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March 21, 2009

Flashback #48

Posted by Just Another Film Buff under All Posts, Cinema of Germany, Flashback | Tags: Aguirre, Burden of Dreams, Fitzcarraldo, Klaus Kinski, Les Blank, Moving a ship, Peter Berling, Thomas Mauch, Werner Herzog |
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Fitzcarraldo (1982)
Werner Herzog
German

“It’s only the dreamers who ever move mountains”

If the judgment criteria for a film included the way it was made and the circumstances under which it was pulled off, Fitzcarraldo (1982) perhaps would rate as the best movie ever made. The Reason? Take a look at the outstanding documentary on the making of Fitzcarraldo – Les Blank’s Burden of Dreams (1982) – and see if you can believe it. Watching the making of Fitzcarraldo is like watching Picasso paint in Clouzot’s The Mystery of Picasso (1956) as we practically witness the work of art take shape through an array of improvisations and brainwaves and burst out into its moment of glory. One begins to wonder if the final product alone is sufficient while assessing an artist or if the tools and means of its creation should be considered too.

I may sound like appreciating the making of the film more than the film itself. But that in no way takes the credit away from Fitzcarraldo as a standalone piece. Some consider it as Herzog’s best film. Clearly, it is up there with the likes of Stroszek (1977), Aguirre, The Wrath of God (1972) and a few others. Fitzcarraldo follows the titular character’s larger-than-life quest to harvest rubber from a practically isolated plantation in order to make money to build an opera house. The central activity involves the towing of a gigantic ship from one Amazonian tributary onto another with the help of the supposedly savage natives. The story and the one behind it are legends by themselves and I would like to just add whatever we see on-screen is indubitably autobiographical – not in the physical sense, but the emotions underneath.

Fitzcarraldo is clear evidence that Herzog has this natural inclination to stage operas. Even though he would argue against bringing ideas of opera into cinema and vice-versa, Fitzcarraldo comes out as a grandly staged opera with its own exhilarating crescendos and chilling decrescendos. Herzog direction percolates into as far as his locales that seem to have taken a demonic life of their own. The ever-shocking Kinski in tandem with that element of Herzogian mystery are sure to haunt you long after the film has ended.

March 11, 2009

Flashback #47

Posted by Just Another Film Buff under All Posts, Cinema of Germany, Flashback | Tags: Cinema of Germany, documentary about Indian culture, Indian folk arts, Jag Mandir, Maharana of Udaipur, mcdonaldization, Werner Herzog |
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Jag Mandir: Das Exzentrische Privattheater Des Maharadscha Von Udaipur (1991) (aka Jag Mandir)
Werner Herzog
German

“Culture in India is a basic life-sustaining force “

Jag Mandir is a quiet and often overlooked film in the vast oeuvre of Werner Herzog. Apparently, 20 hours of footage was shot that covered the whole fest and the film hardly presents us a twentieth of that. A native walking into the film in between may well fail to immediately realize that it is his country that is being shown and these are figures from the mythology of various sections of his nation. You might take if for a scene from a procession in Thailand or a sketch from festival from Africa or even a snapshot from the gala celebrations in Brazil. Such is the diversity it presents that it reminds us of those clichés about Indian culture.

Werner Herzog’s Jag Mandir begins with an extended take of André Heller giving an introduction to the project (on which the film is based). He recollects his experiences organizing the folk-art festival called for by the Maharana of Udaipur, who the wishes that the succeeding prince sees the artistic diversity of the country before it succumbs to “mcdonaldization”. This is a mesmerizing section and Heller’s monologue contains observations that will leave you ruminating for a long long time. Being a native, I am always skeptic of westerners’ cursory probing of the country and the life-changing-experience it seems to give many. But Heller’s piece, though romanticized, gives everyone something to think about the way we live. The speech lasts for well over seven minutes and dissolves into the titles. Herzog then takes us back to the actual events which unfold without any demarcations between reality and fiction, as always with the director, The greater part of the film presents us footage of performances that run the gamut.

You have classical dancers in unison, street players wielding everything from swords to artificial horses, a man who lifts weights with his eyelids, a woman who balances a kid standing on a ten foot pole on her chin, a little girl who swings blazing torches with nonchalance and what not. It is highly likely the average Indian today hasn’t seen any of these folk art forms. The saddest and the most surprising part is that it looks like many of these art forms and skill sets aren’t seen around in the country today and may even have gone into oblivion without a trace. May be the Maharana’s nightmares have indeed come true.

P.S: Call it an obsession with a man obsessed with obsessions, but you’re going to be seeing more of Werner Herzog’s name on this blog. Trolls beware.

March 4, 2009

Flashback #46

Posted by Just Another Film Buff under All Posts, Cinema of Hungary, Flashback | Tags: Béla Tarr, Cinema of Hungary, cinema vérité, Flashback, Hungarian Cinema, Hyderabad Blues 2, Panelkapcsolat, Scenes From A marriage, The Prefab People |
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Panelkapcsolat (1982) (aka The Prefab People)
Béla Tarr
Hungarian

“What about those who are away for years? They never see their kids. The kids grow up with no dad. They grow up and the dad gets them ready-made “

The Prefab People After watching films like Scenes from a Marriage (1973) and Hyderabad Blues 2 (1998), I had come to a kind of conclusion that films about marital life are and even have to be necessarily lengthy in order to depict relationships falling apart bolt by bolt. But Béla Tarr’s masterful venture The Prefab People brutally shatters that perception. The film is so masterfully crafted that I was afraid that Tarr would have to have a pathetic showdown in order to wrap up the film within 80 minutes. But gladly, one couldn’t have asked more after watching what Tarr delivers. He lets the film gradually evolve instead of providing it narrative momentum (but never without a direction). Watching The Prefab People, one can see why Mendes’ Revolutionary Road doesn’t exactly succeed.

The Prefab People is Tarr’s fourth feature and one can clearly see Tarr maturing as a filmmaker. He intelligently avoids all the mistakes of his previous outings (which were pretty good themselves) and makes it seem like a grand culmination of a chain of dress rehearsals. He substitutes the extreme verbosity of Family Nest (1979) with self-sufficient images. He sheds the self-indulgent meditation of The Outsider (1981) and makes a film that is universal in its appeal and as personal in its content. He avoids the complex mise-en-scene he employed in his mediocre single-shot adaptation of Macbeth (1982) and in exchange develops a keen sense of shot composition and cutting. One can virtually see where Sátántangó (1994) gets its pitch-perfect atmosphere from. But in spite of the trademark style of the director, The Prefab People is very much a cinema vérité film. It wouldn’t be a coincidence if one was continuously reminded of Cassavetes while watching this one. The resemblance is most glaring in the scene at the party, which has to be experienced to be believed.

These are beautiful characters and so are the actors. To use a worn out cliché, Tarr does not take sides. Both the husband and the wife have their own visions of what happiness is. Just that one is evidently naïve and the other is actually romanticized. But the masterstroke of the film is the Kubrickian theme of man and machine that Tarr blends in this outwardly boring suburban life. And just like the American genius’ style, Tarr controls his décor, landscapes and film equipment to provide a literature-free rendering of one of cinema’s most favorite themes.

March 1, 2009

Flashback #45

Posted by Just Another Film Buff under All Posts, Cinema of France, Cinema of Iran, Cinema of Japan, Flashback | Tags: Abbas Kiarostami, film tribute, Five, Five long takes dedicated to Yasujiro Ozu, Five: Five long takes dedicated to Yasujiro Ozu, Flashback, humanist filmmakers, Iranian film review, jafar panahi, Kiarostami, long takes, nature in film, nature of cinema, Yasujiro Ozu |
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Five Dedicated To Ozu (2003) (aka Five)
Abbas Kiarostami
Silent

“…”

Five

Unquestionably, Kiarostami’s films are unlike any film ever seen, leave alone Iranian ones. But one film that is extreme and decidedly avant-garde even by Kiarostami’s standards – Five: Five long takes dedicated to Yasujiro Ozu (2003) – has turned out to be one of his finest works. In what can be described as a super-slow version of Koyaanisqatsi(1982), Kiarostami presents us five shots of the sea, filmed during various times of the day, at various distances and of varying lengths. Kiarostami quietly integrates the five elements of nature to create a film that is as warm as Ozu’s and as puzzling as his own, in a way, forming a singular connection between them.

The first shot shows us a piece of log lying on the beach as the incoming waves unsuccessfully try to pull it in. There is instant engagement here. I do not know about others, but I have spent hours watching such insignificant dramas of nature – the wind trying to knock off a fruit of a tree, a crow trying to pull out a twig that is stuck and the waves trying to sweep my feet at the beach. There is complete focus on the log and the incoming waves here. These are the only two components of the frame and these alone form the foreground of the image. Interestingly, this is the only segment where the camera actually moves in order to accommodate the object under consideration. Kiarostami shows us a very ordinary piece of event, but our mind conjures up a narrative of sorts – with its own formulation of safe-space and danger zones of the “narrative”. And things become complicated as the log breaks off and the larger part is swept off into the sea. Though completely unrigged, this “turning point” makes our attention shuttle between the drifting piece in the water and the struggling one on the beach. Is Kiarostami alluding to Floating Weeds?!

In the second one, we are shown the image of the sea as seen from an embankment on the beach. We are drawn into the horizontal waves that decorate the widescreen in the form of broad white lines. Gradually, we have people walking across in front of us pushing the sea into the background. People of all ages flood the screen in many amusing ways, regularly diverting our attention from the sea. There are even critters that wallow into the frame and easily gather focus. There is a feeling of watching a Béla Tarr film – but only in a sense. That is, in Tarr’s films, the dynamics of the foreground, though initially attractive, feel like clockwork after a while. Slowly, we sense the background – the still life – gathering a presence of its own and even imposing itself upon us. There is a feeling of intimidation and ill-omen whereas here, it works the other way round. The patterned backdrop is quite fascinating to start with, but as the humans start coming in the foreground, our attention is naturally devoted to them. We start studying them and even start expecting some new ones (I was hunting Jafar Panahi’s cameo). This segment ends the way it started – the sea alone occupying the stage.

The next shot presents us the sea sandwiched between the sky and land. This is shot from considerable distance and looks like a painting. It is early morning and there are dogs lying on the beach. Almost nil action takes place notwithstanding the stray movements made by the canines. Everything is in the background here as opposed to the previous two shots. Gradually, the contrast of the image starts reducing and after one point we are unable to differentiate between the sky and the sea. The shot fades to white after all the three elements of nature dissolve into one another.

The fourth shot is perhaps the most “interesting” of all. In a direct homage to Ozu’s style, Kiarostami places the camera at knee level and in close proximity to the sea. Soon, the screen is infested by ducks of various sizes, colours and gaits. This is the as close to comedy as the film gets. The ducks move at almost a fixed speed and their footwork seems like a musical rhythm. Suddenly, all the ducks that have gone past retreat as a bunch as if in a panic. The concentration is completely on the foreground here and the sea becomes no more than a comfortable backdrop.

The final shot lasts about half an hour and is the boldest of them all. It is night time and we can hear the loud croaking of frogs and barking of dogs. And it is only after a while we come to know that we are staring at the still sea. The reflection of the moon appears in a distorted way on the dirty surface of the water. Once more we desire the reflection to settle down to form the perfect circle. The notions of foreground and background are completely eliminated as the pulsating moon appears like a milk drop that falls into abysmal vacuum. And just when everything seems unperturbed, rain comes. The annoying frogs disappear and so does the reflection. Kiarostami has probably shot this in time lapse as the rain stops suddenly to restore the noisy atmosphere. The moon “settles down” and soon disappears behind the clouds. It is interesting to see that all the dynamics of the scene here is off-screen and their presence indicated only by the sounds they produce. We stare at nothing but dark blank space for most of the time but never once lose hold of what is happening in the film’s environment. A little later, we hear the rooster’s call and sure enough, bright sunlight strikes the image to reveal the clear blue water. This part is truly a revelation as one feels a fresh lease of life in the hitherto mundane and contemplative frame.

There is naturally a problem with a film that is as provocative as “Five”. How much of the content we derive out of the film is intentional? Was there a set of objectives for the director while filming the footage? Was every element in the mise-en-scene completely controlled by the filmmaker? Would the film have been different if each shot was prolonged or shortened? Here lies the classic tale of the emperor and his clothes. With a name as great as Kiarostami’s in the title cards, one directly gets ready to attach significance to the images, however banal they are. At the same time, it is but natural to feel awkward while watching such material. There is that absurd feeling of watching a Stan Brakhage film (I’ve seen over two dozen of his films and I must admit I can’t recognize most of them!) to the point of laughing at yourself. You get the feeling that Kiarostami is probably toying with his audience after all.

But surely, this isn’t anything like what Warhol did. Here is a filmmaker who understands what Ozu stood for and how big a responsibility the title of the film places on him. A filmmaker in the tradition of Ozu himself, Kiarostami does not go for cheap attention using complicated mise-en-scene and steady-cam shots. He doesn’t just see the world but observes it. He studies the relation between the various planes of the image. He experiments with the distance of observation and the range of emotions they evoke. In essence, he analyzes the subjective and objective components of the cinematic image never once losing the most important ingredient of his entire body of work – humanity. And that is why “Five”stands as a fitting tribute to one of cinema’s greatest humanists, by another.

January 15, 2009

Flashback #44

Posted by Just Another Film Buff under All Posts, Cinema of Iran, Flashback | Tags: Abbas Kiarostami, Ayneh, cinema and audience, fiction and reality, Iranian cinema, Iranian film review, jafar panahi, Mina, mirror, Offside, real-time films, reality in cinema |
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Ayneh (1997) (aka The Mirror)
Jafar Panahi
Persian

“I’m not acting anymore.”

Ayneh

Iranian cinema has been getting a lot of attention in this first decade of the new century and rightly so. The contribution of stalwarts like Abbas Kiarostami is being progressively applauded with Kiarostami himself being called as the unofficial leader of the whole movement. And if we jot down the names of the most vital of his Iranian contemporaries, we would almost instantly arrive at one name that has been surprising the audience with the sheer power of the films he has been creating with shocking consistency – Jafar Panahi. The charming The White Balloon (1995) put him on the world cinema map firmly and films like The Circle (2000) just added to his glory. But a quiet little film that he made in between these two films, Ayneh (1997), is one that has intrigued me for years and has made me return to it multiple times.

One should be careful while furnishing the story of Ayneh for the very plot is subject to one’s own interpretations. You’ll know what I mean when you see the film’s tradition defying form that can by itself start a perpetually healthy conversation about cinema. You have a little girl Mina ready to go home after the school. Her mother has not come to pick her up. So she decides to go home on her own. There are a lot of struggles in her venture and a hope for triumph seems vague. And suddenly at one point in the film, Mina throws down her scarf and announces that she is not going to act any more. This is where we are revealed that what we have witnessed is a film shooting. Mina quits and walks home as the crew continues to film her from their vehicle as the shooting for the day seems to stand aborted. Or does it?

The film’s title translates to the word Mirror – an instrument that one can look at in two ways– one that reproduces reality as it is without any ornamentation or one that resembles reality only because it completely inverts it point by point. One is a statement about absolute truth and the other about absolute falsehood. And like this paradoxical idea that the mirror presents, Panahi’s film uses the cinematic screen as a mirror that simultaneously presents both striking similarity between the two formally different sections of the film and stark difference between the fiction of the first part and the intriguing “reality” of the second. Mina struggles to find the way to her home and her tongue-tied nature nearly shuts off the possibilities. On the other hand, we see a bolder Mina going out into the wilderness of Tehran and sorting it out herself. But what remains same is her untainted childishness that shows that children are after all, children. Inherently, this duality makes one think how fiction tries to track reality closely and how reality itself is so fictionalized.

There is a clearly defined point in the film where Mina breaches the fourth wall and quits shooting. She goes off from the “sets” and walks home on her own. The film makers continue to film her nevertheless without her knowledge. Now, it is comfortable to assume that what ever has happened till now is the fictional part and what ever is going on is nothing but reality. But are we witnessing reality as it is? How do we know that this dissidence of Mina isn’t staged too? How do we know that what the director is filming in the obviously “candid camera” style isn’t a highly skilled manipulation of the filmic medium? And are we sure that there is no artifice here even though the style is clearly self referential. I am reminded of another skillful film from Iran. In Abbas Kiarostami’s Close-Up (1990), we have a wannabe director who infiltrates the home of an unsuspecting family impersonating as Mohsen Makhmalbaf. He is caught alright and tried in the court in front of the camera. Note that this is as complex as films get. Kiarostami reconstructed the film with the same family and the crook and staged what happened earlier almost exactly. The trial scene is the real trial though. Here, the protagonist tries to gain sympathy by elaborating his love for cinema. This may be real, but how do we know that this person is not acting because of the presence of the camera? This meditation on the classic Schrödinger cat is perhaps the insuperable study of the nature of cinema but Panahi too manages to put forth some very thought-provoking questions on the ontology of the most popular art.

We as the audience play the most vital part in its execution and his property of Ayneh which places the audience as the completing half of the film is its biggest success. With its all-encompassing sound design that includes even stray sounds such as car horns and other banal conversations, the first half pushes one to accept it readily as a near-genuine representation of reality. But once that illusion is shattered, we are pushed on to a new version of “reality”. We mock ourselves for believing in the first half and comfortably settle once more into the new atmosphere coolly assuring ourselves that this is indeed reality. All this is engrossing and fun. However, the more demanding viewer will be once bitten, twice shy. (S)he will hold the film at an arm’s length. (S)he will be skeptical about what is happening on screen and will try to observe the film rather than get involved. In short, a complete detachment from the medium is achieved – an idea that giants like Godard have been trying for decades.

I like Panahi’s more “conventional” ventures like Crimson Gold (2003) and Circle (2000) which are pretty staggering in their own ways, but what sweeps me off my feet is his films like Ayneh and Offside (2006). In Offside, like Ayneh, Panahi seamlessly blends reality and fiction as we know it. We begin to question about the boundary between them. Is the football match a synthetic premise to construct the film’s ideas or is the drama outside the stadium really happening like the match itself? What other arts have been doing for decades – reflecting on the medium themselves rather than the content they carry – cinema has started picking up. At the end of it all, the content of Ayneh – the girl, her house, the social details –seems secondary even though a lot is open to discussion. And isn’t that a huge success for a such a minimal film such as this? And aren’t we all glad that filmmakers such as Kiarostami and Panahi exist?

January 5, 2009

Flashback #43

Posted by Just Another Film Buff under All Posts, Flashback, Hollywood | Tags: Alexander Supertramp, Best Film Soundtracks, Best films of 2007, Christopher McCandless, Eddie Vedder, Emile Hirsch, Hal Holbrook, Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer, No cieling, On The Road, Road film, Sean Penn |
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Into The Wild (2007)
Sean Penn
English

“Two years he walks the earth. No phone, no pool, no pets, no cigarettes. Ultimate freedom. An extremist. An aesthetic voyager whose home is the road.”

Into The Wild

“Society, you’re a crazy breed” croons Eddie Vedder. At a time when the country was deemed unfit for old men and there was too much blood flowing around, one man sought to break away from it all, literally – Sean Penn, or rather Christopher McCandless. Adapted from Jon Krakauer’s book on McCandless’ journey of the same name, Into the Wild is the definite heir to the throne of Easy Rider (1969) and my candidate of the best movie of the year.

Chris has just graduated and his parents are all smiles. But he is fed up by it all – bickering parents, neglected teenage, excessive consumerism, the rat race and the causal love. And quite predictably, he hits the road and assumes the name of Alexander Supertramp (yeah, you got that right!). Inevitably, he meets people – the lost, the loveless, the solitary and the disillusioned. Inch by inch he musters, courage and energy to go all the way to Alaska, to a space far from any traces of civilization and where nature is found in its nascent form. He sheds every ounce of materialism – money, cars and even human relations – in order to discover true happiness and ultimate independence. But does he really get it?

I was skeptical of the casting in this film before I watched it and had already started cooking up alternate ones. Emile Hirsch has got a face tailor-made for the innumerable teen comedies from Hollywood whose moment of fame comes as fast as their descent into oblivion. But his work in Into the Wild is one that shatters such prejudices. One can see the common youth of today in him – sans heroics yet full of revolutionary ideas. And more absorbing is the work of Hal Holbrook as one of the many loners Chris meets. Completely deserving the Academy nomination, Holbrook’s performance is one that leaves you emotionally shaken, even with its minuscule runtime.

I’ve heard a lot of complaints about the climax of the film being too abrupt and contradictory to the whole purpose of the film. Though I do agree with the minor rush towards the end, I have to strongly disagree with the debates on the content. Although the film is apparently about breaking loose and coming out of the cocoon of modern life, it is essentially one about moving into a shell that more restrictive than ever before. Chris bit by bit shuns himself from everything in spite of meeting elder counterparts who regret similar decisions of their youth. He thinks that by doing so he moves closer towards nature and genuine satisfaction whereas in actuality, he is overseeing original human emotions that transcend logic and materialism. So Into the Wild becomes a road movie which is anti-road in a way. This is encapsulated in the very final mesmerizing shot of the film as the camera starts from Chris’ eyes and moves out towards the sky leaving Chris alone in the bus that looks like a micro shell in the ocean of nature.

Two scenes would stay in mind for ever. The first one is at a phone booth where Chris notices an old man making up with his wife over the phone. The call time nears the end as the broke old man desperately tries to convince her. Chris chucks his own call and gives his quarter to the man who keeps talking for a minute more, in vain. Chris knows that the man is troubled but what he doesn’t know is that he is seeing his future self in the old man. The second one being the moment of farewell where Ron (Hal Holbrook) reveals his wish to adopt Chris – a scene that has to be seen to be believed.

Undoubtedly, Sean Penn has got one of the finest pair of ears for music and it shows. We all know his love for The Beatles but in Into the Wild he goes with a complete soundtrack by Pearl Jam’s lead singer Eddie Vedder. With each song encompassing whatever it takes to be a roadie and each track topping one another in terms of the freedom and the simplicity it offers, one can easily place Into the Wild in the top 10 Hollywood soundtracks of all time. “No Ceiling” could well be called the successor to “Born to be Wild” and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

There is an Alexander Supertramp is all of us craving to get away into the wild. But sigh…Into the Wild is not a film that grows with the years. Rather, it is one that can potentially become an idiosyncrasy of the past. And that is the precise reason it should be watched now. Into the Wild isn’t just the movie of the year. It is the movie of our generation, soon to be taken over by a more bizarre, more radical and more cryptic way of thought and life.

November 21, 2008

Flashback #42

Posted by Just Another Film Buff under All Posts, Cinema of Germany, Flashback | Tags: Alfred Doblin, Berlin Alexanderplatz, Character Study, Cinema of Germany, Crime and Punishment, Dostoyevsky, Fascism in films, Fassbinder, Franz Biberkopf, German film review, Gunter Lamprecht, Long Films, mini-series made into film, Peer Raben, pre-war Germany, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Raskolnikov, socialism and films, Time magazine’s 100 best films, Xaver Schwarzenberger |
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Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980)
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
German

“A chicken consists of the outside and the inside. Remove the outside, and the inside remains. Remove the inside, and the soul remains.”

Berlin Alexanderplatz

The prolific career of German wunderkind Rainer Werner Fassbinder has been marked by decidedly minimal and vital films that have almost single-handedly defined German cinema during that period, with no credits taken away from Schlöndorff and Herzog. His mastery over the melodrama genre and understanding of the medium have consistently placed him at par with world cinema giants. But Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980) forms the core of his cinematic achievements with the sheer length of the film capable of accommodating ten of his other films. Pulling off a film with a mammoth runtime of 931 minutes by itself is a landmark that only a few gifted souls can dream of.

Adapted from Alfred Doblin’s novel of the same name, Berlin Alexanderplatz was originally made as a 14 part television mini-series but is widely accepted as a monolithic piece. The film follows the life of Franz Biberkopf (played to perfection by Gunter Lamprecht), a visibly tormented man, right after he steps out from Tegel prison after serving for four long years. He tries gradually to return to normal life and meets his old acquaintances in the process. He is determined to turn over a new leaf and sets a strict moral code for himself that forbids him from taking to violence in even the most testing of times. He attempts to get a permanent and legal job but the city turns him down because of the prevalent social, political and economic conditions. He sells sleazy magazines, takes in women and dumps them later and takes up a fake political stand in order to earn but strictly adheres to his questionable code of conduct. His policy gains him more foes than friends and he is soon left with one arm amputated. In these testing times, his source of support comes from the various women he takes into his house. They are strangely attracted to him and believe Franz can really give a reboot to everything. He takes to alcoholism and casts off his policies. He continues to exist.

One will be tempted to think in the first scene as Biberkopf steps out of the jail that Fassbinder is going to show us what the cruel city is going to mete out to him and its consequences on his life. But Fassbinder adopts a totally different path. It isn’t the city that has brought Biberkopf to where he is, but his personal policies and principles that have got the better of him and have made him virtually devoid of any firm footing in life. Biberkopf is neither able to adopt himself to the changing times and its corruption of daily life nor is he able to fight it out in order to stay true to his resolution. As a result, he remains willingly passive to all the changes around him and hence becomes a victim of these very changes. He shuts himself from the world and immerses himself in excessive alcohol helplessly observing the world as it moves past him.

I’ve not read Alfred Doblin’s novel but Fassbinder’s visual version reminds me of Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment. Both are set in tumultuous times where revolution is but evident and follow a simple individual battling his own troubles that are near independent of the socio-political conditions. Crime and Punishment is set when socialism was to take over the Russian elite administration whereas Berlin Alexanderplatz is set when “Fascism” was to oust the Socialistic regime in Germany. Both Raskolnikov and Biberkopf are individuals who have set high moral standards for themselves and get into deeper morass just because of that. Raskolnikov’s resolution is of utmost purity that he sticks to till the very end. On the other hand, Biberkopf’s fickle resolve is a product of his fear and is broken even before halfway. Also, Raskolnikov’s character is a mystery that grows more so as we progress whereas Fassbinder strips Biberkopf off all symptoms of a complex personality and leaves him as unsophisticated as an infant.

With such a huge runtime, one would naturally expect a meticulously etched character arc that takes a remorseful soul such as Franz Biberkopf and gradually portrays his transformation and ultimate attainment of redemption. Fassbinder, or perhaps Doblin, exactly shatters that presumption. Fassbinder carefully intersperses Biberkopf’s present with his moment of sin at multiple places. At one point in the film you feel bad for what the city has done to the man and appreciate his yearning for transformation and his mettle to put up with all this mess. In another, you loathe him for his reversion to crime and his attitude of acting upon impulses. This way, Biberkopf naturally becomes a multi-dimensional character and ultimately we come to know that he is as ordinary as a man can be with his own ideas of morality, with his own earthy human instincts and with his own set of flaws.

The two most critical factors for sustaining the film’s atmosphere are evidently its cinematography and production design. Xaver Schwarzenberger replaces long time collaborator Michael Ballhaus and does an equally impressive job. His organic camera movement sometimes cowers behind obstructions and at other times, accosts the characters aptly reflecting the mood of the scene. The masterful cinematography is enhanced by the haunting score by Fassbinder regular Peer Raben whose theme track is the X-factor the epic needed for its melodramatic completeness. For most part of the film, Fassbinder uses a brown tinge for his images which are supported by the excessive yellow lighting that provide the images the melodramatic quality it requires. Schwarzenberger employs the lens flare to the maximum extent with even the pupils of the characters looking like micro light sources. As a result, each image looks like an impressionist painting and the quality of the production shows in each frame.

The most and perhaps the only debated aspect of the film is its out and out surreal epilogue that sums up Fassbinder’s understanding of Doblin’s novel. Fassbinder sheds reality and shows us Biberkopf’s tour of the limbo using the most bizarre of images that include a torture factory and a human slaughterhouse. It is this chapter that will either increase the vitality of the film manifold or will pull it down to a wasted effort depending on your inclination to accept it as it is. We interestingly see Biberkopf being crucified with all his kith praying before him. Indeed, Biberkopf is like the messiah himself but his suffering has brought more sorrow to others than salvation. The epilogue by itself can concoct a full length film that forms an intensely personal chapter in Fassbinder’s life.

Berlin Alexanderplatz forms the central showpiece in Fassbinder’s glorious career. It effortlessly obscures his other brilliant films and perhaps even sums up his whole style of working. Performances of a lifetime, brilliant direction, gorgeous camera work and a memorable score are but some of the reasons that the film is of perpetual interest. Agreed that it is depressing and unconventionally uninspiring but that is precisely the reason why it must be seen. Till date it remains the best representation of an ordinary life of an ordinary person entangled in extraordinary situations.

November 15, 2008

Flashback #41

Posted by Just Another Film Buff under All Posts, Cinema of India, Flashback | Tags: Bhukya, caste system in India, dance in films, films about caste system, films about dance, Independant cinema, indian film, indian film review, Kuchipudi, Mamatha Bhukya, Rajnesh Domalpalli, Student film, Telugu cinema, Vanaja |
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Vanaja (2006)
Rajnesh Domalpalli
Telugu

“Can you believe it? Your own mother used you. Disgusting. ”

Vanaja

Browsing through Rajnesh Domalpalli’s cine résumé, we see more than two dozen awards from various film festivals across the world, against just one film. The sole bullet point in his filmography reads Vanaja (2006), a quiet little film that has conquered its own domain, won its own set of hearts with its sheer brilliance in thematic and visual execution and perhaps gained an entry to the list of best films of that year.

Vanaja opens with a Pulp Fiction like definition of its title – “(a) Water Lily (b) Wild at Heart | Sludge Born, Struggling | Rising | You Bloom So True”. And that is what the screenplay reveals as it measuredly blooms out. Vanaja is a girl untethered by the notions of class, caste, gender and age. Though it shouldn’t be said that she shoots her mouth off, she does express herself firmly when required and restrains herself when it is not. Born in a fisherman family, Vanaja (Mamatha Bhukya) loses her mother at a very young age and her only memory of her mother remains not so sweet. We come to know from the first minute that she loves dance and it is the only driving force to her otherwise ordinary (and even depressive) life.

She agrees to work as a maid at the village head’s house where she wins a chance to learn Kuchipudi. She shines, needless to say, and hopes to make it big one day. All is well until the village head’s son returns from the US for contesting in a local election. He is quick to take advantage of Vanaja’s sexual awakening and vulnerability and she becomes pregnant. After evading the criticizing eyes of the society, Vanaja gives birth to a boy who is immediately given shelter at the village head’s house where Vanaja’s father is forced to relinquish claims on the boy. However, Vanaja’s interest in dance never wanes and she continues to learn, while acting as a nanny to her own son. Troubles increase for her when her father dies of drinking and she is left helpless.

The film is probably summed up in the fleeting dream that Vanaja has towards the end of the movie in which her father is buried neck deep in sand as she tries to free him. However, she is being pulled by the local brats using a fishing net as the village head and her son try to put a garland around her neck while glorifying his political victory. This is the point where Domalpalli surreally stresses on the caste system that plagues the nation. Ironically, it is the same diversity (that makes the country so wholesome and tolerant) that plagues it with ideas of caste system and social superiority. Neither is the so-called upper caste able to accept her with open arms because of her assigned caste, nor is Vanaja free to follow her dreams owing to the society that pulls her down time and again.

I am tempted to compare the film with another collaborative effort that released three years before this film – Manish Jha’s Matrubhoomi: A Nation without Women (2003) – for both are independent ventures that deal with exploitation of women in the arcane hinterlands of the country where women are apparently sacred. But what the latter venture shows us in a somber and positively depressing tone, Vanaja does in a very light and easy atmosphere. It is easy to note Domalpalli’s striking and daring use of colours that almost exhaust the visible spectrum. The wildness of Vanaja’s heart seems to be reflected in this fascinating colour festival.

Also worth contrasting with Vanaja is Jason Reitman’s Juno (2007). Both the films deal with similar issues of teen pregnancy and their responsibilities and morals, but are poles apart in their execution and are so culturally unique. True that neither Juno nor Vanaja knows the graveness of the act they are going to commit by relinquishing their claim on the child, but where Vanaja stands apart is the fact that her situation is a function of the uncontrollable factors that include the caste system and the servile mentality of the village’s residents. Juno, on the other hand, is solely responsible for her action and plight that she gladly accepts and so do her parents and the society, and this makes Vanaja’s situation all the more shattering.

Having said that, it is remarkable that Domalpalli never begs for sympathy for Vanaja. It was so easy for him to tilt the audience’s support towards her but he never does that. Even more striking is that he doesn’t even appeal for antipathy towards any of the other characters. The complete absence of a soundtrack reinforces Domalpalli’s stand in handling his characters. The primary reason for this neutrality arises from the grey characters that Domalpalli has meticulously sketched. He never typecasts any of them and [deliberately] draws out the multi-dimensional nature within each character, thereby leaving the audience assessing their various actions and not the characters as a whole. Viewed with any fixed set of morals, all characters appear equally sympathetic and flawed.

Clearly, dance is a vital part in the narrative and Domalpalli employs stretches of complete dance sequences that highlight Vanaja’s state of mind. The songs move from Radha’s pining for Krishna’s attention to the slaying of the demon Mahishasura. It is also interesting to note that Vanaja never goes down after the child birth. All she wants is to take care of her child as its mother and continue her strides in dance. But once she takes her final beating when none of her old friend Radhamma’s predictions come true, she slays her inner demon of servility and moves towards true independence – one that has been hard fought and has demanded a larger than life sacrifice. Discussing the morality of Vanaja’s decisions are out of the scope of this article for it requires more than a knowledge of two hours, but what is sure is that these are choices of immense practicality and rationality.

It will be a crime if I don’t mention the stellar performance of Mamatha Bhukya who can teach any so-called-veteran mainstream actresses a thing or two. Independent films usually suffer from bad non-professional performances but it his essentially Bhukya’s work that takes the film out of that pitfall and elevates it into extraordinary levels. Now, here is a killer of a trivia – Vanaja was made as the final project to a master’s degree in film studies at the Columbia University! And perhaps this is the reason, Vanaja could not make it into the Oscar race (not that the selection panel passes only great films!). If this is the kind of cinema that we get from a student, I am thrilled to imagine what we can expect of him when he is an established filmmaker. Perhaps Domalpalli is the Indian reply to Florian Donnersmarck.

October 16, 2008

Flashback #40

Posted by Just Another Film Buff under All Posts, Cinema of Armenia, Cinema of the USSR, Flashback | Tags: Armenian poet, arthouse films, cinema of USSR, Flashback, Sayat nova, Sergei Paradjanov, Sergei parajanov, The colour of pomegranate, The shadows of out forgotten ancestors |
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Sayat Nova (1968) (aka The Colour of Pomegranate)
Sergei Paradjanov
Armenian

“I am the man whose life and soul are torture”

Sayat Nova

If a list of biggest innovations in cinema is made, the Russian directors would arguably occupy the top few slots. Their gift to cinema has been the prime mover for so many other breakthroughs across the world of cinema. And Sergei Paradjanov was one such filmmaker who had the special ability to have a different perspective of cinema, much different from the others. And the most fantastic of all his films, The Colour of Pomegranate (1968) clearly tells why.

Unquestionably arthouse film consists of a series of tableaux-like compositions presented in a deliberately impassive manner by the leading lady who seems to take up various roles, both male and female, as the lifetime progresses. Though seemingly “of-the-moment” and radical, The Colour of Pomegranate does present a narrative if one could resort to the conventional terminology. Strung with the poems of Armenian poet Sayat Nova, the film presents his childhood, coming of age, adulthood, his unsuccessful love life, priesthood and eventual death using the most striking images and symbols one has ever assembled on screen. Decidedly not for all tastes, the images that Paradjanov conjures up are so riveting that it is impossible for one not to make a visceral connection with them that lasts a lifetime. Paradjanov’s use of reddish brown tinge throughout the film, as striking as his tragic classic The Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors (1964), provides it the painting-like quality that visibly enhances the “two-dimensionality” of the visuals.

There is virtually no camera movement and the stage-like setting provides the apt platform for the deliberate execution to explore the medium and take it to places it has never been before. The images of Sayat Nova’s death, his life at the monastery, the still life and his view of the world of the child are so strikingly assembled that it transcends the film’s bizarre nature and eliminates any alienation that the viewer may feel. How much one would appreciate and relate to the film remains a big question of subjectivity. But what is sure is that no matter what you feel about the film, you know that this is art, Must see it if one wants to explore the boundaries of filmmaking.

WordPress has introduced this new Poll feature. Thought I will try it out…

October 14, 2008

Flashback #39

Posted by Just Another Film Buff under All Posts, Cinema of the USA, Flashback | Tags: Bianca, Craig Gillespie, Emily Mortimer, Flashback, Half Nelson, Indie Films, Kelli Garner, Lars and the Real Girl, modern alienation, Patricia Clarkson, Paul Schneider, Ryan Gosling, urban loneliness |
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Lars and the Real Girl (2007)
Craig Gillespie
English

“I wish I had a woman that couldn’t talk”

Lars And The Real Girl

When almost all of filmdom was heaping praises over Jason Reitman’s refreshing flick Juno (2007), another quiet little independent film had made its mark. Craig Gillespie‘s Lars and the Real Girl (2007) is a little treasure in independent cinema and is as good as the former, if not better. Sadly, the judging panel for the academy seemed to overlook the film and give the nods to Juno. Regrets apart, meditation on modern alienation and urban loneliness has never been so amusing!

Lars (Ryan Gosling), as the title suggests is the lead in the story. He lives in the garage of the house where his brother Gus (Paul Schneider) and his wife Karin (Emily Mortimer) live. He is everything that the word “loner” stands for. He speaks economically and eludes from attention. He never comes out of his closed structure except for the occasional church visit. The human touch burns him and he wears multiple clothes to avoid one. Additionally, he works in an office one of whose employees Margo (Kelli Garner), an enthusiastic female in search of love, tries to win his attention, in vain. Meanwhile, Gus and Karin are also trying to break Lars’ self built shell.

One fine day, Lars receives a parcel from one of the internet sites that sells adult toys and lo! – It is a life size (and anatomically correct!) female doll. He gives life to it and starts treating “her” with respect. We feel as creepy as the characters even though the title of the film has made us cautious. Lars seems to open up to the world after the arrival of Bianca (that’s what he calls the doll). She is everything he is and isn’t. Lars bestows her with everything he likes and everything he dislikes. She is his opening to the real world and the conduit of his suppressed emotions and troubled past.

Gus and Karin decide to consult Dr. Dogmar (Patricia Clarkson) in the pretext of treating Bianca so that Lars visits the doc regularly. Here is where we slowly learn that Lars is fully aware of his situation and Bianca is his method of shedding his shell. She is not a product of his frustration but a tool that clears it. As it becomes evident that it is Lars who is responsible for his own cure, everyone decides to play along till the golden day arrives.

The film’s biggest asset is perhaps Ryan Gosling’s quiet brilliance that is definitely a shining bullet in his résumé. It looks like he is leading the race among the young crowd of Hollywood, all of whom seem like tailor-made for teen comedies. His restrained performance as the titular character leverages his critically acclaimed role in Half Nelson (2006) that fetched him a nomination for the best leading actor and makes him the most promising young actor in industry now. Scenes such as the teddy bear rescue and the dinner table conversation give a glimpse of this handsome young man’s talents and he can rest assured that he is going to be around for a long time.

Though it can be categorized in the conventional feel good flick category all of which are instant hits, Lars and the Real girl avoids all traps that films of its kind usually succumb to. Primarily, with a plot line as bizarre as the one it has, any director would be tempted to flood the script with a deluge of raunchy jokes and the target audience would have drastically changed. But Gillespie eschews all that and yet makes the film light-hearted all the way.

Also, and most importantly, Gillespie never begs for sympathy for Lars. It is easy for a director to paint the screen with the protagonist’s helplessness and hence gain unwarranted attention towards the characters. But Gillespie appeals to the audience to accept Lars as he is. Lars is just another person in the village though the rest of the public start giving excessive attention to him for his condition. One of the characters in the film says “These things happen” and that is all what it is.

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