Monday, April 13, 2009

A Dream Transferred

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A Raisin in the Sun

A Raisin in the Sun

My Amazon Review




77 used & new from $3.62


5.0 out of 5 stars A Dream Transferred , April 13, 2009


I watched this movie last night and the effects it had on me are still lingering through this morning. Not only is it a wonderful film production and acting performance of a classic and timeless story written for the stage by Lorraine Hansberry, but its also a much needed reminder of what it takes to keep our dreams alive while staying true to the moral and religious values that helped carry generations before us through tougher times.

My mother took us to see this play in NYC back in the 70's when I was about 10 year old. I remember not understanding the different reactions of the grown-ups, I was more captivated by the experience of my first Broadway play and being inside a huge ornately decorated theatre. Watching the movie last night I now understand what all the sorrow, laughter, disappointment and triumph I saw on stage and throughout its audience of years past was all about. I now know why my mother was teary eyed afterwords.

This story is simply about the passing of the torch from one generation to the next. The torch comes with all the emotions of the past (both good and bad) as well as its hopes and dreams. Any people who've been immigrants to or experienced oppression in a land will relate to this story.

I learned from watching this movie last night that what touched my mother so much in this story is that it represented her and my father's story, or any parent's story for that matter; for their children to attain all the dreams and hopes of their parents and generations past, dreams that have now become the children's dreams. I also realized in watching that the obstacles and frustrations I've had to overcome are similar to those of my parents, maybe even inherited.

So Now it is I who carry the torch and will someday, with teary eyes of joy, pass all the hopes, dreams, sacrifices and struggles to my children when the time is ripe.

The message is clarified in this updated movie production. For if we don't pass on to the next generation our hopes and dreams along with the spiritual wisdom and moral guidance of past generations, all of it can simply "dry up like a raisin in the sun, or fester like a sore and run."

A Must Watch!

And for those reviewers who I feel are unjustly criticizing the acting of Sean Combs, try to remember, its not about the messenger as much as the message. Don't be deferred, he delivers the message brilliantly. The question becomes, are you ready to receive it?

Deceased father's love for children and dreams expressed in these lines from the movie: "Seems like God didn't seem fit to give a Black man nothin but dreams, but he did give us children to make the dreams seem worthwile."

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