Shariq’s Département

As the 2009 Cannes Film Festival gets underway, I felt a need to explore and address some of the highly acclaimed films from Cannes last year.

“Three Monkeys”, a dark fable of loss and rupturing that can POSSIBLY be the start of redemption, from Turkey’s famed auteur, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, won the Best Director award at Cannes last year.

The film is gorgeously photographed with searing landscapes of sea, urban decay and modern living.  The color scheme is faded, almost lacking color, as indeed a lack of vitality has seeped out of the lives of our three main protagonists: a chauffer, his apparently stable, beautiful wife, and post-college son who is bored, searching for direction.

The movie begins with a car accident, hauntingly, eerily photographed.  The driver, a rich politician kills a pedestrian on a lonely rural road, flees, and convinces his chauffer (who was not in the car at the time) to take the prison rap for him in exchange for money.

And so starts a medley of change, for this politician is like a lighthouse (depicted symbolically by Ceylan right at the start of the movie), who ends up shining a light on the hidden secrets and desires of the 3 monkeys that comprise an apparently happy family, but instead have been “seeing no evil, hearing no evil”, hiding away reality in the dark, suffused colorlessness of everyday life.

While the chauffer is in prison, his wife ends up having an affair with the politician, and we begin to see the false life she has been trapped in with a man she does not love.  The chauffer himself ends up not being the benevolent person we expected him to be in the beginning of the movie, and the son moves to express a deep rage within himself that had been hidden till the politician-driven chain of events take over.

This film is an important parable for now.  As so many events in the world are forcing changes for many, regarding money, property, relationships, vocational aspirations, this is like the politician, the lighthouse, shining a light on those aspects of your life that are no longer working, that it is now time to change for you to grow internally and blossom into the life that will truly make you happy.

It is your choice whether you embrace change with joy or with fear.  At the end of the movie, the 3 protagonists seem to still be mired in fear.  But the movie ends with a panoramic view of a thunderstorm, delivering rain on the chauffer in a beautifully photographed scene on top on a roof, facing the water.  Perhaps spiritual redemption is around the corner, if only we will open our eyes.

“Tulpan” the unexpectedly resonant movie about the harsh life and beauty of the Kazakhstan Steppe, which won the Un Certain Regard prize at Cannes this year, was one of the final showings at the NY Film Festival.

The hero, Asa, an iconoclastic former sailor who wants to become a herder on the steppe, like his traditional brother-in-law, must find a wife to be considered legitimate.  Part of the movie is his attempt to woo Tulpan, the only woman apparently of age and available in this desolate, sparse landscape.  But really the movie is more about Asa’s colorful personality and attempts to bring joy and beauty to a harsh, conservative mindset.  He is an artist, loves playing with children and seems in another world sometimes.  Yet, he harmonizes with the beauty of nature and the landscape.  And when he delivers a baby lamb on his own, in one of the most amazing animal birth scenes ever captured on film, he communes with Nature in a holistic way that allows him to regain confidence and move forward.

At some level, the movie is about finding your truth, even if others, the more traditional ones, try to undermine you.  Believe in yourself and just move forward.  And you might just discover how magnificent you truly are.

For New Yorkers stuck in a concrete jungle with few outlets for sky, sun and nature, it is a reminder for us take time out of our busy schedules to just be within the landscape, even in a small Park to find that part of us that is connected to the Earth.  And then we find the smile, the beautiful singing voice as children often do; and, in fact, Asa’s nephew and niece in their “tak-a-tak” horseplaying and singing, respectively remind adults to play and find beauty in the simple joys of life.

The film is still looking for a US distributor, but it has been submitted for the Foreign Film category at the Oscars.  So, if it gains traction, you might be able to find it in a cinema.  And, of course, it will find its way to DVD eventually.

Lucretia Martel, the talented Argentinian director who took “The Headless Woman” to Cannes in 2008, presenting a film for the second time in competition, is very much focused on mood, tonal changes and internal dissonances set within familial and societal class mileus.

The middle-aged woman at the center of this movie, recently screened at the New York Film Festival, seems unsteady.  She is kind, a wife, mother and dentist.  Yet she has an unfocused gaze and dyes her hair blonde, but she does not really seem to care about it.  Then she hits and kills a peasant boy on the road while reaching for a cell phone, driving away in a panic.  Now, she begins to unravel.  The actress, Maria Onetto, beautifully conveys this sense of internal dread, embarrassment, sadness and isolation within a crowded domestic and social environment.  The distant gaze in her eyes is expanded, and we feel that she has been already beheaded, a summary execution that in a way was expected.

She becomes a metaphor for the dissolving of societal institutions, such as large-scale banking, that no longer work.  The crash has already occurred, and now the sense of dread is there because things can never be the same.

That the movie might end more positively doesn’t undo this sense that class divisions, the basis for Onetto’s belief that she can get away with this crime, are inherently unjust and fragile.  Although Onetto might continue with her family life and change the color of her hair, she, like the rest of her family is shot out of focus in the last five minutes of the movie.  Her status of privilege is slowly dissolving.  It’s only a matter of time.  And so it is as we move into the New World extolled by Echarte Tolle.  Just as she is continually seeking water, showers and baths to nourish her, we are about to move on from ‘The Waste Land’ described by T.S. Eliot to a nourishing rain which dissolves that which must now be transformed.

So I finally went to see the new Indiana Jones movie, which debuted at Cannes this month, and although the movie is entertaining enough, the main attraction is not the flimsy plot but the fun of seeing great actors having a good time.

Harrison Ford, although in his sixties now, has not lost his boyish, rakish charm that continues to make him an effortless, fun-to-watch hero.  You can’t help but root for him, no matter how silly the dialog is.  Cate Blanchett is also good as the evil Russian Dr. Irina Spalko, looking for paranormal ways to control the world - she seems to be thoroughly enjoying herself, especially when kicking Shia LaBeouf’s butt in a nicely choreographed fight across two jeeps.  LaBeouf, who has been charismatic on the screen before in Disturbia, is oddly muted here and completely overshadowed by Ford.  There is a scene at the end of the movie where LaBeouf tries to take Indiana’s hat, almost as if to say: hey, its my turn now.  Ford, as Indiana, grabs the hat back, and you can almost hear the audience breathing a collective sigh of relief - no, LaBeouf will not be able to sustain the franchise on his own.  Karen Allen is also a delight to watch, and her fascination with Indiana Jones is infectious.

The plot will not appeal to a lot of people who find New Age approaches to relics and archeological sites too fantastical to entertain.  I will say that the movie feels well researched on New Age topics ranging from groupthink, collective consciousness, interdimensional portals, intuitive symbols, to the transparent crystal (embodying light and sound) nature of other planes.  However the climax seems cheesy and unlikely.

Not a classic, but worth watching!

The fantastically talented director Laurent Cantet has won Canne’s top prize for his film Entre Les Murs (literal translation is “Between the Walls” but it is marketed in English as “The Class”), about a teacher’s role in a high school in a tough, multicultural section of Paris.  I was thrilled to hear of Cantet’s win, as I have been a big admirer of his since I saw his wonderful 2005 movie Vers Le Sud, or “Heading South”, about older women who went to Haiti for sex tourism in ’70s.  That movie was lyrical, haunting and pregnant with image and meaning, like a classic novel.  If Entre Les Murs is close to that, I am sure that it will be a wonderul film to watch.

Benico del Toro won best actor for Soderbergh’s marathon movie Che, and Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan won the best director prize for Three Monkeys.

The link to all the prizes is below:

http://www.festival-cannes.fr/en/article/56220.html

As the Cannes film festival draws to a close, it is appropriate to talk about one of my favourite movies from the 2007 official selection, “The Edge of Heaven” from the talented German-Turkish director, Fatih Akin, which has opened for a limited run at the Film Forum and won the prize for best screenplay at Cannes.

The movie, which starts off with melodrama (Turkish older male immigrant to Germany falls in love with a Turkish-German prostitute and then accidentally kills her), tells interveaving tales of multiple characters.  The accidental killer is jailed while his nerdy, bookish son, Nejat, travels to Turkey to find the prostitute’s runaway daughter.  The daughter, meanwhile enters Germany illegally and the movie shows them crossing paths without noticing each other.  One of the points the movie wants to make is that we are each on our own journeys, and sometimes we are not supposed to meet as we fulfil our destinies.

[The following paragraphs reveal significant plot details]

The son settles in Turkey, buying and running a bookstore, while the prostitute’s daughter, Ayten, is seduced by a caring, blond German lesbian who falls in love with her.  Ultimately, complications ensue as Ayten is deported from Germany, her girlfriend follows her and is killed accidentally by purse-snatchers.  Ayten is shown to be a user, while the German girl, Lotte, is a giver, wanting to help Ayten.

She dies for a reason, in this movie all about forgiveness, love and serendipity in life.  Her mother, an unforgiving German in the beginning of the move, who disapproves of her daughter’s lifestyle choices, has a vision of her daughter’s spirit in Turkey and is suddenly transformed by the love in her daughter’s smile.  She begins to understand about love and forgiveness, and continues on Lotte’s struggle and mission to help Ayten.  Ayten is herself reformed by all the kindness she receives.

Ultimately, Nejat and Lotte’s mother spend time together, and we begin to understand that they are at a similar point in their lives and can help each other.

The movie’s last scene shows Nejat staring out at the horizon at the shore of a beach.  To me, this scene is symbolic of “The Other Side” which is the literal translation of the German title of this fabulous movie: Auf der anderen seite.  A spirituality pervades the movie - we are being guided by our life’s experiences to learn and should approach unexpected events and misfortunes as a way to move forward, a little wiser, and, hopefullly, better, loving human beings.

The Cannes Film Festival kicks off next week, and in the spirit of celebrating the most important festival of the year, I thought I would talk about the film which won the Palme D’or (the top prize) in 2007, the wonderful Romanian film “4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days”, directed by the very talented Cristian Mungiu.  This is a brillianty stressful movie, beautifully composed, shot and acted, and is one of the most exciting cinematic experience I have had in a while.  The movie was playing in NYC theatres until a couple of weeks ago - but definitely catch it when it comes out on DVD (it will be released on June 17th).

The movie, set in Communist Romania in the 1980s, before the fall of the dictator Ceausescu, is ostensibly about one day when Otilia (played by the wonderful actress Anamaria Marinca) helps her friend Gabriela obtain an illegal abortion.  The movie strings the viewer out with tension, as the audience is immediately inmeshed in a world where almost everything is illegal and must be paid for or cajoled out of people.  As Anamaria negotiates simple matters such as getting a hotel room for the abortion, one realizes that this is a world where one is always being watched and anything can happen.

As the movie unfolds, the plot of a Dr. who is a bully and wants an excessive price for going ahead with the abortion ratchets up the tension.  However, the big surprise about this movie is that it is all about character revelation.  Otilia appears to be the resourceful one in the beginning, arranging everything for her pregnant friend Gabriela, who appears to be helpless.  However, as the movie progresses, we begin to understand that Otilia’s kindness masks an deeply visceral low self-esteem, which will be taken advantage of by several characters in the film, including her manipulative, plaintive pregnant “best friend”, Gabriela.

[NOTE: DO NOT READ THE REST OF THIS POST UNLESS YOU ARE OK WITH KNOWING PART OF THE PLOT IN ADVANCE]

There is one scene two-thirds of the way into the movie that is an amazing tour de force.  Otilia has left her friend post-abortion in a hotel room because she has promised her boyfriend that she will attend his mother’s birthday party.  Otilia is worried that Gabriela will bleed or pass out, and they will be discovered in the hotel.  There is a 7.5 minute shot, with no edits, focused on Otilia face, sitting at the dining table, as we watch worry and tension float over her face, while the boyfriend’s family chatters non-stop around her, asking her banal questions such as why does she smoke.  She has not been allowed to use the telephone, but does not have the strength to assert herself.  Each time the phone rings, the audience thinks it might be Gabriela asking for help or the police.  It is a bold shot, and IT WORKS!  The audience is completely stressed out!

To me, this movie is about creating boundaries, something Otilia has not learnt to do.  One can be kind and helpful to others, but must have the strength to draw the line when one is being used, abused and manipulated.  Otilia is taken advantage of by others - by Gabriela, for whom she does too much: arrange the abortion, dispose of the fetus (another harrowing scene) and help pay the abortion doctor in a way I won’t disclose in this post; by her boyfriend (she complains “You came in me when I told you not to - do you want me to get pregnant?”); by the abortion doctor.

The ending scene in the movie is brilliant.  Gabriela is comfortably ensconced in the hotel restaurant, eating a plethora of meat: sausage, kidneys, offal, while Otilia is starving, dirty, terrorized by having spent the last several hours trying to dispose of the fetus in the rubbish shoots of dangerous, deserted tenements.  Otilia asks for a bottle of water, (which she does not receive immediately), and she looks at the camera in desperation.  We, the audience, understand and the movie ends.

This Un Certain Regard Cannes French movie from 2007, directed by the acclaimed Chinese director Hou Hsiao-hsein (”Three Times”), is all about mood, and hushed observations of daily life as an effervescent, divorced single mother in Paris (Juliette Binoche) copes with the stresses of life.  Her young son, played by Simon Iteanu, by contrast, is gentle and unfazed by the disputes surrounding him (mother vs. neighbour, mother vs. father, etc.).  When things get too much he takes a nap.

And he stares up at a red balloon, a stolid symbol of reassurance in this breezy movie.  Simon notices the balloon at the start of the movie, and asks it to stay with him.  When it continues to reappear in his life, he is not surprised.  Another sign that he has made a wise choice in befriending this balloon is the simultaneous appearance of his new. gentle, caring, China-born nanny who, as a part-time film-maker is making a movie about a red balloon, and points out the image of a red balloon to Simon on a building.  Simon and the Nanny appear to be soul-mates, exchanging calm glances, while Binoche, as the mother, loses it.

Juliette Binoche, one of the best actresses in the world today (in the same company as Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman and Isabelle Huppert), will be most familiar to American audiences from her turns in “Caché” and “The English Patient”.  The career-defining performance of this genuinely emotive actress was in the movie “Blue”, where she was forced to act out a life stripped bare of any feelings.  Here, she is free to show off her emotions, fears and loving feelings on her face.  One feels for Binoche and understands that she is a great person just trying to get by, but one hopes that eventually she will learn the lesson of equanimity from her son.

Simon, along with his classmates, analyzes a painting in a museum at the end of the movie, guided by a teacher.  The painting depicts a girl (or boy) running after (or being guided by) a red balloon.  The teacher asks: Is it a happy or dark painting?  The kids respond: it is happy because the girl is in the sun in the beautiful countryside, yet also dark because the forbidding forest is close by and ready to encroach.  One can only hope the red balloon keeps her safe in the light.

Set in rural Italy in the 1960s, Daniel Luchetti’s Un Certain Regard entry at Cannes last year is a meditation on family dynamics and the desire to belong to family, community, country.

The protagonist Accio lives in the shadow of his charismatic elder brother Manrico who is the favourite of his parents.  Seeking attention and community, Accio joins the local fascist group to counter his elder brother’s leadership at the communisty party.  He also falls for his brother’s girlfriend.  Yet Accio never seems to be able to shrug off his sensibility as an outsider.  A surprising turn of events near the end of the movie ostensibly brings him closer to his family and gives him a starring role.  Yet the role seems empty; Accio is a substitute in the absence of his popular elder brother.  The movie ends with Accio on a beach beaming in satisfaction - but I wondered if he wouldn’t have been happier simply moving on from his life, away from a family that, with its twisted dynamics, will never appreciate him.