Precious - Life is precious
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Precious - Life is precious |
| Original title | Precious: Based on the novel "Push" by Sapphire |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 2009 |
| length | 110 minutes |
| Age rating |
FSK 12 JMK 14 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Lee Daniels |
| script | Geoffrey Fletcher |
| production | Lee Daniels Gary Magness Sarah Siegel Magness |
| music | Mario Grigorov |
| camera | Andrew Dunn |
| cut | Joe Klotz |
| occupation | |
| |
Precious - The life is precious (Original title: Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire ) is an American drama film directed by Lee Daniels in 2009. The film is based on a novel by the author Sapphire . The film opened in German cinemas on March 25, 2010.
action
Claireece Jones , called Precious by her family , is sixteen years old in 1987 and functionally illiterate (i.e. with severely restricted reading and writing skills), but has a gift for mathematics. She is extremely corpulent and is pregnant for the second time. Precious' first child, just called Mongo , has Down syndrome and lives with their grandmother. Through flashbacks of the protagonist's thoughts, it becomes clear that her father, her mother's long-time friend, has raped her regularly and is also the father of her two children.
Claireeces mother Mary , also overweight and also depressed due to the disturbed family situation , is unemployed, spends her days passively in front of the TV, lives on social benefits for lack of any opportunities on the job market and takes out her frustration on her daughter without ceasing. Affection, appreciation, love and a sense of community do not exist in Precious' family and surroundings. The mother's aim in life is exclusively geared towards providing by adding social benefits, for which she “borrows” during visits from the social worker Mongo. Precious, who submits to the cold violence of her mother, has to cook cheap, but high-calorie dishes such as pork feet in a fatty sauce with kale and is constantly insulted by her mother as "stupid as a piece of shit", "slut" and "cunt", psychologically and physically abused and beaten. If her mother finds a meal that Claireece has cooked unacceptable, she sadistically forces the daughter to eat it as a punishment.
Claireece has passable grades in school, but when her director finds out about her second pregnancy, she expels her from school and recommends the alternative learning project Each One Teach One , for which Precious has received a scholarship. The mother does not understand the word scholarship, does not want to know about it and demands that Claireece drop out of school as soon as possible in order to live on social benefits herself. The film changes again and again between the depressing, verbally and physically violent reality and Precious' fantasies, in which she paints all situations beautifully and well.
Claireece attends lessons in a multi-ethnic class in which all students have various difficulties, but thanks to the dedicated teacher Miss Rain, she learns to read and write better. She also confides in a social worker who, although shocked by the fact of the double incest birth through multiple rape, apparently takes no further action.
When her child Abdul is born, Precious spends some time in the hospital, is regularly visited by her classmates from the learning project and feels safe. Thanks to the influence of Miss Rain, the class, made up of young women, has developed solidarity across all ethnic boundaries to a certain extent and allows Precious and baby to participate in the class. When Precious returns home with the child, an uproar breaks out between her and her mother. The mother accuses her of stealing her husband and beats her. Claireece leaves the apartment.
Miss Rain temporarily worries Claireece that it's Christmas, a place to live at her home. Precious, herself living on the fringes of society, is initially appalled by the discovery that Miss Rain shares table and bed with her life partner, and is therefore a despicable "homo". But horror quickly changes to emotion, triggered by the warmth and friendliness of the inn. Precious begins to understand that her mother's opinions are not the true explanation of the world, but opinions and prejudices tinged with fate.
Precious continues to thrive in the nurturing environment and even wins an award for making good progress in literacy. The relationship with her now nine-month-old son Abdul is also developing very well in the loving atmosphere of the three women.
A little later, through a visit from her mother, the girl found out that her father had just passed away and was infected with the HI virus . When Precious found out that she was HIV-positive herself, she told the assembled class about the rape, collapsed in tears, but finally clearly identified the mechanisms of lovelessness, disadvantage and continued violence against her as subjects of protection, which she previously considered normal life had looked.
The social worker, meanwhile, arranges another meeting between Precious and her mother, at which she confronts the mother. Under pressure, the mother finally describes that Claireece was abused by her father at the age of three. When asked for the reason, her story gradually reveals that her husband Carl, through increasingly perverse behavior towards her, had triggered feelings of inferiority in herself during the entire marriage - among other things, he drank the baby's milk from the mother's breasts away and started abusing the baby during the marital union. Her own partner was only interested in the daughter, not her. The feeling of inferiority made her hate her daughter.
Claireece listens to the description without saying a word and then tells the mother that they would never see each other again. She takes her two children and walks away. Now she has a plan. Because of the steep performance curve of the past few months, her goal is to go to high school and college.
Reviews
“In spite of all the hardship and blows of fate, Precious is ultimately (and this should be said with a tendency towards proper euphemism) a feel-good movie. It is true that the Hollywood Cinderella story does not come into play here in a glamorous or romantic, dreamy manner, nor does the ›American dream‹ knock on the door with a knowing smile. Only the subjunctive, a pinch of hope and self-confidence, is ultimately enough to put a confident and honest smile over the battered life. Because the decision is still up to you: ›Life is unfair. Kill yourself or get over it. ‹"
"A gripping social study that leaves the viewer both stunned and hopeful."
“ Precious - Life is precious is just as little sentimental redemption fantasy as depressing social drama. The big benefit of the film lies in the fact that hard realism and good entertainment are not mutually exclusive. "
“The gripping drama combines the bleak balance of living conditions in the social ghettos of modern large cities with a resistive history of development. The provocative melodrama is not satisfied with an unvarnished look behind the façades of an affluent society, but also shows how social commitment and persistence can change fate. "
“The messages in Daniels' film may sound banal, the piled-up suffering may be too constructed - in the interplay of alternating narrative stylistic devices and convincing actors, Precious nevertheless develops an effect that the viewer cannot escape. And if you realize that such stories are also conceivable in this country in the growing underprivileged classes, the film becomes uncomfortably topical. "
Awards (selection)
Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire has been nominated for 58 awards so far, including six nominations for the 2010 Oscar . 44 prizes have been won so far. Despite the many awards, the film had a hard time finding a distributor in Germany.
Web links
- Precious - Life is precious in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Precious - Life is precious at Rotten Tomatoes (English)
- Official German website for the movie
- Uwe Schmitt: The fat operator who became a star ; Article in Die Welt from December 14, 2009
Individual evidence
- ↑ Release certificate for Precious - Life is precious . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , July 2010 (PDF; test number: 121 818 V).
- ↑ Age rating for Precious - Life is precious . Youth Media Commission .
- ↑ Cornelis Hähnel: Hold on, if you can somehow, on schnitt.de, accessed on March 27, 2010.
- ↑ Review on cinema.de, accessed on March 27, 2010.
- ↑ Philipp Bühler: Precious - Life is precious - Film of the month March 2010. In: kinofenster.de. Federal Agency for Civic Education and Vision Cinema , February 26, 2011, accessed on January 15, 2011 .
- ^ Precious - Life is Precious in the Lexicon of International Films , accessed on April 29, 2012.
- ^ Robert Zimmermann: Filmkritik on Critic.de, accessed on September 12, 2013.
- ↑ Berliner Zeitung : The Oscar favorite that nobody in Germany wants , article from December 30, 2009, accessed on February 3, 2013.