La Vendedora de Rosas

La Vendedora de Rosas or The Rose Seller, a brutal Columbian movie by Victor Gaviria. Loosely based on a story by Hans Christian Anderson it depicts the lives of young girls in a crime infested, drug infested suburb of Columbia. Children who run away from their homes because of violence in their homes get caught into the drug gangs racket, sniffing glue and trying to eke a living in a violent poverty ridden world. Monica is the fulcrum of the story, brilliantly played by Leidy Tabares, she is the one around whom the other girls revolve a sort of an unofficial leader of them. In comes Andrea all of 10 years old, also run away from a violent home. The girls have to be smart to survive in this squalid world where young boys are constantly looking to take advantage of them. All of them have one soft spot, for Monica it is her dead grandmother whom she had loved very much. A sort of Salaam Bombay kinda movie it delves into a Columbian life where violence is a just a few seconds away. A lot of scenes in the movie is quite realistic. Gaviria has managed to extract quite brilliant performances from all the kids in the movie.  

 

Going Crazy

"Going Crazy" by Otto Friedrich is a kind of biography or a history of insanity or madness through the ages. Otto does a good job in keeping the narrative flowing throughout the pages with first hand accounts by many patients. Apart from celebrated cases he has also dwelt on the ordinary people's lives disrupted by what he calls as "craziness" - by all accounts all of us are somewhat crazy at some times or other - it only varies by degrees, but while majority are able to keep their thoughts clear there are many who lose control of their minds. He has also written about the cures which in medieval times ranged from cruelty itself like chaining the patients to drugs, therapies etc. It was surprising to read that so many celebrated people had problems in their lives. I would highly recommend this book to those interested in different genres like non-fiction, biographies etc. Rating 5/5