Movies entertain and enlighten. I love to go out for a drink and then to a movie and to be able to slip back deep into the seat to be totally enveloped in the warm dark and vivid action and emotion of the movie house. It is just not the same on the TV, regardless of how big the screen.
Once a week or so, or whenever I can persuade somebody to leave their spouses and domesticity, I am to the local movie house. With friend who work in the mining industry, and we argue mining issues over the drinks and after the movies.
But first a stop at a favorite pub for a drink and starters. The pub, for what it is worth, is Raglans along Lonsdale Avenue in North Vancouver. Terrible kitchy decor vaguely reminiscent of Hawaii or Southern California, but clearly done by somebody who has never been there. The decor is not the point. It’s the ugly wooden benches painted in garish colors, which somehow are comfortable. It’s the casual and friendly service. And it is great food conjured up in the kitchen just behind the bar by earnest young men who look so serious all the time. If genius is unique and individual and a bit quirky, this is it.
Today I see the Oscar nominees are out. I have not seen any of the top nominees, although we almost made it to The Wrestler last night. Instead we saw Defiance. The movie’s summary is brief, but correct:
Four Jewish brothers living in Nazi occupied Poland escape into the forest where they join up with Russian resistance fighters in battling the Nazis. Throughout the war they build a village inside the forest and save the lives of more than 1200 other Jews.
This is a true story and a movie that takes you in deep. With two Jewish grandkids, how could I not be moved?
Last week we saw Clint Eastwood in Grand Torino. Clint Eastwod did not get an Oscar nomination for this movie, but it would have topped my list. OK, we can forgive them for including Heath Ledger and Wall-E!, both of which would appear on my list.
By now you are probably wondering how I can justify this rant on good movies on a blog supposedly devoted to mining. I admit that none of the movies I write about has anything remotely to do with mining. But the movies make me wonder about the events I read about in mining every day. Here are some, and I urge you to consider both sides of the issues involved before taking sides:
Ecuador mining protests marginalized.
On Tuesday, nation-wide protests over large scale metal mining called by the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) demonstrated growing, broad-based participation. Roughly 12,000 people from indigenous, environmentalist, human rights, campesino and rural water organizations participated in diverse actions across eleven provinces of the small Andean nation.
Time for mining companies to share the weatlh of Sudbury
Last year, Whitefish Lake First Nation announced a $550-billion land claim, including almost all of the lands encompassing Greater Sudbury. The band argues the Ontario and federal governments violated the Robinson Huron Treaty of 1850, which it says included an agreement the First Nation would receive money based on the amount of revenue derived from the land. Officials say the intent isn’t to force people off the land, but to get a fair share of profits generated by mining companies in the past century.
Thousands of protestors in India marched against British mining firm Vedanta on Saturday, to oppose the company’s plans to mine a sacred mountain and feed its aluminium refinery. India’s Supreme Court gave the mine the green light in August last year, but the Dongria Kondh and other Kondh tribes are determined to save their sacred site from destruction. Regular road blocks have so far kept construction vehicles off the mountain.
I wonder if any of these news stories will one day be the basis of a movie that wins an Oscar. The stories all have the same elements of human nature in conflict. The conflict between those who want to cling to the old ways and those who would move them on, by force if necessary. The conflict of tribes and races. The struggle of the individual and the family to survive in the face of implacable violence that wants the land. The horror of the power of an organization to impose its will in the struggle for resources.
We may decry Hollywood’s choice of topics for movies. We may prefer the romantic comedy for it makes us feel good. We may make snide remarks about animated movies. But at the end of the day Wall-E is us in disguise and his story is an examination of what motivates and move us.
These new movies are the sagas of our age and the reflection of our inner being. They are the stories that help us understand, act, and react. Maybe we should put up a good movie houses in Ecuador, the Whitefish Lake First Nation lands, and India and then show them Oscar movies. Or maybe we should not for that may inspire them to even more violent action. For every hero is a terrorist to somebody else.
