Saturday, June 28, 2014
New Mexico Roadrunner Chapter of the Red Hat Society enjoyed viewing "Dragonfly" the movie and a potluck luncheon in the lovely home of member Lu Mattson who is, among other things, quite an accomplished artist.
"Dragonfly" was released February 22, 2002 starring Kevin Kostner as Dr. Darrow, Kathy Bates as his neighbor/attorney Mirian Belmont and Linda Hunt as Sister Madeline, a nun who investigates near-death experiences. The movie was panned by the critics and flopped at the box office. I guess one could call it a chick flick because we all thoroughly enjoyed it.
Joe and Emily Darrow are doctors in a Chicago hospital. Seven months pregnant, Emily travels to Venezuela to help natives in the Amazon Basin area. She dies when a bus is hit by a landslide and plunges into the river below. Her body is not found by local authorities.
One night Joe is awakened by his wife's dragonfly paper weight falling and rolling across the room. Emily always had a passion for dragonflies and had a birthmark resembling one on her shoulder. Joe starts visiting Emily's patients at pediatric oncology in the hospital. A child is brought into the hospital unconscious. Joe hears this child calling his name and follows staff trying to revive him without success - the child's heart flat lines. As Joe approaches the child, his heart begins beating again.
The following afternoon Joe returns to the child who asks him if he is "Emily's Joe" and tells him she sent him back to tell Joe something. All over the room are drawings of a curvy cross, but the boy doesn't know what this curvy symbol means. Telling about his near death experience, the boy says he saw a light, and a woman showing him an image of Joe, and that the cross symbol was what he saw at the end of the rainbow. Later, Joe, passing by another boy's room, sees the same drawing. This boy immediately knows who Joe is and tells him he must "go to the rainbow."
On arriving home, Joe's parrot mysteriously goes into a rage breaking a flower pot making the same wavy cross symbol drawn in the spilled soil on the floor. Joe spots a dragonfly outside the window and briefly sees Emily reaching for him. Joe's neighbor, Miriam Belmont, tries to talk him back into reality. Instead, he goes to Sister Madeline, a controversial nun. She advises Joe that Emily is trying to contact him.
The breaking point occurs at the hospital when Joe is alone with a clinically dead patient and hears Emily speaking through the patient calling his name, but no one believes him. He decides to sell his home and go on vacation. While packing away Emily's belongings, a light bulb in the room burns out. When he returns with a new bulb, he finds everything placed back in their original places. He then enters the kitchen where a map has blow open on the table showing the curvy cross symbol at several places. A friend tells him the wiggly cross is a map symbol for a waterfall. Joe remembers and finds a photo of Emily posing in front of a waterfall with a rainbow behind her.
He takes a trip to South America to the area where Emily died. His pilot takes him to a tribal village where the victims' graves are located. Joe shows the natives Emily's photo asking them where she is buried. The natives get in a argument. Joe runs off towards the village with the natives in hot pursuit. He comes to a cliff and jumps off into the river near where the bus is situated. He enters the semi-submerged bus causing it to shift and he is trapped inside. But, he calms down when a bright glow fills the bus and Emily appears before him, reaching for his hand. Her final hours flash before him, showing she survived the initial accident and was pulled to safety by Yanomami villagers. He is suddenly pulled out of the bus by his pilot.
Joe runs into the village where he is surrounded by angry native men holding weapons. When he holds up the photo of Emily, a native woman tells him they couldn't save her body but they saved her soul. Perplexed, he follows the woman into a hut where he finds a female infant in a basket. The woman shows him a birthmark on the child's ankle in the shape of a dragonfly.
The show ends with Joe playing with his daughter, now a toddler, having the same wavy blonde hair and who is the very image of Emily.
(Credit to Wikipedia for help in writing this synopsis)
We then dined on macaroni and cheese, jambalaya, pink stuff, caramelized sweet potatoes, ham slices, freshly baked bread, pickled peppers, miniature chocolate muffins and macaroons. Potlucks are always a fun surprise.
We added a new member, Dorothy Edwards, from Tularosa, New Mexico, also an accomplished artist, and we are so happy to have her join us in having fun.
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| Queen Ladybird (Carla) sporting her "Mr. Lee" hat |
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| L to R: Dorothy Smith, Jean Courtier and VQ Penny Pirrung |
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| Margie Purcella |
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| Hostess Lu Mattson and new member Dorothy Edwards |
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| Margie and VQ Penny enjoying great food |
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| The group got quiet for a while |
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| L to R: VQ Penny, Dorothy E., Jean and Lu |
The group had a great time visiting and making plans for upcoming events. Red Hatters are terrific at visiting, eating and having just plain good fun.
Thanks to Douglas A. Kerr for taking my picture (forgot to have someone do it at the event).
This is all I have to say for now.
