Watching and Reading

Reading the recent news stories about Sri Lanka, I was reminded of a film I saw not too long ago, The Forsaken Land (directed by Vimukthi Jarasundara). Although it is set in the context of the military conflict in Sri Lanka, the dominant impression I had of the film was of silence. I really liked that about it, the silence and the simplicity with which the characters are presented laid bare their common humanity, something too often lacking in movies from war-torn places.

Another film which gets a few stars from me is Couscous, the story of a North African immigrant family in the south of France. Humorous and honest – those two things always go far!


And from my reading list Dreams from my Father by Barack Obama was a good read. In part, I think, because there was no particularly presidential tone about the writing – it was written before the whole running for president thing came up. It is more simply the discovery and coming to terms with a unique family history, or perhaps it is not so unique a history, in any case it’s a good story and, you know, it’s always good to know at least a little something about the president!

The Old Patagonian Express by Paul Theroux is a classic old-school travel memoir, about taking the train from Boston to Patagonia, the southern tip of South America. I enjoyed it, as I have most everything I’ve read from Paul Theroux. Although it is quite old (aside from being old-school!), there are a great many things about travel that don’t change that much between places and decades!

Noah Adams, of NPR ‘fame’, wrote a book called Piano Lessons, on the experience of, well, taking piano lessons. Well written and a quick read, it somehow still failed to inspire me to go out and buy a piano… Perhaps that has more to do with the relative immobility of your average piano compared to, say, me, not to mention the price. I guess pianos are just like that!

Finally, back to Vietnam, Last Night I Dreamed of Peace is the personal diary of Dr. Dang Thuy Tram, a young woman from Hanoi who was head of a medical unit for the North Vietnamese Army during the war, until she was killed. This book was kind of an instant sensation when it was first published in Vietnamese, presumably because it is a strictly personal story from the war period, a perspective probably not often used when young Vietnamese learn about the war. Again, this book is a personal diary, not a history of the war, and, to the extent that you can glean broad themes from a diary, it says more about the human spirit than it does about war.