That was pretty sad to watch. Plus it must have been difficult for some of the extras to re-enact that scenario, seeing how many of the older ones were Japanese-American citizens who had actually been uprooted and sent to the internment camps in the early 40's.
I don't know of very many films that depict that period in history. This film did it, quite poignantly.
And wasn't it a great piece of filmmaking that that sequence was done as a minutes-long montage.
Very talented people obviously went into the making of this great film.
Ribbons and detours meant nothing to me
Swaying our sympathies, pulling our strings...
One of the most influential people in my life was a woman I knew as a child. She was bold without being brash. Everyone loved her. She ran the office of a school superintendent as if it were the most important place in the world. She was beautiful--I could sense that as a boy. She made a staff of hundreds of people of diverse professions, skills, and job levels into a family. Her husband was the first person out side of my family and the medical staff to see me when my mother brought me home from the hospital.
In 1942, she and her husband and their families were forced to close a successful furniture store business in Los Angeles, and they were moved to interment camps in Arizona. I will never know the heart ache caused them by this event.
But I thought of them when I watched this movie.
Do you know what happened to her afterward?
It's hard to understand how humans can turn on each other like this constantly. One of the best things about books and movies is the ability to reflect on what we are capable of and how our actions have deep and meaningful effects. The best ones are able to put you in the shoes of someone completely different from yourself and give you the ability to understand their perspective.
Happy birthday to the ground!