Light/Breezes

Light/Breezes
SUNRISE AT DEATH VALLEY-Photo by Tom Cochrun

Monday, August 22, 2011

PACIFIC VIEWS

REEL THOUGHTS
SARAH'S KEY
     Sarah's Key is one of those films that hits you hard.  
       The story line is tense and intricate. The acting, especially by Kristin Scott Thomas is superb. It is directed masterfully as the story moves between past events and a current unfolding of a mystery.  But it is the historical reality that plays as background and setting for the plot weave that is most moving.  
        The French, under Petain cooperating with the Nazis, rounded up and shipped thousands of their fellow countrymen, French Jews, to death camps.  Based on a novel by Tatiana de Rosnay, a French journalist, the story begins as thousands were rounded up in the Vel d'Hive incarceration in 1942 when a family is separated.
         In a way the story is framed by a sentence spoken during the film  
                                                   "The Truth has a price." 
     The truth of the context that gave birth to this fiction is painful and costly as is the fictional story played across 6 decades. The French can not escape what some of them did, nor can the world forget the Holocaust.  
      This is one story set against millions of real tragedies, but it is a story that packs an emotional wallop while once again reminding us of what should never be forgotten. Less important, but still significant, the story also demonstrates what value exhaustive journalistic reporting provides.  
THE SUMMER SHORE
       We are coming into what could be the best time of year
along the California Central Coast.  
       The sun warmed Pacific is reaching more mild temperatures.  Surfers always wear wet suits, but on the hotter days you see a few people wading or splashing in the surf.  The pier seen above is at San Simeon, near the original Hearst pier.  It is also near where the "Friday Lunch Flash Mob" is known to assemble.

        As late summer deepens into early autumn, temperatures warm, winds subside and there is less of the marine bank fog  that you see lurking off the point in the frame below.
       Though fall maybe the best, every season is magnificent
here in the unspoiled California.
        See you down the trail.

2 comments:

  1. I watched the trailer to the movie Sarah's Key just yesterday and thought it looked like a good movie... now after your review I will definitely be renting out to watch. Your Californian paradise is breathtaking. How lucky you are Tom!

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  2. Katherine-
    I think you'll appreciate the film. We are fortunate to live here, near the coast and we never take it for granted!
    Be well.
    Tom

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