People of Blog World: I HAVE RETURNED

I'm back. I have been off the blog for so long I had to RACK my brain to remember my password.

Have just recently seen a great film--Winter's Bone. The film is set in the Ozarks of SW Missouri--not terribly far from my family home--and follows Ree Dolly, a teenage girl who must find her father after he has apparently skipped bail--or lose their home which he had put up for collateral. She has two younger siblings who don't understand the crisis thier family faces, and she trains them for the practicalities of hunting their own food. Her mother is in depression that makes her mute; at one point, Ree begs her mother to help her know what to do. Her mother says nothing.

I loved this film because the characterization is perfect; I grew up in the Ozarks. I know these people. The voices and accents are right; the clothing and the faces are authentic. The poverty, the clannishness, the independence and fierce pride--all of them are right in a bleached color palette that emphasizes the "right to the bone" life of the descendents of the Scots-Irish settlers.

OMG, I loved it. THIS was a movie--not the "cute" nonsense that people decide to see, marching in lockstep on the weekends to the local cineplex, decisions based on what was on the station breaks of Dancing With the Stars. Ree Dolly illuminates human character. Film is an art form; true art changes us.

Do what it takes to see this film--if it's gone from the theaters, put it on your NetFlix list or ask BlockBuster when it's going to be available. Watch something that feeds your soul--not something that numbs it.