Written, directed, and produced by Chithra Jeyaram, Foreign Puzzle is an emotional arts and health film exploring the story of one woman’s fight with breast cancer. While undergoing cancer treatment, Sharon Marroquin worries about maintaining her livelihood and health insurance as a bilingual elementary school teacher, her challenge of raising her son as a divorced mom, and handling the overwhelming fear of uncertainty for a healthy future. Sharon undergoes a mastectomy, talks with her doctor about reconstruction, and has to deal with an emergency blood clot in her neck.
Mostly, Sharon worries about leaving her son alone in the world. In addition to being a teacher, Sharon is a modern dancer and choreographer and decides to express her feelings about what she is experiencing on a very personal level through movement. Sharon creates an evening of dance performances she names the Materiality of Impermanence and includes her eleven-year-old dance student and other female cancer survivors in the various dances.
Several dance routines reveal the stark reality of having to face breast cancer and undergo surgery. Sharon shaves her head for her routines, uses a suitcase in one dance to show the baggage she is carrying and lays with shards of broken glass on herself to reflect her shattered body in another performance. Coming together, all of the women dance with colorful brassieres symbolizing the commonality of dealing with breast cancer.
Fittingly named, Foreign Puzzle provides a realistic look at the emotional ups and downs of dealing with breast cancer, the uncomfortable cancer treatments, the loss of part of oneself, and the uncertainty of a normal future. Through Sharon Marroquin’s eloquent dance interpretation, this documentary vividly illustrates dance can serve as therapy for the fear and aloneness women face in the fight against breast cancer. Recommended.
What academic subjects would this film be suitable for?
Foreign Puzzle is suitable for collections in art, health, psychology, social work, and women’s studies.
What kind of film series would this title fit in?
Foreign Puzzle is suitable for documentaries.
What kind of film collection would this title be suitable for?
Foreign Puzzle is suitable for a DVD collection. It is also available for streaming: $150 for one year; $575 for the life of the file.