Baba

Here’s a short film which is described as a short, animated collection of memories from a Turkish refugee (Sol) in New Zealand. The film was made by Sol’s grandson Joel Kefali. Joel is a music video director and he based his film on conversations he had with his grandfather. Another good text for our ‘Identity and Belonging’ study.

The Power of Vulnerability

This TED talk makes an interesting part of our ‘Identity and Belonging’ theme study. Brené Brown studies human connection — our ability to empathize, belong, love. In a poignant, funny talk, she shares a deep insight from her research, one that sent her on a personal quest to know herself as well as to understand humanity.

She talks about connection and disconnection, what it is to belong and what it is to not belong. This is one thing that she has found out:

“People, who have a strong sense of love and belonging, believe they are worthy.”

Stand by Me – A coming of age story

A coming of age is a young person’s transition from childhood to adulthood. The term coming of age is also used in reference to different media such as stories, songs, movies, etc. that have a young character or characters who, by the end of the story, have developed in some way, through the undertaking of responsibility, or by learning a lesson. A rite of passage is a ritual event that marks a person’s progress from one status to another.

Stand by Me is based on Stephen King’s novella The Body. The film is set in a small Oregon town during the last weekend of summer in 1959. The main characters are all twelve years old and they will begin high school after the long weekend. The boys head out on an adventure that helps them leave their boyhood days behind forever. They want to find the body of a young man that has been hit by a train after they overhear some older boys discussing where the body is. The boys want to find the body so that they can become heroes. Unfortunately, the town bully Ace and his gang are also determined to find the body, setting up the film’s climactic conclusion.

The story is told flashback style by narrator Richard Dreyfus who plays the adult, Gordie LaChance. Stand by Me is a beautifully told story of  friendship, but it is also a coming of age story. The film is about the loss of innocence and each of the boys must confront and deal with a personal issues as part of their journey.

In keeping with other rite of passage stories, the journey is used as a metaphor to show how one event or sequence of events can change perceptions and lead someone down a different path than the one that they thought that they would go down. Stand By Me examines who we are and how we got to be that way, and who was a part of  the journey.