The Secret Garden (1993)

Last week I picked up a copy of Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden (1909) at one of the ten thrift stores I visit (I forget which one), and on Saturday a DVD copy of the 1993 Agnieszka Holland-directed film version at the Sally Anne at East Hastings and Gilmore, which I watched last night, despite having fifty pages left in the novel.

Some differences between the two, of course. While both the book and film open in India, it is an earthquake, not typhoid, that orphans Mary in the film version. As for Master Colin's "illness", the book emphasizes a bone and muscle ailment, while the film has added concerns over his respiratory system ("spores") -- hence the masks worn by staff (while Colin and animal-whisperer Dickon proceed without).

The Secret Garden is a beloved book and many have seen the film version. Also seen in the film is a depiction of mask-wearing aligned not to health and safety but hysteria, or indeed the result of a neglected child who has been deemed ill in order to justify his confinement. We, the reader, know soon enough that Colin's illness is a sham, as do those among us who insist that the "truth" they carry allows them to enter enclosed public spaces without viral inhibiting masks.