Israel, the Lord who created you says,
“Do not be afraid—I will save you.
I have called you by name—you are mine.
2 When you pass through deep waters, I will be with you;
your troubles will not overwhelm you. Isaiah 43
As a child one of my favorite moviies was of course Mary Poppins. I remember sitting in the theater with my family giggling with delight at the scenes of the animated Penguins. Last night we watched 'Saving Mr. Banks' and for the first time I got a glimpse of the life of the writer behind this movie. P. L.Travers, aka Pamela Lyndon Travers, began a series of Poppins books in 1933.http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/donotmigrate/3562643/Was-P-L-Travers-the-real-Mary-Poppins.html What i didn't realize was that the characters were based on the people she knew from her life.
P.L. Travers was born and raised in Australia. In Saving Mr. Banks P.L. Travers, as a young girl, remembers her family having to move out of a beautiful Victorian home for reasons that were kept from her, but one could assume that it was for her families lack of finances when her dad couldn't afford to pay someone to drive them to the train station. She remembers her dad making it a game while having the family walk single file singing as they went to the train station.They traveled to the end of the line and then walked to an abandoned home on the prairie that would become theirs. Like the father in the movie her dad worked at a bank in a nearby town.
Saving Mr. Banks vacillates between her earliest childhood scenes to the present when her melancholy self interferes with assisting the cast with pulling the script together. In one scene she became upset when Walt Disney wanted to use animation as part of the movie.P.L Travers remembers rescuing her dad from his drinking by riding with him on his horse.
In another scene she was mortified to see her dad in the make shift tent at the county fair drinking with the other guys before making a fool of himself giving a speech while representing the bank. A quick glance at her mom told the story of humiliation and embarrassment of her husbands public drunkenness and his fall from the heighten stage.
Her father eventually loses his job at the bank when the demon drink could no longer be hidden.
P.L. Travers recalls another scene when her mom while in a melancholic state attempts to commit suicide while walking out in the river currents only to be rescued by her daughter with a huge hug in the water. Shortly thereafter her mom's sister came in to help her family care for and clean their home while her dad was slowly dying from his own alcoholism. The aunt from her memory became the model for the nanny in Mary Poppins.
In one final flashback her aunt told her it was ok to walk into the room where her deceased dad laid on his bed. A scene that thousands of others have experienced in the life of the dying.
Tom Hanks did a very good job portraying Walt Disney who was able in the final analysis able to help Pamela Travers to face those demons from her past and return to the Disney studios with a new commitment to bring this movie to life. While watching Mary Poppins on the big screen on opening night she cried at the characters she remembers were replicas from her family and for the first time she was able to process her pain. In so doing she was able to turn bad memories into delightful ones for future generations to see.
I guess Saving Mr. Banks illustrates for me the importance of processing those painful memories. As a Christian I know that I have an adversary who will help me process those bad memories.
I do not know if she or her family were believers, as the movie makes no reference to that part of her life, but I do know that for me Jesus Christ is very real and relevant since my families personal tragedy.
It is possible to have both joy and sorrow in life. This film has taught me that when bad things happen do what the father this movie did and go fly a kite with the kids in tow.
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