COME SEE THE PARADISE (1990)

Rating R. Running time: 2 hours 18 min.

Our content rating: Violence 4; Language 3; Sex/Nudity 2.

Our star rating (1-5): 5

Speak out for those who cannot speak,
for the rights of all the destitute.^[b]
Speak out, judge righteously,
defend the rights of the poor and needy.

Proverbs 31:8-9

Alan Parker’s film puts human faces on the dark, tragic era of American history when an entire people were uprooted and moved inland into concentration camps. Dennis Quaid is Jack McGurn, a worker who comes to Los Angeles in 1936 to escape his troubled past as a union organizer. He meets and falls in love with Lily Kawamura, played by Tamlyn Tomita. Despite the objections of her father, they marry and give birth to a daughter. Then, when the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor, the spark of prejudice which had always smoldered in the hearts of Americans is fanned by war-time hatred into the flame of the infamous Presidential order.

Lily, forcibly separated from Jack, accompanies her family to the distant internment camp. Life in the camp is hard, especially on the old. This is a powerful depiction that should be seen by all concerned that such a trampling upon human rights never occur again in our nation.

Saddest moment: Jack taking his daughter to sit on Santa Claus’s knee, and the bigoted Santa refusing her.

Beautiful moment of reconciliation: Jack visiting Lily’s dying father in the amp, where they each forgive one another

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099291/?ref_=nv_sr_1