What a film watching spree it's been. Starting 05-Jun, Sunday, till 17-Jun, Friday, I watched 15 films in a theatre. 11 of those 15 as part of the Sydney Film Festival, which will hopefully shape up into a nice tradition. Here's a brief write-up on all those films in chronological order:
1. Major (Event Marion, Adelaide) - I walked into Major with a sense of dread. I thought I knew what was coming and while that may have influenced my experience of watching the movie, I believe I did try to give it a chance. I'll be succinct about my reservations- I don't particularly like to watch films about patriots especially in the current Indian political climate. From experience, I've come to believe that most of these mainstream films do less to investigate and enquire the phenomenon than to celebrate unthinkingly in jingiosm. Major wasn't as bad as, say, URI, but it nevertheless tried to isolate an individual from the army and celebrate his achievements which is a major (lol, accidental pun) problem in itself. The reason Indian Army is possibly the most celebrated and respected public institution in India is owed to the fact that the armymen are seen to be apolitical and willing to fight for a cause larger than their individual recognition/ ambition. When a particular individual is pulled out of the collective and glorified, notwithstanding the size of his achievements, it seems like an insult to the greater ideal.
While this admittedly is a problem with the 'what' of the film, I would still have respected the effort if it had done a good job of portraying what it seemingly set out to do: portray the life of this particular military man. And in that respect too the film failed for two reasons: 1. The film turned the major into a standard Telugu film hero. We know all those attributes- confident, heroic, courageous, sacrificing, self-righteous etc. The problem with writing your hero like that is it becomes imperative to turn everyone around him into enthralled fans or nefarious scoundrels. It is hardly palatable in a normal Telugu hero, unbearable when he's talking down to superiors and colleagues in the army. 2. If Prakash Raj's speech in the climax is any indication, the film wanted "not to remember the way He died but to celebrate the way He lived". The film fails in this attempt too as extending the previous point, what you have is not an individual, with specific desires, talents, idiosyncracies and weaknesses, but a type who exists only to be admired and worshipped. The only bit in the entire movie that piqued by interest was a sequence in the Military Academy where he tries to answer what it means to be a soldier. But instead of working towards an answer, the filmmakers are content to provide a stock response and move on. With due respect to the real Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan, the film does no justice to his life and sacrifice.
2. Vikram (Event Marion, Adelaide) - Arambikalama. Now we're talking. When I got into an argument with Shoury about why RRR sucked, he told me that I ought to watch it like a pucca commercial film. Well, Vikram is one way to make one helluva mass film. To take on-board three juggernauts, Fahadh, Sethupathi and Kamal sir, and manage to come out with flying colours is no mean feat. And to do it with such high technical skill and panache is a terrific achievement. Ofcourse, I saw a lot of Nolan influences and Sravani mentioned Lokesh Kangaraj citing Tarantino as an influence (I suppose I now see it in the way Sethupathi's personaility and associates were designed) but it's also very good pucca South Indian masala.
SFF
3. Uttama (State Theatre) - Amma was keen to watch this Spanish/ Quechua film and I'm glad I accompanied her. I've come to recognise the type - langurous, portraying a larger phenomenon by concentrating on local subjects, long static shots in a village, a tiff between the modern and the traditional, mostly local actors etc. - from my little art film experience but it worked. While the film's a loving portrayal, what deeply stuck were the two lead actors, apparently a real-life couple the director discovered while scouting for the film, who were breathtakingly gorgeous - especially the old lady Sisa. I couldn't stop thinking of Ammamma when looking at her.
4. The Forgiven (Hayden Orpheum) - The first film I booked in this year's festival the moment I saw it directed by John Michael McDonagh. How could I not after The Guard and Calvary. I had to take Sravani as well, telling her since years to watch Calvary ("It's set in Ireland, deals with a murder and has Mad-Eye Moody play the lead - I'm telling you girl, you'll love it"), and we had a 'great fockin time' (channeling my inner McDonagh character). It reminded us how much we seem to enjoy the locale, cultures and foods of the middle-east, and I especially liked the film for its scathing portrayal of the decadent (neo-)colonial elite. While I'd definitely rank his first two films higher, David Henninger is another gobsmackingly brilliant character. Ralph Fiennes is the man.
5. As in Heaven (Hayden Orpheum) - Another one of Amma's picks which I seem to have enjoyed more than she did. Shot in glorious 16mm, the film portrayed one important day in the life of a young girl in a Danish village in the 1880s. One of the film's themes, albeit minor, dealt with the changing social narratives and how science and rationality were slowly taking root in the minds of, atleast, the gentry. I've been thinking on and off about the notion of modernity, the European-kind post-Renaissance/Englightenment, for a couple of years now, thanks primarily to my ACT course, Dr. Velcheru Narayana Rao et al, Dr. Stephen Greenblatt, and reading about/ around Charles Darwin, and the film hinted at some of those preoccupations. I asked the director in the Q&A to shed some light on the larger society which led to one particular character try and make a rational argument but I wasn't satisfied with the answer probably because her film wasn't primary about those ideas.
6. The Music Room (The Art Gallery of New South Wales) - After dropping Amma off at her screeing of Commitment Hasan, I rushed to the Art Gallery to watch a film I was particularly excited about ever since I learnt SFF was doing a Satyajit Ray retrospective. The film was spellbinding in large sections and slightly irritating (owing mostly to the over-the-top acting which I suppose hasn't aged well) in some bits. If I'd seen the film 10, even 5, years ago, I guess Id've been completely enthralled. The story of a decadent zamindar, pawning jewellery to maintain a facade of opulence, would've been right up my alley. I think Ray does a phenomenal job of portraying both the melancholy and the inevitability of a passing age but I couldn't stop asking the question every few minutes - "Why am I watching a film about a character like this"? Yet, I couldn't turn away. I, of all people, don't want to argue that just because something is ugly, or repugnant, a film shouldn't be made about it. If anything, it only highlights the level of Ray's crasftsmanship. And what music, what music, by Ustad Vilayat Khan. I was transported.
7. All that breathes (Event George Street) - I read about all that breathes many months ago in, I think, David Ehrlich's column and was intrigued by it. I'm generally a sucker for anything resembling an Indian ethnographic study and the story of a pair of muslim brothers, Saud and Nadeem, working out of their home clinic in Delhi treating and saving birds seemed too fascinating to be missed. Add to that, when I saw clips from the director Shounak Sen's previous film, Cities of Sleep, I was reminded, for some unclear reason, of Amit Dutta's work and I really wanted to watch the film. So it was a no brainer to book tickets when it showed up in the SFF catalog and the film truly lived upto its hype. We later learned, as part of the Q&A with Nadeem, that it took over 3 years to shoot the film. True to its title, the subject of the film isn't limited to the kites or the clinic, but all living thing that are adapting and trying to survive in the new urban spaces which have encroached on and destroyed traditional wildlands. Its a stunning technical achievement and showed me what the word Anthropocene truly entrails.
"Aasman se panchi tapak rahe hain aur logon ko lagta hain ki sab kuch normal hain" -Mohammad Saud
Also, we spotted Nadeem multiple times in the next few days in one or another of SFF venues and Sravani was keen to ask him to join us for dinner but I thought it would've been a bit too much.
8. Fire of Love (State Theatre) - Rama pointed me to this film when I'd met him for lunch a few weeks ago, and he was so intrigued by the subject that he was planning to come down from Woollongong (where he was set to go for a couple of weeks to babysit a friend's pet rabbit) just to watch it. So I checked it out and both Sravani and I liked the trailer enough to watch it. I liked it but Sravani loved it, the story of a volcanologist couple who worked, and eventually died, together on/ around active volcanoes. Since a large part of film was put together from the footage they'd shot in the 70s and 80s, the film had that lovely home video aesthetic.
9. The Phantom of the Open (Hayden Orpheum) - One of those feel-good true-but-hardly-believeable stories of individuals who take-on-the-system-with-pluck-and-ingenuity that make for good telefilms to be telecast on weekday afternoons, the movie was funny in parts. The screening was filled with many grey heads, probably from British ancestry, who had a great time.
10. Godland (State Theatre) - A fairly stereotypical European art film dealing topics like colonisation, proselytisation, god's silence, monotheism vs nature worship, Godland nonetheless is an interesting and immersive film.
(to be continued)
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