The Basket

The director had big ambitions ,trying to get into the plot a lot of things ,including opera,WW1,peace and love,and the hackneyed topic of (team ,naturally) sport-as -favoring-the -integration-of-everyone(by the way,what about people who do not like team sports?I'm sure there are).The results are dubious,being rather pretentious,using an intrusive loud music and melodramatic tricks .At its best,it recalls the "little house" series -do not get me wrong,I love the Michael Landon series-,with its church where people gathers not necessarily for prayers ,Agnes's mercantile which recalls Oleson's (and the actress resembles Katherine McGregor,the unforgettable Harriet Oleson),and its depiction of humble people .

But the characters are superficial and neither Peter Coyote nor Karen Allen can bring some life to this music lover teacher and this mother in distress.Besides after the introduction,Allen disappears from the screen for about thirty minutes.The script is sometimes confused,there are scenes which do not bring anything to the main plot (Peter Coyote's past for instance:for a while ,he did not seem to be a goody-two-shoes anymore)Pointless flashbacks -to make us understand that war brings destruction and death for instance-.

"Little houses" thirty years after.Or something like that.

This is what moviemaking, or story telling of any kind, should reach for. On the surface, a simple story well told. But "The Basket" delivers more. From the well defined historical period depiction, the grand scenery, the beautiful score, and a classic story of human conflict and redemption, this was a fun and satisfying movie night out. Sign me up for more movies like this!

I enjoyed this film very much. Everything was authentic, the actors were great, and the story was moving and captivating. Despite a lot of sadness, the movie also portrayed happiness. There was a great level of depth in character that keeps you thinking on about them and wondering more about them. The main theme of the movie is also a thought-provoking subject: prejudice. Learning to work together, learning to "fly" with others is a good lesson to learn. The sets and scenery were beautiful (God's creation is beautiful!), and the music was quite captivating & appropriate, even though I don't particularly like opera. There were a few flaws in the movie, such as a few swear words, and perhaps a lack of a few things, but over all it was a very good movie. (Entertaining & interesting behind the scenes commentaries, too, on the DVD.)

For a nation founded on high ideals of freedom and equality, we have often failed to practice what we preach, certainly in our relations with American Indians and black slaves and their descendants. Less well known are the feelings of distrust and even hatred we felt toward those who had a common ancestry to our bitter enemies in war, the Japanese of World War II and the Germanic people of World War I. Watching the screening of this film in my own Lidgerwood Presbyterian Church last week, I was reminded of how my maternal great-grandfather Jacob Eilmes, an immigrant from Austria, pretended to being Polish during WWI to escape the wrath of his Spokane neighbors. Set in a time and place of the U.S. and shot on location,ironically, not far from which a great many communities existed in real life, including in southern Lincoln County, Washington, where my own father's family lived after leaving Europe, "The Basket" weaves a story of a town disrupted by the simultaneous appearance of two orphans and an opera from Germany. Perhaps for dramatic effect, by the way, the story takes some literary license with historic facts. The flashbacks shown of American soldiers killing civilians in Germany could never have happened during the war because our ground troops never got out of France in that time. The orphans and opera have a huge impact on the whole town, accomplished primarily by the introduction of a game called basketball. Today in eastern Washington, especially the small farming communities like the one in this story, high school basketball is still the linchpin that brings townsfolk together, so this movie may be preaching to the choir to those of us who live in the same area depicted in this film. But even if you live in an area outside basketball-mad places like eastern Washington or the state of Indiana, you should enjoy this fine story, which won the 2001 Movie Guide Award for "best film for families." (These awards are also known as the Christian Oscars.) I stop far short of calling this the greatest movie ever made about intolerance rearing its ugly head in a small town, but it's still well worth the effort of buying the DVD or going to see it when it's next shown at your neighborhood library, church or other venue. Dale Roloff

Although containing some troubling lapses in plot and story integrity, The Basket engaged me and drew me into the lives it portrayed in a small-town, set in a confusing era of American history. The anti-war sentiments of a hustler-turned-schoolteacher seemed a bit too post-modern and the "inclusive" message a bit overdone, but the cast turned in marvelous performances in this quietly dignified story that celebrates the value of community--a counterpoint to our contemporary society that tends to embrace and celebrate the individual at the expense of the good of the whole. Well worth the watching!