14th Kolkata Film Festival – Day 2
iView Author: Sulakshana Biswas (Kolkata, India)
Email: pottermaniac143 [at] gmail [dot] com
The second day of the Kolkata Film Festival had even more impressive films lined up. A few of them which I saw:
The Awakening(2007)
Director: Stanislav Lebedev
Language: Russian
The tale of growing up was always a tremendous stimulus for filmmakers to capture the most beautiful phase of life, in their signature mise-en-scene format. Stanislav Lebedev, in his directorial debut, unerringly maps the palpable energy that the pulsating vibrancy of adolescence offers. Amazing performances by Yuri Kuznetsov, Valya Zeyfer and Era Ziganshina make the brilliantly scripted film so real. The nuances are so deceptively simple, so much like the emotions at adolescence. Lovely film. Fell in love with it.
Time (2006)
Director: Kim Ki Duk
Language: Korean
Pretension…something that makes or breaks relationships, is wonderfully personified on-screen by South Korean filmmaker, Kim Ki Duk, in his psychological tour de force, Time. Cosmetic surgery, takes up the metaphorical form of pretension, a supposedly aiding device for a woman who tries to better and excite her romantic relationship, not realizing that, the more she tries to touch up spilt milk bottles, the more does she gets entangled in the deadly web called failure. Kim Ki Duk, brings in a bit of avant-garde, in the last scene, which amazingly sums up what the whole movie says. It’s a brilliant scene. Ji-Yeon Park deserves special mention as the troubled She-hee.
Charles, Dead Or Alive (1969)
Director: Alain Tanner
Language: French
Charles D'©, a Swiss-watch tycoon, makes his Roman Holiday-ish escapade from his disgustingly, smooth, posh and comfortable life-style to get a taste of the world that he had always been told to ignore. Alain Tanner’s portrayal, of the city pent, the proletariat milieu, and the creation of innocence present in a man, where it’s least likely to be found, is highly commendable. Fran'§ois Simon is impeccable as Charles. Marcel Robert deserves special mention too. It’s a lovely film.
Lemon Tree (2008)
Director: Eran Riklis
Language: Arabic/ Hebrew
A widow’s quest, as she seeks justice, fighting the authorities in power, defending her inheritance of loss, forms the basic premise of Eran Riklis’s Lemon Tree. A Palestinian woman suing the Israeli Defence Minister, to save her lemon groove, which had been ordered to be felled as soon as possible, would’ve sounded weird, unless one knew that it was based on a true incident. Technically the film is sound, the performances are great- Hiam Abbass as the rebellious Salma Zidane and Rona Lipaz-Michael as Mrs. Defence Minister are stunning-the pacing is good….yet something was missing….this film had every ingredient added but not properly stirred.
Firaaq (2008)
Director: Nandita Das
Language: Hindi/Urdu/Gujrati
What Parzania failed to deliver, Firaaq did. Firaaq, based on the 2002 Gujarat riots, is an absorbing docu-drama, focusing on the aftermath of the tremor of the nonsensical crusade that strangulated the ever suffering common man, as in the case here, the minority community. Nandita Das makes an impressive debut as a filmmaker and it is very tough to decide, what was better…..the stellar performance by the ensemble cast, or the flawless cinematography, or the beautiful background score or the brilliant script. I can just go on and on. This film is my favorite of the day.
Tags: film festival, Kolkatta Film Festival, World Cinema
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Great going Sulakshana- I am missing out on so much!
@jahan
kyun? tu miss kyun kar raha hai?
aren’t u in kol?
Keep up the good work Sulakshana. chaliye jao.
thanx guys
good job, sulakshana.
recall the days when we were
glued at the festival when at the university.
feels good to see someone so seriously
ensconsed into viewing and revewing films today.
especially at a time when film reviews are
often done by journalists who double up as
fashion reporters when required.
liked ‘firaaq’ last night.
congratulated nandita for about 20 mins
on the phone.
great film. ravi k chndran’s images
were a treat.
so were the balanced screenplay and acting.
guys, watch out for nandita as a director.
she’s going to direct less films
but great ones, i presume.
once again, kudos sulakshana.
thanx Arindam Sir
during college days, we used to line up since early morning to collect the free passes and the film which used to hav gr8 buzz cz of its sexual content used to hav the longest queue ;-))…some films there….nothing can beat nandan….how about a separate post on firaq sulakshna ? u can go on n on…waiting to hear…everyone seems to agree on this one.
Yes Sulakshana, it’ll be nice if you write on Firaaq. Thanks for these mini-updates. Giving me a to-watch list..:-)..Keep it going..
Hi ..
I relish film festivals and relate to the buzz and excitement created to watch new content fresh on the block. there is a purity unexplainable to these films projected. it was such a delight then to have the privillage and get an opportunity to watch them as a student but now with regular chores and jobs on hand, we miss it often too many a times. it will be really nice to know if these films showcased in festivals can also be made available to us on a site like youtube or any other such domain ..
anyone with this gem of information please share
thanks
I am in Kolkata, but can’t miss classes- have very low attendance. Anyway, went to watch 3 Monkeys yesterday- terrible organisation, awful projection and total pandemonium. Was already put off, plus film was excrutiatingly slow- so got bored to death… and dozed off a few times. Guess I need to rewatch this on DVD in a more relaxed atmosphere and in a more patient and less irritable mood.
will post on Firaaq very soon
guys in calcutta… catch ‘firaaq’ for the last time
before it releases on jan 23 at priya cinema, 5 pm.
tickets available @rs70. this is part of festival repeat screening.
‘firaaq’ today, nov 15, 5 pm at priya cinema.
“Stanislav Lebedev, in his directorial debut, unerringly maps the palpable energy that the pulsating vibrancy of adolescence offers.” Wow. Film festivals do inspire some great writing!Time, Carles dead or alive sound interesting. Firaaq, its about time it releases. Have heard a lot about it.