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The Children are Watching

Be careful of your heart. De Sica’s The Children are Watching Us (1944) will tear it apart. We see a family breaking apart through a 4 year old boy’s eyes. His mother breaks a date to take her son to the movies in favor of taking him to a park where she meets her lover. The paramour has a new job far from Rome and she can’t resist his begging her to come. Pricò, the boy senses something’s wrong. When mama’s gone both father and son are devastated and shamed by the neighborhood gossips.

Pricò is passed to a cruel grandma and careless aunt. The boy’s soon ill and mama returns. The father is distant but on the whole forgiving. He decides the best thing for the family is a summer seaside vacation, though mama hesitates. Although the mother doesn’t like the other vacationers, she’s willing to stick out the vacation. She does want to be a good mom. Yet when the father must return to work, mama’s brazen lover turns up at the resort and mama’s not strong enough to resist his charms. Pricò sees what’s going to happen and runs away almost getting himself killed by a train.

Throughout Pricò tries to be stoic and tries to protect his father and mother to no avail. It’s powerful to see the boy’s hurt and how little he understands about his parents, though he does understand his family’s fragility. The young actor’s performance is heart-breaking. The Children are Watching is a moving film that will stick with you.

An interesting note: though the film shows the harm that infidelity causes a family, De Sica began an affair with actress, María Mercader. Ah, human frailty!

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie is a cute mystery with with a precocious 11 year old heroine, Flavia de Luce. Set in 1950’s pastoral England, Alan Bradley’s novel is as sweet as can be and at times that sweetness was too much. I listened to the audio book which featured a gifted narrator, but after about 15 minutes not wanting to develop literary diabetes I had to turn it off.

The charming, brilliant Flavia is a chemistry whiz who can’t abide her older sisters. She plans and concocts a poisonous lipstick for her sister who loves wearing make up and focuses on her looks. Flavia is smitten with the Periodic Table and is an expert in chemistry, history and all things esoteric.

When a mysterious stranger is found dead on her family’s estate, her father is arrested for murder and Flavia begins to investigate. Of course, the police get involved, but as implausible as it sounds only Flavia makes any significant discoveries. The inspector’s role in the story is just as a foil to Flavia’s clever thinking. He’s not a bumbler, but I didn’t buy that the police seemed to make no progress on he case.

Bradley stuffed more clever metaphors into a paragraph than any author I’ve ever read. Flavia’s thinking was clever, but someone ought to teacher her to tone it down. No one speaks like this. Not even the most precocious child.

While I did like the mastery in small doses, I found the ending disappointing and Flavia’s character too sweet.

Pull Up a Seat Photo Challenge

At the Shandong Art Museum

This painting shows some chairs around a table for the Pull up a Seat Photo Challenge. Will that little child fall?

You can see more seats, chairs, couches, thrones, ottomans and such by clicking here.

Heartwarming

I love how this fitness center makes all kids feel included.

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Busy

Melbourne, Australia

Each week Cee of Cee’s Photography challenges bloggers with a fun prompt. This week we’re to find photos of subjects that depict busy or working people.

Seoul, South Korea

Pekanbaru, Indonesia

If you want to see more fun photos, click here.

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Happy

Subway, Taipei

Jinan, Silver Plaza

Renoir, Art Institute of Chicago

Pearl Market, Beijing

Each week Cee of Cee’s Photography challenges bloggers with a fun prompt. This week we’re to find photos of subjects that depict. the concept of happiness.

If you want to see more fun photos, click here.

10,000 Marks

My old employer, DDB has an office in China. Last month I showed my students a couple of their commercials. I just discovered this one. It’s thought provoking for this culture, where mothers tend to view their children critically so they have room to improve. DDB wondered whether they could change this behavior with an ad.

It’s gotten 40 million views and counting in China.

I found this moving, but also wondered about making women feel guilty while televised. I suppose if they felt willing to criticize their kids in front of a camera, they perhaps opened themselves up to this, but then again they were following a cultural norm.

What do you think?

Sepia Saturday

This week’s Sepia Saturday inspires bloggers to search through archives and find photos on travel, overcrowding, blankets or I’d say carriages. Though kids are back at school, September’s a good month for traveling. My aunt and uncle are soon off to Russia and other friends are off to Wyoming. I’ll leave for China on Thursday so travel came to mind.

Source: Tyne & Wear Museums (n.d.)

How romantic the life of circus performers on the road must have been back then.

Source: National Library of Ireland, circa 1890

Above is a ferry, so the journey’s not long. It carries dock workers.

Source: LOC, circa 1912

The last photo was taken at a train station, I’m not sure where, but somewhere in the US.

Click here to see more Sepia Saturday posts.

A Boy from Shandong Dancing

I know cute baby and kid videos can be rather too cutesy and maybe this is, but it did make me smile and there are subtitles so you get a glimpse into Chinese culture via the judges and the boy.