The Language of Love

by Charles Green

This is an amazingly simple, yet powerful film.  In nine and a half minutes, one actor, in a monologue, reveals his love for his best friend, and all the conflicted feelings that comes with it.  As part of a French language exam in an Australian school, Charlie has to write a letter to his best friend, in French of course.  After some jokes about language, including one on how the verb baiser can mean two related but very different things (which can get you in trouble if you confuse the two), he starts talking about his friend Sam.  It should be stated that Sam is a boy.  Seated right in front of Charlie at every class, he has an extremely close relationship with Charlie, telling him everything, including his parents’ ugly, painful divorce.  The pain Charlie feels for Sam having to go through this experience is obvious on the young man’s face; this is a sensitive, thoughtful boy.  So when he suddenly blurts out, “I’m in love with Sam”, it seems perfectly natural, and yet of course, so many people would say it’s not.  Now he has to decide whether to tell his best friend or keep his feelings bottled inside.  His decision at the end is wonderful, and makes a great answer for his exam.

Charlie is incredibly articulate, probably more so than most young people, but using just his words he manages to connect us to him on a powerful emotional level.  He offers some insightful moments, such as wondering if he’s being selfish in holding back this secret.  After all, Sam doesn’t keep anything from him, so why shouldn’t he do the same? We laugh with him when he remembers how he became assistant librarian: because he didn’t swipe the sex ed books, which leads to a funny riff on gonorrhea and King Lear.  We cry when he worries about Sam’s possible reaction; will his best friend think he’s a freak?  We wince when he remembers the taunts his classmates make when, during a trip to the beach, he offers to put sunscreen on Sam’s back: “Charlie’s a poofter.”  It’s language in spoken form that allows him to connect with the audience, just as it’s language in written form that allows him to (hopefully) connect with Sam.  It’s a brilliant play on the title.

The film focuses almost entirely on Charlie, with a few glimpses of Sam, making for a tight character study.  At first it was difficult to know whether Charlie’s speech represents what he’s writing for his exam, or if it’s what he’s thinking while trying to answer, but that becomes clear fairly soon.  In any event, it’s a minor quibble, especially considering how much the film accomplishes in such a short time.  Incredibly moving, well-crafted and acted, The Language of Love is definitely worth seeing, regardless of how you feel about homosexuality.  In any language, love is universal.

Charles Green is a freelance writer and editor based in Annapolis.  His book reviews appear in several publications, including Publishers Weekly.

The Silkies of Madasgar

Filmmaker David Evans

by Nadja Maril

Initially when I think of going to the movies, I think of entertainment. But the medium of filmmaking can provide a powerful platform for education and social change.  Certainly the story of the women who comprise the Federation of Silk Weavers of Madagascar— a small island  nation off the  Southeast coast of Africa in the Indian Ocean—is a tale that renews ones faith in the ability of a small group of craftspeople to create a pocket of social and economic prosperity within an impoverished nation. 

                

Together we are like a rock

Separated we are like sand  

is one of the several proverbs shared with viewers with words on the screen. 

                Beautiful cinematography enhanced by a soundtrack that features native drumming and songs makes this film a pleasure to watch. It’s a documentary that captures the pulse of living in the village of Sandrandahy with the simple format of having weavers tell their stories and how being a member of the Federation of Silk Weavers has changed their lives.

While silk weaving has long been a tradition, it was once created solely for the purpose of shrouding the dead. Very fine shrouds were created to wrap in multiple layers around the corpses of ancestors and a specific ritual followed that involved re-visiting the corpses, parading them in the sunlight, and adding additional layers of silk years after their initial “burial”.

Now the cottage industry that begins with of gathering cocoons from the forests made by silkworms living in Tapia trees creates jobs for 900 people.  Getting the silks ready for weaving is a multi step process that involves boiling the cocoons, washing, dropping, drop spindling, dying, spinning, and weaving.  Colorful scarves are created that are now sold at the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market. The market, a three-day yearly event, represents the folk art of 150 countries. Only 33% of the artists who apply to the market are accepted.  The first year they participated, the Federation of Silk Weavers from Madagascar made $32,000, which for them represents a sum of money that would take them 15 years to earn.

Seeing all the handsome weavings and the labor and dedication involved in creating them, made me want to own or at the very least caress and handle one of those lovely textured scarves in my hands.

Filmmaker David Evans will be a featured guest at the Annapolis Film festival this month, and perhaps he will shed some light on who or what lead to the idea of creating colorful scarves and other items of silk for international sale.  (The film tells the story of how the weaving got to the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market but not what or who got the silk weaving crafts industry started initially. ) Towards the end of the film, the Federation was using some of their profits to built three bungalows for tourists in an effort to promote eco-tourism.  Are they available for rental today?

How long did it take, from inception to completion, to create this 30 minute gem?  Reading the credits at the end of the film I saw the names of dozens of people.  What is the story behind the making of this particular movie?

One of the benefits of attending the Annapolis Film Festival is not only the opportunity to see so many wonderful movies in one weekend but to interact with the filmmakers. So don’t miss it! Buy your tickets today.

In “Mondays at Racine,” Breast Cancer

Patients Bond at a Beauty Salon

By Beth Rubin

In “Mondays at Racine,” an award-winning short documentary by Cynthia Wade, sisters Rachel and Cynthia throw open the doors of their Long Island beauty salon one Monday a month to breast cancer patients in need of infusions of R and R. While coping with the disease’s devastating physical and emotional effects, the women handle the day-to-day life-altering challenges with intelligence, poise, and good humor. But chemo-related hair loss pushes them to the brink. 

In the welcoming arms of the empathetic salon owners, whose mother, we learn, became reclusive as her self-image as a woman diminished after her own breast cancer diagnosis and treatment, members of this tight sorority gather to shed their locks and inhibitions and to reclaim their femininity. Through spa treatments, makeup tips, abundant hugs, and quasi-group therapy, they regain their identities as   empowered women who just happen to have cancer. Unburdening themselves, they share the inevitable emotional  fallout from breast cancer—how it affects their self-image,  sexuality,  relationships with their spouses and children, and hopes for the future—and form an impervious bond.

The opening scene in the salon introduces us to a handful of women of different ages in various stages of treatment and hair loss. They try on hats, banter, and laugh unselfconsciously as if they’re meeting for tea or a girlfriends’ getaway. The mood changes when the women begin to tell their stories.  

Cambria is married with a loving husband and son, and is in the process of adopting a second child. Her diagnosis, Stage 3 metastatic breast cancer, may well prevent her from completing the adoption. We follow her into the shower and watch as her hair —“women’s crowning glory”— collects in the drain. 

In her late-fifties, Linda has outlived her original diagnosis by 17 years. She’s sick and she’s tired—of cancer, of multiple rounds of chemo, of feeling lousy, of her husband’s inability to give her the love and support she needs. “I have nothing left. I’ve lost my hair, I’ve lost my breasts.” She reclaims her power in a pair of scenes that rival much of what is hawked as drama and pathos in full-length, big-budget films. 

We accompany Cambria and Linda as they make difficult medical and personal decisions, anguish and pleasure intermittently writ large on their faces. We applaud their strengths, feel their pain, and cheer their victories. We know these women. They are us. If we have not yet walked in their shoes, they are our sisters, mothers, daughters, or best friends.

This is not a film to be avoided because it arouses uncomfortable feelings. It should be seen by all women—and by the men who love them.