E L L I P S I S - The Accents of Cinema

THE HUNTER (Dir. Rafi Pitts, 2010, Iran/Germany) - Echoes

2012-01-19T12:55:00.000-08:00

(1). Targets

(2) Victims

Targets (Bogdanovich, 1968)

Night of The Living Dead (Romero, 1968)

GUZAARISH / REQUEST (Dir. Sanjay Leela Bhansali, 2010, India)

2012-01-14T12:59:00.000-08:00

Director Sanjay Leela Bhansali makes extravagant romantic melodramas that take place in an alternate heightened reality. With Guzaarish, mainstream Hindi cinema takes on the much debated issue of euthanasia but unfortunately Bhansali's efforts come undone by an unconvincing story, hyperbolic performances from the main leads and an overworked production design. Bhansali's fondness for romance recalls the tragic melodramas of old Indian cinema and although his visual mastery of the frame is impressive, his films including this one always disappoint largely because the script, pacing and performances are at odds with the central idea or concept. Bhansali is a commercially oriented mainstream film maker and his films regularly sweep the major award ceremonies in the Indian film calendar. He is a much adored figure in the industry and most of the major stars have or are desperate to work with him. It's odd because Bhansali's oeuvre to date is somewhat underwhelming yet he has managed to cultivate a false image of himself as an auteur. What Guzaarish proves is how emotionally empty his films really are - the romance enacted by the characters does so on a rich canvas but it is a stylisation which reeks of self indulgence. If only he could rein in such self indulgence and spend more time with the scriptwriting process then maybe, just maybe, he might one day deliver a quality film. As for Hrithik Roshan, what can I say, he is apparently a star and an actor, but in reality, he is neither. In fact, he is nothing more than a mannequin who has sadly spawned an industry of similarly unresponsive mannequins.

THE WRONG MAN (Dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1956, US)

2012-01-14T12:53:00.000-08:00

If any film maker wants to understand the power of the point of view shot then Hitchcock's The Wrong Man is perhaps one of the definitive statements. Musician Manny Balestrero (Henry Fonda) is mistakenly identified for a man who has been committing robberies in the local neighbourhood. The police and society are convinced that Manny is the man responsible for the crime. He is arrested, imprisoned and put on trial. He does eventually go free but Hitchcock chooses to document his ordeal through a subjective approach, completing fetishising the point of view shot so that we literally become Manny. It may sound odd saying this but this may be Hitchcock's most 'real' American film. The real is manifested in the documentary style as it also observes Fonda, studying his mannerisms and cataloguing his suffering. As for the tacked on ending in which closure is conveyed, one can detect studio interference and mainstream compromise conflicting with more genuine genre expression.

ORANGES AND SUNSHINE (Dir. Jim Loach, 2011, UK/Australia)

2012-01-14T12:45:00.000-08:00

The directorial debut of Jim Loach is a moving social drama with a notable performance from Emily Watson. The film brings to light the child deportation scheme that took place after World War II. British children, many of whom were in care homes, were shipped off to Australia and forced to work as slave labour. In the 1980s, a social worker from Nottingham, uncovered the scandal and spent years reuniting children in Australia with their parents in the UK. Jim Loach opts for a slow moving narrative concerned primarily with detailing the emotional trauma of the children, many of whom we discover have been abused. The film is careful not to over sentimentalise the drama and also treads carefully from letting the events turn into another Hollywood 'crusade for justice' story. In many ways, Loach deliberately underplays much of the drama and thus maintains a level of sincerity that helps to consistently criticise the British and Australian government for their shameful conspiracy of silence. The film's ideological targets including religion, politics and the establishment instinctively recall the cinema of Ken Loach.

SHAITAN (Dir. Bejoy Nambiar, 2011, India)

2012-01-12T09:54:00.000-08:00

Shaitan is a mischievous film with a mischievous title. The anarchic content certainly lives up to such claims of youthful mischief but it is a mischief that turns into a tale of contemporary middle class guilt, corruption and murder. The film starts confidently enough with sequences of real visual energy and creativity. By initially taking a deconstructive approach to narrative and genre, the film appears resoundingly iconoclastic and very contemporary in its design. However, Shaitan is a film that self-destructs as the narrative of a fake kidnapping unfolds, gradually descending into a pantomime of relatively familiar cinematic tropes. I completely lost interest in the final third and could not care less of the outcome for the characters. However, unlike Peepli Live which is marred by a dependency on the spoken word, what really makes Shaitan stand out amongst the recent crowd of Indian multiplex films is director Bejoy Nambiar’s attempts to innovate conventional visual language through a prism of distinctive flourishes with the camera. Shaitan is arguably yet another multiplex multi protagonist film and although the film’s stylised visuals may point to something new, a closer look reveals some recognisable features including the jaded cop archetype. The film’s wayward narrative trajectory is more than compensated by the hedonistic camera and hyper kinetic editing style that jumps schizophrenically through the urban spaces. If one were to compare Shaitan to the current crop of Hindi films then based on one sequence alone it would surely be at the top of the list, and this is why:

O ho ho ho, Khoya Khoya Chaand, Khula Aasmaan
Aankhon Mein Saari Raat Jaayegi
Tumko Bhi Kaise Neend Aayegi

Khoya Khoya Chaand - Lyrics by Shailendra, Music by S D Burman

Originally used in the film Kala Bazar (1960)

PEEPLI LIVE (Dir. Anusha Rizvi, 2010, India)

2012-01-08T06:57:00.000-08:00

Farmers committing suicide so they can be compensated after their death by the government is the backdrop to this Aamir Khan production. The opening dilemma of two farmers, Natha and Budhia, having their land seized by the feudalistic powers that be echoes Shambhu Mahto's enslavement to the demonic zamindar in Do Bigha Zamin. Peepli Live takes the story of impoverished framers to analyse the state of the Indian media. At times, it was a case of too many characters and sub plots overwhelming the main narrative. I’m no sure why the film feels the need to work in so many narratives and although it might work to highlight the hysterical media frenzy, ultimately it detracts from the original story of the farmers. When the national media discovers that Natha has promised to commit suicide, they descend upon the village, turning the rural space into a media carnival. The film’s parasitic depiction of the media recalls with eerie precision the vicious journalism of Billy Wilder’s Ace in the Hole. Similarly in Peepli Live, the media pretends to care in the interests of coverage for their respective news channels. If the media is rightly the target of this satirical critique than it does a far better job than a recent film like No One Killed Jessica in which the media is presented as flawed but still courageous in its support of those denied a voice or misrepresented. Additionally, what makes this film’s representation of the media much more convincing and complex is the attempt to include the role of local media. In this case, the indigenous and authentic voice of the media comes from a local journalist Rakesh who finds the ‘real’ story worth telling in the village. Natha and Budhia’s predicament becomes a political bandwagon, creating a media platform for ideological dogma that reduces life and death to an inconsequential meta-narrative. Director Anusha Rizvi’s film is an assured debut, which benefits from a well-written screenplay, good pacing and some flashes of visual imagination. However, it is a film salvaged in many ways by the end shot of an exhausted Natha covered in a mask of dirt working in a construction site, most probably in the city; it’s the most haunting and effective shot of the film because it says so clearly that no matter where Natha goes he will be always be part of an anonymous invisible mass.

The final shot - Natha as exile, worker, migrant and part of the invisible underclass.

ESSENTIAL KILLING (Dir. Jerzy Skolimowski, 2010, Poland/Norway/Ireland/Hungary)

2012-01-07T05:55:00.000-08:00

Essential Killing is an impressionistic masterpiece which has a silent protagonist or should I say cypher who journeys across a wintry landscape to achieve a transient spiritual death. Claimed as an apolitical film, which seems mightily impossible, the episodic narrative imitates an odyssey of sorts that plots an existential trajectory while referencing a recognisable post 9-11 political context of nightmarish imperialism. Like Klimov's Come and See, this is a visceral and very physical film that revolves around the actions and reactions of Vincent Gallo's ideologically symbolic protagonist. Such a film is dependent solely on the visual image and returns cinema back to its purist silent origins and argues for a simplicity which is curiously scoffed at today by much of the mainstream. What Jerzy Skolimowski demonstrates is that all you really need to make a great film is an actor, scenario, dedicated crew and of course Jeremy Thomas. In many ways, by humanising 'the other', the film observes without passing any kind of moral or ethical judgement.

THE EXORCIST (Dir. William Friedkin, 1973, US)

2012-01-06T11:07:00.000-08:00

If genres reportedly work in cycles how is it possible to accommodate for the misdeeds of a film such as The Human Centipede. Neither am I convinced by the recent spate of films dubbed torture porn. Is this another vain attempt to account for genre aberration or are such films really saying something ideologically profound? The state of horror cinema in general has ironically stripped itself of any cultural credibility and artistic validity by embracing sensationalism as a postmodern mantra of audience tastes. The absence of ideology is a characteristic long associated with postmodernity and the evolution of the horror genre has meant parody and pastiche are favourable accents with which to extend any critical discourse. Essentially, the appreciation for genre and its possible dynamics has more or less evaporated into a mass of creative redundancy. Recent horror films including Paranormal Activity and Insidious are two just examples of films that grasp little of the intricacies of genre conventions. Both films lack a sincerity which is absolutely necessary for a genre that continues to be ridiculed and contested. My current disillusionment with the horror film genre has drawn me back to classic horror films which I greatly appreciate in the way they have been crafted. Director William Friedkin's The Exorcist was one of the first horror blockbusters, but in many ways, it has also been one of the most widely discussed films of the American new wave. Nevertheless, given its status as a horror film it still never garners the critical praise and reverence afforded to films like Jaws, The Godfather and Taxi Driver, which were also produced in the same era. Perhaps this is largely down to the horror genre's critical reputation. Jaws, another 1970s horror film, escapes such categorisation because of its reputation as a film by Steven Spielberg. Friedkin never achieved the consistency of his contemporaries, damaging the critical reputation of his oeuvre and underlining the discrimination and snobbery inherent in auteur studies. The Exorcist is one of the key films of the American new wave and although we can bring auteur into the question, when appraising the film's many achievements, we must not overlook what is really essential to the film's popular appeal, which is its intelligent understanding of the horror genre. Interestingly, the first wave of American directors in the late 60s and early 70s comprising of Bogdanovich, Coppola and Friedkin all made their names in genre cinema; the western, gangster and horror film. Much has written about The Exorcist, mostly passionately by Mark Kermode, who has also published a riveting monogram (BFI) and a documentary on the cultural impact of the film titled 'The Fear of God'. I want to highlight some visual and ideological points of interest to me:

1). The opening of the film is signposted with the Muslim call to prayer, known as the Azaan. This not only establishes the settings of Iraq but universalises the concept of Satan as common amongst Monotheist religions. Additionally, the call to prayer is sacred in Islam and it's acknowledgment is a recognition of the fear of god. Such a fear is central to the film's convincing and frightening treatment of demonic possession.

2). The lucid dream sequence experienced by father Karras taps into a prescient western guilt with abandoning parents to care homes. The dream imagery is potent, merging the medallion, dog, dead mother, demon and Karras into a truly nightmarish montage.

3). Father Karras is one of the most benign heroes I have come across in a horror film. Not only does he repeatedly question his faith but even when he finally meets the possessed Regan, he does so without any sort of trepidation. It is only later does he become convinced of the demon's powers and makes a decision to intervene. Although Karras meets with a grisly death, the exorcism martyrs him and his soul. Regan is saved yet ideologically Karras has already damned himself by the guilt he harbours about his mother.

4). Lee J. Cobb as lieutenant Kinderman investigating the death of Burke Dennings is a strange anomaly and his sudden appearance in the film, without any kind of formal introduction, positions him as a symbol of old Hollywood. Kinderman is a traditional figure of authority who would show up in old Hollywood thrillers but given the metaphysical nature of the dilemma, his investigative rational thinking is rendered obsolete.

5). The Georgetown Steps is a visual image that for me is the most frightening in the entire film. The steps become the setting for the death of Denning's and more importantly Karras who is violently thrown down the steps in the final climactic sequence. The image of the steps are used sparingly by Friedkin and their eeriest magnifications occurs through the point of view of Kinderman.

END OF YEAR FILM LIST 2011

2011-12-29T05:32:00.000-08:00

Having failed to publish a list of favourite films for 2010, I thought it best to try and come up with a list for 2011. From the lists and canons I have seen thus far it is pretty clear that the front runners are The Tree of Life, The Artist and A Separation. The Artist has yet to be released in the UK but it already seems like a strong bet for the Golden Globes and perhaps even the Oscars. As for Malick's much praised The Tree of Life, my initial reaction was a little underwhelming and the more I think about the film, the more convinced I am that I need to revisit the film and perhaps re-evaluate my judgement. It has been a particularly strong year for British cinema and I am a little miffed by the low key critical reaction from American critics and reviewers to Lynne Ramsay's latest film. Additionally, I am also perturbed by the absence of Indian films from my many of the lists I have come across. Surely you can't write off one of the biggest film industries in the world? In my personal opinion, the Indian film Dhobi Ghat was just as impressive as the Iranian melodrama A Separation or the Dardennes The Kid with a Bike. If this is the case, then why is Indian cinema so under represented in so much of the critical discourse that emerges at the end of each year on film?

The top 10 films of the year

1
The Story of Film: An Odyssey
Mark Cousins, UK

2
The Kid with a Bike
Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne, Belgium/France/Italy

3
Dhobi Ghat
Kiran Rao, India

4
A Separation
Asghar Farhadi, Iran

5
Essential Killing
Jerzy Skolimowski, Poland/Norway/Ireland/Hungary

6
We Need to Talk About Kevin
Lynne Ramsay, UK/USA

7
Dreileben: Part One - Beats Being Dead
Christian Petzold, Germany

8
Wuthering Heights
Andrea Arnold, UK

9
Drive
Nicolas Winding Refn, USA

10
Moneyball
Bennett Miller, USA

Honorable Mentions:

Neds
Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame
Rango
Senna
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace
Shor in the City
Delhi Belly
Tree of Life
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
The Black Power Mixtape
Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster
Bobby Fischer Against the World
Attack the Block
Boardwalk Empire; Season 2 Finale
Woody Allen: A Documentary
Stanley Ka Dabba
Bol
Midnight in Paris

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (Dir. David Fincher, 2011, US) - Nordic Noir

2011-12-27T10:54:00.001-08:00

Like with every David Fincher film, there is so much to say about the approach taken and also the wider context. Prolific is not a term used lightly when referencing the work of David Fincher. He is a director who works at a leisurely pace, picking and choosing film projects very carefully. This of course has been proven in the success he has enjoyed over the years. Unlike The Social Network which came as somewhat of a surprise when Fincher was announced as director, the same cannot be said of The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo. Swedish writer Stieg Larsson’s best selling crime novels titled the Millennium series have become some of the most widely read fiction. The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo was the first in a series of books which have already been adapted for the screen by Swedish director Niels Arden Oplev. The film was widely acclaimed as a successful adaptation of the novel and performed well at the box office. Larsson’s work has been pooled under a recent wave of Scandinavian crime fiction, television and cinema dubbed Nordic noir. It was inevitable that Hollywood would present their own adaptation and the dark themes at play in the story fit perfectly in the noirish oeuvre of Fincher. To be honest, I am not a fan of Hollywood setting out to remake films which have already been successful with critics and audiences alike. For many fans of the novel, this Hollywood version may seem like a pointless adaptation when the Swedish film is such a brilliantly directed thriller. However, I have not seen the original film and neither have I read any of the novels. So I approached this adaptation with a mind set unclouded by previous literary or cinematic experiences of the novel. Nonetheless, my interest was primarily with Fincher as a mainstream American auteur. The narrative is very complicated and tricky to explain without having to go into details about various plot points so I’m going to focus on thematic, technical and genre aspects which I found particularly interesting.

Before I move on, I will say that the narrative is strongly reminiscent of classic film noirs and uses the classic binary oppositional conflict between the past vs. present, the old vs. the new and faith vs. modernity. Thematically, and given Larsson’s experience as a journalist, the film in many ways offers Fincher with one of his most ideologically complex narratives involving sexual violence towards women, the perversion of the extended family, the corrupt ruling elite, history and ancestry, patriarchy, and sadism. We could label such themes as epic and universal, especially in European society, as they trace a lineage through the Nazis and World War II to the accumulation of wealth by an elite set of industrialist families. It is a fatalistic and doomed ancestry, which passes down power, only to be faced with a generation of children who are desperate to escape the tyranny of their past crimes. If the past is something many of the younger generation wish to mask then a futurist like Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara) is on a mission to uncover the past and hold it up to the present. Lisbeth is a modern day equivalent of a private investigator but she is someone who uses technology as a means of uncovering the truth. It is an electronic truth which can easily be erased with the touch of a button or fabricated to manifest a specific ideological agenda. Lisbeth’s morally dubious computer hacking restates her marginal position in wider society – she is a loner seeking a sense of belonging but also desperate for a human connection that would in a strange sort of way abolish her potency as a feminist icon. In many ways, Lisbeth is transformed into a guardian and protector and it is her distinctive Goth identity that pushes her character into the sphere of comic book anti-heroes who punish the male transgressors that she comes across in society.

Thematically, what also links the past to the present is that the sexual violence towards women is both continuous and brutal. The rape of Lisbeth by Nils Bjurman, a monstrous lawyer, is depicted graphically and it made me feel somewhat uncomfortable (I guess that was the intention) but I would still argue that it might have been much more powerful to have simply cut away, not because such sexual violence should not be represented in a film, but because depicting violence in such graphic details can be seen as exploitative and an easy way of manipulating audience emotions. However, I think this is a film that could have easily trimmed away such darker elements in order to maximise its commercial appeal but those involved in this project were brave enough to remain faithful to the original source material. Nevertheless, Lisbeth’s rape is not filmed in an exploitative or sensationalist way because her character has a voice and a vengeful response that controls the narrative. Her violent retribution may show her transgressing the social order but the fact that most of the men in the film are shown to be exploiting women for their own needs makes her position dubiously justifiable and sympathetic. Lisbeth’s position of self defence echoes the past, merging with the actions of Harriet – both Lisbeth and Harriet are victims of a twisted and corrupt patriarchy that seems perpetual.

If Lisbeth fits the persona of the angry young woman then journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) seems more like a traditional opportunistic middle class alpha male. Although Blomkvist hires Lisbeth to aid his investigation into the disappearance of a young girl and grisly murders committed in the past, he does purely as a means of also reeking revenge on powerful businessman Hans-Erik Wennerstrom. In many ways, Blomkvist takes on the job of writing Henrik Vanger’s (Christopher Plummer) memoirs so he can seek redemption for his failed investigation into Wennerstrom’s corrupt dealings. Blomkvist may appear to be a noble knight with a love for old journalistic values of transparency and the truth but fundamentally he is working to restore his male pride. In the final moments of the film, Lisbeth’s judgement equates Blomkvist with the laws of patriarchy – he may have appeared to be different than rest of the men in Lisbeth’s life but his gaze is singular, linear and predictably safe. What separates Lisbeth from Blomkvist is her fearlessness – death does not come into her life equation but it does for Blomkvist who does fear his own mortality.

Blomkvist’s investigation into the Vanger dynasty uncovers a narrative that stretches back to the 1940s and an involvement with fascism. The Vanger family and its anti Semitic sentiments that it still harbours does come to the surface on many occasions, underlining a nasty relationship between industrial wealth and right wing politics which says that ancestral power is forged on a culture of xenophobia. This may seem like a familiar theme today – equating the power of the ruling elite with racial prejudices but it works frightening well in offering a portrait of family that is decadent. However, this is a family that lives on an island owned by them. The island as a private community, separate from normal mainstream society, not only becomes a metaphor for their relative immunity but constructs an image of the ruling elite who are above the law and cannot be prosecuted for their crimes. Similarly like the gated island for the elite, the glass house in which Martin Vanger (Stellan Skarsgard) resides is another key visual motif used to brilliant effect by Fincher in the final sequences. Vanger’s domain, looking over the town, is a glass house and the wide glass panels that give the house its postmodern look point to a transparency which is nothing but a grand illusion – the truth is that beneath the veneer of transparency is a lie of quite literally torturous dimensions. Such political and economic immunity makes Lisbeth’s violent retribution at the end even more class based in its punitive response. Nevertheless, as we are in the universe of film noir, not even someone as powerful as Martin Vanger can escape his wretched past. It is the past, in the lexicon of noir, which eventually catches up with those who try to hide their crimes. And it is the puzzle of the crime that intrigues Fincher the most.

If Zodiac was a police procedural obsessed with putting together all the intricate pieces like an extended jigsaw puzzle then the same principles of micro investigation can be applied to the gradually unfolding narrative of Fincher’s latest film. In genre terms, the noir accents are readily identifiable but if the convention of the femme fatale is central to the iconographic discourse of film noir then the likely suspect may well be Lisbeth Salander. However, if we judge the femme fatale on qualities to do with her sexuality, power and manipulation of men then it makes Lisbeth increasingly unlikely as the femme fatale. Since the 1940s, the femme fatale has changed radically over the years into a much more complicated and morally ambiguous figure. In one way, Lisbeth could be a new kind of femme fatale, one who depends and relies on technology as a tool to exact her revenge. Such a claim is supported when Lisbeth records her rape using a micro fibre camera and then plays it back to the rapist. What separates Lisbeth from the traditional femme fatale archetype is that her sexuality is never overtly manifested. Given the film noir context, perhaps then Lisbeth is a new age femme fatale who is more cyber punk than retro chic. Of course, if we interpret the femme fatale archetype alternatively and reverse gender assumptions then maybe Martin Vanger might fit the mould particularly if we consider the way he uses power to manipulate those around him. It would be wrong to be right off Vanger simply as the bogeyman. For me, another significant convention of a traditional film noir is that central characters tend to be doomed from the outset, usually resulting in their death by the end of the film. In a way, I had expected Blomkvist to die, but both the hero and the heroine live to see another day. What is resolved is the murder mystery enigma of the narrative and in that respect, the ending ends tentatively rather than fatalistically. Absent then is the classical noir finale.

Resolving the murder mystery, the film seems to offer us yet more endings and this is where I felt the film seemed to falter. In the epilogue, Lisbeth is transformed into a Carlos the Jackal like figure, impersonating and emptying bank accounts. Lisbeth gives Blomkvist his muted victory against Wennerstrom but this sudden transformation is way too implausible and outlandish for me to take it seriously. Additionally, and I’m not sure if it is deliberate (maybe it is a sly postmodern reference) but Lisbeth’s blonde look at the end of the film recalls with uncanny precision none other than Lady Gaga; another gender outsider. On the most basic level, this is a superior thriller and its brilliance in terms of constructing a compelling narrative is through the way old and new media merge together to re-present a new truth and a new reality with far reaching consequences. This is a film, like many great thrillers, especially ones by Hitchcock teaches us to look, to gaze at the evidence presented before us and participate in a narrative of disclosure. Technically, Fincher is the best film maker working in American mainstream cinema today. I always pair him with Michael Mann, another visual stylist but Fincher for me has shown a greater consistency than Mann. Much of the production team from The Social Network also worked on this project and cinematography, sound design, editing and the score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross are top notch. The digital cinematography by Jeff Cronenweth, who narrowly missed out on Oscar night to Will Pfister for Inception, is the son of Jordan Cronenweth who shot influential films such as Blade Runner. The film’s visual look is a familiar when one glances over recent Fincher films. Shot using the Digital Red ‘One’ and new ‘Epic’ Cameras, the wintry backdrop and predominant use of greys gives the film a striking austere and muted look that fits perfectly with the twisted sensibilities of the narrative. The innovative opening titles is a work of art in itself, juxtaposing abstract images from the film to a cover of Led Zeppelin’s ‘Immigrant Song’ – this extends a familiar Fincher preoccupation with using the titles as part of the narrative storytelling. This is a rich, compelling and at times sophisticated noir that understands the complexities of narrative and genre storytelling. It is also a film by David Fincher.

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES PROLOGUE (Dir. Christopher Nolan, 2012, US)

2011-12-23T10:08:00.000-08:00

The final chapter in the Batman saga/franchise will be released in the summer of 2012. The marketing campaign has already gone into fifth gear and as part of a similar strategy to the second film, Warner Bros have attached six minutes of the film to play before the new Mission Impossible film in the IMAX format. The Dark Knight Rises Prologue looks impressive as Nolan knows the potential of IMAX but as a sequence, it was fairly unoriginal and a little confusing. I'm not going to give any spoilers but the major problem with this prologue is the garbled dialogue uttered by the character of Bane (Tom Hardy) which I can confirm is incoherent. Apparently, fans of the film have responded vitriolically on the Internet and from some of the articles I have read, Nolan already seems resistant to change or fix Bane's incoherent dialogue. Could this be a case of early hype, bad sound recording or directorial indecision? In fact, it might be all three. Warner Bros have done a seriously crap job of keeping the photographers away from the sets of the film and many spoilers have already leaked across the vast fan base. I'm not sure if this has been intentional on part of the studio but it is having a negative effect with many fans passing judgement on the film before its release next year. I'm not a huge fan of the comic book film genre but Batman has always intrigued me as an anti-hero and Nolan understands the complexity of the character more than his predecessors. However, few directors have been able to make three consecutive films in a blockbuster franchise that have been commercially successful and critically acclaimed. It seems as if Nolan has an impossible task on his hands.

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: GHOST PROTOCOL (Dir. Brad Bird, 2011, US)

2011-12-23T09:55:00.000-08:00

The Bourne films helped to change the perceptions of the spy film by complicating the ideological backdrop from the imaginary to real world politics. Additionally, Greengrass in particular brought a documentary style to the Bourne films and fundamentally rubbished the outlandish echelons of the espionage genre. Jason Bourne may have been an antique of the cold war but the events of September 11 certainly reinvigorated the genre and signalled a re interest in the workings of government institutions like the FBI, CIA and black operations. Both James Bond and the Mission Impossible franchise have desperately been playing catch up to the realistic precedents set by the Bourne films. Although the Bond franchise has been most commercially successful at responding to the new permutations in the spy film, the character of Bond stills looks cartoonish when compared to Jason Bourne’s ideological sensibilities. Mission Impossible has spawned a series of popular films to date and the franchise takes its direction from Tom Cruise. The latest instalment in the Mission films is titled ‘Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol’. In an attempt to suggest to audiences that this film is a re-boot rather than a continuation of the earlier films, the number four is deliberately absent from the title. A film franchise is usually made up of a series of films that pool together the same cast and crew. Most Hollywood film franchises are studio based and Mission Impossible is no different. A key property of Paramount, the Mission Impossible films like most franchises has over the years cultivated a formula for success at the box office. The implications of a franchise is that for a film maker they can be creatively restrictive and the expectation to live up to the formula becomes somewhat of a necessity given the sizable budget involved. Key to the longevity and appeal of the Mission films has been the constant star presence of Tom Cruise. In many ways, most of the major top earning film stars have all found time to lay claim to a franchise and the Mission films have certainly helped to maintain the box office of Tom Cruise. One of the criticisms regularly made with Tom Cruise is that his presence in a mainstream studio film usually turns it into a vanity project. This is probably true of a lot films with big stars, not just Tom Cruise film projects. If film stars have lost their relevance over the years and the concept has taken over then a franchise like Mission Impossible suggests that star power can still be central to the way in which a film is created and then marketed.

Tom Cruise is arguably the key ingredient to the success of these films and whether or not his creative presence has affected the shape of the films, what is conclusive is that with Ghost Protocol, he restates his claim to the franchise that has kept him in going him internationally. This fourth film in the franchise comes off quite well when measured up against the previous entries. Ghost Protocol is a late summer blockbuster but its appearance in the winter release schedule points to the declining box office of Tom Cruise. The previous film Mission Impossible 3 saw the involvement of producer J. J. Abrams who injected a much-needed realism into the politics of espionage by creating a villainous turn from Philip Seymour Hoffman. The first film, directed by Brian De Palma, is considered by many to the best in the franchise, but I’m not so sure if it is a film that stands up today. The second film, directed by John Woo, underwent extensive reshoots and while it was commercially successful, the film was merely a stylistic exercise. Ghost Protocol might in fact be the most entertaining entry in the franchise and this is undoubtedly down to director Brad Bird’s involvement. Bird reinvents the franchise by returning to the cold war origins of the TV series and reclaiming the Russians as the nuclear obsessed villains. Narrative wise the Mission films are structured around the action set pieces and Ghost Protocol certainly delivers in terms of such a convention by maintaining a relentless pace throughout the first half. However, the final third is somewhat disappointing as the finale is played out in absurdly bond like fashion, tipping the film into postmodern clique. The real star of this film is the extended sequence in Dubai, which sees Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) climb the Burj skyscraper with delightfully vertiginous effects. Dubai has the potential of becoming a future film location for a lot of Hollywood blockbusters as it provides a tantalising cinematic landscape that looks great on the big screen. Ghost Protocol seems to be the first major Hollywood film to tap into such a potential and it does so with some real excitement and energy. Thirty minutes of the film was shot using IMAX cameras and I would second the argument that IMAX should be the future of spectacle-based cinema, not the headache inducing 3D bandwagon. Ghost Protocol is being touted as the comeback for Cruise at the box office and the film certainly demonstrates the notion that star power can still draw in audiences.

MONEYBALL (Dir. Bennett Miller, 2011, US)

2011-12-19T13:15:00.000-08:00

We are drawn to films for all kinds of reasons, be they personal, political or just genuine curiosity. Moneyball is a film set in the world of American baseball but what drew me to this film was the presence of Brad Pitt. Over the years, Pitt’s reputation as an actor has solidified and his name has become synonymous with quality American cinema. However, films like The Assassination of Jesse James, Babel, Tree of Life and Moneyball are neither mainstream nor art house but carve out a cinematic space in the middle. Moneyball does a similar thing. The film uses Brad Pitt’s star presence merely as an anchor for the wider commercial aspects but the style adopted by director Bennett Miller is altogether restrained and even theatrical. Although the camera does move, much of the action is dialogue based and many of the key sequences are shot using long takes, simple edits and a pared down approach to mise en scene construction. Scriptwriters Aaron Sorkin and Steven Zallian repeat the trick of The Social Network by turning a potentially alienating aspect of popular culture (especially for the general spectator), and in this case an American tradition, into an emotionally involving character study about confidence, luck, stardom and most poignantly, personal failure.

Based on the book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis, the story revolves around general manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) who puts together a slate of baseball players based on statistical analysis. Actor Jonah Hill plays the economics graduate from Yale who becomes intrinsic to Beane’s gamble. This unorthodox method allows Beane to build up a team but on a budget several times lower than many of the top Baseball clubs. The method results in a record breaking twenty win running streak for the Oakland Athletics. Unfortunately the club comes undone at the last hurdle. The flashbacks in the film take us back to a time when Beane as a young teenager was discovered by Scouts and offered a major contract to play in the major leagues. However, Beane chooses baseball over a scholarship and fails to live up to his potential. It is this early personal failure that perpetually haunts Beane and when he decides to quit the game to become a scout, it sets him on the path to becoming a manager. The intrinsic connection between the past and present transforms Beane into somewhat of a noirish figure. He has never come to terms with the trauma of his past and the lack of self confidence that resulted in his departure from the game at a relatively early age impacts on the decisions he makes as a manager. By taking a statistical approach to sport, what Beane attempts to demonstrate is that confidence and winning are elements that can be manufactured, and are not inherently detectable in the personality of an individual. Beane’s calculated approach also proves another valid point in the world of sport, that spotting talent may be intuitive and the traditional means by which individuals are discovered, but if the risk of failure could be pre-determined then this would mean talent becomes somewhat irrelevant and it all becomes about the competency of a player in the context of the whole team. Beane discovers that personal failure is an aspect of the game which cannot be solved mathematically, that it is a real human emotion that must be confronted no matter how hard one tries to repress such failure as a romantic affliction.

What makes Moneyball even more unconventional as a sports film is the open ending. Goals are typically fulfilled at the end of a Hollywood narrative but given the fact Moneyball occupies the precious middle ground in American cinema, rejection of such rules or traditions becomes an expectation. Such an expectation is validated in the final moments, which sees Beane literally driving away from a potential new future as general manager of a major baseball club. In the previous sequence, Beane rejects an offer to manage the Red Sox because winning would mean a new set of expectations, a new philosophy and in a way, redemption. The painful reality is that Beane is not searching for redemption – his preference for a flawed past and wallowing in loss is what defines his very existence and to go against such a personal ideology would mean his destruction. In a tragic sort of way, the ritual of loss becomes the passion for Beane when in fact it should be the ultimate goal in his life. Moneyball makes for a riveting social drama and in my opinion is one of the best American films of the year.

THE BLACK POWER MIXTAPE 1967 - 1975 (Dir. Göran Hugo Olsson, 2011, Sweden)

2011-12-18T06:04:00.000-08:00

Olsson's documentary on the black power movement uses footage that was shot by Swedish film makers between 1967 and 1975 with new audio interviews from prominent Black artists including musicians and political leaders. Co-produced by Danny Glover, The Black Power Mixtape is not a polemic nor is is poetic in terms of the documentary medium, but what it does so effectively is make us think differently about a certain period of time. So, perhaps it is revisionist in one sense. The footage was discovered in a basement in Sweden where it had remained for over thirty years. Given the sophisticated approaches now evident in so many documentaries, this one keeps it simple by juxtaposing interviews from Angela Davis, Bobby Seale, Stokely Carmichael to the contemporary reflective voices of figures including Talib Kweli, Errykah Badu, Robin Kelley who offer tangible proof of the inspiring legacy of the black power movement. The interviews themselves shot by Swedish film makers offer some of the most eloquent, articulate and revolutionary voices of that turbulent era. Perhaps most complex is that of Angela Davis who we hear commenting over her own interview. Ideologically, the chosen period of 1967 to 1975 concerns itself with an urgency in terms of black militancy that was shaping the attitudes of the black community in America. However, as the black panthers enter the political arena it is clear to see that the emphasis shifts radically. No longer does it become a struggle about black and white but transforms into an international Marxist class struggle between the oppressor and oppressed. In many ways, this is exactly what struck fear into the white establishment and J Edgar Hoover responded with the now famous reply that the black panthers program of offering breakfast to impoverished black kids in the community represented the biggest threat to capitalist hegemony. The black panthers ideology seemed to make sense though, suggesting that for revolution to take place, the mind and body must be healthy and be equipped to use intellectual violence as well as self defense as primary tools to take on the establishment and challenge the powers that be. This is a powerful and revelatory documentary that reaffirms the vitality of the critical discourse on the black power movement.

Here is the first part of an interview with Danny Glover:

A SEPARATION / JODAEIYE NADER AZ SIMIN (Dir. Asghar Farhadi, 2011, Iran)

2011-12-17T09:02:00.000-08:00

Asghar Farhadi’s Iranian melodrama is currently appearing in many critics’ top ten lists. The set up is domestic and middle class; an Iranian couple are separating and their eleven-year-old daughter is caught in the middle. Simin (Leila Hatami) wants to go abroad with her daughter while Nader (Peyman Moaadi) is trying to come to terms with his father’s Alzheimer. When Nader employs a pregnant woman to look after his father, a moment of neglect results in a tragic situation for both parties. Although the subject of marriage provides the central narrative conflict, Farhadi takes his story into the realm of class politics and lifts the lid on the void between lower and middle class Iranians. I can see why the film appeals to so many western film critics because it deals with universal middle class anxieties including parental guilt, social apathy and perhaps most strikingly, marital discord. A Separation is an impressive work.

SARAH PALIN: YOU BETCHA! Including Q & A with NICK BROOMFIELD (Dir. Nick Broomfield, 2011, UK/USA)

2011-12-14T15:32:00.000-08:00

This Cornerhouse event in Manchester was a real delight and pleasure. After the screening, documentary filmmaker Nick Broomfield appeared on stage and offered a candid insight into the process of making this expose on Sarah Palin. After the interview, the floor was opened to questions from the audience and there were some really terrific questions especially the final one which focused on the relationship between Broomfield’s latest documentary and Tracking Down Maggie. This look at Sarah Palin signals Broomfield’s return to the documentary medium since his highly personal Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer in 2003. I was amazed that Broomfield only spent ten days on research before setting of to Alaska to begin filming. Given his influence in the evolution of the performative documentary mode, Broomfield’s approach bears strong parallels to Tracking Down Maggie in that Palin proves to be an allusive and resolutely inaccessible figure. Thematically, Broomfield’s interest is not really with Palin but with what she represents in terms of ideals, namely Evangelical Christianity and its hold on the Republican Tea party movement. Broomfield spent three months in Alaska, visiting Palin’s hometown and getting beneath the media construct by interviewing her so called enemies. In Tracking Down Maggie, Broomfield’s initial aim of securing an interview with Margaret Thatcher gradually transforms into an investigation about her son’s illegal activities. Although Broomfield tries his best to confront Palin he ultimately fails and this failure to fulfil the original aim of his documentary is painfully transparent. Morgan Spurlock, Louis Theroux and Michael Moore have all been influenced by Broomfield’s on screen presence and his interaction with his subject matter makes much of his work both highly subjective and interpretative. Sarah Palin: You Betcha! is equally entertaining as the rest of Broomfield’s work and his recognisable charm and wit are evident throughout the narrative.

NOTES ON DVD VIEWING 3

2011-12-13T15:21:00.000-08:00

Yet again I am struggling to find the time to respond in length and detail on the films I am watching. As the year is drawing to a close, I thought it might be useful to offer another round up of recent films I have watched on DVD and Blu-ray. Last year I didn't get a chance to post an end of year list but I am hoping to make amends for that this time round, perhaps in the form of a video essay (if I get the time).

MIDNIGHT IN PARIS (Dir. Woody Allen, 2011, Spain/USA) - The opening montage brought back wonderful memories of Manhattan but it also swept me away as it plugged into my romantic affections and love of Paris. The montage of Paris is one of the best moments of 2011 and the film is one of Woody Allen’s finest in years, despite the fact that it is hopelessly romantic in every possible way about modern relationships. The secret to this film’s success belongs in director Woody Allen’s fondness for old Hollywood. It is also a very magical work that recalls The Purple Rose of Cairo.

THE BIG LEBOWSKI (Blu-ray) (Dir. Coens, 1998, USA/UK) - This never gets old. Repeat viewings recommended. Looks and sounds even better in Blu-ray, not that it really makes a difference to the brilliant comedic writing and performances on display. The dude abides.

LIVING IN THE MATERIAL WORLD (Dir. Martin Scorsese, 2011, USA) - Apparently Martin Scorsese directed this documentary on George Harrison but I felt it missed the mark in many ways. Harrison was undoubtedly a key figure but I’m not so sure if I found his life that interesting. Using interviews and archive footage, Scorsese leaves no stone unturned but the narrative is somewhat overworked and too long. Unfortunately, the material needed some brutal editorial decisions and it is easy to see that Scorsese was carried away the passion he felt for Harrison and his music. Unlike the brilliant No Direction Home, which challenged many of my perceptions of Dylan, the same cannot be said for Living in the Material World, which left me unconverted by the end.

SUBMARINE (Dir. Richard Ayoade, 2010, UK/USA) - Both Submarine and This is England end with a sequence on the beach. Both films are also interested in youth identity and the coming of age narrative. Submarine takes an entirely different approach to Meadow’s film but it is wonderfully evocative in its homage to the tricks of the French nouvelle vague. Ayoade’s bittersweet love story makes him one to watch in terms of British cinema.

FALLING DOWN (Blu-ray) (Dir. Joel Schumacher, 1993, USA) - I revisited this one purely because it’s a film that has stuck out for me over the years. The theme of white middle class angst is not unfamiliar to American cinema and D-Fens, played by Michael Douglas, may recall Travis Bickle but he is a figure lurking in the midst of many western societies today. Key to the ideological fervour of Falling Down is the slogan ‘not economically viable’, which still makes it a prescient film given the recession today. Falling Down is an American film that has a rich subtext to its ideological agenda. In an interview that comes on the disc Douglas says that it would be impossible to get a studio to finance such a film today. He might have a point given the current apolitical state of American cinema.

COHEN & TATE (Dir. Eric Red, 1988, USA) - A violent, noir that works perfectly with the pairing of Roy Scheider and Adam Baldwin. Written and directed by Eric Red who wrote the scripts to Blue Steel, The Hitcher and Near Dark. What makes this film of particular interest is the iconography of the road movie.

TROUBLE IN MIND (Dir. Alan Rudolph, 1985, USA) - A neo noir set in the future. Directed by Alan Rudolph and starring Kris Kristofferson, the narrative is conventional but the notable visual style makes this an idiosyncratic work. What kept my interest other than Kristofferson was ultimately the melancholic mood sustained throughout by the emphasis on classical noir themes like fate, death and the city.

BLACKTHORN (Dir. Mateo Gil, 2011, Spain/USA/Bolivia/France) - What if Butch Cassidy wasn’t killed and lived a reclusive second life in the mountains of Bolivia? Well, this is exactly what director Mateo Gil’s film Blackthorn proposes with the aging Butch, played magnificently by Sam Shepherd. Mateo Gil wrote the screenplays for Spanish films including Open Your Eyes and Tesis (both directed by Amenabar). Blackthorn is a confidently directed film and it works best as a character study of the aging outlaw. The western genre has always proven to be perfect for exploring the notion of growing old. What really caught my eye was the stunning cinematography – this gem of a western features some of the most beautiful imagery of the year.

SHAGHIRD / DISCIPLE (Dir. Tigmanshu Dhulia, 2011, India) - A largely perfunctory crime thriller, Shaghird is salvaged by a surprisingly wry finale in which the cop, played by Nan Patekar, comes face to face with the elemental greed inherent within most people. Director Tigmanshu Dhulia has the potential to emerge as one of Indian cinema’s most intelligent genre filmmakers.

THE OUTSIDERS (Dir. Coppola, 1983, USA) - Filmed with a wide-eyed affection for the classic teen rebellion films of the 1950s, Coppola’s adaptation of S. E. Hinton’s novel is very ordinary and somewhat underwhelming if one compares it to the masterful Rumble Fish. Although it is clear to see differences in tone and style between the two films, The Outsiders lacks a convincing emotional core.

BOBBY FISCHER AGAINST THE WORLD (Dir. Liz Garbus, 2011, USA) - One of the year’s best documentaries. Bobby Fischer was a genius, icon, anti-Semite and a troubled figure in the chess world. Utilising a tragic downward spiral for the narrative, the documentary humanises a seemingly impenetrable figure to the changing ideological backdrop of world politics. Additionally, producer-director Liz Garbus is one of documentaries unsung heroes.

THE LION KING (Blu-ray) (Dir. Roger Allers & Rob Minkoff, 1994, USA) - A re-working of Hamlet that saw Disney regaining its creative mojo, The Lion King is extraordinarily conservative and formulaic but its charm comes largely from its attempts to bring the epic genre to the animated form.

MY BROTHER'S WEDDING (Dir. Charles Burnett, 1983, USA) - Charles Burnett’s follow up to his masterpiece Killer of Sheep (1977) is a funny and observational study of class in the milieu of the Los Angeles African American community. Thankfully Burnett’s work has been saved from the dustbin of American independent cinema and many of his films underline a distinctive social realist style that only a handful of black filmmakers can call their own. It is so tragic that Burnett was never allowed to work consistently as he was robbed of his potential.

ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (Blu-ray) (Dir. Sergio Leone, 1968, USA/Italy) - ‘You brought two too many.’ – Harmonica (Charles Bronson)

BOL / SPEAK (Dir. Shoaib Mansoor, 2011, Pakistan) - Pakistani director Shoaib Mansoor’s study of contemporary Pakistani society is a savage melodrama that indicts religious patriarchy and hypocrisy as the root causes of sexual and gender discrimination. Bol deserves to find a wider audience and marks out Mansoor as one of the few cinematic voices who is not afraid of speaking out against the state of society within the confines of the mainstream melodrama.

DEEP END (Blu-ray) (Dir. Jerzy Skolimowski, 1970, UK/West Germany) - A film very much of its time, Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski brings the eye of an outsider to London at the end of the swinging sixties and similarly like Polanski offers a compelling psychological foray into sexual adolescence. Deep End is bold, daring and iconoclastic filmmaking. This BFI release comes highly recommended.

MEEK'S CUTOFF (Blu-ray) (Dir. Kelly Reichardt, 2010, USA) - Is this the closest we are likely to get to a neo realist western?

RED STATE (Dir. Kevin Smith, 2011, USA) - Although I like Clerks, the rest of Kevin Smith’s films I don’t really appreciate because they seem infected by an over emphasis on the written word. He has managed to etch out a career for himself by extending the universe of Clerks so it has taken on a life of its own through the Internet. In many ways, Red State is one of his best films. A polemical response to rise of Christian fundamentalism in America, Red State fuses horror with social realism to create a narrative that references most explicitly the Waco siege of 1993 that resulted in the death of 79 people. Smith made Red State outside the normal Hollywood system and shows clearly in his uncompromising ending.

OUR HOSPITALITY (Dir. Buster Keaton, 1923, USA) - Keaton’s masterpiece (one of many I suppose) blew me away in its use of sheer pantomime and artistry. It’s simply genius stuff and one of the most innovative films ever made.

THE FUGITIVE KIND (Dir. Sidney Lumet, 1959, USA) - Lumet’s film is an odd mix of southern Gothic traditions and Hollywood melodrama. Brando’s in fine form as the troublesome drifter while Anna Magnani appears totally out of place as the tormented housewife. One of Lumet’s early films, The Fugitive Kind fails to escape its theatrical origins but Brando’s magnetic screen presence delights.

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN - (Dir. Lynne Ramsay, 2011, UK/USA)

2011-12-09T15:23:00.000-08:00

One of the best posters of the year.

To say that director Lynne Ramsay's third feature is a bit special would be a tragic understatement. This is certainly one of the best films of the year. Of all the films I have seen this year We need to talk about Kevin is visually superior by quite a margin. Some critics have labelled this a horror film and it is certainly full of dread and anxiety. Although Tilda Swinton's performance has been much praised, it is Lynne Ramsay's eye catching framing and compositions that steal the show. She has a very strong eye for detail that supports the elliptical and fragmented narrative structure. It has been a while since a film made such bold, expressive use of the colour red. The presence of red seeps into every frame, threatening at times to spill over and consume the entire film. Aesthetically, the symbolism that Ramsay attaches to the colour red becomes a concrete iconographic link to the horror genre. The red in the film merges the present with the past and takes on a much larger metaphysical dimension. It got me thinking about films which I have seen over the years in which the colour red is used creatively. Here are a few thoughts in the form of a (very quick though - hit space bar to slow down) slideshow:

A brief slideshow of films that make expressive use of the colour red.

THE DIRTY PICTURE - (Dir. Milan Luthria, 2011, India)

2011-12-07T14:35:00.000-08:00

Based on the real life exploits of South Indian film actress Vijayalakshmi, who took the screen name of Silk Smitha, Milan Luthria’s The Dirty Picture sees Vidya Balan dance her way through an uneven look at the female film star in the context of the Indian film industry. Although Vidya Balan is perfectly cast and carries the film with what is surely one of the highlights performances of the year, her sincerity is undermined somewhat by an overwrought screenplay, messy narrative and underwhelming directing. The central idea is undoubtedly fascinating, that of the Indian film actress who is eroticised and exploited for her sexuality by film producers. Such exploitation taps into Laura Mulvey’s feminist proposition that women are sexualised by the camera for the pleasure of the male spectator. The major problem with this film is the way in which the narrative disintegrates and loses its focus, glancing over the demise of Silk and reducing much of the drama to montage. Although Vidya Balan and Naseeruddin Shah are perfectly cast, both Tushar Kapoor and Emran Hashmi lack both the acting finesse and weight to carry off their roles. Emran Hashmi is seriously mis-cast as the disgruntled director who is critical of cinema’s increasingly superficial obsessions with using sex as means of titillating audiences. The Dirty Picture is a mainstream musical melodrama, which means obvious artistic compromises have been made at the expense of the film’s more interesting ideological aspects. The analysis the film presents of the state of Indian cinema in the 1980s and even today is not revolutionary or revelatory in any way – that men and patriarchy dictates the exploitation of women while remaining more or less immune from the problems of aging, career longevity and success is nothing new and most likely still exists today. Nevertheless, Vidya Balan’s magnetic screen presence shapes and controls the narrative and the strong feminist agenda, no doubt a manifestation of Ekta Kapoor’s interest in female narratives as demonstrated by her television work, makes a refreshing alternative to the way in which most films are still male dominated. Overall, there are some imaginative touches throughout including some wonderful tributes to South Indian cinema and Vidya Balan proves yet again she is one of the few actresses who has exceptional range and grace.

DEV ANAND (1923 - 2011) - A Legend Passes Away...

2011-12-04T09:03:00.000-08:00

Dev Anand has passed away at the age of 88. Film was the lifeblood of Dev Anand and he never stopped working in the Indian film industry. At the age of 88 he was still busy directing films and released his 19th feature in September of this year. During the 1940s and onwards, Dev Anand emerged as one of Indian cinema's most popular film stars and with his brothers (Vijay and Chetan) he set up a production company that made some notable and influential films. To celebrate his work, I am re-posting an entry on Dev Anand and Navketan from February of this year. Perhaps his greatest achievement was Guide (1965, Vijay Anand).

NEECHA NAGAR / Lowly City (Dir. Chetan Anand, 1946, India)

TAXI DRIVER (Dir. Chetan Anand, 1954, India)

Dev Anand in one of his many publicity poses - one of the overlooked stars of 50s Hindi cinema.

Trapped amongst the ideological sincerities of Dilip Kumar, Raj Kapoor and Guru Dutt was Dev Anand - the suave, sardonic and gentlest of screen heroes who came closest to perfecting the charismatic yet unpredictable persona of Hollywood noir film stars like John Garfield. It was in 1949 that the Anand brothers got together, establishing Navketan Films, an independent production company. Between the creatively enriching period beginning in 1952 with Afsar and reaching its artistic zenith in 1965 with Guide, Navketan helped ttransform Dev Anand into one of the most popular Indian film stars of the 1950s whilst offering a slew of great films which attempted to and largely succeeded on occasions to bridge the sacred gap between art and commerce. The Anand brothers were comprised of Chetan, Dev and Vijay. Chetan Anand, the eldest, was also the most political and his deep ideological involvement with IPTA during and after partition led to him directing one of the earliest examples of an emerging social realist style imported from theatre. The film in question was none other than Neecha Nagar, the first Indian film to be screened at Cannes and the first to win a prize. It’s not surprising that Chetan’s strong socialist beliefs would leave a lasting impact on both Dev and Vijay Anand.

Released in 1954, Taxi Driver, is perhaps their best known film of the 50s period and whilst it takes much of its aesthetic influences from film noir, the combination of all three brothers – Chetan as director, Vijay as writer and Dev as main lead produced a semi realist tale about the proletarian imprisoned in a new urban dystopia of broken dreams and class divisions. In principle the vision of the city as a hostile landscape in which the anti-hero (though romantically inclined) must struggle to preserve his moral integrity was shared amongst many of the major film makers of the era including Guru Dutt, Bimal Roy, Raj Kapoor and Zia Sarhadi. The accents of the angry young man as personified by the Vijay persona of Amitabh can be traced directly back to films such as Awaara, Boot Polish and Taxi Driver in which the proletarian must come to terms with his lowly position within the grand scheme of things. In many ways, the repeated thematic pronunciations of the family coming under attack and the corruption of the innocent rural woman was common place in the narratives of melodramas, indicating strongly popular cinema’s subservience to the ordinary dilemmas that plagued the mainstream.

Dev Anand as the hero in Taxi Driver (1954) with comic actor Johnny Walker.

Here is one of the cabaret noir style song and dance numbers from the film, performed by the femme fatale:

Taxi Driver came about as an economic necessity rather than a committed political dictat. With Navketan under pressure to deliver a hit after two consecutive commercial disappointments, Taxi Driver was quickly put together and shot on a low budget almost entirely on the streets of Mumbai. Released in 1954, the film was a resounding success story with audiences and seemed to continue an interest in film noir first initiated with Baazi in 1951 which was directed by Guru Dutt, one of Dev Anand’s many exciting discoveries. Interestingly, the period between 1949 and 1965 is generally considered to be one of the richest creative periods in the history of Indian cinema, explaining why Navketan flourished in generating new cinematic ideas. Hailing from Punjab, Dev Anand started his career as an arts graduate at the University of Lahore before making the decisive journey to Bombay. Alternating between his own production company and the illustrious and commercially successful Bombay based Filmistan Studios, Dev Anand cultivated a gentler and more romantic persona than those of his contemporaries like Guru Dutt who embraced a vein of fatalism and tragedy. Mixing comedy with heroism and largely rejecting the Devdas complex, Dev Anand’s naturalistic approach can still be detected today in contemporary Indian film stars including Akshay Kumar, Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan; in many ways along with Shammi Kapoor it has strangely become the dominant star persona, though few would like to admit so preferring to point unashamedly to both Amitabh and Dilip Kumar.

Chetan Anand’s directorial debut Neecha Nagar (Lowly City) was released in the same year as its counterpart Dharti Ke Lal, directed by K A Abbas, another advocate of the IPTA cause. It is important to bear in mind that Chetan Anand later broke away from Navketan citing creative differences only to re-emerge after an extended hiatus in 1965 with the seminal war film Haqeeqat. Whilst Dharti Ke Lal was an official IPTA production, Neecha Nagar aligned itself more with a Gandhian ideology of passive resistance. Director Chetan Anand had in fact left the IPTA before embarking on Neecha Nagar, criticising the organisation for exploiting its position to propagate leftist dogma. Film critic and journalist Rajiv Vijayakar offers a detailed overview of Chetan Anand’s career in his piece for Screen India. Inspired rather than based on Maxim Gorky’s The Lower Depths, Neecha Nagar represents an almost dystopian vision of Indian society in which rampant class divisions are extenuated by the clear geographical demarcations that exist between the wealthy, ruling elite who reside in the mountains and the poor, oppressed workers in the lowly city below. Such an acute political and economic dichotomy echoes that of Lang’s Metropolis. Similarly the figure of the corrupt industrialist despot attempts to placate the worker’s revolt, buying influence and openly breeding disunity. A thematic recurrence of the rural village as a place of utopian socialist ideals struggling to counter the corrupting weight of modernity would eventually become a defining ideological characteristic of the Hindi realist melodrama.

The despotic landowner is indifferent to the concerns of the poor villagers.

The leader of the village revolt and voice of the oppressed.

The story of Neecha Nagar sees the landowner, representing the forces of elitism, approve of and build a sewage system that cuts through the village of the poor oppressed farmers. Indifferent to their plight, the sewage corrupts the water supply, destroys the crops and spreads disease leading to a shallow attempt on behalf of the landowner to construct a hasty makeshift hospital offering free treatment to the sick. The politicised face of the villagers represented in a secular and transparent manner view the hospital as yet another extension of the landowner’s hegemonic grasp and openly instruct all of the villagers to resist by refusing free treatment. For the hard liners of the village, to get treatment and use the hospital would in fact be giving into the rule of the wealthy elite. It is a defiant stance and one that claims a number of emotional sacrifices but most significantly it develops into a resistance openly rejecting violence and relying on dissent. Whilst the film does feature some songs and dance sequences with music by Ravi Shankar, the raw aesthetics offer one of the most striking examples of early neo realism. Interestingly, Neecha Nagar’s achievements at Cannes were shared amongst a number of films including Rossellini’s Rome, Open City – both films were fashioned on similar humanist sensibilities.

(Click on image for full size version)

However, the cinematography of Neecha Nagar articulates expressionism imported from German cinema which is very much absent from Rossellini’s historically determined canvas. In a way the expressionistic vein jeopardises the validity of the realist agenda so emphatically stated through the overt political symbolism of the ideologically sentimental characterisation. Despite the criticisms concerning expressionism and realism invoked by Chetan Anand, a third and perhaps more pertinent stylistic tendency emerges in the form of documentary. This may in fact be the common link between Rome, Open City and Neecha Nagar as they both claim to be realist texts because there are sacred moments when both films blur the line between fiction and reality reminding us of an actuality being embraced. Take for example the moment in Neecha Nagar when the villagers realise the landowner has cut off the only clean water supply to the village. A montage is used, documenting the gaunt figures of the poor villagers – we know these are not actors but real people who are photographed without any sense of romanticism. Their existence in neo realism terms is declared by their perpetual gaze and marginal status – rendering them visible makes them doubly political. The ideologue of Mrinal Sen, Ritwik Ghatak, Satyajit Ray were all formed in the spirit of such moments and it is not hard to see why Neecha Nagar continues to occupy such a privileged position in the realist trend that would only really come to fruition in the 1950s and beyond.

Here is a fantastic interview with Dev Anand who talks at length about his illustrious and at times brilliant career:

THE IDES OF MARCH - (Dir. George Clooney, 2011, US)

2011-12-03T12:21:00.000-08:00

George Clooney has been steadily building up an impressive body of political work and The Ides of March certainly continues a personal interest with exploring the limitations of liberal/leftist ideology in a climate of pervasive conservatism. If Good Night, and Good Luck was about communism and the media, Syriana examined international terrorism and Michael Clayton was a convincing dissection of corporate hegemony, then The Ides of March takes its aim squarely at the complex ethics of the American political system. It is well known that Clooney is generally well liked and respected by his peers in Hollywood and it is not surprising that he manages yet again to bring together a terrific ensemble cast including Philip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Giamatti and Jeffrey Wright. The central idea of a presidential candidate hoping to make it to the Whitehouse on the basis of winning the primary elections is nothing new to American cinema and especially mainstream television. In many ways, American cinema over the last twenty years has produced a body of work that is primarily interested with the machinations of the American political system. Notable films have included Warren Beatty’s Bullworth, Mike Nichol’s Primary Colors, and Barry Levinson’s Wag the Dog. One can even go back further to cite influential films like Redford’s The Candidate. Although Clooney continues to be compared to Redford in terms of a like minded liberal outlook and socially engaged films, I’m not so sure if Redford’s films are as ideologically engaged. Clooney has certainly used his star status as a platform to campaign on a range of issues and although Hollywood film stars and their long relationship with political causes has been questioned routinely by the media for its pretentiousness, Clooney has been able to translate his personal political interests into much of his cinematic output. At the centre of the narrative to The Ides of March is Stephen Meyers, a junior campaign manager, played brilliantly by actor Ryan Gosling. Meyers becomes caught up in a dirty political conflict between the Democratic and Republican parties. One of the major problems with many films about the American political system is that they can be somewhat inert and therefore should belong on the small screen. I’m not arguing that The Ides of March would have been more appropriate for a television audience, but the film seems much more concerned with making a wider political point than trying to do something innovative or different with the elements of film. Although Clooney is a film star and important producer, he is not a great film maker and works much more effectively as a catalyst for film projects. Nevertheless, this is still a superior political thriller given the prescient tone it strikes about the hypocrisy at the heart of democratic society.

GUNGA JUMNA - (Dir. Nitin Bose, 1961, India)

2011-12-01T13:04:00.000-08:00

The following quote from the entry on Nitin Bose taken from Rajadhyaksha & Willemen's Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema underlines his hugely important role in the history of Indian cinema:

'A key figure in the New Theatres organisation and maker of some of its most successful films. He later introduced a 'realist' element (Didi/President; Desher Mati/Dharti Mata) foreshadowing the films of his own student and cameraman Bimal Roy (Udayer Pathey, 1944), and probably Mrinal Sen's early films...'

Many would argue that the auteur theory has led to a process of canonisation and discriminates against the contribution of so many peripheral artists. However, auteurism did wonders in helping to excavate and salvage the careers of those invisible directors who worked tirelessly to perfect their craft as filmmakers. The same authorial approach has been applied to Indian cinema but with less rigour and authority. The 1930s witnessed acceleration in quality output, permitting filmmakers to refine their style and with each year it was clear to see their evolution. The films of Nitin Bose are often under discussed and although his status as a pioneering figure is not in doubt, helping the evolution of Indian film language, his authorial status is conflated with the triumphs of the studio system. Revisiting Gunga Jumna after so many years it is transparent to see that in 1961 Nitin Bose was a director working at the peak of his creative powers as a classicist. Gunga Jumna was one of the biggest hits of the 1960s and demonstrates a capacity to merge classical film elements with vivid stylistic flourishes. Produced, starring and written by Dilip Kumar, the story of two warring brothers on opposite sides of society (bandit vs. cop) transformed into a moralistic narrative template for many other populist social melodramas including most strikingly Deewaar. The powerful narrative momentum is often the way in which the film is referred to in wider critical discourse but we shouldn’t let such conventional readings get in the way of numerous visually inventive and memorable accompaniments that Bose brings to the film. Firstly, the camerawork possesses an infectious vitality conveyed through the notable dolly and tracking shots, which are used sparingly, at key points in the film’s narrative. Secondly, the use of Technicolor and rural landscapes, offers a strong connection with the Earth and village that is realistically presented. In a way, the authenticity of the rural milieu is also dystopian when it comes to the terrain of the bandit and here the film echoes the iconography of the Hollywood western. The intrinsic relationship between the bandit and the rural landscape was a direct influence on films such as Sholay and most recently Lagaan. Towards the end of the film, the landscape takes on a will of its own and Bose lets us see nature’s mystical powers through the smoke from the funeral pyre that billows into the air, shrouding the villainous figure of the despotic landlord. Lastly, and most influentially, the melodrama nurtured by the narrative conflict of two brothers on opposite sides of the law is a brilliant device for exploring family and the apathetic way in which society criminalises the most vulnerable. Although Gunga Jumna is recognised as a classic and the contribution of Dilip Saab is much celebrated, it is equally critical to extrapolate the brilliance of a film maker like Nitin Bose in the history of Indian cinema.

Here are the final shots to Gunga Jumna, which I found to be both moving and unusually abstract for what is deemed a populist, mainstream and conventional Indian film:

BULLET IN THE HEAD - (Dir. John Woo, 1990, Hong Kong)

2011-11-29T09:39:00.000-08:00

John Woo is an innovator. With his Hong Kong action films of the 80s and 90s, Woo helped to transform the style in which action sequences were shot. Although the explicit, if not celebratory, references to the world of Peckinpah, Leone and Melville plugged us right into the cerebral strata of postmodern cinema, Woo’s sensibilities occupied, dare I say it, a realm of existential melodrama that echoed the eternal heartbeat of his nocturnal Hong Kong city-scapes. It was somewhat inevitable Woo would be tempted by Hollywood and his time in La-la land produced a disparate body of work that paled into creative insignificance when compared to the measure of striking visual aesthetics he had cultivated in Hong Kong. It is not difficult to pin point why such a creative void existed between Hollywood and Hong Kong – it was all to do with budget in my opinion. In any country, in any context and in any time, directors work better and much more creatively when working with limited resources. Subsequently, innovation becomes a necessity rather than just an accessory. The only exception of Woo’s Hollywood work is claimed to be Face-Off, which may possibly stand up as a film that is of equal quality to his Hong Kong output. It is somewhat reassuring that Woo has returned to his roots and with Red Cliff, he certainly demonstrated that he has lost none of his operatic signature moves including slow motion ballet. The other striking aspect of Woo’s Hong Kong actions films including Hard Boiled, The Killer and Bullet in the Head is the level of emotional involvement with the characters. Woo trained as an assistant under the populist commercial director Chang Cheh who was a key figure in the Shaw Bros film studio. Cheh developed what became known as the ‘heroic bloodshed’ film that incorporated the Wuxia tradition with a heightened emphasis on violence and masculinity. Woo expanded upon Cheh’s work, helping to refine the heroic bloodshed film and with Bullet in the Head, described by David Bordwell as Woo’s ‘most anguished work’, familiar themes to do with friendship, loyalty and violence merged with the real politics of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. Bullet in the Head was one of the first films Woo directed after his split with producer Tsui Hark and the project was difficult to finance given the script’s bleakness. Woo ended up financing the film himself but the gamble didn’t pay off as the film was a commercial failure at the box office. Nevertheless, Bullet in the Head is one of Woo’s richest films. The central storyline of three close friends, Ben/Ah Bee (Tony Leung), Frank/Fai (Jacky Cheung) and Paul/Little Wing (Waise Lee), growing up in a 1960s Hong Kong only to leave for Vietnam and become embroiled in a world of guns, gold and violence recalls most extensively the narrative trajectory of The Deer Hunter, in which war traumatises friendship and causes the loss of identity. What distinguish Woo’s film from the Hollywood lexicon are themes of individual capitalist greed and social mobility intrinsic to Hong Kong in the consumer driven 1980s. In many ways, the box of gold that becomes a central motivating element of the narrative recalls the study of greed in Huston’s The Treasure of Sierra Madre. The cast also impresses and it would be almost impossible to get Tony Leung and Simon Yam in the same film today, given their popularity as two of South Asia’s biggest film stars. The title of the film refers to the bullet that becomes lodged in the head of Frank when he is shot and betrayed by his friend Paul. Paul becomes consumed by greed and during their time in Vietnam, he jeopardises the lives of those around him so he can achieve his goal of social mobility and achieve an exalted place in a new Hong Kong capitalist society. The film’s tone gets much darker in the second half of the film. In one of the most ‘anguished’ moments, Ben confronts Paul over his betrayal by bringing the skull of their dead friend Frank into the boardroom. The image of the skull is iconographic of the horror genre and is transformed into a metonym of corporate greed that finds certain validity in today’s ethically bankrupt society. What Woo demonstrates with the action genre conventions is the capacity to move beyond ideological limitations and merge the personal with the political.

COME AND SEE / IDI I SMOTRI (Dir. Elem Klimov, 1985, Soviet Union)

2011-11-26T06:05:00.001-08:00

When Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, Belorussia (now Belarus) was occupied and ethnically cleansed of its Jewish population. Elem Klimov’s Idi I Smotri / Come and See (1985) is one of the most visceral films I have come cross. Klimov uses the point of view of a young country boy Florya Gaishun (Aleksey Kravchenko) who joins the Belorussian resistance and witnesses at first hand the horrors of World War II. Klimov covers the gamut of war from occupation to resistance and also the destruction of villages. This is a journey film so plot is irrelevant and the narrative is led by the movement of Florya across the Russian landscapes. As the level of trauma increases around Florya and the more brutality he witnesses, the more he ages. His face seems to paralyse, aching with a lifetime of unspeakable horror. The range of shocking imagery, raw and resolute in its clarity, is deeply affecting and moving. Klimov’s trajectory for Florya is relentless as the boy’s gaze transforms into a marker of historical truth, recording reality around him which he cannot transcend or prevent from unfolding; Florya is both a witness and victim of war. The most gruesome chapter in the film, which takes up a third of the film, depicts the complete destruction and ethnic cleansing of a village by marauding Nazis. Florya’s final gunshot and gaze that is directed at the audience is a complicated one as it attempts to unravel a history that cannot be undone. By journeying backwards through Adolf Hitler’s life and ending the sequence on a photo with Hitler as a baby, Klimov emphasises simplicity and universality about our lives, that innocence is both momentary and premature in the face of history.

SILENT RUNNING (Dir. Douglas Trumbull, 1972, US)

2011-11-19T11:06:00.000-08:00

Following the unexpected commercial success of Kubrick’s mind trip of a science fiction film, visual effects wiz Douglas Trumbull, who had been central to the special effects achievements of 2001: A Space Odyssey, directed his own take on the science fiction genre with the ingenious and under stated film Silent Running in 1972. Long available on DVD, the Masters of Cinema DVD label has given the film a much anticipated Blu-ray treatment including a gloriously new pristine transfer with suitably appealing extras. At first Douglas Trumbull did not envision directing the film. With a budget set at one million dollars, many directors were reluctant to take on a screenplay loaded with ideological sentiment, and so it eventually fell upon Trumbull to take on the role of director. The film was shot on a disused aircraft carrier, which was due for the scrap heap, and the production team converted the claustrophobic interiors into the spaceship Valley Forge. Having worked with Kubrick, Trumbull felt that science fiction cinema and space in particular was a lonely place but this didn’t necessarily mean humans had to be emotionless. Trumbull approached Silent Running from both an ideological and emotional point of view that echoed the growing concern in society towards the erosion of the environment. The narrative focuses on the character of Freeman Lowell (Bruce Dern), a hippie care taker and staunch environmentalist, who has been assigned the task of cultivating plant life which are housed in large domes. Set in the future in which all plant life on Earth has become extinct, the spaceship Valley Forge is an experiment initiated by the government to try and preserve the last remnants of plant life. However, given the cost involved of such an environmental experiment, the company and effectively the establishment decide to terminate the project. Incensed, Lowell kills his crew mates and with the help of the droids, he takes control of the ship. Trumbull mixes science fiction conventions with melodrama to create a genuinely moving plea for the preservation of the environment. Silent Running is a film that makes no cryptic or ambiguous existential statements or ruminations on the human condition, but by being so transparent in its message, the film’s honesty doesn’t feel contrived or pretentious. Trumbull doesn’t just want us to see the cost of our self destruction but feel it too through the time he devotes to the relationship between Lowell and the forest. Everything is spot on including the songs by Joan Baez, which haven’t dated in the slightest given the prescient lyrics, and the terrific performance by the sorely overlooked Bruce Dern. Masters of Cinema have to be commended on bringing Silent Running to Blu-ray because it is a science fiction that continues to grow in stature but unfortunately is still eclipsed by other generally over rated science fiction films. It's of little surprise that two of the best recent science fiction films, Moon and Wall E, have both been influenced by the film’s retro dystopian aesthetics and humane representation of robots, singling out Silent Running as an obvious classic of the genre.

THE CONVERSATION (Dir. Francis Ford Coppola, 1974, US)

2011-11-17T13:09:00.000-08:00

One of many startling images from the film. (Blu-ray screengrab taken from the DVDBeaver website)

Coppola’s masterpiece is a film drenched in 1970s paranoia. The Conversation is one of my favourite American films. I first watched the film on Mark Cousin’s Moviedrome series on BBC2 and was surprised that Coppola had directed it. Revisiting the film on Blu-ray has made me appreciate not only the chilling political subtext but also experience yet again Coppola’s ability to merge the aesthetics of European cinema, especially the work of Antonioni and Bertolucci, with a wider ideological context. The use of architecture (spaces and places) and particularly the fixation with transparency (Harry’s transparent raincoat offers a lesson in creative prop choices) and loneliness is echoed throughout the choice framing of Harry Caul against glass, concrete and steel structures. Not only does such an aesthetic of architectural alienation echo the existential landscapes of Antonioni’s films but also it hits upon a thematic to do with corporate hegemony, which is still prescient today. Coppola’s film is referred to as his most personal work and the intense focus on a singular character gives the narrative a psychological complexity that was often witnessed in many of the great American films of the 1970s; both Chinatown and Taxi Driver come to mind in their study of the existential and lonely anti-hero. For Harry Caul, a surveillance expert, privacy is everything and defines him as an individual. With the fallout of the Watergate Scandal and the subsequent resignation of Richard Nixon, the film uses the erosion of Harry Caul’s privacy to comment on what had become a corrupt and dishonest American establishment that was capable of violating the trust of its people. However, even we were separate the events of the 1970s from the ideological content of the film, Coppola’s film would still occupy a unique position in American cinema of that era, largely because it is an exercise in remarkable sound design and film editing. The Conversation is a film that Coppola must share with his long time collaborator Walter Murch.

WUTHERING HEIGHTS (Dir. Andrea Arnold, 2011, UK)

2011-11-14T11:06:00.000-08:00

I came to Wuthering Heights from an interest in director Andrea Arnold. I have not read the novel and have no intention of doing so. It’s not surprising that much of the past week’s coverage of Andrea Arnold’s film has been either through a literary adaptation perspective or the racial facelift given to the central Byronic protagonist, Heathcliff. Given the fixation with literary adaptations and the Englishness inherent in so many heritage films, it is of little surprise that director Andrea Arnold’s latest film has been given so much exposure by the British media. To contrast the current interest surrounding Wuthering Heights to Arnold’s last two overlooked films, Red Road and Fish Tank, and it is obvious to determine that a discriminatory cultural agenda is busy at work. If Heathcliff is the ultimate outsider then so is Jackie (Kate Dickie) in Red Road and Mia (Katie Jarvis) in Fish Tank – all three are united by a recurring thematic interest with looking, gazing and a certain want for social mobility. Although a neo-realist aesthetic has been attached to Arnold, what the first hour of Wuthering Heights proves is a capacity to move beyond realist predilections and create intrinsically poetic imagery reminiscent of both Tarkovsky and Malick. Heathcliff’s connection to the earth makes Arnold’s film an elemental one that is also movingly impressionistic in its depiction of a specifically English environment and landscape. The first hour is a process of magnification, bringing to life the micro details of Heathcliff’s new environment and so Arnold pushes the observational mode to its very extreme but as a result achieves a gripping transience. Arnold has referred to Heathcliff as a force of nature and his relationship with the Yorkshire moors is conveyed through a repeated and prolonged emphasis on water, mud, the sky, wind, fire, animals, and many other elements. Sound designer Nicolas Becker and sound recordist Rashad Omar serve Arnold brilliantly. Such depiction of the rural English landscape is reminiscent of Kevin Brownlow’s Winstanley (1976). Had this not been an adaptation I wonder to what extent Arnold might have gone to making the film into a singular character study and journey film. Ideologically, class and gender dominates the council estate narratives of Red Road and Fish Tank, and with the inclusion of race in Wuthering Heights, Arnold is likely to continue broadening her socio-political preoccupations. At the beginning of the film a hill farmer, Mr. Earnshaw, brings a young Heathcliff into the family home. As he stands in front of the family, some of them immediately pass judgement on Heathcliff and Cathy whom he will grow to love spits in his face. It is an unwavering moment, raw and to the core of human existence, and demonstrates Arnold’s innovative means of confronting wider prejudices, anxieties and issues without having to resort to sentiment.

Here's an interview with director Andrea Arnold:

MADHUMATI (Dir. Bimal Roy, 1958, India)

2011-11-12T12:47:00.000-08:00

Madhumati was one of two Hindi films on which director Ritwik Ghatak worked as a writer. The other film was Musafir, released in 1957 and directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee. When released in 1958 Madhumati was a huge box office hit and saw the re-teaming of director Bimal Roy and actor Dilip Kumar. Madhumati stands alongside Kamal Amrohi’s gothic noir Mahal in terms of its influence, pioneering and popularising the theme of reincarnation in Hindi cinema. The film is a beguiling one, blending together expressionist imagery, rural landscapes and a haunting ghost story, that eventually builds to an unexpected fatalistic ending (although undercut by a conventional epilogue). Familiarity with the work of Ritwik Ghatak and his interest in the more indigenous aspects of tribal customs and rural village life (as expressed in both his films and writings) is manifested most directly in the central romance between Anand (Dilip Kumar), a symbol of the middle class, and Madhumati (Vijayantimala), an innocent tribal girl. With music by Salil Choudhury and lyrics by Shailendra, the soundtrack is regarded as one of the creative high points of 1950s Hindi cinema with classics like ‘Toote Huye Khwabon Ne’ (Rafi Saab). I had problems with the running time of Rockstar, a contemporary Hindi film, which ran for three hours (unjustifiably) but considering Madhumati is of a similar length, it is easy determine that unlike Imtiaz Ali, Bimal Roy has formidable control over his material. A superior melodrama.

ROCKSTAR (Dir. Imtiaz Ali, 2011, India)

2011-11-12T08:39:00.000-08:00

It’s strange but for the first hour or so of Rockstar I felt director Imtiaz Ali was about to show real progression and evolution as a film maker. Unfortunately, my hopes were soon dashed in the second half of the film in which Imtiaz Ali loses control of his material, thus leaving everything to self-destruct into a hyperbolic mash up. Before I talk a little about the film’s flaws, I want to begin by pointing out some of the virtues. Rockstar arrives at the end of the year with a lot of hype behind it. It is director Imtiaz Ali’s fourth feature, having directed three films that are predominately led by predictable boy meets girl romantic entanglements. Rockstar has a lot of money behind it (it’s all up there on the big screen, which makes a change) and a big name in the form of Ranbir Kapoor. The film is about Janardhan Jakhar / Jordan (Ranbir Kapoor), a middle class Delhi boy, who has musical aspirations and gradually succeeds in becoming a famous singer and ‘rockstar’. Along the way, Jordan falls in love with Heer Kaul (Nargis Fakhri) but his explosive diva attitude makes him a controversial figure. Firstly, Imtiaz Ali should be commended for thinking on an epic scale, and this being a musical, he largely succeeds in conveying a certain international grandeur about the way music can be a real leveller in society. Although, the narrative does shift around geographically with an alarming frequency, the cinematography and especially the choice of framing seems like a real contrast to most big budget mainstream Hindi films. Secondly, the brilliant music by A. R. Rahman certainly gives much of the images a certain weight and emotional resonance; at least they got one thing right for a film about a musician. Thirdly, Imtiaz Ali is right to make many of the parental figures peripheral rather than allowing them to typically shift away the focus from the youth to more traditional dilemmas. Nevertheless, like so many recent Hindi films which have arrived with an incredible fanfare behind them Rockstar has notable weaknesses that one finds problematic to overlook or push to one side. Admittedly, one of the crimes committed by Imtiaz Ali is in a way uniquely Indian – which is the exhausting running time of the film. I don’t mind intervals, its part of the experience of Hindi cinema, but I think the producers missed a trick by not releasing this film as two parts. Not only would this have solved the problem of narrative momentum but also it may have given the writers more scope with which to do something more creative and engaging in the second half. Another problem is that so many directors still undervalue the importance of the script. It is telling in the way in which the film wants to break with tradition but simply ends up reinforcing many of the stereotypical images associated with out of control musicians that circulate in the media. For me, Ranbir Kapoor seems more assured and appears more comfortable in the first hour as the hapless college youth but his transition to petulant rock-god is unconvincing and confusingly performed. Screaming into a microphone and strumming a guitar may appear workable in the context of a trailer but when included in a full narrative, they come across as terrible cliques. The other major element missing from the character of Jordan is ideology. In the film, Jordan’s transformation into a symbol of political protest is largely redundant because we never see him demonstrating any such political overtones; his defiance of the establishment is yet more premature, superficial posturing. In terms of the final third and conclusion, director Imtiaz Ali has no idea how to end his film. By unnecessarily invoking the most tiresome of romantic conventions (terminal illness) the desire to become a tragic epic musical comes to fruition but brings with it a transparent and manipulative ending that strikes all the wrong notes. The considerable flaws do outweigh the strengths of Rockstar but don’t let that get in the way of what has to be one of the most enjoyable soundtracks of the year.

THE ROBBER / DER RAUBER (Dir. Benjamin Heisenberg, 2010, Germany/Austria)

2011-11-05T08:48:00.000-07:00

The Robber is a German/Austrian thriller which is already being prepared for a re-make by Hollywood. What this means is that once again audiences are likely to ever know that an original and much better film existed before Hollywood got their hands on to it. Based on a true story, Johann Rettenberger is a marathon athlete who is released from prison. Johann uses his speed to begin robbing banks and the chance of being caught makes it an addictive experience for him. Director Benjamin Heisenberg shrouds Johann's past in a cloak of relative darkness that is maintained throughout the episodic narrative. Johann's cryptic nature and refusal to explain his actions recalls the elliptically charged characters of Bresson's most austere films. The muted visual style including a stripped down mise en scene creates a deadening impression of contemporary Austrian society. The film excels in the final third in which Johann escapes from police custody initiating a dramatically staged chase sequence. The Robber is a sombre character study but Johann's predictable and nihilist trajectory makes the overall experience way too detached for us to care for anyone. This is a film which one could easily position under the category of existential cinema, and Heisenberg's technical control over the material is impressive. American director Michael Mann would arguably be a perfect candidate for the re-make as Johann is an anti-hero fixated with death, time and professionalism.

YAADEIN / MEMORIES (Dir. Sunil Dutt, 1964, India)

2011-11-02T15:21:00.000-07:00

Set entirely in the confines of a house and featuring only one actor playing out a variety of roles, Yaadein is somewhat of a genuine oddity. Yaadein was the only film actor Sunil Dutt directed. The film adheres to a vivid expressionist style with numerous canted angles and low angle shots that literally imprison Anil’s (Sunil Dutt) figure within the tightly composed frame. Dispensing with plot, the film is an extended monologue delivered by Dutt as he wanders through the house reflecting on the breakdown of his marriage. Sunil Dutt was a terrific actor and his presence in virtually every scene was an exhausting and risky strategy to take but in many ways this is what makes Yaadein so distinct. It is evident that Sunil Dutt was openly interested in playing with his star image and Yaadein’s experimental vein pointed to a potentially interesting directorial career, which unfortunately never came to fruition. Yaadein is also problematic to categorise. While the film features a major actor/star in the lead role, the absence of plot and additional dominant mainstream characteristics pushes the film into the category of the art film. Nevertheless, Yaadein was a one off for the actor and whereas the film offers some fascinating expressionist moments, it has largely been forgotten because of a stylistic and ideological insignificance.

APANJAN (Dir. Tapan Sinha, 1968, India)

2011-10-30T16:17:00.000-07:00

Before Mrinal Sen and Satyajit Ray responded to the political unrest in Calcutta with their respective treatises on the Naxalite movement, the Bengali film maker Tapan Sinha had already mounted a powerful neo realist critique with his 1968 film Apanjan. All three films that I have mentioned feature a male character, symbolising the Calcutta middle class youth, undergoing a political crisis. Another characteristic of Naxalite cinema in the 1960s and 1970s is the repeated emphasis on the tenuous relationship between the old and new generations of Calcutta. In Apanjan, director Tapan Sinha attempts to bridge the generation gap by depicting a relationship between a gang of politicised youth and a fragile old widow who has come to Calcutta from the rural village. The film’s loose narrative cuts between Anandamoyee’s (Chhaya Devi) recollections of her problematic life with her husband (a theatre actor) and the contemporary violent unrest on the streets of Calcutta. Anandamoyee’s political naivety not only points to an illiteracy that she acknowledges to Ravi who leads the gang of dissidents but makes her appear out of synch with the real world. Interestingly, it is Anandamoyee’s incongruity that makes her so appealing to the disillusioned gang. Anandamoyee is lured to Calcutta by distant relatives to act as a glorified servant in the house of a middle class family. When Anandamoyee discovers the true intentions of her cynical relatives she is disgusted and leaves to care for two street children. Sinha criticises the middle class Calcutta family as selfish and deeply unsympathetic. Their exploitation of Anandamoyee suggests an ideological indifference to what was happening in Calcutta during the late 1960s and additionally their comfortable lifestyle also represents them as symbols of a corrupt bourgeoisie. The gang conflict and the political election being contested by two candidates is an aspect of the film’s wider political context that bypassed my minimal understanding of Calcutta during the late 1960s. I think this is an ideological aspect of the film that would certainly indicate strongly that Tapan Sinha was directly addressing the sensibilities of the Calcutta youth in particular. Although the film doesn’t really hold together, as it seems to initiate too many narratives and resolves very few of them, it is the surprisingly moving ending that gives Sinha’s film a particularly frightening political edge. The ending is executed with the blunt and painful urgency of Pina’s sacrifice in Rossellini’s Rome, Open City. It’s as if the machine gunfire from the streets of Rome echo through the transparent spaces of film history, arriving in Calcutta with a similar political anguish. Just as the children in Rome, Open City watch on as Don Pietro is executed so do the two orphaned street children in Apanjan look on as Anandamoyee’s dead body is loaded into the ambulance. In the final shot of the film, the two children chase the ambulance through the streets of Calcutta. It is a ghostly image as Sinha employs slow motion to make everything appear even more hopeless in what was a time of uncertainty and dread. Apanjan is a key work of Bengali cinema and deservedly belongs in the company of Sen and Ray’s films on Calcutta.

SEEMA / BOUNDARY - (Amiya Chakrabarty, 1955, India)

2011-10-29T08:00:00.000-07:00

Seema was directed by Amiya Chakrabarty and released in 1955. It was the 8th highest grossing film of that year. From 1941 to 1957 Amiya Chakrabarty directed a total of 14 feature films. Most of the films including Seema were social melodramas. Chakrabarty’s training came about during his time at Bombay Talkies and then later Filmistan where he enjoyed commercial success. Chakrabarty was a filmmaker who seemed to evolve with each film and had his life not been cut short so unexpectedly then perhaps his contribution to the development of the Hindi melodrama might be more widely discussed in critical discourse. Seema is one of Chakrabarty’s most interesting films in terms of the Hindi melodrama. The story is centred on the character of Gauri (Nutan) – a young woman who is wrongly accused of theft and criminalised by the state. Gauri has lost her parents and she is alone in the world. The film opens in a refugee camp (a bustee) and although Chakrabarty does not explicitly state any political or historical context it seems likely that Gauri is a victim of partition. Given Chakrabarty’s Bengali roots and the fact that he was forced to leave Bengal in 1935 due to his political activism, Gauri is an exile and the loss of her parents makes her character similar to Nita in Meghe Dhaka Tara (The Cloud Capped Star, 1960). Actually, in many ways, Gauri acts as a precursor to Nita but a major difference exists between the two; Nita is part of a family and sacrifices her own ambitions whereas Gauri’s victimisation by those around her leads to rebel and openly defy the laws of social oppression. Once the police fail to contain Gauri’s defiance, a shelter for abused women run by Ashok (Balraj Sahni) take her in and offer the promise of social reformation. The first half of the film in which Gauri’s victimisation is the main focus of the narrative is by far the strongest. In terms of ideological investigation, the first half boldly asserts that social forces cultivate Gauri’s destructive nature and her repeated questioning of authority presents her as both a figure of patriarchal oppression but also someone searching for an identity obliterated by partition. The final third sees Gauri and Ashok falling in love and although Gauri is predictably reformed (thus transforming Seema into a conventional melodram; only on the surface though), Chakrabarty opts for a muted ending. It is an ending that promises very little in terms of hope for Gauri and Ashok, and may even hint at an exclusion from society. What a film like Seema illustrates quite brilliantly is that the Hindi melodrama by the 1950s was taking on a growing ideological sophistication and offering directors the perfect vehicle for exploring the lives of ordinary Indian women. Chakrabarty’s job was made a lot easier though by the added presence of Nutan who as the tortured Gauri delivers one of her best performances.

ALAAP (Dir. Hrishikesh Mukherjee, 1977, India)

2011-10-23T07:44:00.000-07:00

Alaap was released in 1977 when Amitabh Bachchan’s stardom was at its peak. It has often been said that the films he made with Hrishikesh Mukherjee saw a more restrained side to Amitabh. In the film Alok (Amitabh Bachchan) wants to become a classically trained singer but Prasad (Om Prakash) his orthodox father regards the musical profession as derisory and instructs Alok to follow his lead and become a lawyer. Alok rebels and a bitter conflict emerges between father and son that results in a tragic conclusion. Sons defying their fathers tapped into a number of prevalent social issues; the generation gap, youth rebellion and iconoclasm. The Salim-Javed scripted Shakti (1982) lifts a number of ideas from Alaap and reworks them with a bigger cast. Director Hrishikesh Mukherjee starts deceptively as the focus is clearly on music in the opening but as Prasad begins to sabotage his son’s dreams, the musical aspects become perfunctory while conventions of the social melodrama take over much of the narrative trajectory. There a number of elements of the film including Rekha’s character which are ornamental as they are not given room to develop and at times distract from the central story. The characters in Shakti are much more clearly defined and have a complexity to them that is absent from the peripheral characters in Alaap. Nonetheless, Amitabh’s performance is one of his best as the character of Alok brings together Dilip Kumar’s tragic persona with the social indignation of Raj Kapoor. In terms of the angry young man films of the 1970s, Alok’s anger is visible but it is controlled and much of the anger is directed to cultural traditions (in particular class) rather than the state. Ideologically, Alaap is an optimistic film that argues reconciliation is essential if family is to continue as the ideological centre of Indian society. Given Amitabh’s bankability at the time, it does seem a little strange that Alaap failed at the Indian box office. The key to Alaap is a sequence that occurs towards the end of the film in which father and son are unexpectedly brought together. It is night. Alok picks up a passenger in the horse-carriage which has become his livelihood. The passenger turns out to be his father. Alok pulls up outside his family home and when his father gets out giving him the fare for the journey, he discovers it is Alok. As they engage in conversation, the performances at first reveal an estrangement but a closer look at Amitabh and Prakash’s tone of voice, body language and positioning within the shots points to a repressed longing for reconciliation. It is an expertly directed sequence that demonstrates the emotional power of the Hindi social melodrama. You can watch Alaap for free online (officially posted by the Shemaroo DVD label) with full English subtitles. Here is the direct link to the aforementioned sequence: http://youtu.be/_2sZ9nDBNCY?t=1h41m48s

CONTAGION (Dir. Steven Soderbergh, 2011, US/UAE)

2011-10-21T11:16:00.000-07:00

Contagion aims to make us anxious about our position in the world. Whereas other Hollywood films in which a deadly virus threatens to bring about a sensationalist media induced apocalypse, Soderbergh’s dystopian science fiction thriller attempts to take a global geographic approach to the conventional what if? scenario. The Underneath, Soderbergh’s first and possibly best attempt at American neo noir, saw an acceleration in terms of aesthetics. Not that he dumped his American indie credentials but with films like The Underneath, a new interest in narrative subjectivity also opened up a new space in terms of film editing. The elliptical fragmentation of time and space has become a virtual trademark of Soderbergh’s glossiest films. Non-linearity was never really an innovation but has been around since the birth of film but Soderbergh repeatedly proves that non-linear narrative storytelling can be equally compelling and satisfying for audiences than traditional approaches. David Fincher, a director often bracketed in the same category as Soderbergh, could easily have directed Contagion. Although these two auteurs may be poles apart in terms of thematic interests, a mirrored embrace of new technology particularly the digitisation of film brings together their visual sensibilities. Fincher is slowly catching up to Soderbergh but films like Fight Club and The Social Network suggests Fincher’s seems more interested in the darker elements of American culture. To say Soderbergh is more of a European style filmmaker might be an overstatement but films such as Kafka, Che and The Good German point to Soderbergh’s capacity to become global. In other words, Soderbergh has managed to broaden out his authorial standing by also looking at American culture and society from an outside perspective. The critical distancing is far more acute in the films of Soderbergh than many other American directors. Contagion is made up of an impressive ensemble cast and Soderbergh uses such A list stars (Kate Winslet, Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow) to act as a hook for audiences. Many of Soderbergh’s flawed films (Kafka comes to mind) are in a way some of his best too because they reveal a disinterest with the mechanics of storytelling and seem more focused on exploring characterisation, mood, visual style and the technical aspects of film making. Contagion is a flawed film. In the final third, the film disintegrates and loses narrative momentum. Soderbergh opens promisingly with the first thirty minutes amounting to some superb storytelling but as more characters are introduced, the central premise becomes diluted. The ideological slant on the greedy and corrupt practices of the Pharmaceutical industry could have done with more clarity and screen time but the film stops shorting of heading into the risky commercial territory of the political thriller. Much more disappointing is the ending, which reconstitutes the family unit in the context of American suburbia but does in a way that is sentimental and a little incongruous.

THE KID WITH A BIKE / LA GAMIN AU VELO (Dir. Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne, 2011, Belgium/France/Italy)

2011-10-08T05:05:00.000-07:00

Each year when the Cannes Jury has to decide which film deserves the prestigious Palme d’Or, the decision is usually met with either disappointment or joy. No one critic is ever satisfied. The 2011 Cannes Jury headed up by Robert De Niro certainly got it wrong, choosing to go after the over hyped and pretentious Tree of Life. A lot of Tree of Life's success had to do with the presence of Brad Pitt, Sean Penn and Terence Malick – supposed American auteurs with an international profile. Many of the films that screened in competition at the Cannes film festival have yet to arrive at UK shores but one thing is certain – The Dardennes latest feature The Kid with a Bike is in my opinion the best film of year and also the film that should have really been awarded with the Palme d’Or. No film maker(s) have ever been awarded the Palme d’Or on three different occasions but had the Dardennes been given the prize they deserved then a new precedent would have been established. The Dardennes have previously been awarded the Palme D’or for Rosetta (1999) and L’Enfant (The Child, 2005). Perhaps it is a festival that doesn’t like setting new records and breaking old ones. As far as I’m concerned Malick’s Tree of Life is in fact a dud in the oeuvre of such a revered auteur. The same cannot be said of The Dardennes work to date. They have made every film count and although they have only directed six films to date, the control that they demonstrate over their latest feature validates their significance as film makers of true humility, simplicity and yes, dare I say it, humanism. Mark Cousin’s 15 hour journey through film history currently airing on Channel Four has tended to focus on the idea of creative innovation but if one was to look closely at the work of The Dardennes it is hard not determine they are not innovators. Perhaps some would argue they are. Nor are they neo realist film makers, which is a label often associated with them. One significant aspect of their work is that their films are always set in the now and they have yet to make a film set in the past and I doubt if they ever will. The now is concrete proof of their everyday connection with reality and capacity to deal with ordinary people and the most elemental of emotional dilemmas including companionship, identity, money, love, death, childhood and youth. The ‘transcendental style’ (Paul Schrader) of the Dardennes has its origins most pertinently in the work of Robert Bresson with which the film makers have come to share an increasingly elliptical approach. Although Bresson is an important influence on the work, most of their films could easily have been made at the high point of early silent cinema. The Kid with a Bike is the story of Cyril, an 11 year old boy. When Cyril is rejected by his father, he is taken in by Samanatha who works as a hairdresser. Most of the film revolves around Cyril’s coming to terms with his father’s rejection and the acceptance of a new life with Samantha. The brilliance of this film lies in the mystical denouement in which Cyril is transformed into an enigmatic symbol of continuity; it’s one of the moments of the year. Interestingly, the title of the film amalgamates two of the Dardennes favourite films; The Kid (Chaplin) and Bicycle Thieves (De Sica). I wonder if this is deliberate?

DRIVE (Dir. Nicolas Winding Refn, 2011, US) - Beauty & the Beast

2011-10-02T09:47:00.000-07:00

The city streets can be a lonely place but they can also be surprisingly beautiful. Director Nicolas Winding Refn’s latest film Drive is a virtual compendium of American neo noir cinema. It’s also probably the only film since Michael Mann’s Collateral (2004) to have succeeded in making the neon city streets of Los Angeles appear both majestic and anonymous. The driver, played by Ryan Gosling, is a man with no past who offers his services as an extraordinarily fast and super cool getaway driver. His day job is a stunt driver for Hollywood films and by keeping the dialogue to an absolute minimal, the driver soon comes to occupy the existential plain of the man with no name. The driver strikes up a friendship with his neighbour Irene (Carey Mulligan) and her little boy. Irene’s husband arrives back home from a stint in prison and things start getting a little violent. Before long, the driver is sucked into a familiar film noir set up in which doom, violence and chance become the rules by which everyone must play to survive. Drive is a mood piece and it is not surprising that the narrative is a little over worked and conventional because what really matters is the interplay between the affecting cinematography (Newton Thomas Sigel) and ambient score (Cliff Martinez). Director Refn deliberately sucks the air out of the dialogue sequences and furthermore by keeping the sounds of the city at a distance, the moments between people trying to communicate with one another become full of dread. And dread is an appropriate register with which to describe a lot of the violence that is perpetrated by the driver in particular. The violence might feel unnecessary but it ties in with the murky past of the driver which is left lingering in the background as a scary afterthought. The head smashing sequence in the lift with Irene (Refn knows how to ‘do’ slow motion) is a real turning point in the film. The moment unveils a fairytale accent, with the driver emerging as the monstrous beast whereas the beauty of this twisted romance finally witnesses an actuality that she cannot fathom. Drive is one of the most accomplished films of the year and a grand addition to the American cinematic landscape of neo noir. Here are a few of the films that have shaped the visual look and mood of Drive:

The Driver (Walter Hill, 1978)

To Live & Die in L.A. (William Friedkin, 1985)

Le Samourai / The Samurai (Jean Pierre Melville, 1967)

Collateral (Michael Mann, 2004)

Thief (Michael Mann, 1981)

Bullit (Peter Yates, 1968)

The Terminator (James Cameron, 1984)

ICONOGRAPHY in INDIAN CINEMA: TRAINS - Part 3 of 3

2011-09-13T15:29:00.000-07:00

This is the third and final part of the video essay on trains in Indian cinema.

ICONOGRAPHY in INDIAN CINEMA: TRAINS - Part 2 of 3

2011-09-13T03:24:00.000-07:00

This is the second part of the video essay on trains in Indian cinema.

ICONOGRAPHY in INDIAN CINEMA - TRAINS (Part 1 of 3)

2011-09-10T14:24:00.000-07:00

Trains is the first in a series of video essays examining the significance of iconography in Indian cinema. The first episode looks at the centrality of trains as a metaphor for life, death, partition and love. Part 2 and 3 will be posted in the coming weeks.

I have already noticed a few typos - Balraj Sajni should in fact read as Balraj Sahni and also Salim Mirza is the name of the character played by Sahni in Garam Hawa.

PITFALL / OTOSHIANA (Dir. Hiroshi Teshigahara, 1962, Japan)

2011-08-26T06:04:00.000-07:00

Only the 1960s could have produced a film as radical, avant-garde and iconoclastic as Pitfall. Hiroshi Teshigahara made Pitfall against a backdrop of political upheaval in Japan during the 1960s. Many of the directors who formed part of the Japanese new wave were politically active during this time, showing their collective opposition against the signing of the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan (1960). The treaty effectively sanctioned the expansion of US troops in Japan whilst extending America’s hegemonic economic reach. Both Teshigahara and writer Kobo Abe were part of the student protests that took place in Tokyo at the time. Such political dissent was inevitably reflected in the cinema of the Japanese new wave and whilst Pitfall was not as ideologically rigorous or transparent as the films of say Nagisa Oshima, the four picture collaboration between Teshigahara and Kobo Abe produced some of the most uniquely idiosyncratic imagery of the 60s. Pitfall also saw the first of numerous collaborations with music composer Toru Takemitsu. Described by Teshigahara as a ‘documentary fantasy’, Pitfall follows a coal miner and his son who is searching for work. When he is pointed into the direction of an old mining town, the miner (Hisashi Igawa) arrives with the promise of work but they discover the town is deserted except for a shopkeeper. Unexpectedly, the miner is killed by a mysterious stranger in a white suit who has been waiting for him. The miner’s son (Kazuo Miyahara) watches on helplessly as his father is stabbed to death. Before leaving, the killer pays the shopkeeper for her silence. What Teshigahara does next is both audacious and gusty – he revives his central character, yes the dead miner lying face down in a muddy river bed, as a ghost. The ghost of the miner who is in denial about having been brutally murdered wanders the mining town only to discover the people around him are also ghosts. In one hilarious moment, he is told by another ghost that if he died on an empty stomach then he will remain hungry for the rest of his life. The miner’s transformation into a ghost is a magnificently atmospheric idea executed with a wonderful feel for the desolate coal mining locations.

A murder investigation is opened by the police and a chain of events leads to a strange discovery – that the dead miner has a double Otsuka working in a nearby coal mine and who more importantly is involved in the coal mining trade union. In an attempt to cover up his tracks, the killer murders the shopkeeper. It becomes apparent that the original intention was to kill Otsuka and that an ideological conflict between the old and new coal pits offers an invaluable insight into Japanese labour relations. However, Teshigahara seems much more fascinated by his characters behaviour than scrutinising any kind of ideological theories in depth. In terms of political symbolism, the killer in his white suit, gloves and shoes could be interpreted as meditation on corporate power or is he somewhat more metaphysical – a figure of death? It’s exciting when you come across a work as original and challenging as Pitfall. Like a lot of the films made by the Japanese new wave from the 60s, Pitfall is a film way ahead of its time in terms of both form and content. It’s a film bursting full of ideas and energy – it’s also darkly funny. On a final note, some of the reviews I have come across have referred to Pitfall as a flawed film but I am getting kind of despondent about this way of labelling films – is it not simply the case that most of the great films are flawed in some way or another – that’s what makes them so fascinating to watch!

KHARIJ / THE CASE IS CLOSED (Dir. Mrinal Sen, 1982, India)

2011-08-25T11:00:00.000-07:00

A cold front has swept across the city of Calcutta, bringing it to a near stand still. But it's not just the weather too blame for the prejudices harboured by a middle class family residing in Calcutta. One day an impoverished father, Hari (Dehapratim Das Gupta), comes to their home with a proposition; will the family take on his young son Pupai (Indranil Moitra) as a child servant? At first, the family are reluctant. They criticise the last child servant who only remained with them for a few months before absconding. Eventually they agree and Hari tells them he will return at the end of each month to collect the wages for his son. As the cold snap continues, one morning Pupai is found dead on the kitchen floor. The death comes as a shock to the family. A police investigation is opened into the death of the boy and the family are scrutinised for failing to properly care for the child servant. As the investigation progresses it becomes evident Pupai died from carbon monoxide poisoning and slept in the kitchen because he was cold. Mrinal Sen uses the death of the child servant as a searing political symbol, examining the politics of class and the wider monstrous void that exists between the lower and middle classes of Calcutta. In one particular revealing exchange, the father Anjan (Anjan Dutt) goes with his friend to seek legal advice if the case was taken to court. When Anjan exclaims that Pupai was a member of the family and treated the same, his disingenuous words are rebutted by the lawyer. The lawyer states quite bluntly that Pupai was not treated the same as he was made to sleep under the stairs, given little money, and ultimately regarded as inferior; any positive interaction was minimal from the family and so they had a role to play in his death.

It’s very tricky to deal with class and particularly the exploitation of servants without descending into either ideological rhetoric or wild sentiments but by keeping the narrative within the context of the melodramatic form Sen fixes his gaze within the moral sanctity of the Bengali family. Whilst Anjan begins the process of coming to terms with his class prejudices, his wife Mamata (Mamata Shankar) is clearly ridden with guilt but is unable to even acknowledge her seemingly unnerving lack of empathy for both Pupai and Hari. Whilst the impact of Pupai’s death should have affected Mamata to recognise the entrenchment of her class prejudices, she actually views the death as a familial disgrace. In many ways, Mamata’s ignorance is contrasted with the emotional outpouring of Hari who at the end transforms his anger into a dignified closure. Hari’s actions might be dignified but there is a moment that Sen conjures up at the end, pointing to a potentially incendiary conflict that might come about one day if such destructive prejudices were challenged head on. Ideologically, the relative invisibility of Pupai as a symbol of the lower class is contrasted sharply with the privileged and protected son of Anjan and Mamata. When Hari comes to claim the body of his dead son and considering he is grieving, Anjan and Mamata feel obligated to let him stay. However, their middle class guilt is horrifyingly manifested when they hastily attempt to compensate their negligence by offering Hari the living room as a place to sleep. Hari rejects their conciliatory and premature offering, choosing instead to settle for the kitchen in which his son died and elucidating the falseness of Anjan and Mamata’s reactionary gesture. Kharij is one of Mrinal Sen’s most accessible works and like many of the films he directed in the 1980s it was the family that became a key political thematic. Kharij was awarded the grand jury prize at the Cannes film festival in 1983 and nominated for the Palme d’Or.

A TIME TO LOVE AND A TIME TO DIE (Dir. Douglas Sirk, 1958, US)

2011-08-22T11:32:00.000-07:00

The closing shot to Sirk's 1958 masterpiece A Time to Love and a Time to Die.

In 1959 Jean-Luc Godard published an essay 'Tears and Speed' on Sirk's film, praising it as one of Sirk's greatest achievements:

I love ostriches. They are realists. They only believe what they see. When everything is going wrong, and the world is getting altogether too ugly, they only have to shut their eyes very tightly for the outside world to just melt away, like the prince overwhelmed by the tenderness of the little laundress in a song by Renoir...

PALE FLOWER / KAWAITA HANA (Dir. Masahiro Shinoda, 1964, Japan)

2011-08-20T23:29:00.000-07:00

Masahiro Shinoda directed Pale Flower in 1964 for the prestigious Shochiku film studio. Shinoda’s remarkable film was part of the 1960s Japanese New Wave cinema and the film’s iconoclastic temperament led to it being banned. In 2003 Home Vision Entertainment released Pale Flower on DVD whilst this year Criterion issued their version on both DVD and Blu-ray. I’ve not come across Shinoda’s work before and my encounters with Japanese cinema have tended to favour popular auteurs. I’m beginning to realise the vastness of Japanese cinema in terms of output stands alone in many ways when compared to other film industries. Shinoda’s loose, elliptical approach and dynamic visual style bears close parallels with the work of Seijun Suzuki. Pale Flower would work superbly as a double bill alongside Suzuki’s demented Branded to Kill. In many ways, the initial narrative set up of Pale Flower in which a hardened Yakuza gangster Muraki (Ryo Ikebe) is released from prison, having killed another member of a gang, invokes the memory of American crime and noir films. It is a familiar convention – the gangster or criminal who is released from prison but realises he cannot fit into society anymore and slowly becomes more and more withdrawn. Whilst Shinoda adopts this narrative convention, he decides to choose an entirely different path altogether for his central male protagonist. On his release, Muraki seems more bored than alienated with the world around him. It is Muraki’s entanglement with a mysterious young woman Saeko that subverts such a narrative expectation because it becomes a mutually destructive relationship.

Symbolically, the woman’s addiction to drugs/gambling represents both the corruption of Japanese youth and the rise of a new kind of modernity whilst Muraki’s allegiance to a code is ideologically conducive of an old, fading Japanese culture. In many ways, Muraki is like the antiquated cowboy who looks out of place in the new society and for Muraki the retreat to the sanctity of the prison gives him seclusion from a world that has little meaning for him anymore. Visually, Shinoda’s film is stunning to look at and the striking monochrome cinematography gives the imagery a very clean yet noir like aesthetic. The performances by Ryo Ikebe and Mariko Kaga are compelling throughout. A film like Pale Flower was a direct manifestation of the changing sensibilities in Japanese cinema during the 1960s but unlike The French New Wave which challenged dominant mainstream conventions, from the outset The Japanese New Wave seemed more ideologically engaged. It was only much later that The French New Wave became much more of a political cinematic entity. Nevertheless, compared to Nagisa Oshima, Shinoda’s cinema was less political than his contemporaries and there is no denying that Pale Flower has been influential in the development of the Yakuzka gangster film in Japanese cinema. Director Masahiro Shinoda produced most of his best and most acclaimed films during the 1960s.

COLD WEATHER (Dir. Aaron Katz, 2010, US)

2011-08-10T12:12:00.000-07:00

Directed by Mumblecore regular Aaron Katz, Cold Weather is one of the best films I have seen this year. It’s not difficult to pin down what makes it such an exceptional piece of cinema. Firstly, the characters are intensely likable and rather soothing to observe. They don’t get up to much except engage in banal conversations, pause unexpectedly with friends they know and ponder effortlessly. Secondly, plot is of little concern with the Mumblecore crowd. Instead a naturalistic feel for the milieu that the middle class twenty something characters inhabit makes for a compelling mise en scene. Doug (Cris Lankenau) returns to Portland, Oregon after failing to finish his studies and pursue a career in forensic science. He shares an apartment with his sister who seems just as bored to death with life as Doug. Together they make for one of the drollest on screen couples. Doug finds work packing ice at a factory and also hooks up with his ex-girlfriend who mysteriously disappears one night. Her sudden disappearance leads Doug and his sister on a chase through Portland to track her down. Thirdly, Katz has real control over the pacing of his film and the intuitive editing lets us into the world of Doug and his wayward friends with relative ease. Some have cited John Cassavetes as an influence on the Mumblecore crowd but I would say the offbeat cinema of Jim Jarmusch has had more of a pervasive cinematic impact on the likes of Katz. An unexpected but welcoming noir accent also creeps into the narrative in the second half of the film as Doug’s determination to track down his missing ex pokes fun at the detective figure in popular culture. Cold Weather is a sharp, witty and decisively original slice of Indie cinema. It’s indie in the Cassavetes and Jarmusch sense, not the wide eyed, award hungry and superficial indie cinema of Little Miss Sunshine.

NOTES ON DVD VIEWING 2#

2011-08-04T09:39:00.001-07:00

KLUTE (Alan Pakula, 1971, US) – Jane Fonda has never looked so vulnerable and compelling at the same time. A pitch perfect, psychological thriller. Great support from Roy Scheider and Donald Sutherland.

LENNY (Bob Fosse, 1974, US) – Told largely through flashbacks triggered by the wife of stand up comedian Lenny Bruce, this beautifully shot anomaly from the 70s features a magnificent performance by Dustin Hoffman.

DEPARTURES / OKURIBITO (Yojiro Takita, 2008, Japan) – No one quite knows how this one got the Oscar for Best Foreign Film (2009) but it is a slow moving mood piece that offers a rare glimpse at the art of enconffinment. Terrific score by Joe Hisaishi.

THE BIG GUNDOWN / LA RESA DEI CONTI (Sergio Sollima, 1966, Spain/Italy) – This is one of the great Zapata westerns – ugly, brutal and politically conscious.

EL CID (Anthony Mann, 1961, Italy/US) – One of the last great Hollywood epics. Along with The Fall of the Roman Empire, Mann’s career finished on a creative high. Everything works about El Cid including Heston and Loren’s on screen pairing (though they loathed one another during the shoot). Looks incredible on Blu-Ray.

BOMBAY SUMMER (Joseph Matthew, 2009, US) – With a sizable debt to the cinema of Taiwanese film maker Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Bombay Summer makes for a quirky love story between three friends. The ending is unexpected and very moving.

THE YELLOW SEA / HWANGHAE (Hong-Jin Na, 2010, South Korea) – The follow up to Na’s breakthrough hit The Chaser, The Yellow Sea makes for a highly ambitious action thriller. Unfortunately, the narrative strands are excessive and fail to hold together as a coherent whole. Impressively staged chase sequences though.

MOUNTAIN PATROL / KEKEXILI (Lu Chuan, 2004, China) – A landscape film that unveils a hidden world in which a contest between poachers and rangers is played out against the harshness of Tibetan culture.

THE DIARY OF A COUNTRY PRIEST (Robert Bresson, 1951, France) – Bresson’s study of a young country priest who questions his own faith and criticises those around him is an influential film. It was also somewhat underwhelming for a film by Bresson.

A LETTER TO ELIA (Martin Scorsese/Kent Jones, 2010, US) – Gushing with praise and celebratory remarks, Elia Kazan emerges ambiguously as both a hero and villain. It is a documentary of real love and friendship.

STANLEY KA DABBA (Amol Gupte, 2011, India) – Slipping under the radar undetected and receiving positive reviews, Amol Gupte’s directorial debut on the issue of child labour is a beautifully simple tale told with real integrity and compassion.

INSIDIOUS (James Wan, 2011, US) – Scary? Not quite. This is a fairly conventional ghost story lacking in substance.

PUSHER (Nicolas Winding Refn, 1996, Denmark) – The first part in the Pusher trilogy, Refn’s calling card as a talented film maker might be littered with generic situations but it is the nauseous camerawork and gripping narrative that really gets under the skin.

ONCE UPON A TIME IN MUMBAI (Milan Luthria, 2010, India) – A surprisingly effective mainstream crime thriller with a likable turn by Ajay Devgan as the notorious Mumbai smuggler Haji Mastan; acres of style.

COPYCAT (Jon Amiel, 1995, US) – A film in need of serious critical reappraisal. Whilst Amiel has had an uneventful career as a film director, Copycat is his best film and is imbued with a psychological complexity missing from most Hollywood thrillers. It also features brilliant performances by Sigourney Weaver and Holly Hunter.

THE REMAINS OF THE DAY (James Ivory, 1993, UK/US) – It would be wrong to simply label this one as another heritage film. It isn’t. It’s a masterpiece in many ways and one of Ismail Merchant’s and James Ivory’s greatest achievements. Hopkins and Thompson are astounding throughout.

SUGAR (Anna Boden/Ryan Fleck, 2008, US/Dominican Republican) – Boden & Fleck’s follow up to the brilliant Half Nelson is a powerful study of the immigrant experience. An American neo realist work comparable to Bahrani’s Goodbye Solo and Reichardt’s Wendy & Lucy.

THE GUNFIGHTER (Henry King, 1950, US) – Starkly shot with an expressionist visual style, Gregory Peck is on top form as the despicable outlaw Jimmy Ringo. A great western with noirish accents.

RIVER’S EDGE (Tim Hunter, 1986, US) – A disturbing study of teen apathy, alienation and conformity that still retains its original power. A wonderful cast made up of Dennis Hopper, Crispin Glover and Keanu Reeves.

ANDRZEJ WAJDA: THREE WAR FILMS (1955 - 1958, Poland)

2011-07-28T04:40:00.000-07:00

Wajda's war films trilogy features some of the most powerful, influential and potent cinematic imagery. All three films make for one of the great achievements of post war European cinema. This is work of real artistry and endeavour.

A GENERATION (1955)

KANAL (1957)

ASHES AND DIAMONDS (1958)

SINGHAM (Dir. Rohit Shetty, India, 2011) - Return of The 'Hard Body'

2011-07-27T10:36:00.000-07:00

Picking up from where Dabangg left off, Singham is a police action thriller directed in tribute form by an unashamed fan (Rohit Shetty) of the angry young man films of the 70s. With a plot involving a dishonoured police inspector and the village boy as mythological hero, Singham is very much a throwback film bathed in nostalgic yearnings for traditional genre cinema. I’m not so sure if this plea for re initiating a lot of the action films made in the 70s and especially in the 80s is such a worthy one given their diabolical narratives and questionable technical proficiency. Like Dabangg, Singham reasserts the rural Indian village as a microcosm of Utopian ideals in which community, honour and justice are organised around the police and local criminals. The crusading cop with a vendetta is now one of the most tired conventions in all of cinema. However, such a melodramatic convention carries with it a narrative momentum and set of conflicting ideologies (the cop who must transcend the law to reinstate order) that still appeals to film makers and audiences alike. Like Dabangg, Singham is clearly a star vehicle for Ajay Devgan who first appears on screen emerging from the holy waters of the river Ganges with a Goliath like physique – his larger than life entrance marks him out as a mythological figure; an immortal amongst mortals and whilst Singham may be a police inspector, he is also a superhero. Ghajini, Dabangg and Singham prove that the hard body is an iconographic element and established convention intrinsic to the DNA make up of the contemporary Indian action film. I’m not sure but I think it might have been academic Yvonne Tasker who coined the term ‘hard body’ in reference to the action heroes played by Stallone and Schwarzenegger in a testosterone fuelled 1980s Reaganite America. Compared to Hollywood, the hard body concept seems quite new to Indian films.

The hard body as iconography of the contemporary Indian action film.

Traditionally male leads like Amitabh and Dharmendra were expected to perform demanding stunts and also maintain some kind of physique but the Indian film star and leading male hero tended to remain a little out of shape so to speak. One could argue that much of this has changed considerably now. The emphasis on maintaining a clean, crisp and buffed physical appearance has now become an audience expectation. All of the major male leads working in the Mumbai film industry today have taken up the ethos that the inner must be in equilibrium with the outer – for many male leads such an ethos has become the norm. So now it might be appropriate to say that we are clearly in the era of the hard body cinema but with one major difference when compared to Hollywood – the absence of blood. The violence in Singham and Dabangg is a comic book pastiche, using a slow mo aesthetic that magnifies the violence as a post modern spectacle. Dabangg may have had Salman Khan as the star attraction but Singham wins out largely because of the scene stealing presence of Prakash Raj in a fantastic turn as the villainous Jaikant Shikre. Actor Prakash Raj who is closely associated with the Tamil film industry has acres of fun with his role. Of course, I am forgetting to mention a major point in my appraisal of the film; Singham is a remake of a successful Tamil action film of the same name. So, perhaps it’s not so surprising why it works so well as a mainstream summer film.

THE APU TRILOGY / APUR SANSAR (Dir. Satyajit Ray, 1959, India) - The Wandering Soul

2011-07-18T11:58:00.000-07:00

The Wandering Soul - A Video Essay on Apur Sansar (1959) by Omar ahmed

Film bloggers are evolving rapidly in the ways in which they analyse and appreciate film culture. The emergence of the video essay over the past few years has led to more a more visually sophisticated means of articulating close analysis of film directors, films and genres. The video essay in terms of film criticism seems to be an area that could lead to exciting creativity for cinephiles but putting together this first attempt at my own video essay on one of my personal favourites (Apur Sansar) has been a real learning curve in many ways. Constructing a video essay is certainly more demanding than the usual blog entry as it means effectively splicing in your own commentary alongside the film sequence you are analysing. It takes a lot of time and patience, and I’m not sure how successful I have been with my deconstruction. Admittedly, the video essay could have done with edits to different examples from Ray’s work but had I chosen to do this it would evolved into a mini project. Video essay work requires a different kind of approach if you are relying on text floating across the screen. I stepped back from the voice over option because a critical voice over commentary requires a certain gravitas – in fact it requires a degree of performance and acting. I will certainly give it a shot later on once I know how to record an effective voice over and it certainly seems to be the more popular option with film bloggers. Nevertheless, here is my first attempt at a video essay on Apur Sansar (1959), the final part of The Apu Trilogy. I have chosen one of the final sequences (a personal favourite) in which Apu attempts suicide and then renounces life. The other problem with video essays is that of copyright and whilst I don’t have permission to use this footage from the Artificial Eye DVD I have done so within an educational/film culture context so it will be interesting to see how long it takes before someone pulls the video. On a final note, the biggest difference between traditional blogging and video essays is to do with economy – with video essays you are against the clock (unless you keep freezing the image for a lengthy discussion) and this means having to be succinct and show great brevity.

THE TREE OF LIFE - (Dir. Terrence Malick, 2011, US)

2011-07-12T13:31:00.000-07:00

Winner of this year’s prestigious Palme d’or, the fifth film by reclusive auteur Terrence Malick and with an A list star cast of Brad Pitt & Sean Penn, The Tree of Life arrives on UK shores with a groundswell of hyperbole and endless superlatives. It has been declared a masterpiece. Unless you live in a self contained reality with little if any contact with the media then your position as a cinema spectator may actually manifest some surprising critical distance. However, this being ultimately a Hollywood film featuring an A list cast and a director who many enjoy comparing with Kubrick, The Tree of Life is a film that cannot live up to the hype or grand expectations that have been built up around it. It has been problematic maintaining critical distance before Malick’s film arrived and he seems to keep cinephiles interested largely because of his estrangement from the media. Such a low public profile and relative seclusion bears comparisons with Kubrick but unfortunately this is the first Terrence Malick to radically polarize audiences in such an ideologically contentious way. The Tree of Life also feels like the film which to date is the most personal but in my opinion that by doing this Malick actually jeopardizes his entire approach. With relatively little critical distance which I guess he doesn’t want to maintain, the film locates itself firmly inside the theological mindset of Malick the religious philosopher, professor and student. I have great admiration for Malick’s films except this one. Friends and colleagues I have spoken to have effectively denounced the film as pretentious. However, one could argue that to a large extent pretentiousness is a label often associated with a lot of Hollywood cinema. Yet it is a characteristic that has become part of the mindset of today’s cinema audiences. Pretentiousness is no longer a stigma in many ways when discussing the merits and failures of contemporary mainstream Hollywood cinema. I would hate to label this film as pretentious and I’m not going to take up such a hackneyed and frivolous critical position because any critical discourse or wider debate becomes maligned. Additionally, the argument concerning the pretentiousness of the fragmented voice over and existential musings doesn’t hold up when one contextualises Malick’s work. Such aesthetic and thematic concerns have not simply arrived but have been present from his first feature. Admittedly, the use of voice over and montage has become more sophisticated since The Thin Red Line but we need to be cautious about using the term pretentious as it repeats an all too familiar art house prejudice.

Malick is essentially a visual poet (a painter in fact) and The Tree of Life is less a film and more of a video essay that strives to reflect religious concerns. The foregrounding of religion which is resolutely explicit in the film strips away the ideological mystique of Malick and finally confirms his deeply religious sentiments - many of which seem to function and be played out in a reality that has very little connection to the wider social, political and economic fabric of daily life. With even his most recent works including The Thin Red Line and The New World Malick’s transcendental imagery may point to another hidden world in which nature controls and shapes the human condition but the narrative and characters are situated in a real world ideology that is tangible and on going as is the case with the war machine and imperialism. It is this detachment from the political structures and ideologies of our real world that makes The Tree of Life somewhat disingenuous. If we compare Malick to film makers like Kubrick or even Godard it would be easy to determine that an engagement with political discourse is markedly different. What Malick ensured in his first films was an ambiguity in terms of religious dogma - in fact, religion is actually something metaphysical and has been continually evident until now. Like his previous two films The Tree of Life is unquestionably skillful in its use of ellipsis but such an approach in this case hits a sour note with the religious juxtaposition, coming across in many ways as a personal admittance and confession. Bresson dealt with religion, guilt and the existence of God all through his career as a film maker yet succeeded remarkably to remain relatively distant whilst simultaneously through his understated intercutting between the most benign pattern of shots, edits and sounds created an impression that all of his characters were besieged by spiritual uncertainty. Another misleading and false point of comparison is with Kubrick. Malick’s 20 year gap and the time he takes to make his films is enough for a lot of critics to compare him to Kubrick when thematically and ideologically they are poles apart. The Tree of Life has certainly divided audience reaction and during the screening I logged at least eight people get up and leave just as the creation of the universe sequence got underway. In America some cinemas have had to post explicit warnings underlining the film’s apparently unconventional form. This might be true but its view of the world is highly conventional, reiterating an old age meta narrative that re-establishes an orthodoxy/absolutism familiar to many of us. Many critics have remarked on the richness of the cinematography but no one is questioning Malick’s painterly eye for landscapes but with The Tree of Life by repeatedly framing his characters against magic hour sunsets he risks falling into the trap of redundant existential pondering. So in conclusion I would have to say that Malick's masterpiece is somewhat bloated, ineffectual and distinctly American. Mind you, the dinosaurs look great.

So here is a sample of the magical work of special effects pioneer Douglas Trumbull who was involved with the universe sequence (and the clearest link to Kubrick and more explicitly the imagery in the sequence recalls 2001 in many ways):

DELHI BELLY - (Dir. Abhinay Deo, 2011, India)

2011-07-02T11:26:00.000-07:00

After the critical and commercial success of Dhobi Ghat, Aamir Khan returns with his second release of the year as a producer. If one was to unpack Delhi Belly and look carefully then it is plain to see the film uses many conventional elements of the multi protagonist crime comedy but adds a mischievousness that is both infectious and very funny. Abhinay Deo is a new film maker and whilst his debut film Game (released also this year) fell flat on its face Delhi Belly seems to suggest that given the right script, actors and producer he is more than capable of producing some exciting and inventive work. One could argue that Delhi Belly has all the hallmarks of another quality multiplex film and with the plethora of colourful expletives and reflexive characters it certainly seems to be the case. Aamir Khan and UTV Motion Pictures have developed a strong grip over the way their films are marketed and Delhi Belly has certainly been sold as an event film. The marketing for the film particularly the posters, trailers and accompanying music videos are mischievous and playful as the film itself. Written by LA based Akshat Verma, Delhi Belly almost seems in many ways a parody of Three Idiots, deconstructing many of the popular elements of the mainstream Indian film comedy. An interesting point to note is that Akshat Verma is credited in the opening titles as an assistant director, indicating his close involvement in the project.

Unlike the characters from Shor in the City, another multi protagonist narrative, who all seem trapped in some way in their lives, Delhi Belly gives us three wayward middle class characters who are experiencing the pains of youthful boredom whilst repeatedly coming up against a vein of traditionalism that they assumed had vanished. Much of the success of Delhi Belly lies in the script and it is well known that Aamir Khan has cultivated a reputation for taking his time to choose film projects. In many ways, recent films like Delhi Belly, Dobhi Ghat and Rocket Singh illustrate the centrality of a good, solid script. The use of swearing throughout the film was refreshing as it was delivered inventively and energetically by the cast especially comedian Kunaal Roy Kapur as Arun who really does steal many of the scenes (whilst the toilet humour may be juvenile it is also insanely funny) and much of the film with his hilarious performance as a photographer turned blackmailer. The opening titles, one of the best I have seen all year, juxtapose the wonderfully morose song Saigal Blues to a steady montage of shots detailing the dysfunctional qualities of the apartment shared by our three protagonists. What does feel like somewhat of a clique is the final denouement and I’m not sure if the film succeeds in sustaining the energy of the first half of the film. More strengths are the vivid production design and an alternate kind of soundtrack with the final number delivered by none other than Aamir Khan (tribute to Mithun) in one of the more bizarre 'item' numbers of recent years. New kid on the block Imran Khan definitely needed a boost to his middle of the road career and his encouraging performance as the disillusioned Tashi hints at a darker side to his acting skills. Delhi Belly holds together splendidly (no intermission folks) and comes highly recommended in terms of mainstream or should I say middle cinema from India. Like Kaminey, Delhi Belly is a very postmodern work that blends together many styles, ideas and aesthetics into a hyperkinetic cinematic whole.

COUNTDOWN TO ZERO - (Dir. Lucy Walker, 2010, US)

2011-06-29T10:07:00.000-07:00

The hypocrisy of this widely acclaimed documentary was rather insidious and disconcerting. Dubiously selective in its approach Countdown to Zero is supposed to be a piece of political protest activism but such obvious liberal intentions come undone by the decision to deliver a familiar right wing singling out of Pakistan, Iran and South Korea as the main threats to western civilization. The question of nuclear proliferation and its hawkish focus on so called unstable rogue states like Pakistan and particularly Iran may seem justifiable given their poor human rights record but then why make the decision to glaringly leave out Israel and its nuclear capabilities. Additionally, what of the truth that the US is the only country to have used nuclear weapons in the history of mankind and on a nation which had effectively surrendered. This genocide perpetrated by warmongers in the west against the Japanese people is today simply viewed as somewhat of a necessity in achieving all out victory in crystallizing the supremacy of America’s military power. Crimes against humanity perpetrated by the West are not only overlooked but it is if as they don’t matter when we have nations like Iran and Pakistan to contend with in the quest for American global hegemony. Whilst nuclear weapons still pose a considerable threat to the existence of mankind then why does the documentary choose to celebrate the moves made by America to cut back on its nuclear stockpile when in fact the number of American bases around the world has in fact increased. Surely the proliferation of American bases, the illegal occupation and support of tyrannical regimes and the selling of arms around the world pose more of a threat to world stability than nuclear proliferation?

To make matters worse we have Tony Blair, a war criminal, offering yet again his sycophantic condemnation of Iran as a terror regime obsessed with nuclear capability. Even if this may be true surely we don’t need someone as despicable and disingenuous as Tony Blair to tell us this, do we? What it smacks of is hypocrisy - Blair may be right about nuclear proliferation (any sane person would support a nuclear free world) but when you are one of the political leaders responsible for the deaths of innocent Iraqis (including the genocidal UN sanctions) your position as an authority on world affairs becomes untenable. Mainstream media discourse refers to Blair as a statesman when in fact the terrorism he perpetrated on Iraq and Afghanistan is no different to the fundamentalist terrorists who are ready to wage holy war against the west; what is the difference - the difference is that the terrorism perpetrated by the West is sanitized as defense whilst masquerading disgustingly as liberation. So why leave Israel out of the nuclear question? Mainly because to include Israel and debate its nuclear policy would inevitably undermine the agenda of the documentary which wants us to take away an image of a world in which the west especially America are not in fact really that bad given their secret desires to liberate us all from the religious bogeymen and nuclear Armageddon. The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw awarded the documentary five stars in his review but this is not an act of critical bravery, its indicative of the way many critics operate which is simply to reinforce the dominant point of view and naturalise the status quo which I for one refuse to accept as an absolute. The following links seem to support my position:

SHOR IN THE CITY / NOISE IN THE CITY - (Dir. Raj Nidimoru & Krishna D K, 2010, India)

2011-06-27T14:20:00.000-07:00

The multi protagonist narrative film has emerged as a favourite amongst the multiplex crowd in India and with Shor in the City we find a continuation of the familiar cocktail of crime, gangsters and expletives witnessed before in contemporary films such as Sankat City, Johnny Gaddaar and Kaminey. (See The Guardian Newspapers article on the Multiplex Indian film published last week) Collectively these films constitute a new genre of Indian cinema that one could argue extends from the Mumbai Noir lexicon. However, Mumbai Noir has mutated somewhat aesthetically (not thematically though) into the stylised multi protagonist urban crime film that adopts a portmanteau narrative structure involving chapters, colourful characters, kinetic editing, visceral camera style and a self reflexive edginess. With the rise of the Multiplex film and niche cinema the Bombay film industry has seen a flowering of new production companies who are supposedly willing to take a risk on more edgier, daring and controversial subject matter. In this instance Balaji Motion Pictures (run by Ekta Kapoor and Shobha Kapoor) backed Shor in the City and has already proven itself commercially as a multiplex player with recent films such as Once Upon a Time in Mumbai and Love, Sex Aur Dhokha. I’m not sure to what extent this claim holds any validity when one looks closely at films such as Shor in the City. Essentially the appeal of these films is constructed around a level of dark humour that is filtered through a discourse of intertexuality. Such a postmodern approach not only underlines the technical sophistication of directors who have been trained abroad (mainly in American film schools) but confirms a similar and growing cine literate appreciation in the middle class urban youth audience. Of course we have been here before in the 1970s and early 80s when Shyam Benegal referred to his films as part of a new middle cinema and it is easy to position Shor in the City and respective films in such a category that negotiates between the commercial and art cinemas of India in such a way that offers an attractive artistic compromise for film makers, producers and audiences.

Shor in the City revolves around five stories in the city of Mumbai. They are urban stories that attempt to meditate on familiar aspects of the city including power, poverty, class and conflict. Structurally directors Raj Nidimoru and Krishna D K are largely successful at weaving together the different narrative strands into a satisfying, if not far fetched, conclusion. The title card at the end claims every one of the events in the film was based on newspaper stories and this certainly holds true when one considers that micro details are emphasised as a way of validating an authentic reality. Admittedly songs do creep into the film but they are not signposted in anyway whilst melodramatic histrionics are equally restrained by the sympathetic characterisation. A fundamental point of thematic unity for many urban based multi protagonist films is the visibility of the city of Mumbai. Shor in the City gives us characters rarely seen indoors but instead shows us people constantly on the move and carried along by the flow of daily life. It is a perpetual flow of bodies, vehicles and buildings that overwhelm our powerless and fragmented protagonists in search of an anchor on to which they can fix their dreams, fears and hopes. Whilst the Ganpati celebrations seem to bring Mumbai together as a secular and collective community, the disparate lives of our struggling protagonists caught up in the euphoric religious celebrations points to the way in which most urban cities are home to an invisible underclass trying desperately to prove their worth. Like Abhay in the film who has returned from America to set up a small business in Mumbai, the city swallows him up until he gradually becomes another part of the unidentifiable mass of humanity. Shor in the City was critically lauded on its release and certainly serves to illustrate the creative vitality of the middle cinema multiplex film. What is somewhat dispiriting is the unwillingness of UK distributors to back these films as many recent independent multiplex films have simply been rejected. It doesn’t make commercial sense as they would find an audience in the UK especially amongst the youthful Diaspora.

AKALER SANDHANE / IN SEARCH OF FAMINE (Dir. Mrinal Sen, 1981, India)

2011-06-26T09:35:00.001-07:00

It is clear to see Mrinal Sen’s 1983 film Khandhar is in fact an extension and a companion piece to his 1981 film Akaler Sandhane considered by many to be his masterpiece. Thematically both films use the figure of the artist - in this case a film maker to interrogate the conflict between the old and the new, tradition and modernity and the lower and privileged classes. The introspective film maker (Dhritiman Chatterjee) is perhaps the closest Sen came to representing his own anxieties about the film making process. Similarly like Khandhar the journey from the urban to the rural is a central motif as it permits Sen to question the legitimacy of the film crew in their exploitation of an impoverished Bengali village for suitable cinematic mise en scene. The narrative follows a film crew attempting gallantly but ultimately failing to make a film on the Bengal famine of 1943 (genocide perpetrated by the British empire and World War II) that resulted in the deaths of at least three million people. The crew arrive with noble intentions but their boisterous and pretentious manner as artists remains unchanged pointing to a cultural ignorance that goes somewhat unchecked. What becomes apparent as the crew begin filming the more difficult sequences is the gaping economic, social and cultural divide that exists between the privileged urbanites from Calcutta and the impoverished Bengali villagers. When one of the actors who has been cast to play the role of a prostitute absconds to Calcutta the film maker foresees the production stalling. Encouraged by Haren (Rajen Tarafder), a highly co-operative villager with acting aspirations of his own, he demands they find a suitable girl from the village. When the villagers finally discover that the role is that of a prostitute, local prejudices come to the fore and they feel their trust has been betrayed. They eventually refuse to co-operate with the rest of the filming and the crew is forced to close down production and finish the rest in a studio. The advice to leave the village comes from a respected benign school master who criticises the film crew for their inability to understand and accommodate for the poverty of those they are trying to represent in the film. It might be fine to make a film on poverty and attempt to educate other people about the famine of 1943 but what about the failure to address poverty in rural India - this is a statement put forward by the headmaster at the end and the degree of directorial self criticism in this equation suggests the crew use the gaze of the lens as a means of disguising their own shame and even guilt. Additionally, the sympathy demonstrated by the crew towards many of the villagers is momentary and full of pity as we know and they know that once filming is complete they can simply retreat from such impoverishment to the comforts of their privileged lifestyles.

The level of social criticism articulated by the head master is complicated further by the self reflexive nature of Sen’s approach who makes direct parallels drawn between the fictional dramatisation of the famine and the real desperation and servitude faced by the villagers. Smita Patil plays herself in the film whilst in the production she plays the role of an struggling mother. Sen uses her character to deconstruct the false nature of acting and the unreal processes actors go through before they can perform competently. Sen does this by having Smita Patil confront the actual truths behind her character in the shape of two dispossessed women in the village. Coming face to face with the loneliness of an old woman (Gita Sen) who spends her days tending to her incapacitated husband not only taps into a sense of imprisonment but it is a feeling rendered doubly visible in the exhausted figure of Durga (Sreela Majumdar). The impact the film production has upon the village is starkly realised in the metaphorical assertion that it is the urban educated elite who accelerate the poverty as the pressure on village resources leads to someone questioning if the film crew are in fact corrupting their identity, traditions and way of life. Akaler Sandhane is a multi layered ideological critique that manifests many of the familiar authorial tropes representative of Mrinal Sen. It is also one of the great statements on the film making process and deserves to stand alongside Kiarostami’s masterful Life, and Nothing More (1990), Wender’s The State of Things (1982), Godard’s Contempt (1963) and Truffaut’s Day For Night (1973).

CINEMATIC REPRESENTATIONS OF THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY : PART 1 #

2011-06-25T04:18:00.000-07:00

I had been under the false impression that when it came to the representation of The Black Panther Party it would be limited to a handful of texts but on closer examination a number of films and documentaries have been made since the 1960s. How significant and decisive these films have been in shaping public opinion on The Black Panther Party remains unanswered. I would argue that Hollywood continues to side step black history and whilst films have appeared on Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali (both backed by influential and prominent black artists), groups including the Black Panthers and leaders like Martin Luther have been ignored. It seems extraordinary that Hollywood has yet to make even a standard mainstream biopic on Martin Luther given his iconic cultural status. Maybe it’s not surprising that Spike Lee has one time or another been linked to numerous projects on black America with little if any of them given the green light by the studios. I’m not arguing that black film makers have a social, moral and political obligation to act as a voice for the wider community but barring Spike Lee a stronger and more vibrant political cinema should be in operation right now for black film makers. What we are faced with at the moment is the buffoonery of Tyler Perry’s cinema which has been criticised by Spike Lee as a reversion back to the coon stereotype. Personally, I have very little time for such apolitical regressive work and whilst Precious was embraced as a revelation it could do little to exorcise its dependency on sentimentality.

The Black Panther Party is still projected as an extremist organisation and whilst literature offers a revisionist and realistic view the same cannot be said for cinema. Realistic, authentic and representative works have come from the documentary form whilst the brevity of films have tended to be melodramatic, fictionalised and one sided in their account of rise and fall of The Black Panther Party. In many ways, the Black Panthers continue to be a misunderstood, maligned and controversial black organisation/movement and in the light of contemporary political activism their brand of inspiring ideological Marxist militancy is actually somewhat refreshing and truthful. I am of the opinion that The Black Panther Party is potentially a very rich ideological area for film makers attempting to deal with black American discourse (past and present) as the organisation was littered with very memorable, highly articulate and impressionable socialist iconoclasts – Huey Newton, Fred Hampton, Bobby Seale to name but a few. Nevertheless, a handful of films and documentaries do stand out as rewarding, didactic and seminal in their representation of the Panthers.

THE MURDER OF FRED HAMPTON – (1971, Howard Alk, US)

In Howard Alk’s 1971 slice of verite Chairman of the Illinois Black Panther Party Fred Hampton comes across as a revolutionary political leader. Articulate, outspoken and defiant in his embrace of socialist ideology Fred Hampton was murdered by the Chicago police in a pre-mediated raid sanctioned by J Edgar Hoover. Whilst the verite aesthetics suggests an observational and even impartial approach this is not the case as Alk’s documentary steadily transforms into a murder investigation. Alk thankfully refuses to repress or disguise his sympathy and affections for the black panthers which is transparent throughout and the counter culture challenge to traditional symbols of institutional power and authority are plainly evident in the documentary’s criticism of the police as the enemy. Whilst documentaries have arguably become more sophisticated now many of them seem to lack the raw political energy of an era in which nothing was sacred anymore. It is clear to see why the FBI and capitalist establishment felt threatened by Hampton as his emergence as a potential black leader was imminent given his popularity with the black community. Many of the interviews, speeches and observational camerawork set out to prove the Marxist ideology of the Panthers steadily shifted from radical militancy based on racial grounds to a brand of internationalism that positioned the capitalist system as the true enemy of a worldwide class struggle. Outrage is expressed as the police attempts to deflect blame and basically lie in front of the news media whilst the panthers attempts to plead for an independent investigation and inquiry leads to inertia. Alk’s documentary is an angry one with much of it directed against the establishment and its repression of the Panthers as a so called extension of cold war communist propaganda.

PANTHER – (1995, Melvin Van Peebles, US)

Many of those members who were part of the Black Panther party in the 60s and onwards rightfully distanced themselves from director Mario Van Peebles 1995 biopic on the Panthers. No one is questioning the motivation behind such a subject but Peebles takes extensive liberties with the truth and the end result is a film that embellishes, sensationalises and in a way ends up mis representing the Black Panther Party. The biggest criticism is the lack of objectivity - all of the Panthers and the party are simply depicted as untarnished angels of virtue and morality; ambiguity is absent. By effectively whitewashing the inner conflicts, problems with violence and political interests Peebles paints a picture that bears little resemblance to the real Panthers. Whilst it is true most historical films need a level of dramatisation, Panther is let down by the skills of an ordinary director who seems out of his depth when compared to some one like Spike Lee and the Malcolm X biopic. The noble political intentions of the Panthers are bathed in a disturbing romanticism that shows little critical distance from the director and those involved. Peebles based his screenplay on a novel written by his father - Melvin Van Peebles but for me the soundtrack was too obvious and much of the TV style in which the film has been shot means the material suffers from hyperbole. Interestingly Peebles says he struggled many years to get the project of the ground and it was the moderate success of New Jack City and Posse that finally convinced the studios. The lack of narrative coherence and poor characterisation makes it difficult to differentiate between what were some of the most intelligent, provocative and inspiring black figures of that era. Writer David Gritten for The Independent offers a sustained analysis of the film's historical re-workings.

ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE! - (1996, Lee Lew-Lee, US)

The Black Panthers evolved continually throughout the 60s and beyond which meant their ten point program to enact revolutionary change amongst the dispossessed within American society was constantly under review. Ideologically and structurally the Panthers were a complex political party and whilst this documentary by Lee Lew-Lee may at first seem conventional in its approach it actually offers one of the most comprehensive and engaged accounts of the Black Panthers. Using interviews, archive footage and an investigative manner we are taken on a journey through the civil rights era supported with exhaustive research. It does become a study of the rise and fall of a political ideology with much of the commentary and evidence coming straight from Bobby Seale and Kathleen Cleaver. What really interests Lee Lew-Lee is getting behind some of the major reasons why the party came to prominence in an era of non violence and more importantly what led to the loss of the Panther’s power base and international standing. Firstly, the assassination of both Malcolm X and Martin Luther King certainly opened up a new space for the Black Panthers within their own community and the increasing collations they formed with other oppressed minority groups also widened their ideological appeal. Whilst Martin Luther King is represented as a symbol of non violent appeasement it is Malcolm X who is largely credited with developing the notion of intellectual violence. The Panthers saw themselves as natural successors who were carrying on the work of Malcolm X. Nevertheless, the documentary never loses sight of the fundamental truth that all of these different factions, leaders and ideologies were committed to ensuring the right to self determination was a universal value.

Given the fact the Panther Party started to create a united front that stretched around the world against the forces of American imperialism and capitalism it was inevitable the establishment would retaliate. A systematic campaign of covert operations run by the CIA and FBI to dismantle the Black Panther Party were mounted throughout the years in which we saw the party at its peak of political power. This led to high profile assassinations, harassment, intimidation, imprisonment, detention and propaganda used to discredit the ideological legitimacy of the group and its leaders in the eyes of the black community. In the documentary we are told that infiltration was rife and informants were used to compile psychological profiles on Huey Newton, Bobby Seale and Eldridge Cleaver. One member of the Black Panthers argues the FBI used psychological warfare on Huey Newton during his time in prison thus radically affecting and influencing decisions the made after his release. The documentary also draws telling parallels between the rise of the Black Panther Party and the emergence of the American Indian movement which was also dismantled by the FBI. All Power to the People! offers an accessible and entertaining historical overview of the Black Panther Party but it lacks the rawness and vitality of Alk’s 1971 documentary on Fred Hampton.

DIRTY PRETTY THINGS (Dir. Stephen Frears, 2002, UK)

2011-06-18T06:44:00.000-07:00

'How come I’ve never seen you people before?' - The organ collector

'Because we are the people you do not see. We are the ones who drive your cabs. We clean your rooms, and suck your cocks.' - Okwe (Chiwetel Ejiofor)

THE BEGINNING OF THE END FOR DVD?

2011-06-16T04:39:00.000-07:00

This is an attempt to bring together some of my feelings/thoughts on the current debate surrounding the DVD format and the emergence of VOD:

A few years back in a TV interview on the BBC director Wes Anderson referred to Coppola’s Apocalypse Now as the one film that film makers of his generation keep returning to for ideas, inspiration and cinematic creativity. Whilst many would agree that Apocalypse Now is not as great as The Godfather 1 & 2 or The Conversation it is by far the most ambitious, visionary and most discussed of Coppola’s films. In one of the Blu Ray extras for Apocalypse Now is a candid conversation between Coppola and critic Roger Ebert which was filmed at Cannes in 2001 to mark the release of redux. In the interview Ebert strongly suggests that whilst Apocalypse Now is revered today by many film fans and critics as a gusty piece of against the odds film making, the film’s release in 1979 also signalled the death of auteurism and the end of a new Hollywood cinema. With the current and imminent critical discourse circulating on the apparently imminent death of the DVD format and the so called liberating power of Video on Demand (VOD), the Blu ray release for Apocalypse Now (and even Taxi Driver) makes for a valid cinephile argument why Netflix might actually end up destroying the culture of home video.

Of course the reality is that we are now being told VOD is the future by the culture industries in their typically manufactured way in the way Blu ray was touted as heralding a new dawn in the way we watch films. Inevitably Hollywood will want us to re-purchase films we already have on DVD but this time in a digital format so we can transfer it legitimately to any one of our many portable media devices. Whatever happened to just watching a film, enjoying it, reflecting on it and then formulating an opinion on the film? Unfortunately this is not the case anymore – take for example the notion of triple play; now you can own a copy of the film which comes in three different formats (DVD, Blu ray, digital copy). Of course, for a cinephile none of this really makes any sense when considering how difficult it becomes in which format one is actually going to watch the film! From a personal point of view if we do see the demise of DVD then this would potentially be disastrous for cinephiles who have curated libraries and catalogues of films. DVDs are akin to books; you browse, examine, read the synopsis or booklet and then make a qualified decision on which you will watch. I don’t know why but I feel somewhat cheated when I choose to download the film to my desktop. Also the physical distance from the film makes me somewhat comfortable – I like the pleasure and excitement that comes with holding a DVD. This has been the case with the Blu ray of Apocalypse Now.

The problem with VOD is that you are expected to do a lot more work as a consumer and what would happen to special features? VOD is working under the assumption that your broadband speed is up to the task and that you are technologically up to date with the latest hardware and software. This simply is not the case for all of us. It’s not surprising that the US has been the first to fully embrace VOD and Netflix given the instantaneous consumption habits of today’s media hungry audiences. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a technophobe what so ever but I have tried streaming and the viewing experience was jeopardised by the overwhelming threats posed by buffering. My scepticism really stems from the frightening proposition that one day all of our DVD collections will have to be transferred into a hard drive storage facility whereby endless lists would lead to an unhealthy proliferation of data that suddenly doesn’t mean anything anymore other than pretty little thumbnails. Is this the beginning of the end for DVD as a format?

NOTES ON DVD VIEWING 1#

2011-06-14T10:35:00.000-07:00

Here are some brief notes to films viewed on DVD and Blu Ray:

ANTONIO DAS MORTES / ANTONIO OF THE DEAD (Glauber Rocha, 1969, Brazil/France/West Germany) – A landmark of third cinema with a soundtrack that really gets beneath your skin; revolutionary political statements don’t come any bolder than this.

YEH SAALI ZINDAGI / THIS DAMNED LIFE (Sudhir Mishra, 2010, India) – An uneven crime film littered with moments of brilliance; the portmanteau approach is getting a little tired now don’t you think?

THE POSTMASTER (Satyajit Ray, 1961, India) – A perfect summation of Ray Tagore’s vision of the world and a perfect introduction to Bengali cinema.

JOYRIDE (John Dahl, 2001, US) – Not bad in places for a B movie but instantly forgettable; what ever happened to John Dahl?

CREEP (Christopher Smith, 2004, UK) – A surprisingly original and quite scary British horror film; full of anxieties.

EXIT THROUGH THE GIFTSHOP (Banksy, 2010, US/UK) – A film directed by Banksy, starring Banksy and about Bansky; errr, I think I should take that back. It should read - A film by ?

HANNAH AND HER SISTERS (Woody Allen, 1986, US) – The little pontificating jazz man at his best – Caine and Allen are wonderful to watch as men who don’t understand their place in society.

THE BOUNTY (Roger Donaldson, 1984, US) – An under rated epic in many respects with terrific performances by Hopkins and Gibson; great script by Robert Bolt.

THE FIVE OBSTRUCTIONS (Lars Von Trier, Jorgen Leth, 2003, Denmark/Switzerland/Belgium/France) – Von Trier’s and his box of magic tricks makes for a charming deconstruction exercise. It’s got Scorsese convinced.

LIBERO / ALONG THE RIDGE (Kim Rossi Stuart, 2008 Italy) – Casting and performance are everything in this enclosed father-son study – the influences of De Sica and Rossellini loom large.

THE TRIANGLE (Christopher Smith, 2009, UK/Australia) – Smith confirms his talents as one of the more intriguing and original of horror directors; would make for a great double bill with Nolan’s Inception.

WICHITA (Jacques Tourneur, 1955, US) – Everything about Tourneur’s western is deliberately underplayed – for a film that lasts under eighty minutes it shows remarkable cinematic economy.

THE HANGING TREE (Delmer Daves, 1959, US) – I’ve never seen Gary Cooper so angry and so unlovable before; he literally seethes with rage as a doctor hiding from his ugly past. Both Karl Malden and George C Scott offer fine support.

HENRY’S CRIME (Malcolm Venville, 2010, US) – Old fashioned as they come, beautifully played out amongst a great cast and a happy ending that doesn’t make you wince or nauseous.

IDIOCRACY (Mike Judge, 2006, US) – The definitive cinematic statement on Bush stupidity – Mike Judge is an impeccable and ballsy satirist. A cult film in the making.

YATRA - (Dir. Goutam Ghose, 2006, India)

2011-06-13T13:49:00.000-07:00

Nana Patekar as the celebrated writer Dasrath Joglekar.

Yatra really took me by surprise. Made in 2006 but receiving a quick release in 2007, Bengali director Goutam Ghose has made one of the most layered, intricate and reflexive of Indian films. It is a film full of wonderful mysteries and really captivated my imagination unlike any other Indian film in a while. Like Benegal’s masterly Suraj Ka Satvan Ghoda/Seventh Horse of the Sun (Dir. Shyam Benegal, 1992, India) which uses the narrative conceit of the unreliable narrator to test the limits of filmic subjectivity, Ghose complicates matters by blurring the line between fact and fiction. Additionally, we are never quite sure who exactly is in charge of the narrative – is it the celebrated yet cynical novelist who appears to be at the end of his career or is this a story being singularly re-interpreted by the mind of the scriptwriter/director encountered on the train. For me Ghose has suddenly risen to the top in terms of contemporary Indian auteurs and I can’t believe I have simply sidelined such an exciting and magnificent director. I have succeeded in getting hold of both Kaalbela (2009) and Moner Manush (2010) on DVD and I am looking forward to testing the authorial powers of Ghose. What is notable taking a glance at his filmography to date is that Ghose has suddenly become quite prolific in terms of fictional feature films (3 features in a period of five years indicates Ghose is undergoing somewhat of a creative flourish) as his reputation is strong as a documentary film maker.

Fiction meets Fact; Dasrath and Lajwanti (Rekha).

The story of Yatra concerns a famed novelist Dasrath Joglekar/Satish (Nana Patekar in a career defining performance) who travels to Delhi to receive an award for his latest novel – Jaanaza/Funeral. Dasrath is a humble man who criticises contemporary Indian life as nothing more than a bazaar/a market place in which ideas, people and products are exchanged but have no cultural or moral worth. It is a telling and instructive ideological perspective that touches all those he meets on his journey to collect the award. En route to Delhi, the train ride leads to an encounter with a film maker Mohan Bhardwaj who is adamant of adapting Janaaza into a screenplay for the big screen. We discover that Janaaza is a deeply personal and autobiographical work for Dasrath and the central character of the novel is based on what appears to be a real life courtesan titled Lajwanti/'Lajjo' (Rekha). It is at this point in the narrative that Ghose segues into a series of flashbacks narrated by Dasrath that explores the story of Lajwanti but we are unsure how much of the construction is based on fact and how much is fiction; it opens up an intriguing cinematic space on the nature of truth. The image of the courtesan has largely been corrupted now and is continually being equated with prostitution. This is not the case with Lajwanti, deliberately echoing Umrao Jaan, (a role made famous by Rekha) who is a much maligned classical dancer and singer. The courtesan’s representation as the fallen woman takes its narrative accent from Pakeezah with Dasrath acting as an inadvertent saviour for Lajwanti after she is beaten and raped. All of this we discover appears in the literature of Dasrath and Lajwanti’s presence in his life becomes a source of conflict with his wife. After the award ceremony in Delhi at which Dasrath delivers an incredibly moving speech on the loss of direction and purpose in society he checks out of his hotel and tracks down Lajwanti living a marginalised life.

Tree of Life; a symbol of continuity that obliterates both the past and present

Ghose draws notable parallels between the figures of the writer and courtesan – both plead for acceptance and use their artistry as a platform of enquiry and interrogation but remain very much as misunderstood outsiders. Both Lajwanti and Dasrath appear as remnants of the past and who no longer seem to occupy a legitimate and valid place in what is an increasingly commoditised society. By choosing to finish with the young film maker on the train as he begins the process of finally adapting the novel into a script Ghose seems to bring closure to one journey but by opening up another one a suggestion is made that such closure is premature and is in fact a lie. What we are left with is the idea that Dasrath’s journey is yet to arrive at its final destination and that memories of the past remain perpetual, continuous and the subject of reinterpretation. Ghose has been compared to Satyajit Ray and whilst this comparison might be valid in some cases I would argue his grasp of narrative as a structure is both sophisticated and reflexive as Shyam Benegal with whom he also shares many directorial and thematic traits. In any case Yatra is a masterpiece.

Here is the first of twelve parts to the exhaustive documentary Ghose made on Satyajit Ray in 1999:

DEEP COVER (Dir. Bill Duke, 1992, US)

2011-06-06T09:59:00.000-07:00

Bill Duke’s career as a director never really took off as it should have and whilst he spent a long time in TV land he did show some strong promise in the two films he directed at the beginning of the nineties; A Rage in Harlem (1991) and Deep Cover (1992). Featuring a terrific cast, an exquisite production design and suitably noirish femme fatale A Rage In Harlem has simply become lost but needs to be rediscovered. However, the same cannot be said for Deep Cover, a blistering crime thriller featuring career best performances from Laurence Fishburne and Jeff Goldblum. Bill Duke’s direction is supported by one of the best crime scripts of the nineties – a wonderfully dark and twisted collaboration between respected scriptwriters Henry Bean (Internal Affairs, The Believer) and Michael Tolkin (The Player). It’s not surprising that Bill Duke made both A Rage in Harlem and Deep Cover in a climate which had given momentum to a new wave of black American film makers including John Singleton, Mario Van Peebles and The Hughes Brothers. An intelligently scripted critique of drug culture and exploring quite lucidly the American government’s duplicitous attempts to curb and protect the drug empire, Deep Cover takes an undercover cop (played by Laurence Fishburne) and places him within the urban drug scene in an effort to expose the hierarchy of power and corruption. In many ways, the conflicted undercover cop who becomes increasingly seduced by the underworld of crime whilst trying to maintain a level of critical distance is a narrative convention witnessed before in classical Hollywood crime/cop films. What John exposes is a drug empire that has its flow through governments and diplomats who fly around the world with political immunity. In the end John becomes a liability and the American government is ultimately criticised for its deliberate and deeply political drug policy that does very little to curb the influx of drugs into deprived inner city communities with largely black populations. For many at the top, such a cycle of drugs, crime and violence maintains the status quo and even John’s attempts to gain legitimacy in a such a racially divided society pushes him back to an orthodox position that limits personal aspirations. It all makes for a fascinating and suspensful morality tale.

TWO IN THE WAVE (Dir. Emmanuel Laurent, 2010, France)

2011-06-03T10:24:00.000-07:00

The conclusion that Emmanuel Laurent seems to arrive at after having dissected the friendship between Francois Truffaut and Jean Luc Godard is somewhat predictable. I felt a little short changed actually – Laurent spends way too much time considering the legitimacy of both Truffaut and Godard as the modern auteur then gives only twenty minutes or so at the end exploring what is arguably the most decisive of splits within the Truffaut-Godard friendship, a friendship that ended in bitterness after the political fallout of 68. Nevertheless, if one was approaching the French New Wave from a beginner’s perspective or wanted to get a grip on the influences and evolution of both Truffaut and Godard as cinema iconoclasts then Laurent’s documentary would make for an excellent starting point. Illuminating parallels are drawn between cinemas of the past and present including comparisons between Godard and Lang whilst Truffaut is pared with Rossellini pointing to a difference in terms of approach, content and style. Laurent and writer Antoine de Baecque spend time examining the origins of Truffaut and Godard’s entry into film making by acknowledging the differences in terms of upbringing. Truffaut’s lower class background and encounters with the police not only pinpoints the deeply autobiographical content of his Antoine Doinel films but makes a striking contrast to Godard’s middle class, privileged and cultured childhood. The impact of Cahiers Du Cinema is also explored, reiterating the lack of a formal film education for Truffaut and Godard was more than compensated by their ravenous consumption of cinema. Whilst many of Truffaut and Godard’s films after the initial success of A Bout De Souffle and Les Quatre Cents Coups failed commercially they still supported one another both as friends and critics. They even came together to campaign for the reinstatement of Henri Langlois in 1968 by making a short protest film. However, the turning point came with the political and social upheaval brought on by the international student movement and the events of 1968. For Laurent and De Baecque, the split came to fruition at the Cannes Film Festival of 1968 at which both Godard and Truffaut declared their opposition to the Gaullist government and called for cinema in France to come together as a united front to show support for the workers. In many ways the failure of 1968 radicalised Godard so that his approach to cinema became holistically ideological and leftist in tone whilst Truffaut seemed to go in the opposite direction. Laurent and De Baecque are careful not to take sides but one is made to question the post 68 legitimacy and credibility of both Truffaut and Godard. Whilst Truffaut accused Godard of becoming a propagandist, Godard’s reply to his old friend talked of quality cinema and commercial compromise which the Nouvelle Vague had rallied against as dishonest and superficial. Perhaps Truffaut was right because Godard’s disillusionment with ideologue did become more transparent in the mid 70s but then Godard was also right when he said that can a film maker really live in isolation when one has a moral obligation to react against the socio-political determinants. One is left with the deeply moving impression that whilst Truffaut’s cinema was personal and Godard’s political, both were equally valid, relevant and revolutionary in their own way.

SENNA - (Dir. Asif Kapadia, 2010, UK / France / US)

2011-05-31T13:49:00.000-07:00

Brazilian Ayrton Senna won the F1world championship 3 times before his tragic death.

By rejecting many of the current documentary tendencies for the performative and reflexive, Asif Kapadia’s moving celebration of the late Formula One racing driver Ayrton Senna confirms the early promise evidenced by his startling debut feature The Warrior. Opting for the poetic mode and constructing a compelling narrative through extensive and elucidating use of archive footage Kapadia succeeds in creating both a visceral journey of Senna’s extraordinary life and an intimate portrait of someone constantly on the precipice of death. Part biopic, the documentary explores the origins of Senna’s passion for the sport and steadily charts his rise to the echelons of Formula One dominance. One of the more fascinating aspects of the narrative is the intense rivalry between Alain Prost and Senna which is depicted as a larger than life battle for egotistical glories. Kapadia is wise to push aside interviews and have friends and colleagues talk over the footage of Senna – this not only keeps us immersed in the gripping nature of such a dangerous sporting spectacle but builds a breathtaking rhythm (complemented by a terrific score by Antonio Pinto) that can only be contained by the tragic ending. In many ways it is somewhat problematic to label this a documentary given the intense narrative and genre elements closely imitate the language of fictional film. Kapadia depicts Senna as an Icarus like figure, demonstrating devotion for the sport that would lead to his inevitable destruction. A Working Title production and a favourite at Sundance, Senna is undoubtedly one of the best films I have seen all year.

ROUTE IRISH - (Dir. Ken Loach, 2010, UK/France/Italy/Belgium/Spain)

2011-05-30T08:56:00.000-07:00

As long we have Ken Loach, Paul Laverty and Rebecca O Brien working together as a collective then a credible and strong political discourse exists in British cinema. With Loach is it not right to compare his films to each other or attempt to position Route Irish via an authorial approach because all of his films are motivated by social currents. The cinematic dialogue by British film makers on the subject of Iraq continues to lack any kind of engaged political vigour and the relative absence of any kind of social criticism of the war crimes committed in Iraq by the British government is representative of British cinema’s acquiescence. Route Irish might actually be one of the first British films to represent and address the displacement of Iraqi people who have been forced to flee their homes in Iraq as a direct consequence of the invasion and occupation. At first the presence of an Iraqi exile may seem contrived but Harim (Talib Rasool) is a well constructed character given a platform from which to express a maligned voice typically repressed in the mainstream media. His talents as a musician actually makes him more intelligent than Fergus whilst the victimisation he faces at the hands of hired thugs indicts private security firms as yet another ugly manifestation of corporate hegemony. Whilst The Wind That Shakes The Barley offers an allegory of imperialism and the politics of occupation, Route Irish approaches neo colonialism through the narrative of two Liverpudlians and British mercenaries; Fergus (Mark Womack) and Frankie (John Bishop). Consistency especially an ideological one is exceptionally rare in cinema and whilst he continues to face the wrath of a right wing media in the UK, the intentions of Loach to make the film he wants to and on his terms has to be commended. With the suspicious death of close friend Frankie in Iraq, Fergus sets upon a personal investigation and uncovers an all too familiar conflict; people vs. profits. In the final analysis, Fergus does get a chance to re-address the political imbalance but his complicity in the war crimes of Iraq equates him with the merchants of war.

KANDAHAR / THE RUINS (Dir. Mrinal Sen, 1983, India)

2011-05-28T08:07:00.000-07:00

Shabana Azmi is on terrific form as the powerless Jamini - a figure of dread and uncertainty.

The gaze of the photographer Subhash (Naseeruddin Shah) is one that shows little compassion for the predicament of those imprisoned in the past. Whilst the initial reaction to marry Jamini (Shabana Azmi) is motivated by sentiment, it holds no actual validity or merit when the decisive moment arises. Subhash sees reality through the lens of his camera – it is a critical distance that stops him from becoming emotionally involved with the subject. The image of Jamini he captures frozen in the milieu of the feudal ruins transforms her plea for escape into a ghostly memory akin to the photos hanging grotesquely in the photo studio of Subhash. He is strictly an observer and preserver of reality which is an aspect of his flawed and troubling personality that Jamini is unable to comprehend. Additionally, Subhash views the feudal past through a tourist like perspective. Jamini is rendered a prisoner of the past by simplifying reality through his photographic lens which essentially cannibalizes rural India and re-presents it as a collection of palatable and stereotypical images. If Subhash is a likely authorial expression of Sen the film maker then he directly implicates himself in the criticism that films allow audiences to pass through historical narratives as casual tourists – such is the guilt free journey taken by Subhash. Subhash feels the disassociating gaze of the camera empowers him and lets him unassumingly think he sees everything but Sen juxtaposes the urban gaze of Subhash with the ancient and truthful gaze of the bed ridden blind widow/mother of Jamini. The mother, a symbol of feudal decay, may represent the past but her failed attempt to construct a link between the past and present cannot transpire given the distance between the urban and rural is simply too extreme. A number of films come to mind that offer interesting formal links including Kamal Amrohi’s gothic noir Mahal (The Mansion, 1949), Antonioni’s L’Avventura (The Adventure, 1960) and The Passenger (1975). Kandahar is one of Sen’s most ideologically and stylistically complex works whilst the final image of the helpless Jamini (Shabana Azmi) reduced to a photographic memory is a haunting one.

SARA AKASH / THE WHOLE SKY (Dir. Basu Chatterjee, 1969, India) - Marital Bliss

2011-05-25T15:44:00.000-07:00

Samar - the husband....

How often has it been stated and reiterated that 1969 was a seminal year for film making in India as it signalled the emergence of New Indian Cinema. Whilst Mani Kaul and Mrinal Sen more or less remained resolutely independent in both form and content throughout their later years the same cannot be said for Basu Chatterjee who debuted with Sara Akash in 1969. Kaul’s Uski Roti, Sen’s Bhuvan Shome and Chatterjee’s Sara Akash may have had a transparent and lucid neo realist agenda, much more significant was the signature of cinematographer K.K. Mahajan who shot all three films in an unorthodox style. Unlike his contemporaries Chatterjee was an auteur whose impact on other film makers was less discernible yet the influence of a film like Sara Akash can be seen in both Ray’s Pratidwandi and also Benegal’s Ankur. Samar, a young college graduate with worldly ambitions and Prabha, a sensitive and intelligent matriculate, become husband and wife through an arranged marriage. It transpires that neither of them are prepared for such an arduous new life and the family inevitably victimise the new bride and slowly gang up on her in the house, making life difficult. Samar’s refusal to accept the cruelty of traditions which he cannot reject makes him bitter towards his wife. His silence and refusal to even touch her or make eye contact becomes a great source of marital animosity and Prabha is treated like a pariah. Samar’s thoughts of imprisonment and escape are expressed through dream sequences which would go on to influence Pratidwandi. However, unlike Ray’s politicised representations of Bengali youth Chatterjee’s urban adolescent is waking up to the stark realities of cultural traditions.

...and Prabha - the wife.

In many ways Chatterjee seemed to shift dramatically from such realist film making with some immediacy, thus Sara Akash really stands apart in his oeuvre when compared to the light comic touch he would bring to his films in the 1970s. Perhaps what makes Sara Akash unconventional as a film for Chatterjee is the rejection of song and dance. Such a rejection gives the text a greater artistic validity and imposes a sincerity that ties in with the manifesto of 1968 espousing realism. In many ways, the narrative mixes elements of the youth film with strong melodrama accents and the focus on family as a destructive guardian of tradition is a strong point of social criticism. The ending feels like a compromise though because Prabha who comes to the house still takes the abuse and reconciles with her husband Samar. Of course Chatterjee deals with another reality here – that it would be impossible for her to simply leave Samar as this would mean disgrace for her, so in a way she is forced to stay merely out of a dependency on tradition. I’m not so sure if Prabha should have been so unforgiving considering the vindictiveness of Samar’s rejection. For me, it is a problematic ending full of compromise. Sara Akash is not a particularly strong film nor is it a seminal one but what makes it alive and fresh today is K.K. Mahajan’s extraordinary eye. His cinematography gives the film a special look and at the time some of the bold, audacious camerawork was visually indicative of Indian cinema’s capacity to show signs of radical iconoclastic authorial expression. K.K. was central to the development of a realist, creative aesthetic in the late 60s and his work with Mrinal Sen in particular is simply brilliant. Like Pratidwandi, Padatik and other films during the New Indian Cinema phase, Sara Akash is a film about youthful ambitions and dreams that collide with the regressive traditions of Old India, leaving us with a painful resolution in which both parties are imprisoned for their cultural subservience.

Here is some useful reading on cinematographer K.K. Mahajan who passed away in 2007:

http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl2415/stories/20070810509308700.htm

http://www.upperstall.com/people/kk-mahajan

http://www.mattersofart.net/colomnkkmahajan.html

ALL WATCHED OVER BY MACHINES OF LOVING GRACE (Dir. Adam Curtis, 2011, UK) - Episode 1 : Love and Power

2011-05-24T11:15:00.000-07:00

Adam Curtis has returned with a new documentary series on the impact of machines on the human condition, society and market economics. Titled like a belated Radiohead Album ‘All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace’ is another witty and brilliantly ideological polemic on the elite’s duplicitous cajoling of the helpless, pacified masses – namely us for their own interests. You might ask yourself – is this another Chomsky inspired critique of power? So what if it is. The first episode titled ‘Love and Power’ begins with the collective rationalism of Ayn Rand – an American radical thinker and writer who foresaw the notion that selfish individualism would one day take hold of society. Curtis argues that Rand’s thoughts and particularly her influential 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged underpins much of the ideological ethics of American individualism best symbolised in the technological revolution spearheaded by the Silicon Valley crowd in the nineties. Similarly like The Trap (2007), Curtis juxtaposes much of his archive footage to American film scores producing a political montage that is anchored largely by a fatalistic voice over offering a sustained, compelling and nightmarish alternate reality in which the determinants of market economics are the yardstick by which politicians and governments are judged.

It’s hard not to be convinced by the argument that a technological enslavement is underway and that the so called democratisation of the media is in fact yet another illusion, distraction and universal falsehood. Curtis argues that individuals around the world communicating through the new electronic worldwide global village are in fact not liberating themselves from all former restraints but commodifying their personal interests – this is evident in the truth that even the banal now has a value on the worldwide web. This might seem like an old argument – that machines ultimately alienate individuals and inadvertently rob them of the freedom they seek through sub conscious enslavement. Curtis links such a proposition to the grand Utopian ideal that computers and the web would let everyone live out their desires thus enhancing democracy as a universal aspiration. All of this is a falsehood. Even Alan Greenspan’s ideological imperative of computers bringing stability to the markets is respectively undermined by the uncontrollable and unpredictable nature of the human condition – in this case it is love (an altruistic impulse) that suggests machines are merely an enhancement not an evolutionary solution to hegemonic greed, control and enslavement. It all makes for invaluable viewing. Roll on Episode 2 next week...

ACE IN THE HOLE / THE BIG CARNIVAL (Dir. Billy Wilder, 1951, US) - Rotten to the Core

2011-05-18T15:25:00.000-07:00

Wilder’s satire is as caustic as they come. Human depravity was extenuated with a memorable accent in Wilder’s 1944 classic noir Double Indemnity by the scheming Phyllis Dietrichson. ‘We’re both rotten’ she tells the doomed Walter Neff, only his response is more telling ‘Only you’re a little more rotten’. The corruption of an ideal is aptly demonstrated by such a metaphor – rotten souls, rotten people and rotten dreams are some of the charges levied at the grotesque journalist Chuck Tatum (Kirk Douglas). It’s not surprising Wilder’s 1951 treatise on the American news media was a critical and commercial failure considering the prescient tone struck by the insidious fabrication and duplicitous manufacturing of news. Tatum like Neff is a victim of hubris but unlike Neff’s death march Tatum’s descent is a venomous trajectory of egotistical excess which offends and polarises all those around him. Wilder paints a picture of American society that is inherently unsympathetic. The parasitic hunger for sensationalising personal tragedy is sustained primarily through an ending in which imagery of rampant exploitation and prostitution is galvanised by Tatum’s dying words ‘You can have me for nothing’ he says pathetically before he drops down dead in a heap. It is a savage denouement and one that cuts deep:

BABYLON (Dir. Franco Rosso, 1980, UK) - Streets of Fire

2011-05-17T07:42:00.000-07:00

Brinsley Forde as David/'Blue' who works part time as a mechanic in an attempt to supplement his real passion in life - reggae music.

I stumbled upon Babylon when in fact I should have seen it as part of essential film viewing because in many respects it is hugely influential and one of the best British films of the 1980s. Directed by Franco Rosso who assisted Ken Loach on Kes and starring Brinsley Forde (Aswad) as David/Blue, Babylon like Horace Ove’s Pressure opened up a new discourse and space on screen for Black British representations. Backed by the National Film Finance Corporation under the art cinema reign of Mamoun Hassan, the politics of race evident throughout Blue’s attempts to rise above the prejudices of hate has arguably influenced numerous British films including most notably This is England, Bullet Boy and perhaps even Shifty in some respects. Babylon is a stronger film than the ones mentioned because its immediacy and power as a strong social statement resides in the impact of the ending in which the Rastafarian youth and police collide. Co-scripted by Martin Stellman who was also involved in the screenplay for Quadrophenia (1979) along with a very talented cast of black actors including Dennis Bovell, Trevor Laird and a young Brinsley Forde, Babylon is now finally available on DVD and Blu ray after a digital restoration. Crisply shot by award winning cinematographer Chris Menges and filmed on location in Lewisham, Babylon is a black British Diaspora film that takes the familiar coming of age narrative with Blue’s love of reggae music and blends it with an ideological dissemination of Rastafarian culture. For a film made in the 1980s many would argue Babylon has become a historical document of a certain crisis in British culture but in no way have the politics of the film dated – even today its confrontation of racism, family, community, music and black youth identity are issues still pertinent especially in many of the ethnic minority communities in the UK. It also has a fantastic soundtrack.

BOMBAY TALKIE (Dir. James Ivory, 1970, US/India) - 'Typewriter, Tip, Tip, Tip...'

2011-05-09T14:39:00.000-07:00

Ismail Merchant and James Ivory were illustrious and varied collaborators and with a career spanning over 40 years it was one of the most substantial partnerships in modern cinema. I have yet to see a lot of their work but the more films I encounter the more appreciative I am of what they have achieved given the tight budgetary constraints they worked under. Whilst much has been made of their so called heritage films produced in the late 80s and early 90s, their critical reputation rests largely on this sustained creative period. The problem with such a contentious categorising of their work is that inevitably everything else becomes somewhat secondary and simply a precursor for greater things to come. Yet in many ways it is their early work and continuous interest with India that gives them a decidedly unique and emboldened body of work. Films such as Bombay Talkie, The Householder, Shakespeare Wallah, Heat & Dust and The Deceivers may offer idiosyncratic tales of unfulfilled relationships but the clash of cultures in many of the narratives points to a sustained attempt to repeatedly interrogate the relationship between the West and India. Merchant and Ivory were exceptionally lucky to have cast the emerging and talented Shashi Kapoor in their debut feature – The Householder (1963). As it turned out the experience became an on going and very creative collaboration with Shashi Kapoor returning continuously over three decades to take the main lead in many of their best films on an ever evolving Indian society. The final element and one not to be overlooked was the contribution of writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. I do think it’s unfair that the title Merchant and Ivory remained consistent because its development into an international brand in the early 90s not only took the focus away from the contrasting ideological content of their films but obscured the contributions of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala from the commercial and critical success of their finest films.

Released in 1970 Bombay Talkie continues to be dismissed by some critics as relatively insubstantial compared to their later work. Nevertheless, it is a well crafted piece of work with a very talented cast and crew who seem to really relish the opportunity of sending up the Bombay film industry. Utilising the typical Hindi melodrama situation of a love triangle in which we find two men with considerable egos – in this case a populist actor and a poet turned scriptwriter, vying for the affections of an English novelist (Jennifer Kendal – Shashi Kapoor’s off screen wife) who has come to India in search of an adventure, the film has in some ways become an influential work on western film makers approaching India from an outsider’s perspective. Perhaps this is most evident in Wes Anderson’s The Darjeeling Limited – a film that raids the enchanting and memorable musical scores of Satyajit Ray. Vikram (Shashi Kapoor) as the egocentric playboy actor neglects the concerns of his wife (Aparna Sen) whilst his irrational and commercially motivated approach to cinema articulates a blunt criticism of the Bombay film industry. Sumptuously shot by Subrata Mitra, Ray’s regular cinematographer, and with a memorable score by industry regulars Shankar-Jaikishan, the film’s gradual shift into a tragic melodrama may at first seem like a grotesque denouement but on closer reflection seems like the perfect way of ending a film about the Bombay film industry and all its excesses. The opening titles are a work of art:

THOR (Dir. Kenneth Branagh, 2011, US) - Branagh's Blockbuster

2011-05-06T10:59:00.000-07:00

Thor is yet another big budget comic book extravaganza from the Marvel universe and with the decidedly low key cast coupled with a more than competent director in the shape of Brit Kenneth Branagh it succeeds moderately in achieving its aims of sensational entertainment. This was a considerable financial gamble given the lack of an A list star in the main lead, Thor’s relative obscurity as a comic book hero and Branagh’s inexperience with blockbusters yet an old fashioned morality tale that forms the main conflict in the transparent narrative prevents the machinations from becoming caught up in the now generic pause for spectacular action. In many ways, Branagh’s planetary landscapes and hyperbolic production design resembles the world of Mike Hodge’s Flash Gordon – a cult favourite amongst science fiction fans today. With a sizable opening box office take, Thor also confirms the monolithic grip that the comic book genre now has over audiences and sets up a depressing notion that Hollywood is likely to retreat to such a bankable position for years to come. Whilst the Nordic mythology of Thor is predictably realised and sustained, this is an origins film and in some ways cynically works towards establishing a foundation for the likelihood of a franchise. With Disney’s 2009 acquisition of Marvel, the foreseeable future looks very bright for comic book fans but I’m not so sure if this means the same for cinema audiences. The main reason I watched Thor was for Branagh because I do think he is a fantastic actor and an under rated director in many respects. I'm happy this film has been commercially and critically successful as it might give Branagh a chance to pursue more personal cinematic ideas.

SADGATI / DELIVERANCE (Dir. Satyajit Ray, 1981, India) - High and Low

2011-04-30T10:52:00.000-07:00

Om Puri as the impoverished lower caste Dukhi.

Pikoo (1980) and Sadgati (1981) were short films Ray directed for television, marking his shift into the 1980s and both acting as precursors to his 1983 full length feature Ghaire Bhaire. Whilst Pikoo was made for French television, Sadgati was based on a story by writer Prem Chand whom Ray was familiar with from his adaptation of The Chess Players and funded by Doordarshan, a new state run television company. I have yet to see Pikoo and have read from Andrew Robinson’s book that it is a film about the gaze of an innocent. I hope I can see it on a good print one day. Sadgati, translating as Deliverance, lasts for fifty minutes and contains very little dialogue yet is as accomplished and powerful as his masterworks including even The Apu trilogy. The story is located in rural India in a small village and concerns the relationship between a lower caste tanner Dukhi (Om Puri) and a Brahmin Priest Ghashiram (Mohan Agashe). Before his daughter is married, Dukhi needs the approval and blessings of the Brahmin Priest to set an auspicious date but when Dukhi goes to ask Ghashriam to come to his house for the ceremony, the priest takes it upon himself to exploit Dukhi’s predicament by forcing him to complete various chores. Having instructed his wife Jhuria (Smita Patil) and daughter Dhania to anticipate their arrival with food, Dukhi complies with the orders of his master, the Brahmin Priest. He begins by sweeping the outside of the house then lifting sacks of wheat but when it comes to the ardous task of chopping firewood, Dukhi comes undone. However, Dukhi’s sorrows are made much worse when Ghashriam catches Dukhi asleep in the afternoon sun exhausted from fatigue and hunger. Incensed by Dukhi’s apparent insolence, Ghashriam berates him and forces him back to work. In one last moment of desperation Dukhi attempts to chop the wood but having had nothing to eat all day and suffering from an illness, Dukhi falls down dead. Panic sets in for Ghashriam as the removal of Dukhi’s body becomes imperative if the high caste villagers are to carry on as normal but none of them can touch the body as this would mean becoming contaminated in some way. Ghashriam sheepishly pleads to the lower caste workers to remove the body but they ignore his command in light of another fellow worker who was witness to the painful destruction of Dukhi. Such are the horrors brought on by village orthodoxy, Dukhi’s corpse becomes a symbol of rural depravity and the caste system. When Jhuria discovers her husband is dead she breaks down and mourns his loss but even she cannot move his body. Finally, to avoid being directly implicated in the death of Dukhi, Ghashriam using ropes, and using a stick to touch the body, drags the corpse away from the village, dumping it in a field of rotten carcasses. In a final act of vitriolic caste politics, Ghashriam decontaminates the ground upon which Dukhi died and corpse lay with droplets of holy water.

What is brilliant about Ray’s approach to the story is that it all plays like a piece of silent film. Unfiltered, prolonged and detailed throughout, the neo realist tone is poetically evoked by the incredible rhythm of the narrative over which Ray has terrifyingly precise control. Whilst Ray was critical of what he saw as a New Indian Cinema in love with European art cinema, the work of Shyam Benegal was one film maker that impressed Ray in many ways especially his command of actors that included Shabana Azmi and Smita Patil with whom he would also collaborate. Ray has said himself that his early films were not political and whilst he was one of the first Indian film makers to turn the lens on the imperfections and wonders of village life, Benegal’s rural trilogy beginning with the seminal Ankur in 1974 offered a somewhat radical politicisation of rural cultural values. In many ways, Sadgati should be viewed as a reply by Ray to his contemporaries at such a particular moment in time, proving quite brilliantly that polemicizing such political discourse did not necessarily equate to great storytelling and cinema. I got the distinct impression whilst watching Sadgati that Ray was inadvertently responding to the directors of New Indian Cinema as if to articulate his own vehemently angry and outspoken ideological position on the politics of rural India. Ray had originally intended to make a documentary on the issue of child labour but was met with opposition from the government which was trying to actively discourage and effectively prevent film makers from representing such deeply important social issues like poverty on screen. Sadgati was a response, small scale though, to such critics alike and the fact it was filmed in Hindi for a television audience seemed to suggest Ray was reaching out to a much bigger audience. Interestingly, all three of the main leads including Om Puri, Smita Patil and Mohan Agashe were all regular collaborators with Shyam Benegal and their collective presence offers a concrete link to such cinema. Ray takes a very visible observational approach to the action and the camera rarely moves, resulting in a stillness that complements the slow and at times languid pace of village life. Sadgati is available on DVD in the UK as part of a 3 DVD set released by Artificial Eye.

GIU LA TESTA / DUCK, YOU SUCKER! (Dir. Sergio Leone, 1971, Italy) - Once Upon A Time...In The Revolution

2011-04-25T11:49:00.000-07:00

Christopher Frayling who appears to be the singular academic authority on the cinema of Sergio Leone has been relentless in his quest to promote the film maker to the echelons of great directors. The Dollars trilogy were some of the first films I came across on late night television especially The Good, The Bad and The Ugly which was shown on the now deceased BBC2 Moviedrome show fronted by the legend that is Alex Cox. Thankfully all of Leone’s films have now been restored back to their original length. Whilst the relatively few films he managed to direct are all revered today, the one that seems to stick out and which continues to be overlooked is the 1971 Zapata western Giu La Testa which was released in America under the absurd title of Duck, You Sucker!. Whilst today the film seems to go by the more marketing friendly title of A Fistful of Dynamite (an attempt to cash in on the success of the Dollars films), the film was released in France under the title of Once Upon a Time In The Revolution. Not only does the French title for the film allow us to position the film as part of another trilogy including The West and America, it seems more appropriate given the film’s content is highly politicised as it takes place during the time of the Mexican revolution. Frayling remarks that the French title was coined specifically to cash in on the leftist radical politics of Europe during the late 60s. Giu La Testa is by far Leone’s most political work and really should be viewed as a precursor to many of the themes he would go on to explore in his magnum opus Once Upon a Time in America. Leone’s team of regular collaborators including both scriptwriter Sergio Donati and composer Ennio Morricone contributions should not be overlooked.

Aesthetically and visually Leone seemed to come of age with Once Upon a Time in the West but it was with Giu La Testa he really formulated and offered his strongest ideological point of view to date. Dealing with the politics of revolution, Leone presents us with a political ideal that is both ugly and treacherous whilst the class struggle remains visible as ever. Whilst Juan Miranda (Rod Steiger) is somewhat sceptical of revolutionary politics, his interests rest solely in robbing a bank and when he meets a dynamite expert and on the run IRA terrorist John Mallory (James Coburn), Miranda sees an opportunity for easy money that invokes the chaotic spirit of Tuco (Eli Wallach) from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. Many have labelled this as a comical western which may in fact be reworded as a political satire on the failed politics of the 68 generation. Miranda’s deliberate distancing from the duplicity and lies of revolution gradually lead to his political reawakening and eventual reconstitution as a nullified yet committed believer in the cause. If Mallory’s death at the end acts as a final statement on the use of violence in extending the political cause and challenging the status quo then the freeze frame on Miranda’s traumatic expression reveals an authorial and very personal rejection of radical revolutionary politics.

UDAAN / FLIGHT (Dir. Vikramaditya Motwa, 2010, India) - Breaking Away

2011-04-24T03:44:00.000-07:00

Most of the comings of age melodramas originating from Indian cinema have tended to have any emotional discourse corrupted by all manners of cinematic hyperbole. This gamut of unpleasant exaggerations have included parents as one dimensional caricatures, the urgency to equate adolescence with sexuality – resulting in the traditional and deliberately overplayed falling in love scenario which leads to an illogical series of song and dance sequences, the need to overpopulate complex emotional situations with too many characters, the derisory notion that comic relief is enough of a presence to sustain the argument for entertainment value and lastly and most importantly, the financially motivated presence of stars who bring with them potentially disruptive star baggage and connotations. Like Ishqiya, Udaan is yet another directorial debut and it is surprisingly assured in many ways. The director Vikramaditya Motwa has worked previously before as a scriptwriter and assistant to both Sanjay Leela Bhansali and Anurag Kashyap who also shares a credit as producer and co-writer. Whilst songs are included, they are not signposted in any particular way except for perhaps the final one which is when the film suddenly spills over into sentimental celebrations. Udaan is a coming of age film, thankfully rejecting many of the traits I have outlined above and allowing the narrative to deal strictly with the intelligently depicted relationship between Rohan, a teenage boy, and his abusive and controlling father. When Rohan is expelled from a prestigious boarding school in Simla, his return back home leads him on a journey to discover what exactly he wants from life. At first Rohan’s father comes across as the typical patriarchal disciplinarian with a fixation for rules and authority but their fractured relationship eventually reveals a man who cannot love anymore and who views his two son’s as a burden rather than a lifelong embrace.

It’s not hard to determine what exactly makes Udaan work well as a film – a good, solid script with strong characterisation. If we were to come across a character like Rohan, played brilliantly by the relative newcomer Rajat Barmecha, in another mainstream Indian film then he would be lacking the inner life and psychological depth needed for us to experience and attempt to understand the confusions brought upon by adolescence. Additionally, by giving Rohan aspirations to become a writer, it gives the film an added literary weight and makes the conflict between arts and engineering much more charged, thus constructing a kind of battleground on which we witness an ideological clash between the values of tradition and the iconoclast reverberations of youthful creation. Critically Udaan was well received upon its release and has won many awards though most of those are invalidated by the sheer sham of Indian film award events and ceremonies. Whilst Rajat Barmecha is the main lead and gives a compelling performance, he is equally well supported by two of India's most prominent TV actors - Ronit Roy and Ram Kapoor. I think this was a wise casting decision because star baggage would have simply distracted from the thoughtful narrative and characterisation. Udaan is a fantastic youth film with a universal morality at work; it’s hard not to like.

ISHQIYA (Dir. Abhishek Chaubey, 2010, India) - Rural Noir

2011-04-22T17:12:00.000-07:00

It’s hard to believe that this is director Abhishek Chaubey’s debut given the confidence, maturity and assurance with which he handles the material. Chaubey’s emergence has been under the tutorage of Vishal Bhardwaj, a film maker who like his contemporary Anurag Kashyap is not afraid of blurring genres and mixing visual styles whilst grinning mischievously and rubbing his hands with glee. A lot of the energy and zeal generated by Ishqiya comes largely from the chance to send up many of the often redundant values and conventions of mainstream Hindi cinema. Firstly, our heroes played by Naseeruddin Shah and Arshad Warsi are certainly not heroes as they fumble through life and rely foolishly on a streak of duplicity familiar from the universe of film noir. Secondly, the love interest is neither loving nor interested in dancing as a spectacle for the men around her. Instead Krishna played by vampishly by Vidya Balan is neither a femme fatale nor a symbol of innocence – she merely wants an explanation from her deceased husband. Thirdly, like all great femme fatales before her, Krishna’s sexuality is manipulation but in this case it leads to the formation of a love triangle in which affections are transferred into a friendship. Finally, by situating the story in the geographical context of the rural village, Chaubey explicitly draws on influences ranging from Shyam Benegal to Satyajit Ray. However, what makes this such a memorable and imaginative experience is the enduring nature of the characters which are imbued with a real affection – the three main leads deliver exceptional performances and whilst the denouement is a little predictable, the camaraderie forged between them clearly leaves it open for a sequel that for once might actually be justified. It is worth mentioning that Ishqiya also benefits immensely from a terrific soundtrack including one of the most melancholic Indian songs of recent years – the Gulzar penned ‘Dil Toh Bachcha Hai Ji’. In terms of narrative interruptions, it really works a treat. Everything else about the film including the editing, cinematography and sound design is spot on. I have no idea why I didn't come to this one earlier but I know I will return to it again soon.