Films & Feni: India Unplugged
INDIA UNPLUGGED
NOV 29, 2009 – WHAT, OUTSIDE OF THE UNIVERSE OF Monty Python, is the Meaning of Life? Is it the sight of a woman retching out the contents of her stomach as her male companion launches, casually, into the opening bars of O sole mio? Is it Hitler popping out, like a jack-in-the-box, of a trash bin and proclaiming that all women are sluts and exist simply to satisfy the great, horny, German willy? Is it the image of a sunlit proscenium, with Little Red Riding Hood, Rumpelstiltskin, and Hansel and Gretel scampering across, chanting, “Who’s afraid of the big, bad wolf?” Or is it a man and a woman discussing, well, the meaning of life, on an inflatable raft (with its own inflatable palm tree) bobbing in the sewers? Pondering the Big Question, German director Roland Reber throws all semblance of conventional narrative to the winds, and his My Dream or Loneliness Never Walks Alone comes across like the most experimental entry in the International Inscrutable Film Festival (also known as the Make-What-You-Will-Of-It Film Festival).
ABOUT HALF THE CONSTITUENTS of the theatre screening Manoel de Oliveira’s The Cannibals trooped out after fifteen minutes. It wasn’t difficult to see why. The title promises gore and scandalous mayhem, while the film is a high-pitched romantic melodrama filmed in the fashion of an opera-recitative – not a word is spoken, only sung. But those of us who persevered through the miasma of melisma were richly rewarded about fifteen minutes before the end, when everything erupted in high absurdity, as if a performance of Tosca suddenly got an infusion from the last act of The Barber of Seville. And yes, the title is amply (or rather, lip-smackingly) justified as well.
EARLY ON IN THE FIRM LAND, the director Chapour Haghighat introduces a city slicker preying on the folksy innocence of a villager – and his docu-verité feature carries this theme through as a group of villagers sets forth, wide-eyed, to the big, bad city. About the only element of conventional suspense is why they’re there, but Haghighat is more interested in slice-of-urban-life vignettes that aren’t exactly groan-worthy Exotic India diversions but overfamiliar (to us) nonetheless. (There’s even a Jalsaghar-inspired finale, with the matriarch of a haveli organising one last musical feast.) But the filmmaking is fine – unshowy and unhurried – and patient foreign eyes will likely be well rewarded.
I FINISHED THE FRIDAY with my first-ever Armenian film, Albert Mkrtchyan’s Dawn on the Sad Street, the story of a mother with two sons she’s determined to shield from the warfront. The elder one rebels and leaves, the younger son cowers in a corner – the father, meanwhile, plays soulfully on the violin, undercoring the sadness of a region outsiders possibly cannot begin to comprehend. The film has its share of too-folksy, too-sentimental moments – an attempt to appease crowds that otherwise wouldn’t come? – but the mother’s battle against The Motherland does, ultimately, carry a potent charge.
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Did I miss something or is this article called ‘India Unplugged’ only because these films played at an Indian Festival. And from which film is the still given at the top? That looks very Indian but doesn’t fit in with any of the films mentioned.
Please watch this wonderful new venture by kerala filmakers called kerala cafe…might be good to view once back and you haveto face the inane onslaught of films!!-ten directors and the narrative connects in an interesting way.
good actors and goes back to the fundamental of films…that of telling a story.
watch over some kaapi !
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varun: Sorry. The caption and the picture were for “The Firm Land.”
Thanks for the whole series Mr. Rangan. This is top stuff. At last an Indian writer who “covers” the festival instead of who-wore-what…
Wish I catch up with some of these films. Any must-see movies that I should gear up for in the BIFFES?
Is “Harischandra’s Factory” playing at the festival? Seen it? Everyone seems to be raving about it…
did “antichrist” play at IFFI? wanted to know your take on it given the amount of discussion it is generating everywhere…given the volatile content i wonder whether it will ever get a theatrical release in india…even if it does the indian censor boards will kill whatever the director wanted us to see…:D
Just Another Film Buff: Despite a lot of really good stuff, there wasn’t any absolute must-see here, in these sense of eye-opening cinema. But then, there’s still Broken Embraces, which closes the festival.
Shalini: Yup. See next post. I’d say temper your expectations a bit. It’s a very sweet, little film, extremely enjoyable. Just don’t go in expecting the world. As far as Oscar goes, even among Marathi movies, I’d have plumped for Gabhricha Paus over this one.
Arijit: No Antichrist.
sad…at least will get to know your take on “broken embraces”…i read the plot summary…it sounds quite yummy…:)
Arijit: I didn’t mean to suggest there wasn’t anything worthwhile here. Just that, in this age of the DVD, there wasn’t enough “eye-dazzling cinema” to trudge all the way to Goa for someone who, unlike me, actually has a job. I’m not complaining at all
I wish Om Dar Badar is screened in more festivals like this. At least we will be able to get an insight into what actually the movie is signifying [too complex and cryptic for most average people to decipher]