AN EX-COP LEADS A MANHUNT IN GO FOR SISTERS
Director John Sayles likes to depict those who are down-and-out but struggle to overcome the odds. In Go for Sisters, he focuses on Bernice (played by LisaGay Hamilton), a parole officer for the Los Angeles Police Department whose wayward son is a person of interest in an apparent gang murder. By chance, high school classmate Fontayne (Yolonda Ross), detained for a possible parole violation, appears before her in her office. Instead of sending her to a parole board hearing, she decides to utilize Fontayne’s street smarts in order to locate her missing son. When Fontayne finds out that he has been kidnapped by a gang south of the border, Bernice bankrolls help from former corrupt cop, Freddy Suarez (Edward James Olmos), who leads the African American “sisters” through a maze of Spanish-speaking underworld connections from Tijuana to Mexicali and Calexico. The film exposes the perilous life in Tijuana and Mexican border towns, a warning to anyone who might naïvely believe that they are tourist destinations. MH
THE BOOK THIEF IS A REMINDER OF HARSH CONDITIONS IN NAZI GERMANY
Among the almost infinite possibilities to find drama during the days of Nazi Germany, the novel The Book Thief (2006) by Markus Zuzak has now been brought to the screen by director Brian Perceval. When the film begins, 11-year-old Liesel Meminger (played by Sophie Néliesse) is being adopted by a strict mother, Rosa Hubermann (Emily Watson), and gentle father, Hans (Geoffrey Rush). Despite rumors at school spread that her parents were Communists, Liesel is befriended by a classmate, Rudy (Nico Liersch). She observes the Kristallnacht, Jews being rounded up, air raids due to Allied bombing, and a bookburning in the small town (though the filming is in Berlin), but she goes to the bonfire to rescue a book despite her borderline illiteracy. Hans teaches Liesel to read, but where can she find another book? Her adoptive mom does laundry for town Buergmeister Hermann (Rainer Bock), whose wife Ilse (Barbara Auer) saw Liesel rescue that book. One day, Ilse secretly lets Liesel into the secret town library and allows her to “borrow” books even when she is not present until the Buergmeister discovers her. Perhaps the most memorable line is spoken by Liesel, who explains why she is stealing books: “When life robs you, sometimes you have to rob it back.” A subplot involves a Jewish man, Max Vandenburg (Ben Schnetzer), who goes to Hans seeking to be hidden away. Accepted because Max’s father saved Hans’s life during World War I, Max later flees to avoid endangering the lives of Hans, Liesel, and Rosa. Coping with desperate conditions each day occupies much of the story, but the Allied victory brings an unexpected and pleasant surprise. The Book Thief is designed for those in their 70s and 80s in Germany today to tell their children and grandchildren what life was like in those days, a theme also portrayed in last year’s Mulberry Child about life in China during the Cultural Revolution. MH