IFFK’08 – Fatih Akin, Takeshi Kitano & Priyadarshan
Kurz und schmerzlos – Short Sharp Shock(1998)
Gabriel, Costa, and Bobby. Three Turkish, Serbian & Greek friends meet again after Gabriel gets out of prison( I could associate this to Spike Lee’s brilliant and lesser talked about 25th Hour). They experience their changing relationship in the darker alleys of Hamburg, Germany. Bobby, the babyface blazer-clad young gangster hopeful has to prove his mettle at in organized crime and treats every chance encounter as a possible link/event to his larger and deeply desired ambition, of gaining the respect that comes with being a gangster, he idolizes Tony Montana. He even has a girlfriend to try all them Scarface girlfriend-bashing scenes with. A rather tough scene where he takes out his girlfriend for a dinner with his immediate boss(an Albanian mafiosa) and mentor here is executed with utmost ease by Akin. The girl and the men are having Italian food, she asks for an introduction, Bobby introduces the man as a brothel owner(or rather he introduces himself) to which Alice gets irked and leaves the dinner table and two men feeling awkward about the sudden reaction.
As for Gabriel, he simply wants to flee this infected land and take off to some quiet beach neighborhood. Bobby is mostly an in-betweeners in all this and we often see these men collide in their pursuits, interests, beliefs and often, their breaking and falling apart love stories, shifting loyalties and all that comes with a vastly engrossing gangster saga.
Fatih Akin gives the film a characteristic touch with a brilliant-as-ever use of music, a camera which is obsessed with faces, an edgy racy flow of events, and most importantly, something above and beyond these tangibles that pull you inside the very world the film is based in. It happened with me in Head On, and it happened today with Short Sharp Shock, I could not detach myself from the film once I fixed my eyes on the screen. The scenes were not the ones I would want to watch really, but Akin is a master at convincing your senses. I can’t wait to watch his music-documentary Crossing the Bridge tomorrow, as I can’t have enough of his fine music treatment, even his highly action-adrenaline-fuelled-urban-angst-ridden stories are so well mounted with some of the best sounds from this part of the world. And it does not end at just selecting A music piece and putting it against a sequence, he twists the sounds, revs them up, mixes them up, slows them down, transcends genres, and never seem to give up on his filmic quest for the perfect depiction. This film has a romantic scene with an equally devastating energy as it has roadside deadly encounters or it has typical male-bonding-drinking-junkying-out-together scenes.
Though the mood was ripe here for another roller-coaster, I somehow felt a little copped-out towards the climax; it suddenly became a tad too mellow and romantic, with too much mellow and romantic music for an Akin film. Yet, this one is too good a debut feature effort and Akin only got better with time. Case in point – Head On.
Takeshi Kitano. Had seen one film of his before, can’t remember the name now. Sid is a resident expert on his cinema. I found Achilles and the Tortoise brilliant, nothing short. A meditative journey of an ‘artist’ – cynical, dry, empty, stoic. The film is like sitting at a cafe early morning, noone wants you there, it is that kind of early. As the characters enter the space slowly stories begin to appear. A young kid and the early tragedy in his life. He reacts through art. He only knows to paint, he is a painting machine. He does not react to the events around him, or does not choose to. One never knows. You only see his paintings, expressions on canvas, colors, landscapes, portraits. For money and shelter, he puts up with repulsive people, sells newspapers, gets thrashed, run around. He draws strange creatures. He grows up, still continues to paint, does a few good impressions, is told ‘where is art in copying?’, you need to learn the art theories and history in a class, impressionism, cubism, the works. So cut to our man in an art school. He is still unreactive, and painting/sketching like a robot. It is now that we see the man in society, in that sense. The college phase consists of some animated events, the kind of bunch you would expect in an art school – eccentrics. It brings you a momentary laugh, as Kitano plays with tragedy and irony in his own inimitable ways.
The final phase consists of the protagonist living a rejected, quiet life with his life partner, his creative companion for life, drawing strange paintings as ever, getting turned down, and accepting it in no time, moving on to one crazy work after the other, crashing cars into canvases, canvases into cars, people and things you never imagines humanly possible. Wrapping himself in a plastic sheet and experimenting with color, water, body. Some art. At this point, you are also introduced to the made for each other couple, their combined art-insanity, their rebellious and unconsenting prostitute daughter.
The film is a different league altogether. You can’t call it a biography for it never agrees to that. You can’t call it normal. It chooses to deviate, and does it beautifully, much like all the paintings that you see in the film. At times, you just stare blankly at the blankness, then it goes back to carving out the character, and there lies the rub, an achievement no less than towering, you are left in the midst of deciding what to feel, what to say, as he burns himself in a bonfire of anything you can imagine. Its surreal. Its human. Its hard to be real. Its Takeshi Kitano.
Kanchivaram is an important film, if you think of Priyadarshan. I mean I am no expert in his cinema, but one can at least say he did this film to get back to form, whatever that means. I approached the film with no doubts in my head, I knew what its gonna have, in terms of essentials – a period look, tales of misery, a troubled hero at loggerheads with life, a factual/political connection, and some characteristic Priyan flourishes. Though the film did end up having few or more of these elements, Priyan did surprise me with his restraint, his belief in keeping it simple yet with an element of dark, keeping some tested elements intact – a running flashback story while the convicted protagonist is being taken on a bus, interplay of lights and shadows, growing old, a stronghold over portraying human relationships against a historical/political backdrop and summing it all so majestically at the end.
Prakash Raj, as Vengadam, the troubled sil-weaver, brings a nice ambiguity in the character that complements Priyan ‘let’s not reveal all’ style, this gives a linear, straight-jacketed, ‘Guru’-kind of feel to the film. The technical team of Thiru, Arun Kumar, Deepan Chatterji create a perfection rarely seen this side of Arabian Sea.
The way the story unfolds, I was taken back to Kaalapani, you don’t want to embrace the film, it never expresses the desire either. It just tags along, with clearly defined intentions, and a solid over-all support system. Then come the flashes of brilliance, Priyan’s lazy masterstrokes- an everyman observer eye look at communism, an individual torn apart between his social identity and family responsibilities, regretting the decisions he made in haste, and living a life of redemption to stand by them.
Priyan detaches you from the technical aspects after establishing them once, almost like a master of puppets, and takes you to what he thinks are more important issues – failed idols, joy in the little sweet nothings of life like hitting a shrub with a pebble and finding happiness in it, a hint at the matriarchal societal structure, a disturbing acceptance of fate, a simmering fit of ambition that slowly builds into a wildfire of sanity, personal pride, self-respect and the price that it comes with, and the very sanctity of life that one aspires of, regardless of the time and space it is based in.
That’s it for now, will be coming up with more, a list of 25 could be great films that I missed. As of now, check out this brilliant analysis and short wrap of the festival films by Shahul.
1. Magician by Ingmar Bergman
Brief synopsis: A travelling magician/healer and his team reach a city where the authorities are trying to expose the team as frauds.
A typical Bergman movie – like most of his stories, this one also takes place over a period of two days, without any flashback. Bergman reuses the same cast he used in most of his movies – Max von Sydow, Gunder Bjornstrand, Bibi Andersson, Ingrid Thulin, etc. The story exposes the hypocrisy of both the magician’s team and the city officials. In the climax there are some interesting twists, of the kind usually seen in a Hitchcock movie rather than a Bergman movie.
2. We are Jazzmen by Karen
Brief synopsis: Few musicians try to promote Jazz in Communist Russia against oppositions from those who consider Jazz as bourgeois.
Had seen some online reviews calling this one a “gem”. Though there were some hilarious moments, I felt that this one did not deserve to be in IFFK.
Favorite dialogue:
“His name is at the tip of my tongue… It has some relation to meat…”
“Is it Porkov?”
3. Kanchivaram by Priyadarshan
Brief synopsis: a weaver of silk sarees wanted to drape his wife in silk on their wedding day, but fails because of economic reasons. When his first daughter is born, he promises that he will gift her a silk saree on her wedding.
After going through many previews and reviews, I was expecting Kanchivaram to be a melodramatic tale of poverty, exploitation, communist movement, etc. But, I ended up watching a true classic. Each and every frame is composed and choreographed brilliantly. The screenplay is excellently crafted. Hats off to Priyadarshan – I don’t know if any other filmmaker in the world can boast of such a range – both Kilukkam to Kanchivaram have been crafted by the same person!
The movie starts two day’s after Gandhiji’s murder, when Vengadam (Prakash Raj) is released from jail on parole for two days. He and two policemen board a bus to Kanchivaram. The movie jumps back and forth between scenes from the bus journey and flashbacks from his past life.
Favorite scene: (contains spoilers) In the flashback we see Vengadam’s wife dying in his hands. In the next shot we see people carrying a dead body. One by one they enter the frame from behind the camera and walk away and away from it. Then we see this crowd crossing the bus in which Vengadam and the policemen are travelling. A really smooth transition from flashback to the main story…
A long description of the movie’s historical premise is displayed at the beginning of the movie. It could have been avoided, as most of that info is weaved into the story at later stages, and as the movie would have been understood and enjoyed even without all that information.
4. Breath by Kim Ki Duk
Brief synopsis: A prisoner, who is in death row for murdering his wife and kids, attempts suicide for a second time. A young lady whose husband has an extramarital affair meets the prisoner and starts a relationship with him.
The fan base Kim Ki Duk has in Kerala is amazing – the queue for Breath was probably the longest in this IFFK. The crowd was so unmanageable that they closed the theatre doors half an hour before the screening, to be reopened only after a lot of discussions. And the movie validated all the rush.
Favorite scene: (contains spoilers) In a computer monitor which displays input from the prison’s surveillance cameras, the young lady and the prisoner are seen making love in the visitor’s room. Then the operator changes the display in the monitor to input from another camera, and we see the lady’s husband and their daughter happily making a snow man in the prison’s courtyard.
5. Yellow House by Amor Hakkar
Synopsis: A young man is killed in an accident. His father drives to town to collect the dead body and takes it to their village. He is also given a video tape with some message from his late son. Back home, the soldier’s mother is unable to cope with the loss. They purchase a TV and VCR to watch the video cassette, only to realize that they cannot use them as there is no electricity at their home. Then they meet the town officials, get electricity, and watch the cassette.
I heard many people praising this movie, and it even won an award. But, I felt nothing attractive in it, and still wonder how this one made it to the competition section.
6. Postcards from Leningrad by Mariana Rondon
Brief synopsis: The story of 1960s’ left upraising in Venezuela is told from a child’s perspective
The movie had an innovative structure, with occasional use of animation and TV footage. While we have seen a dead body doing the narration in Sunset Boulevard, here we have an unborn child narrating events like her parents’ first meeting and her conception. Though the story is told from children’s perspective, there are some scenes of torture and butchering of a pig.
7. Hafez by Abolfazl Jalili
Brief synopsis: A Quran scholar is stripped of his Hafez status when he peeps at the local priest’s daughter while teaching her to recite Quran
To be honest, I was not able to follow much of what happened in this movie.
8. Firaaq by Nandita Das
Brief synopsis: Some survivors adjusts to their new life about a month after the Gujarat riots.
Firaaq was one of the best movies of this IFFK (I would rank it just below Blindness and Kanchivaram). It has a multiplot story, with characters of various storylines occasionally crossing each other’s paths, as in Crash, Babel, Traffic, Yun Hota To Kya Hota, etc. It is similar to Crash in many ways, though less well made than Crash. And the relationship between different plots is not as interesting as in Babel. Still, it is a very food film.
Favorite scene: (contains spoilers) Some background info before coming to the scene proper– a Muslim youth whose house was burnt during the riots plans to revenge, and collects a gun and a bullet with help of his friends. One from the group fires a shot, police hears it, and starts following them. This Muslim youth is followed by a policeman through narrow lanes. In a wide shot, a person standing in the balcony of a big house is seen asking the policeman “who was it?” The police man answers that it was a Muslim. That man happily points to the policeman the way through which the Muslim youth had gone. After some time, the policeman is seen going back, unable to find the Muslim youth.
After some time, the Muslim youth comes out, and stops near that big house to take some rest. In the same wide shot we see the man on the first floor leaving the balcony and going into his house. Someone from the audience commented “He is going to call the Police.” After few seconds he reappears on the balcony, and drops something like a concrete slab to the head of the Muslim youth standing below, instantly killing him.
9. My Marlon and Brando by Huseyin Karabey
Brief synopsis: In the initial days of the US invasion of Iraq, an actress tries to cross Iraq border to meet her lover.
There have been many movies which tried to depict the condition of a country by following someone travelling through it, like Kandahar, Getting Home, etc. There was only one interesting aspect I noticed in My Marlon and Brando – In one of the first scenes the actress receives a video cassette from her boyfriend. We see the video in full screen -it is shot on a handycam, and contains his musings about his love for her. Further into the movie, whenever the couple talks over phone, the guy’s part is shown as if he is speaking to the handycam.
I was able to guess the climax about 30 minutes into the film (and I assume you have guessed it already)
10. The Photograph by Nan T Achnas
Brief synopsis: A struggling prostitute and a widowed photographer get close to each other
Another good movie from this IFFK. A theme that could have easily slipped to clich'©s and melodrama was handled in a subtle way, with magnificent cinematography and background score adding to the magic.
11. Short Sharp Shock Turk by Akin
Brief synopsis: a story of three friends, their crimes and their girlfriends
This one was like one of those commercial Hindi movies. I don’t know why they chose it for IFFK.
Favorite dialogue: (contains spoiler) The movie has a good last line. As one of lead characters is in his home preparing to leave the country after a murder, his father invites him to join him in the prayers, saying: “Like every film, every life is also going to end.”
12. Blindness by Fernando Meirelles
Brief synopsis: A city goes blind.
In last year’s IFFK I was enthralled by Sleepwalking Land. This time I was expecting more movies of that standard, but only Blindness came close. The director of City of God has come out with another magnificent work of cinema. The way Memento puts us in the protagonist’s shoes by saying the story from end to beginning, Blindness puts us in the blind men’s position by using faded, out of focus, black and white, under lit or over lit shots most of the time.
Blindness is based on a novel by Nobel laureate Saramago.
13. Dreams of Dust by Laurent Salgues
Brief synopsis: Mocktar joins a desert gold mine in another country to escape from the grief of his daughter’s death.
This one was another disappointment. Those who have not seen Woman of the Dunes or Lawrence of Arabia may feel that this movie has excellent shots of the desert.
In one scene, the gold miners are seen watching television – and on the screen there is the song “Chalte Chalte” from Pakeeza.
14. Farewell, Gulsary by Ardak Amirkulov
Brief synopsis: A story about the ill effects of “nationalization” of agriculture by Stalin, told through the relationship between a communist party member and his beloved horse.
This movie uses an interesting perspective to deal with a political issue, and clearly succeeds in it.
15. Machan Dir: Uberto Pasolini
Brief synopsis: Few unemployed Sri Lankan youth masquerade as National Handball Team to enter Germany.
A really hilarious movie, which rightly won the Audience Choice award. It is interesting to note that the movie was made by a director from Italy.
Favorite scene: when the “National Handball Team” is learning the rules of handball, a Police jeep approaches and stops near the ground. One “player” mutters that we are going to end up in jail instead of Germany. Two policemen get out of the jeep, one whispers to the other that “these are the suspects”. Upon reaching the anxious players the policemen take out their own passports and visa applications, handle them over to the players, and join the “team”!
16. Tokyo Sonata by Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Brief synopsis: Four members of a Japanese family cope after the father/husband lose his job due to outsourcing.
The father/husband hides the news of job loss from the family, and after trying to get another good job and eating free lunch from a charity for many days, joins as a sweeper in a super market. The elder son joins US army. The younger son diverts his lunch money and flunks classes to attend a piano school. The mother goes on a ride in her dream car with a thief and spends a night with him in a beach.
One of the good movies from this IFFK. Though it is based on the usual-festival-movie-theme of the ill effects of globalization, the story was developed and told in an interesting way. The mother’s subplot was a treat to watch.
This movie had won Jury Award in Cannes.
17. Two Legged Horse by Samira Makhmalbaf
Brief synopsis: A boy is hired to carry a handicapped boy on his back.
Another good movie. Iranian directors seem to have a special skill in getting excellent performances from child actors (remember Children of Heaven, Buddha Fell out of Shame, Turtles Can Fly, etc.) Can you start hating a handicapped young boy within the first few minutes of a movie? In this one, Samira succeeds in forcing you to do that.
18. Gulabi Talkies by Girish Kasaravalli
Brief synopsis: Gulabi, a separated Muslim woman living in an island, is a movie buff. She gets a TV and dish antenna in her hut, and the life in the island slowly changes.
One of the disappointing movies. Both the script and direction had many flaws. The screenwriter wants you to believe that listening to TV serial’s story can motivate a lady to elope with someone. The director takes some day-for-night scenes in which there are very sharp shadows and bright light over the sea when one of the characters reminds us that it is midnight.
Favorite shot: (contains spoilers) The movie had a good closing shot. When most ladies in the island crowd in the Gulabi’s hut to watch the serials, two old Hindu ladies stay away, saying that we cannot enter “their” place. In the climax, when Gulabi is driven out of the island, these two old ladies are seen entering her hut and sitting in front of the TV.
19. Parque Via Dir: Enrique Rivero
Brief synopsis: A house keeper tries to cope when the house in which he has been working for decades is getting sold.
Winner of the suvarna chakoram. This is a really unusual movie. The audience was very restless and had started hurling abuses in the first 30 minutes. Reason – all that happens in the first 30 minutes is that the house keeper is repeatedly shown doing his daily chorus – drying the clothes, mowing the lawn, cleaning the window panes, brushing his teeth, having food, passing urine, checking his weight, watching TV news while eating some snacks, going to sleep, getting up when the alarm rings, then again doing the same things once more… I myself would have walked out of the theatre if I did not already know that this movie has won an award in Locarno. But, after all these monotonous shots, the house owners get someone to purchase the house. The plot gradually thickens, till it reaches a surprise ending.
Favorite dialogue:
“How are my thighs? Aren’t they cute?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Why”
“Because they are the first things I am going to move apart”
20. Song of the Sparrows by Majid Majidi
Like Kim Ki Duk, Majidi also has a strong fan base in Kerala. The theatre was full, even though first screening of the movie was at 9 PM. Amir Naji, who acted as the children’s father in Children of Heaven, plays the lead role of Karim. Karim loses his job when an ostrich escapes from the farm in which he works. The movie is a series of small but interesting incidents which occur when he tries to make the both ends meet. Though Majidi has even used some magnificient helicopter shots in this one, I rate this one two points below Children of Heaven.
Favorite scene: When Karim rides a taxi in Tehran, he gets a chance to escape with a refrigerator. While he tries to sell it in the market, he sees few ostriches in a shop. The birds remind him of the previous job in which he was honest, he changes his mind, and returns the refrigerator to its owner.
21. Faro by Salif Traore
Brief synopsis: An engineer returns to his village to find his father and to educate the villagers about their blind faith in a water goddess.
Yet another tale dealing with the conflict between tradition and modernity, Faro was full of clich'©d characters – a village drunkard, a villain who wants to become the village head, his son who desires the hero’s girlfriends, etc.
22. Three Monkeys by Nuri Ceylan
Synopsis: (Contains spoilers) A politician kills someone in an accident. He persuades his driver to accept the crime, in return for a huge sum of money that will be given when he returns from jail after nine months. The driver agrees. The driver’s son needs money to buy a taxi, and sends his mother to the politician to get some advance from the amount he is going to pay the driver. The politician and the driver’s wife become interested in each other, and they meet in her house. Driver’s son comes to know about this, but hides the news from his father. The driver gets out of jail, comes to know that his wife had visited the politician to collect the money, and suspects that the two may have started an affair. The driver’s wife wants to continue her affair with the politician, but he is reluctant. The driver’s son is aware of the raising tension in the family, and kills the politician. The driver requests a tea shop owner to accept the crime, and offers to give him a large sum when he returns from the jail.
Three Monkeys was a simple story told in a beautiful way, and it had won the Best Director award in Cannes.
23. Teos Voyage by Walter Doehner
Another tale of human love and national borders, like My Marlon and Brando.
Synopsis: (Contains spoilers) Teo, a nine year old boy whose father is in jail, has been living with his uncle. His father comes out of jail, takes Teo with him, tries to cross the border from US to Mexico illegally, and disappears when the group is attacked in the night. (Those who have seen Babel or Traffic will remember the desert in US Mexico border – it always looks great in films.) Teo reaches Mexico, tries to cross the border back to US with few friends, gets lost in the desert, and is rescued and taken back to Mexico by an army helicopter,. In the meantime he comes to know that his father has been actually trying to take him to his mother who is in Mexico. In the last shot we see Teo’s mother approaching him.
24. Kippur by Amos Gitai
I watched only the first half of the movie. It looked more like a documentary on a war. Besides, it was projected from a low-quality DVD, and the picture quality was poor.
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
Shoot Sharp Shock:-
This is a film if i would have seen in my teens i would have been in eternal love with it. The fact that i can’t love it so much any more represents nothing but the time that has passed. So in a way the film stills gets you at an emotional level. And yeah Spike Lee! Ghetto funk! Obviously an inspiration for young Akin, a turk in germany. I’ll never forget the visuals though. Electric merry go round. But through a bottle of rum. A drunk movie if there was any.
Achilles and the Tortise:-
Man! what the hell! I need the Dvd for this one. Brilliant! Epic Haiku. I mean how do you critique it. Immpossible man. Gets into your brian and fucks you up. I mean, critics had it coming and i take it with a bow. I’ll return to this later though.
Do return to Takeshi, and Three Monkeys, and Little Jizou, and TV Chandran.