Country:United States of America

Director:Jonathan Demme

Program:Parralel Pathways

Summary:

Jonathan Demme set himself a difficult challenge to adapt the brillant yet inordinately complex novel by Toni Morrison which has gained the status of a true contemporary classic. Some years after the Civil War, former slave Sethe lives with her grown daughter, Denver. Paul D, a former slave who knew Sethe, happens on them and joins the family, but not before the house rattles and pitches, as if spirits reject Paul D's coming. Next, inexplicably, a young woman about Denver's age arrives, behaving in childlike ways, speaking and walking awkwardly, calling herself "Beloved." Who she is, her effect on Sethe, and Paul D's responses propel mother and daughter into a new maturity.