bytruth Reviews

Mud (2012)

On the surface, Mud's plot may seem simple, but its symbolism runs deep, and tells a story that won't stop lingering in my mind.

[8/10 · 18 April 2014]

Caught between childhood and teenage years, two best friends, Ellis and Neckbone, are having to navigate through the murky waters of life that has surprises at every bend. When they arrive their childhood play area - a boat that has gotten stuck in the trees during a storm - they discover an adult is now inhabiting it. Just at a time when they are beginning to recognize their own pre-adult urgings awakening inside them, they discover who is living in their tree house of sort and make friends with him. He becomes a mentor to them just when the murky waters have become too muddy to see clearly, and he tells them how his own life has been shipwrecked because of a love affair that began when he was about their age.

The man named Mud had fallen in love with a girl named Juniper when he was a kid and never recovered from the experience. Just as her name implies, she is a bittersweet, prickly creature whose fragrance has gotten into his nostrils and he thinks he can't live without her. On the other hand, she is fickle with love, not appreciating what he has to offer, and only accepting it when it's according to her whims. This mirrors the relationship that Ellis finds himself in with his "girlfriend," May Pearl.

Neckbone, on the other hand, has never had anyone love him except for an uncle whose relationships with women are on his terms and usually consist of one night, or to be more exact, one afternoon, stands. On the other hand, his uncle knows how to find the pearls others don't see, and he has found one in the boy he calls Neckbone.

Ellis can't help comparing his father's relationship with his mother to his new friend, who will do anything to defend the honor of this woman, even if it means going to jail for the rest of his life, and his father is falling short in his estimation. On one hand, his father is telling him how bad women can be and on the other hand, he has this friend telling him that they are worth everything. This conflicts Ellis, and he finds himself in his own set of conflicts as he defends the girl in his life.

Mud's stories are larger than life, and one wonders what is real and what is not. Juniper calls him a liar, but is he really? By the conclusion, one begins to see that Mud's actions are not as murky as they at first seem. In the end, will the river of life lead them to larger horizons where they can grow from their experiences?

Sarah's Key (2010)

Two Holocausts are Paralleled

[9/10 · 25 November 2011]

The movie, Sarah's Key, is a finely crafted masterpiece, which parallels the plights of thousands of French children who suffered in the World War II Holocaust during and the continued worldwide holocaust of one billion children, who have perished through abortions.  While doing investigative reporting on the Holocaust's 60th anniversary, an emotionally involved American journalist, Julia Jarmond, becomes entrenched in finding two missing Jewish children, she discovers that she has a baby growing inside her. As her family's flat is being remodeled for her family,  a closet door is flung wide. The key to the mystery surrounds Sarah, the Jewish sister who locks her brother in the closet. She holds the key, which could allow him to live, mirroring how the journalist also holds a key, which determines the life of her unborn child.  

In the City of Lights, darkness is exposed. Many French at that time turn their back on the plight of the Jewish children just as the journalist's husband turns his back on his responsibility to care for his unborn child.  Julia discovers her husband's  grandfather did the honorable thing, but her husband does not choose to do so, and their marriage ends in divorce. The journalist's co-workers marvel that the French could let this happen in the middle of Paris. On the 40th anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade, people today continue to sanction the killing of unborn children. Irony occurs when the journalist views thousands   of the perished Jewish children's pictures.  There are no names or faces to affix to walls in the largest Holocaust of the 20th century. Another irony is the stench that filled the apartment when the journalist's husband's grandparents took over the flat, an obvious clue that something is rotten in Paris. The aftermath of abortion is not so obvious.  Sarah's death indicates her lifelong guilt over the demise of her brother. Julia will never have to live with that guilt because she made the honorable decision. Her  daughter, Sarah, is the key.   Her life is evidence of a decision to do the right thing.