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pangaia

(24,324 posts) Sun Aug 4, 2019, 04:41 PM Aug 2019

BALZAC AND THE LITTLE CHINESE SEAMSTRESS

Highly recommend this film in these times..

here is one reviewer's comment..

"The film is beautifully executed in every sense and is an important one as well. It deals implicitly with all societies in which political and religious zealots will limit our ability to think, first by denying access to skills like reading and mathematics that we use to think with, second by denying access to the vast store of human knowledge that we might think about. It is easy to see such powerful anti-intellectualism for what it is when Chairman Mao does it in China or the Taliban do it in Afghanistan, but it is much harder for Americans to recognize it when their own friends, neighbors and legislators eliminate high school music and art programs under the guise of saving money, and struggle fiercely to eradicate education in the historical sciences under the guise of religious freedom. BALZAC AND THE LITTLE CHINESE SEAMSTRESS encourages us to believe that such efforts ultimately will fail, when we see the enormous potential impact of a tiny taste of literacy and a momentary freeing of the imagination among young people in the mountains beyond Chengdu. Of course we shall never know for certain whether the remarkable transformation of China in recent decades happened because of or in spite of the re-education programs. Nevertheless, on days when I think my own culture is doomed by rabid anti-intellectualism, I will remember this film and be a little less pessimistic. (4/11)"

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