We watched the movie Est-Ouest (East/West) last night, and it's haunting me still. I can't explain it exactly. Sometimes, movies just hit me that way. Titanic was the same way over ten years ago.
Briefly, Est-Ouest is a French film following a Russian doctor and his French wife who return to Communist Russia after WWII, when Stalin issues an invitation to all who fled in 1917 to return. Alexei and Marie Golovine arrive in Odessa with their young son and discover that the welcome they hoped for is nowhere near the truth. They are both faced with the bleak reality of life in Kiev in 1946, and it tears apart their lives.
Maybe this movie impacted me because David and I are also a cross-cultural couple, and because we're probably going to make several moves in our marriage, some presumably to "challenging" places. Not that I'm worried that our marriage would completely fall apart. We have a solid base in Jesus, and we've made the commitment to stay together through thick and thin, in wealth and poverty, sickness and health. But the stress could still be there someday. And I sympathise so strongly with the character Marie. My heart goes out to her. And the decisions that she and Alexei made at the end of the movie--what would I, or we have done?
I recommend the film. It's rated PG-13 for some adult scenes, so I wouldn't suggest you let your kids watch it. But it's definitely worth seeing.
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