Woohoo!! My DVD arrived today!

Persepolis is the animated film by Marjane Satrapi, relating her coming of age in Iran, starting before the fall of the Shah regime to today.

The film is divided into several segments:  Read more 

Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog

I watched The Devil’s Miner (website) last night for the first time (it was originally from 2005) and what a film this is. The central question of the film is

How do we live in dignity?

Especially when you are 14 years old, living in Potosi, Bolivia, and you work at a mine inCerro Rico, "the mountain that eats men"? The mines there have been exploited for 450 years and are responsible for 8 million dead. Initially, exploited by the Spaniards, the mines were taken over by the Indios (indigenous peoples) and run as cooperatives but it is still as dangerous and it is still drudgery.

The film’s central character is Basilio He is 14 and has been working in the mines since he was ten. He lost his father when he was two, so, now, he is the father in the family, so much so that his little sister, Vanessa, calls him "papa". He works with his little brother Bernardino, who is twelve (also in the mines). The boys go to school for half a day and spend the rest of the time working in the mines.  Read more 

Since I have just received my DVD of this great film, I thought I’d re-post the review I wrote at The Global Sociology Blog.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is a wonderful and harrowing adaptation of the book of the same name by Jean-Dominique Bauby (“Jean-Do”, as everyone calls him). Jean-Dominique Bauby was the editor of the French fashion magazine Elle when, at 43, he had a major stroke that put him in a coma for three weeks. When he finally regained consciousness, he was suffering from a rare condition named “locked-in syndrome”: his mind was intact but he was completely paralyzed, from head to toe.  Read more 

The Counterfeiters is a German film directed by Stefan Ruzowitzky. The tells the story of Salomon “Sally” Sorowitsch, a master counterfeiter at the height of his career in 1936 Berlin. Sorowitsch enjoys the proceeds of his crimes: money, women, champaign Champagne. He has no interest in the plight of his fellow Jews and is not bothered by the ordinary anti-semitism displayed by ordinary Germans. He even states that the Jews get persecuted because they don’t know how to adapt.

Then, his luck runs out. He gets busted by Superintendent Friedrich Herzog. He gets deported to the Austrian concentration camp of Mauthausen, famous for his deadly quarry(I have visited it, I have seen the barrack and I walked down to the quarry, still to this day, it is oppressive). Sally does what he does best: adapt.  Read more