Just came from seeing "Belle!" Who wants to talk about it??? [View all]

[Number23]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2404181/

Oh, what a beautiful movie. Oh, my goodness. It discusses the inelegant evils of racism and sexism in such an elegant way.

Dido is easily one of the most exquisite people on screen out right now. Both as a young girl and as grown woman, the two characters that play her are breathtakingly beautiful.

There were some weak moments, though. A couple of times I wanted the story to move a bit faster and it could have been tightened up a bit. I would also to have liked her to have had more interactions with black characters in the film. And the ending, let's just say I think she owed her "Papa" a hell of a lot more than the warm smile that she gave him.

This is a movie I will be showing my daughters as soon as I think they are old enough. My husband stumbled out of the theater, he was so moved and affected by the film, particularly the scene where this stunningly beautiful woman scratches at her skin as if to remove her blackness. It didn't matter that she was breathtaking. Hell to these folks, it didn't matter that she was RICH (another kick to the ass of that whole "it's not race, it's class" stupidity). She was black. And that's all she was.

And to think, it all sprang from this. One mysterious, stunning picture: