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4 months, 3 weeks, 2 days- a lesson learnt
P.S.- the following post contins spoilers..
it was a late call by shahnab on sudhir mishra’s behalf that screwed my next night.. was at fun at nine sharp with my sfx supervisor David.. the movie unfolded..
grainy colored images of a dorm room and a girl next to the window, trying to clean up her table, talking to someone offscreen, taking off the plastic table cover, because she is going to need it.. for what, we don’t know yet.. we see another girl that she has been talking to.. they are tense, scared.. its an unfamiliar world.. one girl walks out of the room into the corridor to get something.. in first five minutes the poverty of the times in Romania comes through.. you are wondering what’s happening.. the girl is buying stuff from a guy in a room , lux soaps and what not , and he also throws in a chewing gum for free.. what’s strange is this buying and selling goes on with no exchange of money.. you are really wondering.. i mean i am..
i know the background, the film is set during the communist regime in the country, strict laws and all, but this.. the girl finds out that she has to confirm a hotel booking and that someone, who she is gonna deal with smokes KENT.. no one sells or has that brand of smokes.. she tends to a cat, she finds milk powder for the cat etc and you still are intrigued as to what is happening.. strange energy in the frames, angst on the actor’s face and also the general resilience.. long takes.. incredible real conversations.. camera stays where it is put as if someone has forgotten it there..
next you see the girl leaving and getting on a bus .. where the ticket inspectors climb on.. and you see the girl keeps moving ahead in sync with the inspectors, only a little ahead asking people if they have an extra ticket, till she finds one and saves her skin.. she enters a hospital/medical school like space to meet and borrow money from her boyfriend who is more well dressed than she is.. she promises to return the money in sometime and also tells him that she might not be able to make it for his mother’s brthday party..why? we don’t know.. so far i am intrigued because of that girl.. the lead performer.. the way the long takes keep holding.. the way conversations flow.. but i am not getting it..
and then it starts to unravel.. her desperation in trying to get the hotel room, her reaction to the room tarriff, her asking her friend to come and check in, her meeting a strange man in a scary remote corner of the city, the suspicious man known as bebe, bebe’s suspicion and fear of her, she could be lying about who she is.. wooah i am bloody intrigued.. where is christian muingu taking me..
well he is just reflecting on the times of the regime from the point of view of its subjects.. in Romania, abortion was a punishable offense, the man caught doing it could go in for three to ten years.. a woman undergoing it could also be punished.. one could very well call the film a thriller.. one quack, one heavily pregnant woman(beyond the recommended abortion time limit), and the abettor, accomplice in the crime.. it felt like three bank robbers planning and pulling off a heist.. and then trying to get rid of the evidence, THE FOETUS.. can’t bury it, because the dog might dig it up.. cleaning up the crime scene.. that’s the evidence of the abortion.. the pay off.. the accomplice sleeping with the executor, because she doesn’t have enough money to pay.. sad and pathetic face of humanity.. people trying to survive, to be rid of unwanted pregnancy, look so guilty as if they are planning a coup.. the angst.. the experience that forces the accomplice to question her own relationship with her boyfriend, her fears of him coming inside her, his judgemental and happily drunk family.. the film drills into you. it makes you look within and makes you realise how inconsequential we can be in our daily existence..
one sequence where the girl is trying to get rid of the foetus.. hidden in her purse, with dogs barking in the streets, cars passing by, one long handheld scene.. doesn’t leave you..
the dinner table conversations , that goes on for ten minutes or more without the camera moving is so bloody effective, that you can’t take your eyes off the screen.. well makes me wonder why we can’t make films as effective as the one i saw with all the jimmy jibs and panther dolly’s et al.. well there is a lot we need to look into..
we are at cannes everyyear making a joke of ourselves and i don’t know how many really watch a film.. this film forced me to look at a lot of things.. how our everyday existence could have a story that can be an effective film but do we look around us, outside us or with in.. no.. NO.. do we write such interestig conversations.. NO.. we write dialogues, we are obsessed with dialogues, we don’t write or appreciate conversations.. we don’t have patience.. we don’t look through the camera, we look at it.. we look at how it is kept and how it moves.. we don’t see what the camera sees.. our subjects are not subjects they are stars.. we look up to them and not observe them.. our actors act and overact but they never are, they just can’t BE..
the film that i saw, i was told was only the second film of the filmmaker.. his film tells me about his country, about his history, and he stands within the mileu of his cinema..and yet he is universal.. 4 months, 3 weeks, 2 days is triumph of cinema.. effective, honest, powerful and thrilling.. it shames you, bothers you ..
it made me relook at lot of aspects of filmmaking, i normally don’t look at.. and i can say against what is normally said in defense of bollywood not making it internationally, is that, we can’t till our cinema doesn’t represent us and us doesn’t mean our nautanki, our recreational fillums .. our bollywood cinema can be best described as “the cinema we like to watch and are used to” .. where as there cinema is either about them or their point of view.. it can be an endless debate that is screaming out to happen.. so lets look at them so that we can learn to look at ourselves..
P.S. somebody pl find a link to the film , its actors name and general info and post it here..
53 Responses to “4 months, 3 weeks, 2 days- a lesson learnt”
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Anurag
Isnt this the same one which won the top award in Cannes…
This is the website…
http://www.4months3weeksand2days.com/
And this has info on the movie -
http://www.festival-cannes.fr/index.php/en/archives/film/4427638
Link to the movie on IMDB
Here’s the link to IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1032846/
awesome rating: 8.8/10
Cast:
Adi Carauleanu
Luminita Gheorghiu
Vlad Ivanov
Anamaria Marinca … Otilia
Alexandru Potocean
Laura Vasiliu … Gabita
Looking forward to watch this movie….
And here’s a clip.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbAYPt1mpgI
Not sure how you embed it into the post.
Been craving to watch this film after all I have heard about it. You guys in Bombay are so lucky to have the opportunity to watch this. So many people who were in Cannes with a pass could not watch most of the in-competition films. Here’s hoping it’s brought to the US soon. Thanks for the post.
This is exactly what I have a problem with most of my friends. They always defend our films in the name of our great tradition of “nautanki” & naanch gaana. Our films are not about our experiences. Most of them are from the other films we have watched.
I was starting a screenplay 2 years back & wrote what i thought was exactly how real conversation would happen. Showed it to someone & got a big lecture on how screenplays should always have something going on that moves the story.
‘What are your characters talking about OLD MONK for 5 minutes? It has nothing to do with the story.’
‘Because thats what you & I do motherfucker.’
I’m so not with this whole theory of every fucking thing moving the story.
I just want to observe.
Anyways good post.
*********
Last Film - SOPRANOS Season 4
Next film tonite -Paris, je t’aime
Music - GROOVESALAD @ http://www.somafm.com
Book - BLITZ by Ken Buren
Now have to watch this movie…
Anurag!!!
There is another film from a chinese director Yimou Zhang called NOT ONE LESS.
I would say i have never seen such an honest movie.. the movie tells us about chinese poverty.. their culture and yet it is honest to the core…
Story–
It is a story about a teacher in a poor village who goes to find out her student who was sent by his parents to city because of lack of money !!!
The way climax sequence was written, it seemed that, actually this could have happened
Thanks AK, thanks a lot. If possible please let us know the release date.
Wonderful observation why can
Anurag sir,
Your description got me into visuals of the film. As we had briefly talked how our so called Bollywood and Hollywood are just average compared to best of world cinema. This was just after I had attended the MAMI fest. I was sow moved by the experience that I am still in the same freaking frame of mind. PFCians had kind of similar discussion at another blog written by Vijay:-
http://passionforcinema.com/the-asians-are-coming-the-asians-are-coming/
My behind the scene discussion on the same line became an unintentional personal matter, for which I preferred to remain silent.
The sad part is the people who have the big bucks to produce don’t have the similar sensibilities. Makes me wonder how many producers would have the patience of sitting through the entire film. Even if they do sit, wud they truly appreciate what they watched.
May be we should hold a festival showing the best of world cinema and make all the producers watch it compulsory. Kuch to assar hoga. Atleast they would have a realisation and not write off a potentially brilliant concept:)
our films - its “entertain”ment. it should entertain no matter what. Even munnabhai does so. And abortion problem - r u mad. it cant be entertainemnt. n this mideless entertainemnt rarely engages.
thier films - its “engage”ment. the stories should engage u. there entertainemnt can be part of this “engage”ment.
nirash na hon.aisi filmen banegi,lekin use bahar se aaya naya director hi banayega,chopra,johar etc to safe filmen banakar business karne mein lage hain.behtar actor,apne samaj ki kahani aur ssntulit kharch…yeh formula ho sakta hai.
Dear Anurag,
I write to you on this forum simply because I couldn’t find any other way of getting in touch with you. Could I please have an email id or a phone number on which I could call you? Regarding working with you.
Thanks.
Kartick
One of the statements from the director of the movie 4 months, 3 weeks, 2 days was,
“It’s good news for the small film from the small country, you don’t necessarily need a big budget and big stars.”
I find this statement fascinating because it means that it is not just an Indian problem about all things Big, instead it is common knowledge that Big stars and Big budget means big win that the film has in the filmmakers own words managed to defy.
Another thing a find interesting is that right after winning, he accused of Plagiarism, by a
writer named Mihu. Apparently, Mihu had a similar subject that she enlisted in a screenplay contest organized by HBO Romania
http://english.hotnews.ro/Palme-d‘Or-director-Cristian-Mungiu-accused-of-plagiarism-articol_45098.htm
Romania a small country? How come they have a special screenplay contest at HBO Romania? We in (wanna be) world superpower India only get special SnakeFest movie festival that show Boa vs King Cobra part 1,2,3
didn’t know about the plagiarism issue..
well, what to say
According to Indian film logic, the only thing coming out of Romania is Dracula movies and its various versions, Dracula musicals, Dracula family drama, Dracula action movie, Dracula soap opera and Dracula porn. I tell you these Romanian people are going against business logic and their own rich cultural heritage also.
Maybe the big bad Hollywood studio stopped them from making profits from the undead man and instead they decided to make a movie about unborn baby.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1571560.stm
Dracula must be turning in his daytime grave after this win.
Anurag ji
aisay mamlow may kaha bi kya ja sakta hai
It can be true or it can all be a hoax, either way what does an Indian care.
However, how about your opinion as a moviemaker and a cinefanatic.
Here is the writers website.
http://mihu.moonfruit.com/
In the award section he says
In 2006, he won the HBO “best feature film script” award, for To love and to flush,
awarded during the TIFF’s (Transilvania Film Festival) 6th edition
Naam say toh abortion lagta hai topic script ka.
And the news report says Mungiu was among the jury for that competition.
hmmm…quite an intresting post but surely repetative if we give it a thought because these are first few thoughts which always hits our mind every time we see a great piece of cinema. I personally feel our film industry people have become good communicators(obviously because of the corporatisation) and good pr acivity people rather han good film makers. Mediocrity is what we have been aiming at and mediocrity is what we have been achieving for a long time. Though there are definately decent piece of work which comes up sometime. Thankfully it has been quite easy to lay your hands on great movies from different parts of the world during last few years and obviously every dumb fuck like me loves throwing names and show much how much knowledge about cinema one has(though there is none) and thats where the problem starts. Look at our last year hits :
lage raho munnabhai - too much noise about the film but there is nothing deeper to touch that chord in our hearts at the end of the day i turns out to be well packaged humourous class 8 social science book(though i have no clue what exactly they teach-but hope you read btw he lines).
Omkara- really well told story ..lacks somwhere in the ending but still a good attempt. All these shakespeare re makes always fall flat universally because there have been quite a lot of it.
Rang de basanti - made me laugh..good acting..but the stupidest ending i have seen in recent times(i know lot of you have already started thinking of back firing )..actually it seemed like the easy way out for the director after he worked on some 15 different endings. But look at the movie closely it is filled with the stereotypes taken from society in which case its not hard to relate to them and the stupid ending with good music makes us feel extremly patriotic(even i felt it terribly for next 30mins).
I read Mr.Sudhir Mishra post about how the whole film making etc is like a football, every director gets a chance to hit the ball once or twice and then he goes on to say that scorcese got the ball(obviously he is referring to taxi driver)though i agree taxi driver is the most beautifully written script paul schrader actually seemed like lived through the movie during the writing process. But given the same script can we actually create(though i can’t be extremely objective) a piece like that …the frames,shots, the mood(that is one thing which is just not there in our films ..japenese are genius in creating the mood..they are slow but after some time it grows on you) and to put the reality as beautifully as Bresson or scorcese(see i started using big names - i feel better now)..no chance because we lack the vision and we love glorifying things..we try to hard to be noticed..I can’t speak about our regional films directors because i have very little knowledge.
“Every film maker needs to have a world view” in the words of Mani Kaul though i still can’t define it and i don’t understand a lot of things that he says but he makes sense from few things i have heard or read.
Or the best thing would be to buy a dvd of ajantrik by Ritwik ghatak because it is as universal a movie can ever get and we start to question ourselves..good news is atleast anurag have started doing so its not that bad..But i hope it just goes beyond asking questioning oneself…
P.s - I would love to hear your comments… if i sounded like an old haggard cynical unsuccesfull film maker struggling to find a producer..obviously i am not
answers are difficult to find.. i keep questioning myself because it makes me feel that atleast i am keeping on the right road, hopefully..
yes i react , will do so in a while
Re: Nitin baid’s post..
“obviously every dumb fuck like me loves throwing names and show much how much knowledge about cinema one has(though there is none)”
I do the same without realizing why I was actually doing it…really thanks !!!
Phoenixnu, you have a point about engaging stories vs entertaining stories. And good cinema emerges with a blend of both, though not necessarily.But one can’t overlook the story. In our country it is an ongoing discussion as to who comes first: story or the star. Till we develop this conviction that story is the star and then depict it with all the chutzpah and sincerety,lets forget our presence in international festivals and keep living in a delusion. The problem is who will bell the cat when everyone from producer,director,writer, distributor is a fatcat himself. Egos seeped in ignorance or over-intelligence, Bollywood at present is not geared up to take on international cinema. Till that happens lets appreciate and admire what is happening around the world. At least we have a talent pool that can spot a diamond when it sees one. And there lies our hope.
Paris, je t’aime.
Saw it last night. Its great.
It has 18 short films made by some of the best filmmakers of the world about Paris. Gurinder Chaddha also also made one. Alfonso Cuaron, Wes Craven, Alexander Payne(the best), Christopher Doyle, Tom Tykwer, Gus VAn Sant, Coen Brothers, Walter Salles to name a few of them. Very highly reccomended. The short by Alexander Payne is just worth the money. Even Gurinder Chaddha redeems herself with a very simple short.
********
Last film watched : Paris, je t
There was a great discussion on an earlier thread (was it Sympathies for Mr.Filmaker?) about how you can’t expect alot from our filmmakers in terms of depicting “real life” because they themselves haven’t really experienced it.
How can you show the cruel realities forced upon the middleclass/lower middleclass/working class when you yourself (nor your producers/actors and in many cases writers) have not SEEN it or LIVED THROUGH IT first hand??
So they make what they know. The big mansions, travelling to foreign lands, the fantasies… they don’t REFLECT upon life, rather they mimick it…
This is why our films seem to shelter us from realities rather than face them…
well we can see now panorama.. as soon as common ppl perceive real cinema, which is now assessable through many film festivals in even small towns as Kanpur, jaipur, Patna, Lucknow…apart from metros
Only Mani Ratnam can make a sensible movie. but Realistic movies do not have commercial viability.
sometimes,we do learn lessons from cinema…i was living a very normal life,the only aberration being a not-so-normal wish to make movies,to see my own creativity on screen…i wanted to write them,direct them,edit them…and so i wrote scripts…used a good screen-writing software and just let my thoughts flow…and then i saw United 93,and something happened…my 1st reaction was to format my hard-drive…suddenly,what i had written earlier,what i once loved,seemed highly irrelevant and at times,utter crap… the next thing i did was to go on a movie hunt…movies that i really wanted to see…then i saw some more movies…thank you for smoking,no man’s land,otto e mezzo,rashomon,black friday,the king of comedy,rear window,omkara,wild strawberries…many more…i dont know what it is about certain films…as far as i can see,there is no real common thread running between the films i mentioned… but when i sit and think,think about how we are as humans,and then watch cinema,i just feel stupid at times…i dont know what it is about the medium of cinema,but somewhere in some dark recess of my head,i think i can do something with it,and for it…its sheer power,the enormity of calm one can find in its complex simplicity and simple complexity please me and boggle my mind at the same time
Spoilers or no spoilers, this is just the kind of sharing of observation needed on a forum like this.
Very motivating and thought provoking…thanks Anurag.
Gayatri
Hey what happened to the comment I posted? Why was it deleted?
I am seriously stumped! I just posted a comment somewhere (really searching for it) and it just vanished! No Admin warning or anything…just vamoosh! I just wrote about an article on a website that says one of the writers of Fool N Final was Anurag Kashyap! Can someone trace my comment back??!!
before posting, just a disclaimer, i have realised after writing that this is pretty unconnected to most of the post directly but just that we keep harping about ‘realistic cinema’ has made me comment this…
i think, we(most people here at PFC and probably in general too) stress too much on realistic movies… i dont think that it is necessary for a movie to be that realistic… i mean, it just has to have a good storyline and sensible reactions from the characters… i dont really think that Donnie Darko/Fight Club/Matrix are the most realistic movies… they just are supercool concepts, supercool ideas… so, my point is that an idea need not necessarily by feasible/possible in real world, but shld probably have actors reacting as normal people would(or probably, as per the characters they are portraying)… its just that probably we need to be more political(as in propose different political philosophies, whatever they maybe - (anarchy/dictatorship) or philosophical (agnosticism/parallel universe/quantum mechanics predictions) basically just grow out of that romantic fixation…
For that it is not necessary for a middle class realistic person to come up with the idea… i think it just needs a creative person to come up with it…i think we need a few mindfucking movies really rather than anything else WHICH HAVE TO EARN $$$ or Rs.Rs.Rs. :d - else its a waste as no one would probably wanna cash in on that new formula now…
heck i am sounding as just one of those know-all jerks who pretend to know everything and keep advising everyone… i might actually be one :-?
Hi Anurag, Is Ayesha Takia playing a reporter in your film “No Smoking”?
Anurag - A question for you - each and every undiscovered, upcoming, or established filmmaker, writer, behind the scenes person you write about is a man(except for mentioning one film by a female director “Water” which was only in the context of you having written the dialogues). Is it because you only relate to men in the industry or you think no female matches up to the task?
rbehemoth - I think your dead on with your points. As moviegoers we’re willing and able to suspend our disbelief, as long as its “plausible”, and as long as we’re not being fed bullshit.
MK - This Buds for you…
Interview with director Ahmed Khan from IndiaFM where he was asked:
Neeraj Vora and Anurag Kashyap coming together for the script. Quite an odd combination, don’t you think?
Anurag started the film and then Neeraj covered over it. Then I had Abbas and Umesh who did the film. The first draft was written by Anurag and then I needed to commercialize the film with comic fill. So we roped in Neeraj and finally it was completed by Abbas Herapurwala and Umesh Shukla. They spiked the ideas of dialogues and gags and that’s how the film was made.
Anurag-ji, we’d love to hear your side of this story…
Opened today
@Vinayak! That is hilarious brother. Just saw it. Page 52!
Can you please share the link
Can’t coz you have to sign in. Go to epaper.timesofindia.com and sign in, and select the Delhi edition from the drop down menu when it asks you which paper you want to see. Navigate to page 52
ohhok Vijay..thanks for the info
Tony Mera Naam:
What Ahmed Khan really meant was, “Anurag wrote a sensible script and we wanted Neeraj Vohra to fuck it up and make it trash! My producer Nadiadwala doesn’t have enuf brains to understand a good script so we needed it to de-brainify it”
haha…
RIP - Good Hindi Cinema
Anurag
here is a link to Nigel Andrews’ June 2/3 FT article on Cristian’s win at Cannes ['Films shot after 1989 were full of anger...." :
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/8fefc228-1039-11dc-96d3-000b5df10621.html
I absolutely loved The Death of Mr Lazarescu [ Cristi Puiu ] , have yet to watch California Dreamin’ that Cristian Mungiu mentions…..
K2
Could someone PLEASE
do a writeup on ‘ON THE LOT’
http://www.thelot.com/contestants/
REALITY SHOW on FILMMAKING…
(by STEVEN SPIELBERG)
SHALINI KANTAYYA - She is in top 15…
http://www.thelot.com/contestants/view/?id=14
I dont have the login here, else I would have done that.
JMD - Manan Singh KATOHORA
I am afraid Anuraag Kashyap may have learnt the wrong lesson. His types always do. They are quick to borrow western sensibilities. Now, everyone will be running around with cameras to shoot foetuses and mounds of designer shit to make great films that can find a place in the official programme of Cannes and Sundance and can shock Indian audiences with their borrowed avant-garde style. We may see a spate of inspired
manan, on the lot is also a reality check… they invite films from all around the world, get their record 12000 entries and there, you have the show - all american, all caucasian participants with a couple of 2nd/3rd gen american non-caucasians and one european thrown in for good measure. everything about that show stinks and there’s not much to discuss about it! whooo…. i had it to say this somewhere…. :-\”
@RKS
Its all about educating urself .. it doesnt matter from where u get that .. it can be Romanian, Iranian ,Italian or Indian or any other country’s movie as long as u r getting something from it. The makers of all those hindi movies u mentioned in ur post must have watched their contemporary foreign movies. We should encourage those filmakers who are in quest of telling good stories and should not discourage those for mere get inspired by foreign movies as long as they r not copying those movies. U r rite that in the name of inspiration there r lots of “inspired” film-makers rooming around and making nothing more than shit. But i m sure that a lot of genuine guys are there too .. and we should not discourage them.
Lets be hopefull :)
..Paanch
Hey AK, chk out the fuck up of DNA newspaper.
They hv credited ‘No Smoking’ to Anurag Basu.
http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1102762
Really confused….
NO Smoking is directed by Anurag Basu or Anurag Kashyap………
Visit the following link, it is directed by Anurag Basu…..hahaha…….
http://hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=65061cb3-ddfa-43ef-9aa0-a752b92db410&&Headline=John+Abraham+dares+to+be+different
:d
not only them. i think its an IANS syndicated story. nowrunning.com runs it also.
8-|
The HT new report names the source as
Subhash K Jha, Indo-Asian News Service
So I think, is that the revenge of the Xerox machine?
I read carefully, but didn
Hi, kinda off topic…but can anyone tell me where I can find a copy of Om Darbadar?
arre bhai dilip kumar…no smoking is directed b Anurag Kashap sir..okay…keep it mind for infinite time and dont forget it dude!