Postman in the Mountains

After my Bollywood extravaganza earlier this year, I thought that I might never again watch Asian movies. Horrible acting, sappy plots, incomprehensible social cues, bad music (but good dancing).

But Bollywood's just the India part of Asia.

The same evaluation does not apply to the only Chinese movie I've seen (besides Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and Karate Kid). Postmen in the Mountains was a rare score for a foreign flick from the library. I know it's cliche, but the best way I can describe the movie is beautiful.

Reading the DVD back, I was fearing a Lethal Weapons-style plot. PITM is about a southern Chinese mountain postman on his last day on the job. One day before his retirement, his son joins him on the 3-day, 80-mile walking journey, a journey he will take over. Minutes from official retirement and a life of pension luxury,, terrorists reveal a plot to introduce roads and trucks in rural areas!

Actually, the only thing that could've been in an 80's actions flick was a scene where the son falls in love with a local girl at a rural postal stop, and they cook gruel while listening to an American rock ballad from the 80's.

Otherwise, the plot of the film is perfect for an unrelenting assault of beautiful imagery from a breathtaking part of the world. Mountains (of course), fields, valleys, streams, and cliffs all play a role. I was surprised to find myself reminded even of the beauty of parts of Lithuania (not the mountain parts).

Anyway, the thing that most made this movie more palatable than a Bollywood movie (aside from it's lack of gaudiness) was being able to relate to the characters' emotions. Son overtaking father. Father remembering youth. Learning/teaching how to express and share emotions. PLUS, the movie features a lovable German shepherd sidekick! How many movies feature lovable German shepherds?

A simple, well-shot movie with o.k. acting, wonderful photography, and a terrific story. Watch, now that I've raved about this movie, I'm gonna find out that somehow it's all just Communist propaganda, and I'll have to hate it.

**UPDATE**
Ha ha! Just as I feared -- in researching the links for this piece, I came across this quote from the end of the NYT review of Postman in the Mountains:

It is an endearing, likable film, though its benign surface may cover some subtle propaganda on behalf of China's centralized government.

The postman, who frequently identifies himself as a state official, becomes highly idealized, always ready to listen and sacrifice himself for the betterment of the masses. The villagers are portrayed as smiling and content, and the region's desperate poverty is played down in favor of lyrical landscape studies.

I wonder what the same reviewer would say of the subtle propaganda in Cheers:

The show's iconic postman-in-a-bar character, Cliff Clavin, upholds the petty American "value" of lackadaisical inebriation. Clavin, who constantly refers to his frustration at work, and his use of alcohol to solve those problems, is a subtle attempt on behalf of America's decentralized government to keep its people docile, passive, and decidedly not "postal."

-dr-

Apocalypto -- a movie about natural water birth

With a central focus on the unpredictable nature of birth, Mel Gibson's Apocalypto does a great service to shed light on the need for a naturalization of birth.



Ancient Mayan Jaguar Paw (below) is taken prisoner by angry brutes for a nearby urban center leaving his pregnant wife (above) and son stuck in a deep hole with no way out. The wife and son try their best to get out, despite rocks and panthers falling on them.

And then it starts pouring rain, and the water collects in the hole. Just as they're about to drown, the mom has an amazing water birth, and Jaguar Paw makes it back just in time after sprinting wounded for 2 days straight.


More than the decline of an ancient civilization, or an obloquy against Jews, Apocalypto is a movie about natural childbirth. I don't quite understand why some people find the scene funny, as I think it's a powerful testament to human ability and a somber reminder of how the medicalization of birth is leading to an increase in potentially harmful interventions.

Marsden Wagner, former head of Maternal and Child Health for the European Office of the World Health Organisation (WHO), discusses the "safety" of technological interventions in the birth process:

As with other technological interventions used at the time of birth, those using active management of labor seem bent on playing down or hiding any risks and reassuring everyone that it is "safe". For example they claim, "On balance, active management of labor is safe for the fetus, notwithstanding any associated dystocia. It is also safe for the mother" (O'Herlihy 1993). First, it must be said that such statements reveal a failure to understand "safety". Since every medical procedure or technology has side effects and risks, no technology is 100 percent "safe". In every case, it is necessary to balance the chance of a good result (efficacy) with the chance of a bad result (risk). With any intervention under consideration, the chance of a good result or bad result can be scientifically determined. Instead of telling the woman that the intervention is "safe", she should always be told all information on the efficacy and risk. But the decision as to whether the good chance outweighs the bad chance should not be made by the doctor, who is taking no chances, but can only be made by the person taking the chance --- the woman. Therefore the doctor can never say that any procedure is "safe" but only tell the woman the chances and let her decide (Wagner 1994).

Click here for more.

Not to mention, it's a great action flick pitting man vs. man vs. nature vs. sun gods, and vs. Spaniards (eventually).

-dr-