Tuesday, August 12, 2008

¡Día de la reseña de película!

Hola, all, it's Movie Review Day.


First, a little background. I may have mentioned before, or maybe not, who knows, but Mom #2 is totally Hispanic with a rich traditional bloodline that hails from Spain as well as Mexico. Sometimes people let a lot of prejudices slip in front of her with her deceptively fair complexion, hazel eyes, blond hair, and perfect non-accented English, but that's a different post for a different day. Back to business, as I was saying, a significant portion of her family is Spanish speaking only and the rest has Spanish as their first language. This coupled with the fact that we live in an area of the country that has a large and active Hispanic population, has us speaking, or at least attempting to speak Spanish every single day of our lives.

For our family, we've made it our business to embrace the Hispanic heritage and culture. I have spent several years off and on really attempting to learn Spanish. Since I worked in the social work field for about ten years, I do have a primitive working Spanish vocabulary, but I'd like to make it flow more easily from my lips instead of stuttering through it like a metal grate every time I'm forced to speak it. I want it to be much more natural to me.


Watching movies in Spanish is an amazing way to both learn and perfect that skill. It also allows you to "see" the language spoken in a natural environment instead of in a sanitized stabilized classroom environment.


With all of that pre-production out of the way, I have an excellent movie review/recommendation for you today, it's the Spanish Language movie, Under the Same Moon. America Ferrera is briefly in it, for all you Ugly Betty fans.


It is a Spanish language movie. Spanish speaking, only. No English. You do have the option of adding English subtitles if you are so inclined, but if feel free to give yourself a Spanish language challenge and go at it alone for a while.

The movie is a complicated saga of an illegal immigrant mother attempting to make a better life for herself and her family, who is still in Mexico while she works in the United States. The person she is trusting to watch her beloved son, her mother, passes away suddenly and with their limited communication, the child is alone for several days in his search for his mother, his safety and his freedom. The movie passes no judgment and neither criminalizes nor glorifies the subject of illegal immigration. It simply holds a mirror up to this family's truth and allows you to make your own decisions regarding the situation. I like that. I'm not one to have my movies preaching to me, there are other places to go for that.

The dialogue is simple and straight forward and the plot is a little predictable, but that actually added to the beauty for me. Without a jumpy plot and unnecessary dialogue, you can focus on viewing the beautiful scenery and really understanding and learning the word choice.


If you are learning Spanish in your homeschool program, or if you would like to start, you simply must add this movie to your Netflix homeschool queue (don't act like you don't have one). It's a keeper.



Until next time . . .


4 comments:

kitten said...

Thanks for the review on the movie! Will have to check it out. Can't wait on your post about Mom#2.

I love the 5 song by Elmo also!

Wendy said...

My favorite Spanish language movie is "Pan's Labyrinth". It is visually breathtaking (and, of course, I cry at the end). I agree with you about foreign movies - you get more out of them than just entertainment.

Anonymous said...

sounds like a good movie, i'll have to add it to the queue. and i second the mention of pan's labyrinth.

does baby boy speak spanish? how much do you speak it at home? is mom#2 fluent? i ask b/c adrian is fluent and it was always our goal to raise the kids bilingual... but it hasn't happened. he has been in the us so long that he automatically speaks english. he has to make an effort to speak spanish, and he never remembers to.

Anonymous said...

I use to watch spanish soap operas. You can tell what's going on a lot just by watching their body language. My dh caught on and began watching them too for a bit. We had to give them up when we started homeschooling. Ah! Those were the days. Good times. Good times. :)

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