The Green Mountain Film festival comes to Montpelier, Vermont every year. And every year I say I'll go. I want to support this local film festival centered around our independent movie theatre. But, for the last 3 years I have been either taking care of a new baby or eminently going to give birth. Not so good for movie viewing outside of the home.
So I was thrilled when a mama from an online listserv I am part of shared that I could get this movie on Netflix, which I did last night.
The Business of Being Born is an extremely well done documentary about the crisis of maternal care in America (our rates of maternal and infant mortality are among the highest in the developed world), but it is also a beautiful story of many women's journey into motherhood. When I was in childbirth classes, what was the most helpful to me was the movies showing women in labor. While intense and a bit intimidating, it gave me the idea that all women do what they need to do, and that can look very different for each individual. This was equally true of the mothers in this movie, and it was inspiring, quite moving, and a testimony to the benefits for mom and baby to have the most natural, intervention free birth as possible.
I highly recommend this movie for all mothers, soon to be, or with kids in college (and all those inbetween). It is a call to action, a wake up call, a walk down memory lane, and above all, the witnessing of the most beautiful and sacred rite of passage for women.
Picture: The Business of Being Born (click the link to watch the preview)
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
See the Business of Being Born-
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3 comments:
I just watched this the other day. It was amazing! There were a couple things, I was like-what?!-wait a minute. It ranks up there with Jennifer Block's Pushed book.
Amen! I've been telling everyone I know to see this film!
not only is this film available on netflix, but you can watch it using the instant view feature.
i've never been pregnant and i don't know at this point if i ever plan to be, but i think it's worth watching for just about anyone. it's an eye-opening reiteration that the most essential aspects of our human culture--childbirth, as well as food and medicine--are so out of whack because of industrialized systems and reductionist thinking. the segment about the "snowball effect" with pitocin and epidurals in the hospital reminded me a lot of the "two wrongs make a right" logic of corn-fed beef cattle having to be given antibiotics because their bodies can't handle corn in the first place.
throw a bunch of the usual anti-woman gender politics in there and you've got a pretty raw deal for american women. i'm glad a celebrity like ricki lake is behind this film--it means that maybe the message has a better chance in the mainstream.
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