Thursday, January 1, 2009

An American Rhapsody 2001


Based on the true childhood story of director Eva Gardos. When a young family is forced to flee the unrest of communist Budapest, their infant child, Zsuzsi (Suzanne) is sent to live with an unrelated family on the countryside. What was supposed to be a temporary arrangement turns out to span the entirety of her formative years. This arrangement proves life altering for both families, but especially Zsuzsi when she is reunited with her now fully assimilated American birth family.


I'm still unsure how, when or why this movie wound up in my Netflix queue, but I'm glad it did. An American Rhapsody is a love story: parental love, self-love, young love, familial love; it's all in there. Having myself grown up between two geographically close households with staunchly polar socio-economic, political and at times ethical exemplars, this film really moved me. The relationship between teenage Zsuzsi, her birth parents and the family who cared for her delves under the tender surface to reveal just how conditional unconditional love can often be.

Have you seen any good movies lately?
Happy new year!

4 comments:

High Desert Diva said...

What a great review!

And no, sadly, no good movies have been seen lately...

Anonymous said...

I will have to check this one out. PBS is going to have some amazing mini's on Masterpiece theater starting this Sunday. I'll put up info on my blog later or just check out PBS.org.

Man, there are so many good movies I'm itching to see like Slumdog Millionaire, Defiance with Daniel Craig, Good starring Viggo Mortensen, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Seven Pounds, The Reader and Revoluntionary Road both starring Kate Winset.

Whew...yeah, we don't get out much!!

Weith Kick said...

I'm always on the lookout for new movies. You should be a movie reviewer. You wrote a nice write up of this film.

Oh, thanks for the jowl exercises. I admit it. I have googled "jowl exercises."

smithfamily said...

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is the best one I have seen all year.

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