Tonight's picture was taken in August of 2007. Mattie had a ton of energy! Even after a full day of sight seeing in San Diego, he was raring to go in the late afternoon. Which was when we typically took him to the pool. That summer Mattie was coming into his own with learning how to swim. He was taking lessons and progressing quite well. Mattie was in the pool working with Peter on the things he was learning in class as well as having fun spending time together as a family.
Quote of the day: It is not what you do for your children, but what you have taught them to do for themselves, that will make them successful human beings. ~ Ann Landers
So in lieu of the museum, we headed back to the movie theater. In this heat there are really few alternatives because it is like walking through an oven outside.
The film we saw today was called, Phoenix. It is a foreign film and in my opinion is a must see. The content is heavy and a bit dark, but it explores the complexity of war, deep betrayal, finding one's self, and trying to deal with the painful and horrific realities that human beings perpetrate against one another.
The film follows Nelly, a Holocaust survivor and a former
cabaret singer, who returns to Berlin after undergoing facial reconstruction
surgery for damage caused by a bullet wound. She locates her husband Johnny.
Johnny fails to recognize her, yet thinks she has an uncanny resemblance to his
wife. In order to obtain his wife's inheritance, he asks her to impersonate his
wife and he slowly transforms her into an image of his wife before her arrest.
Nelly, though warned by Lene (her friend) that Johnny was possibly complicit in her arrest,
maintains a romantic view of their relationship. She withholds her identity
from him and struggles to understand his feelings for her and his behavior at
the time of her arrest. Lene gives Nelly a copy of a divorce that Johnny was
granted from Nelly, right before her arrest. Nelly struggles with her romantic
feelings for Johnny, but keeps her knowledge of the divorce a secret. Johnny
continues the inheritance scheme with a plan for Nelly to get off a train and
make an orchestrated re-appearance in front of Johnny's relatives. Later, at
the home of Johnny's relatives, Nelly begins to sing, accompanied by Johnny on
Piano. Johnny has feelings of shock come across his face. He realizes his impostor is the real Nelly.
As the Boston Globe says, "The keynote song of “Phoenix” is “Speak Low,” the haunting
1943 Kurt Weill composition (with lyrics by Ogden Nash) about how quickly “the
curtain descends” on love. Nelly listens to the tune obsessively but can’t
bring herself to sing it until a certain point in the film. The effect is
hair-raising. Like its heroine, “Phoenix” speaks low but with bitter clarity."
Trailer to the Movie:
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