Oranges and Sunshine***, Sylvia **

Oranges and Sunshine*** 2010

The film itself is powerful, has a very important message.
I was very shocked to learn of how England sent off 130,000 children as "migrants" to Australia where they end up not adopted, but housed in windowless underground rooms of 14 children, with one pair of  pants, one pair of shoes per year per child.  Dank, hot, cold.  They were sent to do slave labour without pay.  This is a country who sent off their own childen to be molested overseas by the "church" people.

The film showed how a social worker battled to get the history and injustice of the government known.  After 23 years of silence they finally apologized and owned up to wrong doings.  But, these are grown people now, men and women - they might or might not be able to find their parents in time.  People die. There is a life time for everything.

So we see so many moving talks about ending child labour in Africa, in India, - for example in TED - in all these third world countries. and Here we are, England - not third world - in the 50s how the government sent these children to Australia.  The movie did not mention what benefits the government officials received - this is a puzzle that might proved to be even worst than what we see in the film but remained in black boxes - and why both sides , England and Australia adopted the mouth closed stance?  And how did it all began?

The boys were almost all molested by the church people, or couples who are good church people... and then bring the children to a bathroom and ...  almost the same story with all the male characters.

The girls did not talk about their fate in such detail but the housing condition and laundry facilities.

In fact, of all the church charities works that I have known, those do-gooders are in a category themselves - they did not inspire much nobleness in me.  This include Buddhist temples, and other types of worship groups - those who do "charities" are people to be aware of - to put it lightly.

Sylvia **

Story of Sylvia Plath played by Gwyneth Paltrow, and Daniel Craig as Ted Hughes.
Gwyneth is way way too pretty, all milk and honey, to be Sylvia, we are distracted by the innocent beauty of the character.  The other stunning woman was a former Chanel mannequin, Amira Casar, also star of many films by Catherine Breillat - comparing the two performers, even though Amira has less screen time she gives a memorable performance - we just want to see more of her.  Whereas we don't really understand why Sylvia is so strange.  Yes, she has some depressive syndromes, but as a character, we are not so sympathetic to her.  I like Sylvia's poetry, maybe the film should show this side more to make us understand Sylvia better here, the way it is show - we almost am happy for the Ted character to have managed to get away from this spiritually ephemeral beauty of a wife.  The important point is this couple has a special link - they are together as a heavenly match at the beginning but we don't know how this shift happened.  

Gwyneth Paltrow is very pretty - but I don't see torment in her performance.  Ted - played by current 007 thuggish Bond, didnt come off as a specially charming and sensitive poetic type either.

He wrote a book revealing their relationship 30 years later, "Birthday Letters" - and died soon after.  Maybe i will see what this book tells.