An Angel at my Table

"An Angel at my table" is based on the autobiography of the New Zealand writer Janet Frame. The movie was filmed in 3 installments, straddling across her childhood, adolescent and post-adolescent life, hovering around the central idea that "life sucks; people die out; writing heals and lasts".

Frame was haunted by embarrassing encounters with friends and teachers at an early age. Even though she got good grades from class, she had a rather sullen childhood. She was forbidden to see her best friend, was constantly mocked by classmates about her unsightly teeth and fizzy hair. Ushering into her college stage, she was mistakenly diagnosed with schizophrenia and was forced to receive electric shock treatment for over 200 times in 8 years. Discharged from the hospital, she traveled across England, Paris, and Spain (Andorra) and tasted the first drop of dew from the fountain of love. Later abandoned by her American lover and several family members, she dedicated her life to writing, for "writing comforted me". Her deep passion in literature and poetry were conveyed in the multi-volume autobiographies, and award-winning novels and short stories. Everyone writers, but someone writers to execute an order (a hallmark postcard designer is not much different from a Gulag propagandist), someone scribbles something and never looks back (ever graded a poorly written, typo-ridden term paper from a freshman?). In the end, there are individuals who write with their hearts, and souls.

As the NYT review beautifully puts it—"in the end, literature conquers all"–and so it seems words and paragraphs are powerful tool to fill up the blank page of our lives. Next time as you struggle to write/rewrite/read/re-read/revise/re-revise a draft on a messy desk, remember you are watched by an invisible angel above your head, kissing your keystroking fingers.