Halving The Bones

Out of boundless rivers of tape I have waded through in the last year (and particularly the oceans of materials dealing with multicultural history and identity), Ruth Ozeki Lunsbury's Halving the Bones emerges as easily one of my top one or two faves. Ruth, the half-Japanese, half-American filmmaker/narrator, begins her tale by describing how she came to have a stash of her grandmothers bones sitting on a shelf in her closet for the past five years--partially-cremated remains that were supposed to have been delivered to Ruth's mother (in a Tupperware bowl!) after the funeral. These blackly humorous circumstances offer a jumping off point for a wonderfully realized meditation on the remarkable lives of Ruth's maternal grandmother and grandfather and mother in Japan, Hawaii and the United States; about family, cultural and personal identity; about the complex relationship between mothers and daughters; and, most of all, about memory. Ozeki is both a terrific storyteller and a sly visual trickster; she seems to delight in keeping us off-guard, awake, and thinking. We're invited to ‘read' her video--a combination of real and apocryphal home movies, war propaganda clips, and current footage--in much the same way we would look over the shoulder of a friend at an unfamiliar family scrapbook or diary. After the first fifteen minutes we're hooked by her combination of quirky vision, personal mythmaking, and fascinating family tales. Highly recommended for public and academic library collections. Aud: C, P. Editor's Choice. (G. Handman)