Emily's blog

Plot
     The film, Beloved, is a film based on Toni Morrison’s eponymous Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel. The entire story takes place during the time of Civil War, and is steered around a difficult struggle of a colored woman who had been slaved, sexually assaulted, escaped but still suffered with her daughter in their cursed, haunted house and their embarrassing status in the village. The colored obstinate woman, who was called Sethe, was visited by an old friend, Paul D., who was also from her hometown, the place she escaped from. Sethe invited Paul D into her haunted house and Paul D. stood his ground and drove the spirit away. The relationship between Sethe and Paul was sharply increased, and Sethe agreed on Paul’s proposal to live together and strike out a life together.
     A mysterious girl appeared shortly after Paul’s arrival in front of Sethe‘s house. She was groomed, and Sethe and her daughter, Denver, quickly took the girl in to their house and rested her there. The girl told them her name was “Beloved.”
    But as the girl’s appearance, Sethe, Denver and Paul D.’s just-to-be-started new life was totally interrupted. She got to enjoy Sethe’s care and caught Denver’s full attention, as she was the only similar-aged girl with Denver and who was not afraid of Denver(as they lived in such a horrible haunted house) like other people in the village. Beloved found that Paul D.’s dislike towards her, and forced him to have sex with her. Paul D. got to know that Sethe murdered her baby daughter and almost killed the others by sharing a newspaper clip afterwards. Being unable to stand this kind of messed up situation, Paul ended up leaving the house.
     But one night, Beloved revealed her otherworldly identity that she was virtually Denver’s dead little sister. Denver, in fear and mixed emotions, asked Beloved not to tell Sethe about this fact but was angrily rejected by Beloved. Later on in the story, Sethe realized this fact by hearing Beloved humming a song that Sethe made and had sung only to her children. She assured with seeing a scar on Beloved’s neck - which was left when Sethe murdered her youngest baby daughter when the slave catchers almost got her.
     Sethe began buying her girls all these exquisite gifts as she felt guilty and excited at the same time, realizing her baby daughter had come back to her. After she spent all her money on buying these things, their life became extremely poor. Beloved went postal and screamed, yelled all the time in the house, wanting more gifts. Sethe got into a bad mental situation too. Denver, however, packed up her desperation and sorrow, and made lots of efforts to go out of the town to seek for a job to sustain their family. Sethe and Beloved didn’t care about her anymore anyways.
     Denver’s new employer arranged some of the church women to come to her house and pray for this distorted house. When the church women arrived and began singing a gospel song loudly outside of Sethe’s house, Sethe and Beloved came out. Sethe went postal and was stopped by the women from trying to kill Denver’s employer. Beloved suddenly disappeared after screaming. Sethe got even more sick after this, feeling sorrowful and desperate that she had lost her baby daughter again.
     Paul D. encountered Denver some years later, and found her becoming much more mature and independent. She permitted Paul to visit her mom, just be careful about what he said to her as she was in an unstable both mentally and physically status. Paul D. then visited Sethe in action, optimistically and surprisingly, promising Sethe that he could take good care of her in the daytime, when Denver was away for work. Sethe was so sick that she could barely open her mouth to speak a complete sentence. She told Paul about her grief caused by the departure of Beloved, who was the best thing to her. Paul laughed and told Sethe, that she herself was her own best thing.
Reflections
     This movie is a real shock to me. It’s kind of hard for me at first after seeing it. Why would it be hard for me? Cuz it isn’t the ordinary type of movie often seen on the market. Almost everything in it, including materials, plot, characters’ backgrounds, etc., is rarely found in other movies. It’s not easy to grasp the core meaning and purpose of this movie too. Took me two days. I was scared during the screening in some scenes, like when Beloved scratched her own neck, feeling extremely irritated about that fact that Sethe couldn’t afford her any new gifts anymore. It was scary enough, for real! Me and my roomie who was sitting next to me were both shocked with my hand covering my mouth and her hands covering her face lol.
     Beloved could be an inspiring film in the meanwhile too, tho. It is well directed and the complicated relationships/plot in it catch the audience’s attention during all the process of the movie, too. We can find this by finding people not falling asleep despite the film lasts nearly 3 hours. Racial discrimination, socially class system, fights based on self-protection and other things are displayed in it. We can see how vigorous a woman could be when something/someone’s threatening her beloved ones. We can see how hard it is for a colored female slave to escape from the hell she was in and build a new life from scratch.
     How Beloved act was one of the most impressive things about this film to me too. She seemed extremely physcho to me, as she was screaming most of the time, and twisting her mouth and face, continuously asking questions or doing annoying stuff in the rest of the time. She appeared in a disgusting way to me, and kept doing annoying things, and disappeared in a weird mysteriously way. She just seemed to be a disturber in this poor haunted family and brought countless troubles and stirred up great pain in Sethe. She did harm to every member in the family, each pretty greatly. I hated her character in the family.
     But after 2 days thinking about this film over and over again, and telling my friend of another department about the plot of it(which means I can recall the memory of it and try to conclude, categorize it), I think maybe the initial settings of Beloved in the film have their other deeper meanings that I haven’t realized them all yet. Beloved might symbolizes a person who spends all her time searching for something/love/care that she didn’t get to have because she had been abandoned. It’s called being lost. People longs for love and care, and once we don’t feel we are cared about or loved, we might get lost. And how we react to this being lost situation depends on our different personalities. Beloved had a angry, destructive personality that drove her to go back to her mom and charged her like having a revenge.
 

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beloved_%28film%29