Miracle in the Woods
Director: Arthur Allan Seidelman * Cast: Della Reese, Meredith Baxter, Patricia Heaton, Anna Chlumsky, Gina Weatherby, Sanaa Lathan, David Hunt, Randy Brooks. (1997. 92 minutes.)
On their mother’s death, the estranged sisters, Sarah and Wanda, arrive to claim their family property. Conflict arises when Wanda wants to keep the grove, whereas the selfish Sarah wants to sell it in order to settle her financial troubles. Their plans are overturned when they discover that an elderly black woman named Lilly Cooper has been a tenant in the grove. She refuses to leave, claiming legal rights to the property and tries to drive them away at gunpoint. Sarah’s rebellious teenaged daughter Gina loves the wild woods and stumbles into Lilly’s house. She makes friends with the old lady, who has a tale to tell. Gina records Lilly’s story which goes back to the 1920s.The young and innocent Lilly had married a man of her dreams. But her husband turned out to be a bootlegger who ill-treated her. When she was unable to work, her husband took her little son Henry and handed him over to someone. Rendered homeless, Lilly was given refuge by Sarah and Wanda’s mother and had settled on the grove in her little home in the company of her pets. Before her death, the old woman had given Lilly rights to the property. Sarah and Wanda are caught in the dilemma of how to send Lilly out of the cottage. Gina, who had experienced little love from her mother, finds a mother figure in Lilly. She takes much trouble tracing Henry, who is now middle-aged. He had always lived under the impression that his mother had never loved him. It requires much persuasion to affect a reunion of mother and son. The sickly Lilly, evacuated from her home, is dying when they find Henry, who arrives at the last moment to a tearful reunion and a realization that his mother had longed for him all her life. The selfish Sarah learns a precious lesson from the experience, of compassion and repentance for her callousness. The story cut across race and class to show how human beings can connect meaningfully as a caring, loving family.
Lena: My One hundred Children
Director: Edwin Sherin * Cast: Linda Lavin, Cynthia Wilde, Torquil Campbell, Lenore Harris, George Touliatos (1987. 100 minutes)
This is adapted from the real-life story of a heroic Jewish woman, Lena Kuchler-Silberman, whose search for her lost daughter ends up with her becoming a real-life permanent surrogate mother with a hundred orphans in her hands from the concentrations camps. She studied philosophy, psychology and pedagogy, took up career as a teacher, educator and psychologist. She lost her infant daughter to malnutrition. She lived disguised as a Polish Catholic and worked underground to save Jewish children in Warsaw. In the spring of 1945, immediately after the War, she encounters a small group of traumatized and lost children ranging from toddlers to teenagers, living in dire conditions who were distrustful and sometimes even violent. These had all lost their biological parents. Overwhelmed by the experience, Lena assumes the role of surrogate mother, undertakes to bring them together and offer protection, comfort and education. She gains the confidence of the children. With great determination and insistence, she struggles with the official confusions, hostilities of an anti-Semitic social environment. Poland is now under Soviet control. She is able to settle the children in a home. But the children are bullied and physically abused by the locals. Finding that Poland is not safe, Lena and the children take a long trek through the forests, bribe the border guards with money and vodka, and loads her children on a train bound for Czechoslovakia, and from there to France, before she could finally take them to their ‘Promised Land,’ the newly formed state of Israel. Her children grew up to become normal citizens of their new nation serving the country in various capacities. Lena’s love and courage saved over a hundred children.
Prof Gigy Joseph
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