MOVIE - The Secret Life of Words

Released December 2006 Limited
NR (1:52)
Netflix
RT: 69% cag: 83%
Director: Isabel Coixet
Tim Robbins

This thought-provoking look at the aftermath of war/insanity and the sometimes bizarre ways that lives come together fascinated me.

Almost-silent, hearing-impaired Hanna lives a self-imposed isolated life working a drone-job at a factory in Ireland. She is forced to take time off (she has worked at the plant for four years without taking a day off) and goes by bus to a coastal Irish town. There we find that she is a nurse, as she takes on a short-term job caring for a burned and broken oil rig foreman.

Out in the middle of the ocean on this huge shut-down-for-repairs oil rig, she allows herself to be drawn in by this somewhat older, cynical, sensitive man - Joseph - played by Tim Robbins.

The story - the few people she meets - the slowly reavealed informaqtion about Hanna's past, just keep getting more and more interesting.

Shamed on most Americans (including me) for knowing so little about what really happened in Yugoslavia - Serbia - Croatia - Kosovo --I'm only just realizing NOW...

Good story (in an interesting, off-beat, indie sort of way), good acting, Tim Robbins, and lots and lots of stuff to think about.

74. The Day of the Pelican - Katherine Paterson

for: Middle and Upper grades
Clarion (H/M), 2009
$16.00
146 pages
Rating: Incredibly mixed: I loved learning more about the plight of Albanians in Kosovo, there's so little we really know and understand. Some of the storytelling was terrific, but there were places where I know that kids will just put the book aside. And some of the storytelling was just that - a narrator telling a story. I was profoundly moved by the plight of this family. I do love Katherine Paterson's writing. This didn't seem like her extraordinary writing though. It was more....ordinary. I feel guilty and mean saying this about a powerful author. But it's the feeling I'm left with....

Meli's family goes through unbelievable cruelties in the three years between living a comfortable life in their home in Kosovo, then taking very few belongings and fleeing to a remote mountain KLA hideaway, then to live in a tiny farmhouse with uncle, aunt, elderly granny, cousin and her three kids (14 of them in all, I think), to trudge for days without food or water to be thrust into a freight car, dumped on the Macedonia border and put into a refugee camp....to traveling to Vermont to a new life. Horrible injustices. So much hate. And killing. Cruelty. Subhumanity. And this is going on in many places in the world RIGHT NOW! The story ends shortly after 9/11, which is another huge blow to this non-practicing Muslim family.

When we look around and see immigrants, we must realize how much they've left behind to be here. Huge pieces of themselves left behind. Family and friends that will never been seen again. I'm almost speechless with sadness. What can I do to help?

Here's another review, from Twenty by Jenny. It includes an interview with Katherine Paterson and her editor about the writing of the book. Quite interesting.