cold War, social unrest continued for a long time in Chile, where the left-wing, Popular Front supporters continued to oppose the traditional, conservative class and the right wing of military authorities. Commander-in-Chief René Schneider was among the group of military authorities of the Chilean army that advocated for a congress system and democracy, but in 1970, Schneider was assassinated by an anti-Schneider faction among military authorities. Due to his assassination, anger toward the nation’s military authorities erupted, so swing voters voted left; thus Salvador Allende of the Popular Front was elected as president, and, for the first time in the history of Chile, a socialist administration from a free election was established.

America viewed the Socialist Party administration as a major threat, and the CIA also revealed their intention to topple the Allende administration; therefore, Western countries including America implemented an economic blockade, and assisted anti-government strikes by the anticommunist, rich class within Chile. Also, due to the abrupt farmland reform and nationalization policies of the Allende administration, inflation increased, and there was societal chaos and a shortage of goods. However, the Allende administration succeeded in achieving unity with the people by explaining that this chaos was a scheme of the opposing faction, and in the 1973 general election, the People’s Unity coalition led by Allende gained even more votes.

On September 11, 1973, Commander-in-Chief Augusto Pinochet led armed forces and the police in an attack on the President’s official residence. President Allende—with shots being fired between the coup d’état forces and the President’s guards—committed suicide after giving one final speech on the radio. This was the 1973 Chilean coup d’état. As a result of the Chilean coup d’état, the coup’s leader, Commander-in-Chief Pinochet, assumed office as President, and Chile fell back into being a military dictatorship led by President Pinochet. Afterwards, in the 16 long years under this military regime, between thousands to tens of thousands of anti-establishment citizens were imprisoned and executed.

When the 1973 coup d’état occurred, Charles Horman happened to be staying at a beautiful health resort in Viña del Mar, but there actually was a secret planning for the coup d’état happening there. It is not known whether Charles Horman approached these people or what he learned in Viña del Mar, but on September 17, he was suddenly arrested by Chilean military authorities of the coup d’état faction, and taken away to the capital Santiago’s national stadium. After the coup d’état, the stadium was temporarily used as a prison. Story has it that he was tortured and executed there. The claim of the movie is that there must have been covert approval from the CIA to execute Horman as a criminal who opposed the coup d’état, even though he was American. When Chilean authorities claimed that his body was buried in the wall of the stadium, Horman’s family demanded that his body be handed over. It is said that the actual delivery of his body to his wife in America took six months; by that time, the body had decomposed so intensely that it was impossible to judge whether it was truly him. Horman’s wife later requested a DNA test, and learned that it was not Horman’s body.

The White House supported Commander-in-Chief Pinochet as a sort of fortress to protect South America from the threat of socialism; but when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and the Cold War ended, America determined there was no longer a reason to support a dictatorship that suppressed human rights, and they finally changed directions and withdrew support for Commander-in-Chief Pinochet in 1990.

Charles Horman’s kidnapping and execution happened when Nixon was President. Afterwards, the White House consistently denied the CIA’s involvement in the Chilean coup d’état, but the Clinton administration investigated classified official archives; in 1999, the administration acknowledged for the first time the CIA’s involvement in the Chilean coup d’état, and publicized the document of evidence. Regarding Charles Horman’s death, government officials under the Clinton administration stated, “It is very regrettable,” and suggested there was the possibility that, even though the American embassy in Chile actually made every possible effort to protect American citizens in the chaos after the coup d’état, those frantic great efforts did not reach Horman.

Charles Horman’s widow, Joyce Horman, sued Augusto Pinochet in a Chilean courtroom in 2001 for the murder of her husband. In the trial investigation process, it was revealed that Charles Horman was investigating the democratic system in Chile, and investigating the life of René Schneider—who was assassinated by opposing military authorities—and there was a possibility suggested of Horman being hated and murdered by those in Augusto Pinochet’s faction, who assassinated René Schneider. In 2011, the Chilean government made the judicial decision of charging Ray Davis, a retired military officer, for the murder of Charles Horman.

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Movie: Out of Africa (1985)

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This movie was based on Isak Dinesen’s Out of Africa that was published in 1937. Isak Dinesen is a man’s name, but actually the author is a woman whose real name is Karen Blixen. She used her male and female names for different purposes, and published many books in Danish and English; she was the author of Babette’s Feast, the movie of which won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Out of Africa won the Academy Award for Best Picture, but the way this movie was made isn’t perfect; sometimes viewers who have not read the original work cannot understand because there aren’t explanations of the relations between people, and the movie is a bit too long. However, the images of Kenya are wonderful, and I can feel the splendor and charm of the original work, which more than compensates for the short-comings of this movie.

The original Out of Africa is basically the author’s autobiography. The heroine in the movie (born in 1885) is adventurous, from an affluent family, and unsatisfied with her life in Denmark; she marries the son of a financially struggling baron, exchanging her money for social status, and they embark to the new world of Kenya. In real life, Karen Blixen also married a Swedish aristocrat, Bror von Blixen, in 1913, and they immigrated to Kenya together the following year. Like shown in the movie, the married couple managed a coffee plantation, but the married life soon failed; after the divorce, she continued to manage the coffee plantation alone, but failed, and returned home to Denmark in 1931.

Bror (Baron Blixen), who became Karen’s husband, was born in 1886 as a Swedish noble. He was a distant relative of Karen’s. Bror had an identical twin brother, and the movie establishes that the twin brother was Karen’s lover. The twin died in a plane crash in 1917. Since all the investment for the coffee plantation was from Karen’s parents, when the divorce happened, the plantation became Karen’s property, and Bror started working at a safari hunting company. Many European aristocrats in the beginning of 20th century, backed by economic strength and the success of their nation’s imperialism, seemed to burn with the passion to start their own business; I feel it resembled the spirit of a modern entrepreneur. It is said that many of the clients of Bror’s company were British royalty and aristocrats. After he divorced with Karen, he married explorer Eva Dickson in 1936. Because Eva died in 1938, Bror returned to his home country Sweden, where he died.

After she divorced from Bror, Karen befriended Denys Finch Hatton, the son of an Earl. Denys was born in 1887 into an aristocratic family with a very notable family lineage. When he was 23 years old, he bought land in west Kenya, and started up a safari hunting company on this land with co-investors. He, too, was a noble entrepreneur like Bror, and likewise was a close associate of Berkeley Cole, another noble entrepreneur from a notable family. These four are the key people in this movie. In 1925, after Karen and Bror divorced, Denys became closer with Karen, and started splitting time between Karen’s coffee plantation and the safari company that he founded. Many of the clients for his safari company were also British royalty and aristocrats. All of the characters are young nobles and were played by popular Hollywood actors, but their performances were a little disappointing because they looked somewhat like American cowboys from a Western trying to make a fortune in the gold mines.

In the movie, Karen and Denys’s relationship collapses due to Denys not wanting to marry and because another woman appears; this seems to also be true. From 1930, Denys became close with ranch manager Beryl Markham; the two learned how to fly airplanes, and started to fly around Kenya. In the end, Denys died in a plane accident around the same time that Karen decided to close down her farm and return home to Denmark.

What is wonderful about this movie is that it vividly depicts the pioneering spirit of fearless and carefree youth from the ruling class in Europe in those days. However, the movie also simultaneously successfully depicts an omen drifting in that their privilege will not continue forever. In this movie, these youth disregard their privilege in their homeland and jump over to Africa, and they bravely try their own fate by getting their hands dirty; this suggests that imperialism was still robust at that time. The times shown here may be the last glimmer of European imperialism.

Due to the infidelity of her husband, Karen got syphilis, and she suffered from it for her whole life; in addition, the coffee plantation that she invested everything she owned into failed, but she lived without blaming anyone. The way she lived was wonderful. I feel this spirit in Babette’s Feast as well. The human nature of the author naturally comes out.

Karen observed the subtle differences between the native tribes in Kenya, such as the Kikuyu, Maasai, and Somali. Colonists in Kenya used the Kikuyu for the colonization of Kenya in those days. The Kikuyu were adapted to farming, and the chiefs of the tribes had amicable policies toward white settlers; after having their land snatched away by white people, the Kikuyu stayed there and worked as tenant farmers and maids. Also, the youth became proficient in English because of their education in mission schools. If I use Karen’s words, the Kikuyu are described as, “These natives don’t have rebellious spirits and are patient like sheep. They survived their fates without any political power or a protector. Their ability to accept their fates has allowed them to still endure it.” Unlike with the Kikuyu, the colonists didn’t trust the Somali, who had already been converted into Muslims, and were suspicious that the Somali could rebel at any time. The Maasai had not given up on the hunting lifestyle, so chose to live in isolation. In this movie, it is depicted that even the Kikuyu people fear the strange and unfamiliar Maasai.

It was the Kikuyu that led the Kenyan independence movement because of their understanding of colonists they gained through their experience and by observing them. The Kenyan independence movement had already started with the founding of the East African Association in Nairobi in 1919 by Kikuyu Harry Thuku. In 1924, the Kikuyu Central Association (KCA) was founded with the youth as its core, and they confronted the colonial government and the chiefs who aligned with it; the radical movement of the KCA developed into the 1952 Mau Mau Uprising, and with this, white settlers began to evacuate. The nationalist/independence movement converged into becoming the Kenya African National Union, and Kenyan independence was achieved in 1963.

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Movie: The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988)

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The Unbearable Lightness of Being is the film adaptation of the novel of the same name written by author Milan Kundera, who took refuge in France after the Soviet Army suppressed Czech’s freedom movement that took place in 1968 (the Prague Spring); this movie depicts the different fates of four people living through turbulent times with the Prague Spring of Czechoslovakia in the background.

Tomas lives in Prague, and is young, handsome, and a skilled surgeon. He loves women and is loved by women, and he is a man who openly has relations with several women at the same time; he has a relationship with an artist Sabina, who is the only woman Tomas acknowledges understands him. One day, Tomas goes to a small spa town in order to perform surgery, and there he meets a young woman named Tereza. Tereza is an avid reader and loves reading Tolstoy, but she feels that none of her friends in the village understand her. When Tereza sees Tomas sitting and waiting on the same bench—among the many benches available—that she always sat on, and senses Prague culture in him, she becomes deeply entranced by Tomas and later follows him to Prague. Tomas, who appeared to be set on remaining single, is attracted to Tereza, and the two end up getting married.

Tereza is inspired by Sabina and tries to become a photographer, but during this time, the Soviet Army invades Czechoslovakia in order to suppress the growing desire for freedom, and many people are murdered. Sabina, Tomas, and Tereza take refuge in Geneva. Tereza shows a Swiss magazine the photographs she took in the face of danger of the oppression by the Soviet Army, but people in Switzerland are already bored of the Prague Spring event, and she is told to bring more interesting photographs. Sabina meets a devoted, honest professor named Hans. Tereza thinks she is not a strong enough person to live in a foreign country, like Sabina and Tomas, and so she returns to Czechoslovakia. Tomas has to decide between staying in free Switzerland with Sabina and returning to his oppressed homeland Czechoslovakia to be with Tereza. Tomas decides to return to Czechoslovakia, but his passport is confiscated when he re-enters the country, so it is a one-way trip and he can’t return to free countries.

While Tomas was in Switzerland, the Soviet Army had successfully implemented oppressive measures, and Prague had become a completely different town. Tomas is categorized as an anticommunist, so he is deprived work as a surgeon and has to make a living as a custodian. Tereza is devastated by the transformation of Prague, and becomes depressed and considers suicide. The two move out to the countryside, adapt to their new life, and are able to find true happiness despite their modest lifestyle; the moment they find happiness, though, a tragedy occurs.

The appeal of this movie is that the depictions of the individual personalities and the relationships between Tomas and Tereza, as well as between Sabina and Hans, are very delicate, beautiful, and persuasive.

When Tomas and Sabina meet, a mirror is always used. This symbolizes the relationship of Tomas and Tereza as well as of Sabina and Hans. If I were to depict the relationships of the four people with a picture, Tomas and Tereza are lying in bed next to a large mirror. When Tomas looks at the mirror, Sabina—not Tomas—is reflected back. Then, Hans is lying down next to Sabina. When Tomas approaches the mirror, Sabina also approaches the mirror. When Tomas moves away from the mirror, Sabina also moves away. However, Tomas doesn’t need to break the mirror to be with Sabina. Tomas and Sabina are a man and a woman bound together like Siamese twins, tied by their souls. Even when they are apart, or even if they are both with someone else, their spirits are always joined.

However, it is only Tereza that Tomas truly loves. Tereza is like the sun and illuminates everything, and when she is around, the world and other women look beautiful; but when she is gone, the world is dark, and other women don’t enter Tomas’s field of vision at all. Tomas is light and freewheeling, but his beliefs do not waver. Before the Prague Spring, he said to his friends who excitedly talked about politics, “I am not interested in politics at all.” However, during the oppression by the Soviet Union, people rapidly switched to protecting themselves, informing on each other, and hiding what they were feeling; on the other hand, Tomas, who refused to change himself, was oppressed as someone who was against the establishment. However, even though the job that he loved is snatched away, he remains as light and unwavering as ever.

Tereza is influenced by Tomas and Sabina, who live lightly in the city (so it seems), and so makes a great effort to do so herself; she experiments with various things, but learns in the end that in order to be happy, she is the kind of person who needs to be rooted near nature. Although Tereza does not realize it, she is naturally very sexually attractive without trying, and Tomas is deeply attracted to her because of who she is naturally.

Sabina, while her and Tomas’s hearts are nearly identical, is a woman who earns a living with a paintbrush, while Tomas uses a scalpel to perform surgery. Although she is woman, she is more willing to live this vagrant lifestyle than men. She doesn’t know how or where in this large earth she will die, but she has the attitude that she’ll live holding onto her paintbrush with all her might, even if she dies by the side of the road. Honest and ethical Hans cannot help but be attracted to Sabina, who is completely different from himself.

I happened to watch The Unbearable Lightness of Being around the same time as the Norwegian Wood movie based on Haruki Murakami’s novel; although the two movies are set in the same time period (late 1960s) and depict a very similar theme, I thought it was interesting that the depiction and resolution were fundamentally different.

In Norwegian Wood, the society in Japan has peace without the fear of war, freedom, personal safety, and secure money to live a good life; yet somehow the youth have a locked up feeling, and they get wrapped up in socialism, believing it to be a ray of hope to save their society. The protagonist, who is of course the projection of Haruki Murakami, is not able to sympathize with the movement of the youth of his same generation, but his friends around him commit suicide one after another. The young people committing suicide have their parents’ love and are brought up in a blessed environment, but they heavily obsess over something, as if they are fixated on watching the hole of their stocking getting bigger and bigger every day. And so they commit suicide. The protagonist is also affected by this attitude, but after wandering, weeping until his nose dripped, and an overly dramatic journey of self-discovery, he decides, “I will live.”

In The Unbearable Lightness of Being, for the youth living in a society where freedom of speech has been snatched away and there is economic injustice, socialism is evil, and the youth wishes for Czechoslovakia to become a free nation. Tomas is not the kind of person who fixates on the negatives. Therefore, he is light, and even though he criticizes the system or another person, he doesn’t blame them. He lives life like a swan calmly floating on the surface of a turbulent lake without being affected by the waves. By doing so, he calmly finds happiness. When Sabina and Tomas meet in Geneva alone, Sabina had already decided to move further west, while Tomas had decided to return to Czechoslovakia, but they don’t say anything about this. Suddenly, Sabina utters, “This may be the last time we see each other.” Tomas’s facial expression changes just one millimeter, and he nods, saying, “That may be so.” It was indeed an eternal farewell. However, in The Unbearable Lightness of Being, nobody commits suicide. They each make every possible effort to survive through difficult times.

Both movies feature the music of the Beatles in a very important way. However, what the Beatles’ music conveys to the youth is completely different in the two movies. In The Unbearable Lightness of Being, the music of the Beatles symbolizes the desire for freedom, while in Norwegian Wood, it symbolizes the melancholia that they don’t understand the true nature of.

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Movie: Le Déclin de l’empire Américain – The Decline of the American Empire (1986)

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The Decline of the American Empire is a grandiose title, but since the movie director Denys Arcand studied history and is knowledgeable about the Roman Empire, he used a historic concept to express his theme. The meaning of the title is not clear if you only watch the movie casually. I would say it is nearly impossible to understand what this movie wants to say if you only watch it once. If the viewer does not understand the intention of the movie, I think they may be frustrated. In fact, I read some of these frustrated thoughts after I watched the movie.

Dominique is the dean of the school of history at a university in Quebec; she published a book recently in which she proposes the theory that the strong trend happening today (1980s) of people pursuing individual happiness is correlated with the decline of the nation. Diane, a teaching assistant in the history department, works part-time at a broadcasting station as the host of an interview program. In an interview on this station, Dominique brings up as examples of the pursuit of individual happiness the free and uncontrolled lifestyle of the intelligentsia, the liberation from conventional sexual morality, and an increase in women not marrying. Dominique is of course single, and Diane is a divorcee with a daughter.

The professors in the history department led by Dominique gather at one of their houses in order to enjoy dinner. Professors Rémy, Pierre, and Claude, and graduate student Alan make up the men, while Dominique, Diane, undergraduate student Danielle, and Rémy’s wife Louise make up the women. Rémy, Pierre, Claude, Dominique, and Diane are intelligentsia, and have arguments about grand topics. Rémy is married to Louise, but is involved in all sorts of extramarital affairs. Pierre was married, but wanted freedom and so divorced, and he now dates Danielle. Claude is gay. Diane, while the other four people have developed their careers smoothly, laments that she doesn’t have a great career since she is divorced and has to spend most of her time raising her child; Louise consoles her by saying that having a child is life’s greatest accomplishment. Louise gets carried away and starts to say that Dominique, Pierre, and Claude, who don’t have children, are missing something important even though they have successful careers, and the three people, especially Dominique, get annoyed.

At the climax of the dinner party, the members listen to the later part of Dominique’s interview. She continues on in the interview to say that after Marxism-Leninism collapsed, there was no longer a principle to guide people, and society without a principle is doomed to collapse. Louise, who had not been participating in the loud argument between the intellectuals, innocently objects without hesitation, “I don’t know why you say the times we live in are bad. We may actually be living in wonderful new times full of scientific advancements.” Dominique interprets these comments as being a personal attack—scorning her work and pitying her lonely life resulting from prioritizing her career—and discloses her relations with both Pierre and Louise’s husband Rémy. To make matters worse, she cruelly notes Rémy’s excitement to have relations with a powerful and intellectual woman such as herself, Rémy’s boss. Louise learns that Diane also had relations with her husband Rémy for two years, and is shocked.

Since 99.9% of this movie is conversation, and 95% of that is each person bragging about their sexual exploits, one would think that is the focus of the movie, but I think that the focus of this movie is quite different. To say it briefly, it is the confusion people feel when their conventional value systems are collapsing. One was the value system of the Catholic Church, which always had a big influence on Quebec society. The other was Marxism-Leninism, which had captured the hearts of young people of the 1950s and 60s. I think Marxism was a bright guiding principle for those who specialized in studying history. However, it had collapsed by the 80s. As a result, pursuit of individual happiness and narcissism spread during the 80s, as seen with the trends that Dominique mentions of people preferring free love over marriage, and the thought that a family and children are burdensome and snatch away one’s freedom. Also, this sense of liberation produced a new culture in the 80s that included acceptance of interracial as well as gay relations.

This idea seems to have been very novel in 1986, and this movie received high praises. However, it seems that director Denys Arcand grew up with the times, and made a sequel, The Barbarian Invasions, addressing this theme 17 years later. I plan to talk about this movie in a separate entry.

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Movies: Babettes gæstebud — Babette’s Feast (1987), Ladies in Lavender (2004)

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I watched two very similar movies in succession recently: Babette’s Feast and Ladies in Lavender. Babette’s Feast depicts a 50-year-span around the time of the Paris Commune of 1871, while Ladies in Lavender is set in Great Britain in 1936. I thought Ladies in Lavender was borrowing ideas from the very successful Babette’s Feast because the Ladies in Lavender movie was made about 20 years after the movie Babette’s Feast, and the essence of the times depicted and the overall feeling of these two movies were very similar. The impression I got from these two movies was that they depict the atmosphere of the early 20th century in Northern Europe.

After doing some background research, I found that the author of the original Babette’s Feast, Karen Blixen, was born in 1885 and passed away in 1962, while the author of the original Ladies in Lavender, William John Locke, was born in 1863 and passed away in 1930. While I wouldn’t say they are the same generation, the time that they were alive overlapped. This explains why they share similar perceptions. The original Ladies in Lavender was published in 1916, slightly earlier than when the original Babette’s Feast was published, and the Ladies in Lavender movie actually changes the setting to 20 years later than the original story. Basically, the atmosphere that is expressed by both movies is the mindset of the people in Europe during those good times; imperialism was still going strong in Europe before World War I, people were enjoying economic prosperity, the rural parts of Northern Europe were not engulfed by big political changes, and the sense of community between neighbors was still strong and people helped each other in good faith. I think both Karen Blixen and William John Locke had the feeling that such times would disappear in the near future because both of these movies seem to give an impression of fleeting times. Since I have not read the original pieces, I wish to write about the similarities and differences between the two movies.

The first similarity between these movies is that both are stories of elderly, unmarried sisters living in the same house after their father dies. The two live in a beautiful, tiny village along the North Sea. Babette’s Feast takes place in Jutland, Denmark, while Ladies in Lavender is located in the United Kingdom, but the scenery in both movies look very similar. The maid similarly goes down the hill every day with a shopping basket to buy fish from the fisherman who rides up to the beach in his boat. There is also a similar set-up where life for the sisters is very repetitive—cherishing the memories of their fathers and thankful for their peaceful life—but then a lonesome, artistic foreigner drifts into their lives (in Babette’s Feast, it is Babette, a female chef of a first-class Paris restaurant; in Ladies in Lavender, it is Andrea, a mysterious Polish prodigy violinist) and their lives suddenly become exciting, which causes the sisters to reflect on their nearly forgotten younger days.

A similarity between the authors is that Karen Blixen and William John Locke both lived a long time in Africa. William John Locke is British, but when he was 2 years old, he immigrated to Trinidad and Tobago; in 1881, he returned to his home country of the United Kingdom to attend the University of Cambridge. On the other hand, Karen Blixen is Danish, but in 1913, she married Bror von Blixen, a Swedish aristocrat related to her father’s side of the family, and they immigrated to Kenya the following year. As a married couple, they managed a coffee plantation, but the married life soon failed and ended in a divorce; in 1931, Karen returned to her home country of Denmark. The memoir she wrote of her time living in Africa, Out of Africa, was made into a movie and won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Babette’s Feast won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

So then what are the differences? Since I have not read the originals, I can only compare the movie renditions, and one difference is the way the two sisters reflect on their pasts. In Babette’s Feast, the sisters do not have regret in their hearts about their past at all. There were many men who fell in love with the sisters because they were beautiful, but the sisters are still unmarried because they helped their father who had started up a church in the village, and they and all of the church-goers grew old; the sisters had made up their minds to maintain the church until they died. The sisters have no trace of avarice and don’t seek luxury, and the warm spirits of the men who fell in love with the sisters seem to be protecting them near the end of their lives. Babette, who lost all of her family when they were killed during the Paris Commune, was sent to Denmark from Paris by a man who had loved one of the sisters. Babette is thankful to be able to live with the sisters, and wants to be with the sisters until they die. Babette’s Feast depicts the calm happiness someone with a faithful heart and without greed can achieve.

In contrast, Ladies in Lavender is a story of the younger of the two elderly sisters recognizing her hidden desire for men due to the young, charming man who drifts in. The young man has feelings of gratitude for the elderly ladies who helped him when he was dying on the beach, and loves the old ladies like he loves his mother, but in the end, he carries feelings of romantic love for a woman young like himself and cannot stay in the countryside because of his ambitions for his career. The younger sister laments, “He is unobtainable. Life is unfair!!” Although others may view the feelings of this elderly lady as humorous and off-putting, from her point of view, her feelings are serious and noble.

Of the two movies, Babette’s Feast is much better, and Babette’s Feast will probably remain in movie history. In this movie, these old, but still beautiful actresses are practicing a life philosophy—one that is easier said than done—to gain happiness: not regretting, not envying, accepting, and being grateful.

In Ladies in Lavender, the elderly sisters are performed by Judi Dench and Maggie Smith. These great actresses have won Academy Awards and were granted Dame status by the Queen of the United Kingdom. However, the sisters in the original Ladies in Lavender are much younger, and the theme of the original story is a single woman in her forties—no longer young, but still a woman nonetheless—who has feelings of love triggered by a young man and pines for her lost younger days. Director Charles Dance was concerned about having Judi Dench and Maggie Smith, who are in their 70s, perform the sadness and excitation of these women in their 40s, but said this about casting the two of them: “Well, I think they can do it because these women are great actresses—like goddesses.” I think this approach to acting is sacrilege. Even an actress who is like a goddess cannot play a character in her 40s if the actress herself is in her 70s.

Since it is nearly impossible for women in their 70s to perform as women in their 40s, this movie ends up being a story of elderly women. For someone watching this movie, I think it is impossible to understand that the protagonists are in fact in their 40s. Therefore, in this movie, jealous women in their 70s try to keep a man in his 20s in their house, obstruct his contact with women of his own generation, and scheme (or perhaps I should say weakly hope) to have him stay forever. It is ironic that the director’s respect for Judi Dench and Maggie Smith resulted in the failure of this movie.

I have not read the original, but my impression of the original Ladies in Lavender is that the protagonists have remained unmarried for some reason, and that the story is about the “beauty of a transient emotional conflict” of a woman in her 40s—who is no longer young, but not old—suppressing the longing for a young man—who is not as young as her children would be, but on other hand, too young to be seen as acceptable by society. I feel that these women are single as a result of their society, perhaps because there are few suitable men since many of their generation died in the war, or there may not be many opportunities to meet people. No matter what age, there may be a feeling of yearning for a person, but with an actress in her 70s playing as a woman in her 40s, I think the movie changed the spirit of the original work. In the original stories, the backdrops are very similar, but the mindsets of the sisters are very different; however, because of the great actresses chosen for Ladies in Lavender, the movies end up looking similar.

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