Browsing through Netflix I found what looked like an interesting movie, An Angel at my Table. New Zealand based. The story of a woman, Janet Frame, who had a difficult upbringing, spent years in a mental asylum, and then finally became New Zealand's premier poet sounded powerful and intriguing. I guess I am always very interested in ‘rags to riches’ stories or stories of real people who lifted themselves up from the very ground to the sky. Not people who had a decent cushion at the start because I believe it is much easier to make 4 out of 2 than to make 2 out of 0. I would know I guess :) I suppose it also makes me happy that there is a possibility for such people… that you can reach somewhere even if you have had the worst of beginnings. It must be even more difficult to find greatness in the arts than in other fields if you don’t have the right background. All in all, I was expecting much from this movie… and it disappointed me in that way.

I guess I was expecting a tale of determination, focus, grit, hard work and so on. Whereas what it seemed like from the movie is that it was a series of fortunate accidents and pure luck that led her to success. Sure there was hard work because obviously she had to write those poems and novels to even be recognized. But there are many in the world who write profusely and are never recognized. It almost seemed like the opportunities and accolades came to her doorstep rather than her struggling her way towards them. I am not sure if that was actually the case or if the movie wasn’t able to capture that part. I was curious how she was able to find the will power to write in the mental asylum or how she managed to get her pieces out there in such circumstances—and this was the early 20^th century so in some ways communication must have been harder—but that’s never shown. It’s almost like her work gets written and published magically! Another fact I found a bit strange is that Janet is a rather shy, timid, naïve, trusting, non-discerning, submissive person. She seems to be taken in easily by people; it actually gave me anxiety a few times because I was worried she would come to some harm some time. This made me wonder how a person with so little understanding of human nature even though intelligent in general—at least as per what the movie showed—could write books which are supposed to be a lesson of sorts in human nature? I suppose nature poetry which seemed to be her forte might not require it. But when I think about novelists that I like such as Jane Austen or Charles Dickens or Emily Bronte or any of the older classics (those being my favourites), the thing that most strikes me about them is their astuteness and insight into people. Or perhaps I do like authors who show this astuteness and insight. For that matter, I like poems too that have a human nuance about them rather than nature poetry. I guess I have digressed too far from the actual topic, which was the movie. The bottomline is the movie didn’t deliver for me in terms of what I was expecting from it, but it was a great watch for itself even at 2.5ish hours. I guess the movie was more about her descriptive life whereas what I was looking to get closer to was her internal life.