Literature Through Film Post #2: Responding to "Precious"

       In this stunning emotional roller coaster, viewers constantly find themselves making that "ouch,," expression as they witness the abuse and mistreatment that the main character, Precious, experiences. One of the most interesting displays of film abstraction (at least that's what I would call it), is when Precious is seen in an illusion in which she is in a happy place while she is experiencing a considerably scarring experience. When she is getting raped by her father, when she was assaulted in the street, when she was running away from her mother, all of these scenes seemed oddly out of place and didn't hold any immediate meaning to me when I saw them. I found myself troubled trying to understand what message is being sent out every time Precious is in one of these illusions, and I couldn't come up with anything. After reflecting on it for a while, I've decided to believe that these illusions are Precious' coping mechanism that allow her to move on with her life and give off the strong appearance she does all throughout the movie without breaking down and crying. I wondered all along the movie how could precious possibly go on with her life. Reality is, she can't, not on her own. These illusions and dreams of happiness are the reason she is still attempting to set her life on track, and this reveals that she is a strong character that has managed to live through situations none of us could possibly imagine ourselves going through by ourselves.