It is not easy to be neutral when
talking about war. It is not easy for a photojournalist to choose between his
responsibilities as a documentarian and as a human. History is written by the
victors or rather is more disseminated. The question of taking side of which
country is not as straight forwards as it is decided in the meetings of
politicians over a table, having a cigar in one hand and a glass of cognac in
the other hand. The life of innocent people is definitely not the first concern
in these meetings.
In “My Beautiful Country”, Michaela
Kezele, the Serbian-Croatian director, observes the war from the perspective of
human relations and emotions, emotions that don’t recognize war. Danica, a
young Serb who still mourns the loss of her husband during the war, lives in a
small Albanian-Serbian village near Ibar river with her two young boys. When
Ramiz, an Albanian soldier seeks refuge in her home, she is scared and hesitant
at the same time. By accepting him, she would be officially making her home a
shelter for her enemy; by refusing him, she would disregard her values as a
human. She chooses the first because these values still weigh more than the
rules that made her once neighbour, her current enemy. A bridge over Ibar,
which is the translation of the original title (Die Brucke am Ibar), separates
these neighbours, but cannot raise hatred in people like Danica who doesn’t
have time for hatred!
The natural relation between Ramiz
and Vlado, Danica’s younger son develops into a friendship, which is in stark
contrast with the way soldiers brutally humiliated their opponents in the
beginning of the movie.
Love develops between the alleged
enemies; between Vlado and a young Albanian kid, between Vlado and Ramiz and of
course between Danica and Ramiz. The beauty of this film is how these loves
relate and their protagonists follow each other as they take us with them throughout
their journey.
An important issue brought up in
the film was the use of depleted uranium ammunition by NATO in Kosovo and
Bosnia. This issue was so controversial that prevented the screening of the
film in parts of the concerned region.
The tragedy of war is not always
about people who are killed by their enemy but people who are killed by their
ally. This, in my opinion was the highlight of this film and the director
portrayed this as delicately as possible.
“My Beautiful Country” was Kezele’s
first feature film and was shown in the 36th Montreal World Film
Festival.
We admire authors; their words are our companions in bed, on the plane, in the park and in our solitary moments. The words take us to the ancient times, to the farthest place on Earth we never visited; to the lives of people like us or so different from us. The words play with our imagination. Deprived of visual means, the words can so delicately describe a scene with such details that we would not notice if we were to see them with our own eyes. Words portray a feeling so subtly that we can trace the most powerful inner emotions just as we can trace the brush strokes on a canvas.
Although we think highly of our favorite authors, we don't really know what they went through to get to the point where their words get published and reach us.
"The Words", is a story within a story of two men, both aspiring writers whose fate coincide in a dramatic circumstance. Rory, a young American writer, dreams of having his two novels published. His words are ‘too artistic’, ‘too fine’ to be published as an unknown author. The continuous rejection by publishing houses frustrates him when he suddenly finds a story as old as the yellow papers on which they were typed, in a vintage bag his wife buys him during their honeymoon.
Reading the story affects Rory tremendously to the point that he believes he is nothing compared to the unknown writer of his discovery. He decided to type the story, without changing a word or a single punctuation. When he receives his wife’s awe and praise after she accidentally reads the story, for a moment he believes himself to be the writer of that novel.
The book gets published, Rory reaches stardom as his dream came through. But not long after, he encounters the truth, the real author who followed him after his fancy book openings, not to defame him but to tell him his life story and his inspiration to write that novel. A man who loved his words so much that he sacrificed the woman who inspired him to write them.
‘The Words’ takes us on the journey of two writers with extreme ambitions. One leaves his wife for the sake of words, the other steals is so desperately fascinated by words that he steals them.
Although there is a third story containing these two stories, its presence in the movie was completely unnecessary and in my opinion it even marred the riveting story line. The bogus and tawdry gestures of Olivia Wilde and her ostentatious act and dialogue with Dennis Quaid not only didn’t relate to a Columbia University grad student but also gave a cheesy taste to the movie end. However the masterly play by Jeremy Irons as well as Bradley Cooper save the movie and one can ignore that downside.
‘The Words’ by Brian Klugman was in the world competition in Montreal World Film Festival, with the presence of Klugman and the crew at Cinema Imperial on August 29th.
When we think about falling in
love, most of the times we relate it to youth. When we think about ‘happily
ever after’ couples, we imagine an old couple walking hand in hand on the
street. If we see such couples, we usually picture a long life they’ve shared
together; through the good and bad; through happiness and pain; and through
laughter and tear.
‘Coming of Age’ transforms this
impression by portraying some of the most heartfelt feelings between people of
age. It does this not by arousing a sense of pity towards the old; on the
contrary, it enlightens some of our wrong perceptions about them.
Rosa, an eighty-year old woman,
meets Bruno, after discovering about her terminal cancer. She is quite
independent and unconventional as she refuses to undergo chemotherapy. Rosa is
still alive yet her niece rents her apartment without her permission.
Bruno’s inspiration after he meets
Rosa, his will to enjoy the taste of love in the last years of his life is
astounding. He is quite levelheaded when he announces the news to his wife and
his children. He doesn’t bother explaining much.
Together, they rent a new
apartment; they go to IKEA for choosing furniture for their home; they make
love; they dance; they even smoke pot. Careless of the world around them, they
taste the beauty of love and caring beside each other.
Rosa is elegant. At the age of 80,
she smiles and laughs from the bottom of her heart. Her firm character during
the movie and the way she manipulates different situations with young people is
admirable. To the young, the old are ‘invisible’ as she put it. However she does not give in and insists on
her visibility. She is not piteous; she’s admirable. Rosa, this daring woman
slaps the young radiographer after she mindlessly ignored that Rosa was standing
there, waiting for her instruction for quite a while.
The astounding play by Karl Merkatz
who portrayed an old man’s desire to taste love and his efforts in taking care
of his love, at the age when he himself needed to be taken care of, was remarkable.
There was a perfect balance in the choice of the accompanying role by Christine
Ostermayer.
Anfang 80 or Coming of age, a movie
by Gerhard Ertl and Sabine Hiebler, was in the world competition in the 36th
Montreal World Film Festival. Karl Merkatz was chosen as the best actor
in the festival on September 3rd. The movie also won the Public Award for the
most popular movie of the festival.
This piece was played on March 21st, 2012 at CKUT radio and includes my short review on "Dave Brubeck: In His Own Sweet Way", one of the movies at FIFA (Festival International des Films sur l'Art" in Montreal. It also includes a listing of some of my favorite movies in the 30th edition of this festival. FIFA is between 15th and 25th of March. Do check it out.
This is my review of this film followed by my interview with Vanessa Rousselot, the director.
While we are bombarded on a daily basis with news and images of casualties, screams and cries of people who lose their loved ones in Gaza strip, and while this age-old conflict between Palestine and Israel seems never ending, we forget the fact that life goes on among those people all the same, that to survive, one needs to smile at life, no matter how unexpectedly harsh the response would be.
Whilst politicians denounce each other's deeds, making journalists produce hundreds of lines in the media, an unorthodox yet natural question intrigues a young French student: What are the Palestinian jokes? Driven to answer this question, Vanessa Rousselot sets off to The West Bank to learn Arabic for a year.
She comes across different reactions, sometimes from reticent people. "Our entire life is a joke", one of them says. Desperate to hear people's jokes, she asks her Arabic teacher for guidance. She tells her to start telling people jokes to gain their confidence and they will open up. She says: "I laugh, so I exist"
Vanessa finds out that Hebronites are butt of dozens of jokes in a similar fashion that French jest about Belgians.
A Hebronite and an Israeli Jew argue about the degree of freedom in their respective countries. The Israeli says: “Right in the center of Tel Aviv, I can shout: Netanyahu, you’re an ass." The Hebronite says in response: "right in the center of Hebroun I can shout: Netanyahu, your're an ass!"
It's quite thought-provoking when we see how people joke about their tragedy. A man in a cafe comes up with another one: “A child from Gaza asks his father, ‘Give me 2 shekels so that I can get to the checkpoint.’ The father says:‘1 shekel should do, since you’ll be coming back by ambulance.’"
Vanessa travels to Ramallah to visit an elderly anthropologist who started collecting jokes during the first Intifada. He said that people make jokes to cope with their situation; the Palestinians joke about things they think they can influence.
While The Palestinian jokes mostly revolve around themselves and their politicians, an Israeli girl working in a shop in Haifa tells Vanessa her version: "A good Arab, is a dead Arab".
While Vanessa passes alongside the Israeli West Bank Barrier fro Jerusalem to Bethlehem, my eyes are in search of the graffiti that Banksy, the English Graffiti artist made on that wall in 2005. I'm also reminded of the musical collaboration between Israeli and Palestinian young musicians which was conducted by Edward Said and Danile Barenboim in 1999.
It's through art that we come to fathom the world around us, since it redirects our awareness to the human aspects of life.
It's been 7 months since its release in Germany and soon in European metropolises and I'm still awaiting Wim Wenders' Pina in Montreal. In the mean time, Cinema du Parc had been thoughtful enough to cater to the enthusiasm of Montrealers by screening the last film where "Pina Bausch" is seen, working eagerly on a dance project, "Kontakthof", with 40 amateur teenagers
After gathering these youth who had neither danced before nor had even heard of Pina Bausch, dancers Jo-Ann Endicott and Benedicte Billet lead them into what Pina had in mind, to manifest their innermost feelings through a common language, contact. They had to practice demonstrating their proximity while their bodies were close to each other. They learned how to touch one another and show their affection. One of the teenagers said that he hadn't even touched his girlfriend with this much affection, he just didn't know how. "I made friends with people whom I would ignore if I saw them in the streets" said another one.
Some of us might not take teenagers seriously simply because they seem immature but it takes hope and patience for a person like Pina to invest in them. She chose them to show how capable they can be in uncovering our very intimate feelings. This is a process that took 10 months, during which these adolescents learned how to respect one another, be serious at performing and connect not only with each other but also with their inner self.
They learned to build trust and become so close in a community that they find themselves talking about their worst romantic failures. They learned how to show charm in a seductive way, to portray insecurity through their moves, to epitomize confidence in laughing out loud while running and to connect with the roles they perform. The tender and reticent encounters at times turn into audacious confrontations.
To me, Pina was not just a choreographer and performer, she delved into the psyche in order to bring out the latent talents humans possess. Pina was successful because she "was not interested in how people move, but what moves them" and that's how she came to realize this project and show us the beauty of human encounters which culminated in the opening night at the end of the film.
Dancing dreams is screened at Cinema du parc with both English and French.
The following piece is my short review of "Here without Me" and the interview I had with its director, Bahram Tavakkoli" which was aired this morning on CKUT radio.
Following the interview, we talk about an event held at Cinema du Parc, in support of Jafar Panahi.
The film's story is about a family whose 3 members are suffering from the current situation, in their own way. Yalda is lame and walks with a crutch. She cannot withstand people's look in public and sometimes faints. Thus she imprisons herself in house and obsessively washes and dries her crystal figurines who are the friends of her lonely hours. Ehsan, her brother, works in a warehouse which gradually eats his soul. The only thing that slows this down is relieving himself by writing and going to cinema. Ehsan is mesmerized by the magic of cinema. The mother is worker in a factory. Worried about her daughter's future, she works overtime to send her to a class to learn embroidery; she sells cosmetics to finance a new set of furniture for the day a suitor comes to seek her daughter's hand. Struggling to survive and dreaming are the main subjects of the movie.
"Here without me" was shown in Montreal's 35th world film festival. "Fatemeh Motamed Arya", was awarded the best actress for her role in this movie. Following comes an interview I had with "Bahram Tavakoli", the film's director.
Acey:When is this story happening and where does it take place?
Bahram Tavakoli: Without any precision on the time and place, the story happens in the contemporary time in Iran. In fact it's an adaptation of "the glass menagerie", a play by Tennessee Williams.
Acey: The reason I'm asking you this question is because the atmosphere in Tehran is different from other cities, particularly small cities. Do you think this story can happen anywhere in Iran?
Bahram Tavakoli:Obviously Tehran has different social classes and these social classes don't have the same cultural level, not only in Tehran but also in other big cities. In Tehran you can surely find families from a different social class than this family; however economically, this family belongs to a poor working class whereas it had previously lived a better life. My focus was on this class of Tehran society but as I said it can be from any other cities considering their different cultural backgrounds.
Acey: When Reza, Ehsan's brother, shows his fiancée's photo to Yalda, he tells her that they're getting married in a month. What we see in the movie, is that Yalda gets upset and Reza suddenly leaves their home. This leads the film into a new phase: Yalda stops eating while awaiting a telephone call from Reza like a lunatic. I, like Yalda's mother and brother thought that Yalda has gone out of her mind. Is this what you intended to make in the viewer's mind?
Bahram Tavakoli: From a certain point in the movie, where Yalda claims that Reza had called her, the film falls into a suspension, meaning you can't make a definite decision on the process; something which also existed in the play by Tennessee Williams and we tried to dramatize it visually so that you wouldn't be able to distinguish between a dream and reality. This was one of the things we tried to do because in my opinion, one of the distinguished ideas of "glass menagerie" was to take you away into a magic realism. You are not able to discriminate between reality, dream or others' nightmare and you mentioned it precisely, it all starts exactly from that telephone call. Until that point, everything is realistic. After that you experience a feeling when you see nightmare. Even watching good happenings, doesn't make you convinced that they are really happening.
Acey: I think the cultural atmosphere in Tennessee Williams' play is very different from your film. How did you handle this difference?
Bahram Tavakoli: This is a typical feature in any adaptation. Obviously you lose some details which you need to fill with other elements. Some facets can be culturally translated such as the type of intellectualism in Amanda which of course isn't logical when it comes to a family from working class in Iran and so should be translated differently. Another example is the relationship between a man and a woman. There are other instances too. This film doesn't claim and doesn't want to portray all the features in "glass menagerie". This is an Iranian look towards this play. We tried to portray people in today's Iran, in the role of the main characters, regardless of how well they conform to the characters of the original play; of course at some points, they don't.
Acey: So what happens between Yalda and Reza, is not a coincidence; you actually intended to point out a societal reality which is rooted in our culture, is that right?
Bahram Tavakoli: Drama is nothing more than actions and reactions between the characters. Naturally, these actions and reactions conform to their culture and so in this movie, they conform to today's Iranian culture. (bestare farhangi)
Acey : In all unlikelihood, Reza breaks up with his fiancée and asks Yalda's mother and brother for her hand. If he wanted to do so, why did he show Yalda his fiancée's photo at first place?
Bahram Tavakoli: It's obvious that from a point, the film is not realistic. After the suicide scene, all we see is the son's dream and the last scene of the movie clearly shows this. If you want to see those scenes as realistic, for sure you will have this question. I hope with the cinematic marks and the last scene of the movie, viewers wouldn't have realistic interpretations .
Acey: So far, which movie or movies in Montreal's world film festival has caught your attention?
Bahram Tavakoli: I liked Artist, a French film which was silent. There was also an Argentinian comedy which I liked very much.
This is my review which was aired on CKUT this morning.
For those of us who are not familiar with Peking Opera, listening to the shrill falsettos of male singers impersonating women in the spectacle of acting, poetry accompanied by dance and martial art might seem strange. Western opera during Baroque era was highlighted by castrati such as Farinelli who sang with a soprano voice, bright and clear, whereas in Peking Opera the theatrical performance of the male singer seems more important than his voice.
“Forever enthralled” is the story of “Mei Lan”, one of the most important figures of Peking Opera who made it known to the rest of the world.
Though discouraged by his uncle to continue the family tradition of singing opera, young Mei chooses his path with confidence. Though he highly reveres his master, he doesn't follow him obsequiously. Instead he challenges him. This challenge is not welcome by the master who believes the focus should be on him, but in the end, it's Mei's subtlety that makes him win over his master.
«Characters should be flesh and blood; actors mustn't stick to the old ways both on stage and in life. Chinese women were taught to follow the rules whereas great theatre shows how to break rules. » These were the words he learned from Qui Rubai, the man who quit his job as a lecturer after he saw Mei Lanfang's performance, to become his mentor. « Only one, whose mind is clean and pure, could express passion in such an exquisite manner » he told Mei after the performance.
The strange thing for me in this movie was the fact that women played a role of men in Opera as well. This mutual impersonation, led to a mystifying attraction of a man and a woman, Mei and Meng to each other.
It is after the invasion of Japan, that we understand the importance of Peking Opera in China. Mei refuses to sing during the war which caused him an impoverished lifestyle in that period. « No matter who wins this war, Mei Lanfang must live on. », a Japanese soldier told his commander who wished to force Mei to sing for them but didn't succeed. He was right. War ended and Mei Lanfang lived on.
This is a review I wrote for Blank City, a film recently directed by Celine Danhier and the interview I had with her. They were aired this morning on CKUT radio, in the film segment of "Wednesday morning after" program.
This week, there was also another interview with Eric Tessier, a 3D filmmaker. He talks in length about Pina Bausch, Wim Wender's recent art film in 3D.
You can listen to the whole film segment here. It starts at minute 22.
Below you can listen to my review and interview on Blank City.
Quite a few films including documentaries have been made about the influential underground music scene in the 70s whereas a place for a movie chronicling “no wave cinema” and “cinema of transgression” was empty. Recently however, Celine Danhier, plucked up the courage to start her filmmaking carrier by documenting one of the most significant yet short eras of film history which took place in New York city.
No one can deny the role of directors such as “Jim Jarmusch”, “Amos Poe”, “Eric Mitchell”, “James Nares” and the likes in cinema. These pioneers of No Wave movement were dissidents who used the Lower East Manhattan to craft candid movies, which shaped the Independent Film today.
The artist community who where the denizens of the dilapidated buildings in that part of New York, came together with no money in their pockets, often stealing rolls of films or cameras, to make films of their lives and that of people in this area at the time where the city had gone bankrupt. There was no script, no real actor and all was done by a super8 camera.
In Blank City many of the influential directors, musicians, photographers, artists and sometimes a blend of these like John Lurie and Steve Buscemi, tell their stories of that time.
The audacity of the photographers becomes striking when we realize that “there were people who believed taking photos is equal to stealing souls”. Amos Poe describes this cash-strapped period of his life as “best time, worst time”.
Directors as well as actors were seeking a semi-documentary possibility; thereby the distinctive ethos of No Wave Cinema, which made it one of a kind, was a knack to make narrative instead of art film. The films were free from style to maintain the stance of a period, which gave birth to leading figures like Andy Warhol and street artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Keith Haring. Heroin had become prevalent and many of the epoch-making artists including the latter 2, died of AIDS or drug addiction. One of the artists in the movie recalls this tragedy: “my friends came to me one by one and confided in me that they were HIV positive. It was awful to see them all lined up to be executed.”
Music was one of the axes of No Wave cinema. Interviews with Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth and Debbie Harry of Blondie, alongside the soundtrack made by Patti Smith, Television, Liquid Liquid and many more, highlight this element in Blank city.
The title of the movie at first place produced an image in my mind of a blank space which turns into a city, but after watching the film, I asked myself: could this blank space come out of Berlin, Paris,London or it was just New York which could give birth to this city?
This is my report on the second AmerAsia film festival in Montreal in March 2011, which was aired on CKUT radio. It includes interviews with the organizer "Mi Jeong Lee" and "Gerry Balasta", the director of "the mountain thief".
Perhaps the title of this movie reminds you of Eva Peron song for Argentina and how people were mournful for the loss of such a great woman.
However it is a far cry from Sudan crying for a Korean man. "Lee Tae-seok", was a doctor, who became a priest and found his happiness among the helpless, miserable people of Tonj in Sudan, but to me, he was the saviour, the father, not only to the young children of Tonj, but also to the aged.
He was an astonishingly hard-working man with a great deal of talent and creativity. His love for music was an inspiration to found the first brass band in Tonj which transformed guns to horns, trombones and trumpets, at the time when children were forced by warmongers to fight in the civil war.
Lee built the first hospital and a few years alter, the first school of full 12 grades. It was overwhelming to see how tireless this devoted man was, seeing 300 patients a day, teaching math at the school and not letting a single patient knock twice on his door during the night.
The most admiring part of the movie was the scene where he was thinking of building a school:
" I asked myself, what would Jesus build here, a school or a church? He would definitely build a school. "
To me, this attitude is unique among men of God and that was most striking of all.
The movie is made during several years, documenting the building of the first clinic which became the first hospital, the first school and the first brass band in Tonj.
Although the life of a priest is destined to be devoted to church, the director's intention is obviously not advocating religion but rather focuse on the humanitarian aspect of Lee's life and that is the most compelling aspect of this movie.
However the narrator's story telling style throughout the whole movie was bothersome, in that, it didn't match the ambiance of the movie as if she is telling a jolly story.
This, together with some unnecessary graphic scenes, were the only negative side of this movie.
This review was aired on CKUT on Aug 17th,2011 in the film segment program.
Die Fremde which means foreigner or stranger, is the title of the first movie by Feo Aladag, the Austrian director. The movie’s name is however translated to “When we leave” and has won several awards in different festivals such as Berlin and Tribeca film festivals.
Umay, the leading role, is a young woman of Turkish descent whose family has emigrated to Germany; however she is living with her husband and son in Istanbul. As a result of her husband’s violence towards her and her son, she decides to leave him for her family in Berlin, in the hope of starting a new life with a little help from them. Unfortunately, with all the reverence she has towards her family, they stick so obstinately to traditions still valued by the Turkish immigrant community, that not only they don’t welcome and help her but also make her life more miserable than she could imagine.
There are poignant scenes in the movie which make us wonder how destructive prejudice can be.
Umay’s husband, a typical traditional Middle-Eastern man, who treats a woman like a slave, comes to bed few hours after he has struck her against the wall, when she wanted to defend her helpless little child. Umay pretends to be asleep but her husband who sees her as nothing but a piece of flesh, gets on top of her and finishes up like an animal.
At home with her family in Berlin, Umay intends to break the ice at dinner and there we see how his younger brother shouts at her commandingly telling her she is not staying there long. Umay who is hopeful to persuade her father, tells him that her husband beats her but her father doesn’t seem to care: “He’s your husband; the hand that strikes is also the hand that soothes. A slap or two is no reason to run”
Umay is not a shrew; she just wants to live like a decent woman, have the basic rights and not to be beaten. But she’s asking for too much from the family who chooses the community over their daughter.
The movie depicts how authoritative Turkish men can be. I don’t say the old generation because not only the father is commanding but also Umay’s younger brother is even more prejudiced. His dogmatism reaches to the point that he coaxes his father to snatch Cem, Umay’s son, and to take him back to his father in Istanbul. To him, his sister has disgraced her family and by taking Cem from his father, Umay has made the child a bastard.
It is relieving that Umay is in a country where her basic rights are respected and the foreign society ruled by humane values, are less foreigner to her than her family. She leaves her family home for a shelter under police protection and starts working in a restaurant.
What is compelling in this movie, is Umay’s effort in convincing her family that she in fact reveres them and is not bringing shame and disgrace upon them. Umay’s first attempt in confronting her mother is in vain. Rana, Umay’s sister is getting married and upon hearing the story which had spread among the Turkish community, her suitor’s family oppose to the wedding. To them, Rana’s family has no honor.
It is so harshly striking to see how this lost honor is easily bribed. The question arises in my mind: What kind of honor is this that can be bought?
Umay tries once more, this time, dressed elegantly, she takes her son to her sister’s wedding where she’s warned by her youngest brother to leave. She persists, hoping to gain her family’s heart on this day where her sister could finally marry the man she was fond of. Instead, her brother greets her with violence, beats her and throws her out of the place.
I was flabbergasted to see her never ending effort when she went back to her family house and brought her father baklava in Ramadan few days after the wedding. Inside, I told myself, this girl is out of her mind. The director delicately made me a foreigner to Umay, though from a different aspect.
Umay doesn’t give up. She believes “blood is thicker than water” as her father used to say. Though her father finally asks her forgiveness on the deathbed, the price Umay paid in the end for his profound ignorance was high. The ignorance nurturing male chauvinism in his family.
Before watching the movie, I didn’t know that the German title meant “stranger” or “foreigner”; yet throughout the movie, I was constantly reminded of “the stranger” by Camus. Although the stories are way different but the sheer notion of foreigner, or stranger befitted Umay, who was a foreigner to her own family.
