Carrying the vivid colors of a folk tale, “Ixcanul” is the title of the wonderful debut feature from Jayro Bustamante, who completely absorbs our attention not only through the genuine characters and their deep emotions but also with the beauty of the location and the culture associated with the story. The odd word ‘Ixcanul’ means volcano in Kaqchikel, the dialect spoken by the decreasing Mayan families that inhabit the surroundings of the Guatemalan coffee plantation located near an active volcano. On one side of the volcano, the one we can see, there is hard work and poverty, while on the other, there’s the US, where hope and dreams are real. The film starts by introducing a family of three – Manuel (Manuel Antún), Juana (María Telón), and
The film Jindabyne, is a story about death, marriage, and race in an Australian town in New South Wales called Jindabyne. In the film, four men go fishing, and one of them discovers the dead body of a young indigenous girl. Instead of reporting what they found to the police immediately, they decide to stay and continue fishing. They decide that there is nothing they could do for her, so they tie her legs to a tree and continue with their fishing, reporting the death only when they return home. After they are done with their weekend of fishing and report the incident, conflict starts, as the men are criticized for not respecting the dead. Through the story of the town’s reaction to the four fishermen’s response to the dead girl, the movie shows Australia to be fragmented and divided over white-indigenous relations.
This brief essay examines racism in the 1974 motion picture Conrack. The movie is an adaptation of Pat Conroy's autobiography, The Water Is Wide. The main character, Conrack, a young white male teacher portrayed by Jon Voight, is assigned to teach students from poor black families on a small island off the coast of South Carolina. The small community has little contact with the outside world and develops its own language. He finds the students essentially illiterate and their education neglected by state authorities. Poverty and their race cause neglect of their educational needs. The black school principal has convinced the students they are stupid and lazy. Conroy begins teaching the students useful, essential life skills. The community has no interest in learning about anything away from the island. The community has lived in fear of a nearby river because none can swim. While trying to improve the students' level of knowledge and their enthusiasm for
The Soloist (Foster, Krasnoff & Wright, 2008), is based on a true story of Nathaniel Anthony Ayers Jr. who develops psychosis and becomes homeless. In the film, Nathaniel is considered a cello genius who is discovered on the streets by Steve Lopez, a journalist from the Los Angeles Times. Steve was searching for a city story and he decided to write a newspaper article about Nathaniel. Nathaniel always had a passion for music. He was a child prodigy and attended Juilliard School of Music. However, he faced many complications at Juilliard, particularly hearing voices speaking to him. Unable to handle the voices, Nathaniel dropped out and ended up living on the streets of Los Angeles. Steve and Nathaniel develops an unexpected friendship, in which Steve tries to help Nathaniel to live a normal life; having a home, treat his mental disorder, and to fulfil his dream of being a cellist again.
The Alvarez lived in a compound on a respected neighborhood surrounded by aunts, uncles, cousins and the grandparents, and were a very well establish family as a result of “benefitting from their support of the people in power” during the revolution against the Haitians (“Julia Alvarez”). In her novel, ...
Being a culture under pressure from both sides of the contact zone, there needs to be passion and emotion or else the culture might disappear into history. Anzaldua’s text makes great use of passion and emotion while merging the ideas of multiple cultures together through the tough experiences in her life. Autoethnographic texts give perspective to outsiders on how a culture functions from the inside point of view. Anzaldua’s “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” excellently portrays her culture’s plight and creates a fiery passionate entrance for her culture in their uprising through the contact zone.
In her study of the sixteenth century Maya, Inga Clendinnen quotes Antonio de Ciudad Real, saying “when the Spaniards discovered this land, their leader asked the Indians how it was called; as they did not understand him, they said uic athan, which means, what do you say or what do you speak, that we do not understand you. And then the Spaniard ordered it set down that it be called Yucatan.” Mutual misunderstanding and incommensurability play many key roles in colonial relations between the Spanish missionaries and the Maya. Social and cultural relations and the effects of misunderstanding between the Maya and Spaniards greatly affected daily life and caused great unrest
The Popol Vuh is a collection of historical mythos of the K’iche’ Maya, a group that still lives in the Guatemalan highlands. Popol Vuh translates as either, “Book of Council” or in proper K’iche’ “Book of Events” or “Book of the People”, and tells the creation mythos of the K’iche’ peoples, an epic tale of Hero Twins Hunahp and Xbalanqué, along with a series of genealogies. Popol Vuh takes on a large number of subjects, including creation, history, destiny and cosmology. Popular editions of Popol Vuh all use basically the same method of breaking the text up into related pieces, but for clarity’s sake the edition that will be described here takes the organizational structure put forth by Brasseur de Bourbourg (Introduction, Pts 1-4). Part one includes the creation myth, and the epics of Hunahp and Xblanqué.
Sankofa filmed and directed by Hallie Gerima in 1993 explores the past in which African Americans were brought over as slaves and what they endured while there. In the movie, the main character Mona who is also portrayed as Shola, goes to Ghana for a photoshoot where she encounters the “village protector” Sankofa. Sankofa sees Mona and notices she is very first worldly, she’s wearing makeup and a blonde wig. While noting that she has lost her roots he approaches her to remind her to remember where she came from. Soon after she is jolted into a spiritual time travel back to the past where she experiences the life of those who lived in Ghana at the time of slavery. Mona who then takes on the role of Shola is taken though the experiences of traveling to the states, being branded, and mistreated by the master. Once at the plantation she takes us on a journey through the life of the individuals on the plantation as well as well as her own.
Blacula was played by William Marshall, who took great pride in playing this character. Originally the character name for Blacula was Andy Brown, which was similar to a black face comedy character on a well-known radio show at the time. William expressed serious discontent with this and demanded that the name be changed, so there was no confusion between the two. Marshall also cared about the nobility of the character and suggested that the name be respectable and related to African roots like Mamuwalde (Lawrence,
Before the civil rights movement could begin, a few courageous individuals had to guide the way. Dr. Vernon Johns was one of those individuals. Dr. Vernon Johns was a pastor and civil rights activist in the 1920s. Johns became the pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama in the late 1940s. During his time as a pastor, Johns preached many sermons on how African American people were being treated not only in the community but in society. Johns on multiple occasions upset his community through his ideas on social change. Through a sociologist perspective, many sociological concepts were displayed in The Vernon Johns Story. Some of those concepts included: ascribed status, conflict theory, deviant behavior, alienation, and
The Bad and The Beautiful (1952) and State and Main (2000) are films within films that unmask Hollywood Cinema as a dream factory and expose the grotesque, veneer hidden by the luxury of stars. The Bad and the Beautiful, directed by Vincent Minnelli, is a black and white film narrated in flashback form. The films theatrical nature requires more close-ups than wide-screen shots to capture the character’s psychological turmoil. For example, Fred and Jonathan’s car ride is captured in a close-up to signify their friendship; however their relationship deteriorates after Jonathan’s deceit. While the camera zooms out, Fred stands alone motionless. Here, Fred is captured from a distance at eye-level and he becomes ostracized by the film industry and
How does it feel starting over in a completely new place? In the movie “The Karate Kid”, Daniel, the main character, and his mom moved to the California from New Jersey because of his mom’s new job offer. Daniel started going to school in California and met a girl named Ali, whom he started to like. He started going out with her. Daniel was getting beat up by some bullies; one of them was Ali’s ex-boyfriend. They knew karate very well, but Daniel did not. So Daniel decided to learn karate. Daniel and his mom were living in an apartment and one day he discovers that the handyman at his apartment, Mr.Miyagi, knows karate very well. He asked Mr.Miyagi to teach him karate, and Mr.Miyagi became his karate teacher. It was hard for him to make new friends in a new place and he believed that Mr.Miyagi would be the only best friend he ever met.
The emotional letter that Juan left for his mother might be one of the most emotional scenes in the documentary. The pure emotions that the letter was written by Juan to her mother leaves the audience with the bonds and emotions felt between the kids and families. Juan Carlos’s father abandoned the family years ago and left to New York, consequently Juan believe it is his responsibility to provide for his family. He also wants to find his father in New York and confronts him about why he has forgotten about them. The story of Juan is not just about migration of children, but also the issue of family separation. The documentary does not dehumanize but rather bring the humane and sensitive lens to the story of Juan where the human drama that these young immigrants and their families live. Juan Carlos is not the first of Esmeralda’s sons to leave for the United states, his nine-year-old brother Francisco was smuggled into California one month earlier. Francisco now lives with Gloria, his grandmother, who paid a smuggler $3,500 to bring him to Los Angeles, California. Once Juan Carlos is in the shelter for child migrants his mother eagerly awaits him outside. After she sees him she signs a paper that says if Juan Carlos tries to travel again, he will be sent to a foster home.
The Associate is an entertaining movie that brings forth gender disparities in the workplace. Whoopi Goldberg, Laurel Ayers, portrays a financial analyst who has been stuck in a position that does not give her true credit for all of her hard work and talents. The Associate exemplifies the sexism that is occurring in the workplace through satiric wit and a strong story line.
I watched the film Avatar directed by James Cameron. The main actors in the movie are Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana and Sigourney Weaver. Set on the planet Pandora, Avatar is a sci-fi story of a mercenary-backed corporation’s attempt to steal and mine the land where humanoid aliens known as the Na’vi live.