After seven months, 700 tags and several thousand keystrokes, The Seventh Art reaches its 100th post (or as many Indian bloggers would like to call it, my 100th ranting/rambling/musing). First off, my thanks to the handful of readers who have been increasing my hit counter over the months. It couldn’t have been possible without you (Well, it could have been, but thanks anyways). So being the 100th post, I would like to take the opportunity to scribble about an event that celebrated the number 100 in some other way.
It is now a widely accepted fact that the Lumiére brothers are the fathers of the seventh art, though a few films had already been made as early as 1888 (Roundhay Garden Scene, Dickson’s experiment, Carmentica et al). Their series of films starting in 1895 notably Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat and Employees Leaving the Lumière Factory have become pieces of historical interest. It is said that the audience fled the theatre thinking that a real train is heading their way!
Take a look at the piece:
Cut to 1995. To commemorate the event of 100 years of cinema, a project called Lumiére et Compagnie (Lumiére & Company) was undertaken. Its intention was to gather the most important contemporary directors at one place and give them a task – To make a film using the same camera that was used by the Lumiére brothers!. Not just that, there were three more rules:
1. The movie should not be more than 52 seconds.
2. The directors should not used synchronized sound
3. Only 3 takes allowed!
The film as such follows the directors making their films with the bizarre device interspersed with miniature interviews upon various questions including their views on mortality of cinema and their own motives for taking up the medium in order to express themselves. Some interesting opinions come out during these sections.
The list of 41 directors by itself is mind boggling with the likes of Abbas Kiarostami, David Lynch, Theo Angelopoulos, Michael Haneke, Zhang Yimou, Wim Wenders and many more (See Tags for the list!). The result- 41 minute films with totally different perspectives. Abbas Kiarostami’s “Dinner for One” is typically his style as he makes an omelet. David Lynch’s bizarre piece, as usual, set in a quiet little suburban town that has more mystery than meets the eye is an instant hit. Zhang Yimou’s “cultural piece” near the China Wall, Gabriel Axel’s tracking sot of the various arts and Wim Wenders’ extension of Wings of Desire are all immensely amusing to watch.
Here is David Lynch’s piece for you:
And Spike Lee’s cute one:
The film by itself is not very extraordinary. But it is all about the event and the massive operation of bringing all the masters under one place and putting them under such constraints that no one else would dare to in any other year. A celebration of Cinema and one for the cinephiles.
Mahanagar (1963) (aka The Big City)
Satyajit Ray
Bengali
“I think you should apologize to Edith”
The other day I was reading some of the reviews of Deepa Mehta’s Oscar nominee Water (2006) and almost in every one of them, I could find a comparison of Mehta’s work to Satyajit Ray’s films. What is more surprising than the fact that Ray’s films are universally accepted with open arms and considered timeless, is that a large part of the west is able to relate only to works of Satyajit Ray whenever cinema of India is discussed. Similar to how Satyajit Ray’s phenomenal body of work eclipses all other commendable efforts from the country, his own Apu trilogy overwhelms his other worthy films. Case in point – Mahanagar (1963).
Mahanagar is a decidedly contemporary story of a middle class couple Bhambal and Arati Mazumdar (With a ‘Z’, not ‘J’!), struggling to make ends meet in the ever happening City of Joy. As the money crunch intensifies, Arati decides to take up a job as a sales girl in a company owned by a chauvinist, Mukherjee. It is here that she meets Edith, an Anglo-Indian, and instantly bonds with him. She learns courage and assertiveness from Edith and shines in her job. Things go sour as Bhambal starts envying her and asks her to quit. But just as she proceeds, she comes to know that her husband has lost his job. Arati musters faith and asks Mr. Mukherjee for a pay hike and works harder than ever. But when she sees discrimination against Edith based on race, she does the unthinkable.
There is also a thread about Bhambal’s father, a retired teacher who is restless at his dormancy at home and is surprised to see the vast change in times that he had been unknowingly moving along with now. He seeks out his old students in search of consolation and respect in order to tell himself his contribution to society has been quite vital. Being a staunch conservative he is visibly disappointed with his self-indulgent son’s attitude and his daughter-in-law’s decision of taking up a job. And there is also Bhambal’s daughter, played by a very young Jaya Bhaduri, adding warmth to an otherwise tense household.
In Mahanagar, Ray does not merely suggest that women should be given an opportunity to work, but also makes larger statements about their present and ideal positions in society. He put forth the idea that equality is not just a right for women, it is their responsibility. He suggests that women have to stand up against all odds and voice their opinions for their needs. If they witness injustice, against them or otherwise, it becomes their duty to fight it. And yet, Mahanagar is not one of those feminist films that are made only to put forth principles and theories. It follows a single woman’s choices with as much honesty as her impulsive acts.
I do not have much knowledge about Calcutta, but I have heard that the streets of Calcutta have the potential to change the way you look at life. Indeed, Bhambal’s and Arati’s ordeal may be just a tiny drop in the vast ocean of happenings of the city. Ray captures the microcosm of the society in the family and depicts the most realistic picture of the then Indian society without once going over the top or making it overtly dramatic. The entire drama one feels while watching the film is internal. And as we watch Arati develop into a truly independent and morally strong character, we can’t help but admire the hope that the character instills in us.
Hyderabad Blues 2 (2004)
Nagesh Kukunoor
English
“If divorcing you was the only way to get you back, I would do it all over again”
“Indie Cinema” and “Indian Cinema” – Totally unlike the way they sound similar, the two terms have come to bear quite an adversarial relationship to each other. Undoubtedly, Nagesh Kukunoor forms a vital milestone in the history of Indian Independent cinema and stays in the cream of my list of most important contemporary film directors from the country in spite of his recent debacle Bombay to Bangkok (2007) whose elusive charm eluded most of us! Nevertheless, his films like Rockford (1999), Hyderabad Blues (1998) and its sequel still have the potential to inspire anyone to take up a camera and have taken the esoteric world of Independent films into the households.
And I felt Hyderabad Blues deserves an article in spite of the flak it faces regularly from the lovers of the earlier film. The central character Varun (Nagesh Kukunoor) has already been introduced to us as a broadminded, level-headed and immensely cool gentleman who has been charmed into staying in India by his bold and independent wife, Ashwini (Jyoti Dogra). Varun hangs out with his group of friends consisting of married and single men but most importantly with Sanjeev (Vikram Inamdar) who warns Varun about all the difficulties in having a baby that he has learned the hard way. Ashwini, meanwhile, hangs out with Sanjeev’s resourceful and cunning wife Seema (Elahé Hiptoola).
All is fine with the lead couple until the wife wants to have a child. Varun, however, is totally unprepared and tries to avert the matter. Things don’t help when Varun’s employee Menaka (Tisca Chopra) is found wooing him in the office by another resentful employee and the issue promptly goes to Ashwini. And just like that, they land up in court debating divorce and eventually getting it. Hyderabad Blues gets all the characters right. Be it the consciously flawed Varun or his voluntarily subordinating mother, you see them all in everyday life. And herein lies Kukunoor’s keenly discerning eye that penetrates into the real workings of the society, without the regular mainstream makeup.
I always thought Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage (1973) was a great idea (with performances of a lifetime by Erland Josephson and Liv Ullmann) overstaying its welcome. But after watching a series of films on the subject culminating with Hyderabad Blues 2, I have come to realize that divorce, in most cases, is itself a very precipitous event and to portray one, the film’s runtime has to be suitably long in order to highlight the impulsive nature of the decision. And Hyderabad Blues does that without making the film once gloomy or overly melodramatic. All this apparent lightness never takes the solemnity of its objective and only aids the film to move closer to reality.
Hyderabad Blues 2 bears a relation to its predecessor somewhat in the same way Toy Story 2 (1999) is linked to its path breaking prequel (1995). In both cases, arguably the sequel is better in terms of the production values and the wholesomeness of the film. However, it is the prequel that is revered unanimously since they are the ones that gave birth to the sequels and they are the ones that changed the way people looked at films of their kind. Hence, the prequels naturally become close to heart and their successors easily dumped. When Hyderabad Blues came out, it was an instant hit. It captured, with near perfection, the way how anyone in the position of Varun feels, trying to cope up with the increased moral and cultural standards and decreased technological advancements.
Hyderabad Blues 2 is as hilarious as it is outrageous. Though most of the dialogue is in English, they never once feel contrived or out of place. Be the typically American wit of Varun or the bumbling acts of Sanjeev (“Pardon my wife. She has a problem with truth. Always speaks it out” is a knockout), they put one instantly at ease even if the sudden dose of iconoclasm as compared to the first film catches one unawares. By iconoclasm, I do not refer the film’s reflections on the society but on the country’s cinema itself. I wonder if the film would have been so open had it been made under the big banners. And thank god that wasn’t the case.
Koyaanisqatsi (1982) (aka Koyaanisqatsi: Life Out of Balance)
Godfrey Reggio
Hopi
“If we dig precious things from the earth, we will invite disaster”
In 1929, Dziga Vertov came with the amazing Man with a Movie Camera, perhaps the first film of its kind, which served primarily as a showcase of cinema’s abilities and uniqueness. It was just one man’s celebration of his recording instrument and his passion for documenting the world as it is. Larger in scope and execution than Man with a Movie Camera, Koyaanisqatsi (1982) remains an unparalleled movie experience for all film buffs, reminding us once again the magic of the medium.
Koyaanisqatsi is a non-narrative film whose USP remains the phenomenal experience it offers unadulterated by the constraints of story plot and character development. The film starts with paradisiacal images of regions that look like a completely new planet. The imagery slowly takes pace and moves towards “civilization” and subsequently on to the utterly consumerist world of ours. It takes a step back from the bedlam of the world and documents hilariously the things that drive us. The pace intensifies, visibly denoting a impending apocalypse, and culminates in a immortal long shot of a space shuttle slowly meeting its doom.
“Koyaanisqatsi” literally translates to life in chaos or life under imbalance. Watching this movie, one realizes how fast human life passes by and how mundane this technology of ours is. Reggio took six years to make this film. The locations for the shoot range from the hearts of advanced civilization to paradises that mankind hasn’t set foot on. The Time-Lapse technique is used extensively along with doses of slow motion as if to take time to enjoy nature and moments of humanity or ponder over what man has done to it. At the end of it all, you understand how human life has become so mechanized, much like the conveyor technology it dwells on.
There are not many films that urge the audience to get involved and direct the course of the film. The audience is made into puppets whose emotions are controlled by the strings attached to the director’s whims. Yes, the films from and inspired by the French New Wave and from other visionary directors did provide the independence to the viewers to make their own judgments. Still, these films elicited the same kind of empathy from a large section of the audience. Koyaanisqatsi takes the meaning of independent viewing to a whole new level, with the film achieving form as decided by the viewers. Hence the film becomes a unique experience for each viewer and differing largely from others’.
Ron Fricke, who went on to make more non-narrative films such as Baraka (1992), captures the might of the macro as well as the awe of the micro with such care that one must be numb not to appreciate it. If it was the fantastic imagery for the eyes, it is Philip Glass’ spectacular score that treats the ears. The chants of the Hopi language, that literally translate to texts that stress on how man should respect nature and the consequences of not abiding by the same, complement the high-tempo rhythmic music as a result providing the perfect cadence of moments that will be etched in the minds of the viewers for ever.
One can either get involved wit the deluge of images from the screen and interpret them intellectually and try to form a meaningful narrative film out of them or just sit back and get immersed in the visual feast concocted using the technical wizardry. Either way, Koyaanisqatsi will remain a fresh film every time one watches it. The viewing experience will be an entirely new one and so will be the meaning one derives out of the film. Don’t miss this gem.
“Cigar. Cuban. Now you pissed me off!” says the protagonist of Guillermo Del Toro’s latest venture Hellboy II: The Golden Army as the baddie’s sidekick Wink, yields a blow to his face, making his favorite tool fall into water. With a face that looks like a cross of a samurai and X-Men mutant beast, Hellboy (Codename Hellboy) is a character right out of the pulp magazines. And with a name like that and a storyline that aids the use of eye-candy incredibly, the producers would always rest assured. Plus one to the count of superhero films in 2008.
So we have here this bunch of four central ultra-cool mutants – The cigar chewing, beer boozing, borderline-colonel Hellboy (Ron Perlman), the earth element, The timid and brainy Abe (Doug Jones), the water ingredient, the intensely anxious Liz (Selma Blair), the fire girl and Johann Krauss(James Dodd) the German intellectual forming the wind element of the group bound by (the absence of) the fifth element. All hell breaks loose when the exiled Prince Nuada (Luke Goss) of the mythical world decides to call it quits with the truce with the humans that called for peace and aided the banishment of their indestructible “Golden Army”. The film’s best moment, perhaps, comes around this point where we see the mythical prince practicing his sword in a fairly mythical milieu and just as he finishes, a high speed train whizzes past behind him! One feels that he is in for a great time. NO.
But for this, the prince has to unite the three pieces of the all-powerful golden crown that controls the army and hence break his bonds with his family that preserves two of the pieces. Meanwhile, Hellboy and Liz are trying to reconcile with the discerning eyes of the human world and form a happy little familial world for themselves. And when their paths cross, it’s the same thing all over again. Villain hurts hero, hero gets back big time. All this happens on a high-speed, immensely attractive vehicle called Computer Graphics that seems to never tire the audience. Year after year, be what the form, this boon (?) given by science has been regularly and faithfully exploited.
It is clear that Del Toro has the uncanny ability to blend elements of the ever enchanting world beyond the natural – the mythical – with the harsh realities of the existential one. But where Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) scored was in its treatment of the two worlds. Those worlds never saw each other, those worlds were never affected the clockwork of each other, those worlds were bliss. Here, Del Toro has let one world loose into another, arguably corrupting not only the integrity of the worlds but also of the plot itself. The Golden Army hence becomes no better than a CG-driven superhero flick that succumbs to market demand.
Of course, the film has its own charming moments where you tend to forget all the stereotype moments so far. Consider the scene where Hellboy and Abe retire in the library after a hard day’s work. They listen to “Popular Love Songs”, sipping loads and loads of beer, singing along unabashedly and cruising into a hilariously contemplative mood. One does forget that these guys aren’t humans and smiles all the way. Additionally, Hellboy is amusing with all his one liners and his thinking-with-his-knuckles attitude. But that’s just about everything that you take back from the two hours of runtime. Like Iron Man (2008), The Golden Army also seems to rely too much on these things.
Clichés galore, The Golden Army seems like an exercise in typical Hollywood film craft. The cool and funny gang of superheroes, check. The megalomaniac baddie who turns out to be the boss, check. A thin thread of romance between the good side and the bad one, check. Sacrifice of a lesser but lovable character for the greater good, check. CG flood, manipulative score, tilted camera angles, check, check and check. Once can go on and on, but somebody’s got to do the job. Every year, there seem to come a few films that offer what the audience wants but are so easy to be smashed. But if not for them, we would not be appreciating better ones, would we?
The list of 41 directors by itself is mind boggling with the likes of Abbas Kiarostami, David Lynch, Theo Angelopoulos, Michael Haneke, Zhang Yimou, Wim Wenders and many more (See Tags for the list!). The result- 41 minute films with totally different perspectives. Abbas Kiarostami’s “Dinner for One” is typically his style as he makes an omelet. David Lynch’s bizarre piece, as usual, set in a quiet little suburban town that has more mystery than meets the eye is an instant hit. Zhang Yimou’s “cultural piece” near the China Wall, Gabriel Axel’s tracking sot of the various arts and Wim Wenders’ extension of Wings of Desire are all immensely amusing to watch.
The Seventh Art 