'The end of all our exploring will be
to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time' - T. S Eliot
The movie is about the real life story of a
mother in search of her son who was taken away from her via an illegal adoption
system which was practiced by the Irish catholic church . Even though the movie
looks at the concept of motherhood with all its cliched frills, it moves away
from the familiar to the unfamiliar in an easy-breezy way. Philomena is also a
portrayal of old age, a time when everybody has got this strong urge to
'reclaim her past'. She reveals the news about her one night stand at the park and
the unsanctioned pregnancy to her daughter.
The second most important thread in the story is
about this journalist who gets entrapped in his own political web. He is lost
and is not sure what to do with his career as a journalist. He lives in a state
of indecisiveness, oscillating between two career plans - writing a book about
Russian history and the search for a human interest story. He finally decides
to take the latter one and that brings him close to Philomena.
In the bonus section of the DVD, Mr. Coogan, who
is also the producer talks about how a newspaper article got him hooked on to
the story of Philomena. He was more interested in working on the bonding
between Philomena and Mr. Martin Sixsmith. The movie, in a way juxtaposes
these two characters - Philomena represents dogged determination and an
unflinching belief in God whereas, Martin is an atheist and is wavering when it
comes to making decisions.
The movie made me look at some of the recent
incidents that has rocked my home state of Kerala. This events makes us rethink
about the concept of motherhood in these challenging times. The first incident
is about a 11 month old child, which was send on para-sailing.
The second incident is about the hundreds of
children who were brought from North India to be dumped in Kerala orphanages
without any proper documents.
These are just two incidents of the many cases of
sexual abuse and killings that are happening around the world. There is
the Sudanese mother who is sentenced to death and the Pakistani pregnant
woman who was stoned to death for marrying against the wish of her
family. I am just wondering about the paradigm shift that has happened with the
concept of mother hood and the rampant commercialization of children and woman.
