roberta_young

I grew up in the 1950s in suburbia. It was a time after the war when the greatest generation raised their families. Crime was low. We could be free-range kids living life. Every day in summer, we'd think "what fun are we going to have today". According to Hollywood our parents were miserable, hard-working fathers and housewife mothers who all wanted to be artists. The fact is our parent's values weren't as shallow as Hollywood's. My father lived for his family, so did my mother. But there were lots of laughter and fun in that family. People had purpose in their lives and meaning. Revisionist Hollywood will never understand the 1950s.

Some of the 1 starred reviews here are either by atheists or Protestants who have a gut-level revulsion at the name of Mary, which seems pretty insulting to Jesus if you ask me. Their ridiculously low rating does not reflect the caliber of this film, and was just intended to drag down the average rating. While I was tempted to give this a 10 star rating to counteract their biased ratings, I'm more honest then they are. It's not a perfect film. While the film takes a leisurely, artistically filmed approach, which I mostly found very meditative and wonderful, parts of are extremely slow, and I suspect were timed to just match the musical accompaniment. The film is beautifully acted by Bahia Haifi and Noam Jenkins. They really do convey "the peace of God which surpasses all understanding". Few films ever ponder what the experience of Mary was actually like. However, I did wonder at a few aspects. Shouldn't Mary have been living with John? I wished the portrayal of Communion at the end included more of Jesus' words from the Gospels.