“How do we nourish people’s spirits?” This is a question we often ask ourselves. In wanting to provide for the people we serve, we want not only to attend to their physical and material needs but to enrich their spirits, as well.

But what about ourselves; how do we enrich our spirits? The possible responses, of course, are limitless – ‘time with grandchildren’, ‘working in the garden’, ‘reading mysteries’, ‘biking’, ‘waiting in a duck blind’, and more.

In reflecting back over the past six months, I realize that one source of personal enrichment for me has been some movies at home on DVD, courtesy of Netflix. The films I’m thinking about haven’t always been ‘feel-good’ experiences, mind you; they weren’t variations of Caddy Shack III. But when they were over I felt I had spent my time well, that the people responsible had created a true work of art and had enriched me by leading me into a deeper appreciation of the human condition [and closer, therefore, to the Holy One].  

 

So, for what it’s worth, here is a sketch of three films I’m glad I took the time to watch in recent months.  

Rabbit Proof Fence [2002]

In the 1930’s in Australia, the government had in place a “integration” program to capture and remove aboriginal children from families living in the Outback, to place them in camps or orphanages where they were to be trained to be servants (considered a social step up) and eventually to be married to whites in an effort to breed the blackness out of them.

Early in the film we see authorities suddenly descend on an aboriginal community of people peacefully living in a desolate region of the country, hundreds of miles from “civilization.” They succeed in ripping three young, 8-to-13ish girls from their families and village and transport them to a camp where, with other dark-skinned children, they live in dormitories and learn that it pays to obey.

Before long, without food or water, these prepubescent girls resolve to make the 1,500-mile trek home, and for much of the film we watch them use their wits to find sustenance and elude the government tracker sent out to find and bring them back. If you choose to watch this film, I’m confident it will be a long time before you forget the images of these youngsters slowly making their way on foot back across the harsh, barren, awesome land to their families.

It is a true story that reveals incredible human spirit, and at the film’s end we meet two of the people, now in old age, whose story the film portrays. Additionally amazing is the fact that the three young actors had never acted before, but they bring us into the experience with them, as though it were really their own story. As one reviewer commented, this is a beautiful film that should not be missed.

Real Women Have Curves [2002]

Ana is a Mexican-American teenager living with her family in East Los Angeles. Finishing high school she has received a scholarship to Columbia University in New York and wants to make use of it to further educate herself and move ahead with her life. This desire, however, doesn’t go well with her mother and sister. The latter, Estela, owns a sewing sweatshop where several women toil every day to make dresses that will later sell for far more than what her sister is paid to produce them. At the moment, the shop isn’t doing well, her sister is under severe productivity demands from her rich buyers, and the women who sew for Estela can’t afford to lose their meager livelihood. In these circumstances, Ana’s dreams are of little importance. Her responsibility is to pitch in and help the family. She must work in the shop with Estela, her mother and the other women.

The women who have the roles of Ana and her mother are especially wonderful to watch and the very human, late adolescent struggles Ana contends with – her weight, sexuality, her relationship with her mother and what she wants out of life – are realistically presented. It will be a long time before I forget the scene of the impromptu party in the shop where the women shed garments and inhibitions to celebrate in dance a momentary sense of freedom and middle-age femininity.

In sum, I found it a touching story that helps one appreciate the struggles of a second-generation Latino teenager, pulled between the limited vision of her parents and her own hopes and dreams for the future.

Born Into Brothels [2004]

This Oscar-winning documentary follows several children who live in Calcutta's red-light district, where their mothers work as prostitutes. Zana Briski, a photographer documenting life in the brothels, begins teaching the children photography and sends them out with cameras to look at and record their world as they see it. Over time, the photos the children come back with, share and discuss together are increasingly rich in subject matter and composition, and we witness the youngsters as they grow in confidence and a sense of self-worth. 

A special feature of the film is observing the lengths to which Briski goes on behalf of the children. Especially vulnerable are the girls who are only a couple of years away from joining their mothers and aunts “on the line,” waiting for sauntering johns to single them out. Even now older women call out to them, “When are you going to join us, honey; won’t be long now!” Fighting through reams of red tape, Briski arranges to give each of her youngsters an opportunity to pursue an education and thereby have a chance to escape their ghetto.  

It would be nice to report that everyone is successful; certainly your heart cries out, “Go for it; do it!” In the end we learn which of these children, whom we’ve followed through the dirty alley-ways and hovels of their quarter, can grab and hold on to their chance. In the process we see how difficult it is for several to overcome the effects of painful family ties and how their needs for connection and safety can hold them back from opportunities at hand.

This account of these months in their young lives is poignant through and through. If nothing else it will prompt sensitive viewers to cry out in silent prayer, “My God, what some people, through no fault of their own, contend with in life!”