Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
They are showing Iranian movies .. Crimson Gold, The Apple, The Circle, The White Balloon
Yes! Finally we get to watch some of the most profound films made during the last two decades. These are shown by a new channel called World Movies. World movies is available in the cable network in Bangalore.
I just saw Crimson Gold, a film about the social equality in Iran and then of course about the human condition in Iran. The story begins with the protagonist, Hussein, attempting robbery at a Jeweler's that tragically ends with murder of the jeweler and Hussein's suicide. The film then works backwards in time following this with the presentation of a small set of events from Hussein's life. The film ends with the time wrap back to the robbery scene. Everyone can take a piece of it after watching it and it is quite alright if you take the simplest perspective of the film: about the poor pizza delivery man Hussein who got pushed over the edge and attempts to get even. First off all let me remind you that we have heard of numerous such events in our own lives not just in India but in all countries we have been at. The more demanding among us may look back and reflect on all the emotional distress, with roots in social inequality and injustice, that ticked over Hussein to such extents; perhaps Americans or Asians or South Asians or Africans or Middle-easterners or the rest of the world do not differ much from the Iranians; in humiliating the Husseins in their world and in the extent of this humiliation. The film is very rich. If you are looking for classy presentation, there are scenes in the film where the camera is stuck on Hussein's motor cycle while drives around for pizza delivery; the camera runs idle while he contemplates and we get up to speed with the rich presentation. The story was based on an real event and the actors are mostly real people; in fact, Hussein is a pizza delivery man in real life too! And not only that, the intention of the film makers has not been to add sentiments and has not been to tell a story and to not judge the crimes but to show the events from an "as-is" perspective.
Two days ago I was very lucky to have surfed into this channel just around the middle of The Apple. This is a beautiful film that works around the news item about two girls all of 10 years who are "freed" by social workers from their "oppressed" life up until then. The girls have been locked up at home and are not even allowed to play in the yard which again is locked up maybe by a 10 foot door. The girls have an old man of 65 years as their father and a blind woman as their mother. The excuse for locking up is that the old man needs to go out to pray for people's sins all day and as the mother is blind he locks the girls up so that they do not fall into bad company and remain pure until marriage. Well, it does not happen that way, thankfully and the girls get out! And the most beautiful sections of the film, about their coming of age story, begins right about there, with a real time presentation of what they learn about the life in their neighborhood through their interactions with the neighborhood children of their age.
Generally speaking most of these better known Iranian directors do not use sentiment. Also the characters in their films keep emotions in check. The directors also do not judge the actions of the characters and do not comment on their life choices. In effect their works are mainly sharp criticisms on the social order and on the religious restrictions in their country. We get our fill on commenting on the "realism" in the films by these three better known iranian writer/directors. But it must not stop there. We will do better by seeing that they really believe that something is wrong with state of things and are presenting it in their films.
I just saw Crimson Gold, a film about the social equality in Iran and then of course about the human condition in Iran. The story begins with the protagonist, Hussein, attempting robbery at a Jeweler's that tragically ends with murder of the jeweler and Hussein's suicide. The film then works backwards in time following this with the presentation of a small set of events from Hussein's life. The film ends with the time wrap back to the robbery scene. Everyone can take a piece of it after watching it and it is quite alright if you take the simplest perspective of the film: about the poor pizza delivery man Hussein who got pushed over the edge and attempts to get even. First off all let me remind you that we have heard of numerous such events in our own lives not just in India but in all countries we have been at. The more demanding among us may look back and reflect on all the emotional distress, with roots in social inequality and injustice, that ticked over Hussein to such extents; perhaps Americans or Asians or South Asians or Africans or Middle-easterners or the rest of the world do not differ much from the Iranians; in humiliating the Husseins in their world and in the extent of this humiliation. The film is very rich. If you are looking for classy presentation, there are scenes in the film where the camera is stuck on Hussein's motor cycle while drives around for pizza delivery; the camera runs idle while he contemplates and we get up to speed with the rich presentation. The story was based on an real event and the actors are mostly real people; in fact, Hussein is a pizza delivery man in real life too! And not only that, the intention of the film makers has not been to add sentiments and has not been to tell a story and to not judge the crimes but to show the events from an "as-is" perspective.
Two days ago I was very lucky to have surfed into this channel just around the middle of The Apple. This is a beautiful film that works around the news item about two girls all of 10 years who are "freed" by social workers from their "oppressed" life up until then. The girls have been locked up at home and are not even allowed to play in the yard which again is locked up maybe by a 10 foot door. The girls have an old man of 65 years as their father and a blind woman as their mother. The excuse for locking up is that the old man needs to go out to pray for people's sins all day and as the mother is blind he locks the girls up so that they do not fall into bad company and remain pure until marriage. Well, it does not happen that way, thankfully and the girls get out! And the most beautiful sections of the film, about their coming of age story, begins right about there, with a real time presentation of what they learn about the life in their neighborhood through their interactions with the neighborhood children of their age.
Generally speaking most of these better known Iranian directors do not use sentiment. Also the characters in their films keep emotions in check. The directors also do not judge the actions of the characters and do not comment on their life choices. In effect their works are mainly sharp criticisms on the social order and on the religious restrictions in their country. We get our fill on commenting on the "realism" in the films by these three better known iranian writer/directors. But it must not stop there. We will do better by seeing that they really believe that something is wrong with state of things and are presenting it in their films.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Japanese Filmmaker Shohei Imamura's Korei Ame
This is one of most profound films ever made. In fact any film by Shohei Imamura must be classified as among the most profound films. Broadly speaking Imamura must be credited for presenting the notion of "human consciousness" and related topics of "being" throught the silver screen medium.
Friday, September 01, 2006
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