I didn’t see all the Academy Award nominees for Best Picture but I can’t disagree with their choice of this movie as the winner.

At the beginning I wasn’t sure I was going to like it. Parts of it are rather violent, some parts are comedic, and at times it seemed like a fantasy (which was to be expected as we were dealing with a human-like creature who lived in the ocean). I loved the music in it and the poem at the end of the film described the story perfectly.

The movie is based on the real love affair between Peter Turner, 26, and Gloria Graham, 55, during the late 1970s. Gloria was an Academy award-winning actress who starred in movies during the late 1940s and early 1950s. The affair ended when Gloria was diagnosed with recurring breast cancer; she pushed Peter away and never told him of her illness. During her last weeks, not wanting to die in hospital, she reconnected with Peter and he brought her to his family home in Liverpool.

In the beginning of the film I had a bit of trouble placing whether the scenes were from the past or in the present; only a few years separated the two storylines so there weren’t a lot of changes in the looks of the characters. The movie is based on a book and I’m tempted to add it to my Want to Read list.

There were four films on the schedule, but we only made it to two of them; we were just too tired to go out for the evening movies.

Meet Beau Dick: The Maker of Monsters

A documentary about the acclaimed Alert Bay artists Beau Dick. While well-known for his carvings of masks, the film also highlights his activism on behalf of First Nations and the environment.

The City Before the City

This film documents the struggles of the Musqueam First Nation in their fight to gain control over their ancestral lands through the area now claimed by the City of Vancouver (and parts of the Greater Vancouver Regional District) and particularly over an area where ancestral remains were discovered prior to the building of a condo development. A 200-day vigil was held at the site in 2011; I am ashamed that I don’t remember hearing anything about this.

Although we were preparing for a House Concert tonight I had time to slip away for a bit this afternoon for a movie.

Meditation Park

Set in Vancouver we meet a Chinese couple, their daughter and her family as they gather to celebrate the husband’s 65th birthday. We soon learn there is an estranged son but we never meet him. When Maria discovers her husband, Bing, is having an affair the rest of the film deals with how she evolves from a loyal Chinese wife and mother to a woman who is a friend to her neighbours and discovers how to follow her own path. One comment in the film describes the “box” she was in at the beginning of the film – when we are young we have to obey our fathers, then when we marry we must obey our husbands. When our husband’s die we must obey our sons.