FolkTales of Conflict and Peace

Can you picture two ornery outlaws engaged in an escalating peace race? In storyteller Dixie Sedgwick's "Showdown," one of four stories included in writer/producer James Burgess's beautifully lensed follow-up to FolkTales of Peace (VL-7/96), Hank and Frank bring an entire Western town to the brink of disaster as their feud ratchets up from angry talk to knives to dynamite sticks; when sanity sets in, the duo race to disarm themselves (allowing the town a collective sigh of relief). In "Night and Day," a Canadian Shuswap tale told by Christine Salvador, the mediation-friendly coyote coaxes a gruff grizzly bear into meeting him halfway on splitting light and dark, summer and winter; while Nolan Palmer's rendition of "Old Joe and the Carpenter" tells of a bitter argument between a pair of formerly friendly farmers which is later smoothed over by an itinerant carpenter. The program concludes with the short, but instructive, tale "The Monk and the Samurai," told by Kathy Hsieh, about the importance of controlling one's emotions. Presented in a letterboxed format with excellent costuming, visual and sound effects, FolkTales of Peace and Conflict is, like its predecessor, another winner, and is highly recommended. Aud: K, E, P. (R. Pitman)