12:08 East of Bucharest

I am thankful to Alita and Anindya for initiating me into this film.

A fost sau n-a fost? is a 2006 Romanian film by the director Corneliu Porumboiu. 12:08 East of Bucharest  is its English name. 12:08 refers to that hour on 22 December 1989. The Romanian revolution started in Timisoara in the west of Romania on 17 December 1989 and was short lived before ending on the 22nd. The film shows the happenings of one day - 22 December 2004. A local TV channel in a small town organizes a talk show on the revolution in their town. As usual, the reporter will take anything that would raise the rating of his channel.

The talk show has a certain local school teacher who is a thorough drunkard and like many drunkards is a good man. He is coaxed into saying, by the host, that he, along with three other teachers of his school, all of who are now either dead or abroad, protested at the town square shortly before noon on the eventful day of 22 December 1989. This sparks a row of comments from viewers. The host seizes the opportunity and discussion veers to whether or not he really did that. The poor guy tries to tell many times that whether he was there or not is not important. It was the revolution that was. Who cares? By then, several members of the society had decided to become judgemental and had taken the responsibility on themselves to correct a grave mistake (in their opinion). Of course, vested interests are at play as well.

Wry humour and perfect depiction of life. This is usually what happens in life. There is an important issue which everyone thinks, has a right to comment on. Then there are all kinds of people - some know that the issue and the stakeholders are most important and hence restraint and humility need to be exercised. Completely at the other extreme are some people who manage to extract some mileage out of the issue - could be financial, could be sexual, could be settling an old score, could simply be ego enhancement. Most are in between - often confused and always judgemental.

Seeing the honest school teacher who becomes a favourite punching bag of everyone, one is reminded of Enemy of The People. The character of the host of the show is reminiscent of Adam Pietryk in the film The Conductor, directed by Andrzej Wajda.

There are many telling moments in the film which I can not describe without spoiler alerts. This is a truly remarkable film. Very unassuming and straightforward. No statements, no slogans, no hints, no forced artistry. Just life.

Cinq fois deux

Francois Ozon is a well known name. He is prolific. His films are mostly in French, except Swimming Pool which has a good amount of English. He has a nearly undefinable quality that makes him a very French director if you know what I mean. His work is akin to that of Francois Truffaut's. The 2005 film Le temps qui reste also known as "Time to Leave" is touching.

However, Cinq fois deux which in English will literally mean Five times two defies adjectives. In this film, he delves deep into the difficult theme of collapse of the marriage of a young couple with a small child. No judgements if you were looking for one. Two very normal, healthy, jovial, successful persons. And their marriage does not work. This is a phenomenon that is now haunting the western society for at least half a century. In India, this social phenomenon is at its beginning.

Brilliantly scripted, experiments with format. The story is told in reverse, beginning with the divorce. Then one sees the glimpses of the happy family that once was. A happy family with a son. Then the wedding and so on. Stéphane Freiss plays the role of the husband. To begin with, he does seem to be a scoundrel. That fades later. Valeria Bruni Tedeschi is beautiful, vulnerable, upright. As the film progresses, it becomes clear that she has equal hand in shaping the future. Freiss seems to be lesser and lesser of an evil that he seemed at first. That is when the audience understands (or may be, I should only talk about myself) that the issue at hand is not about who is good or who is bad. It is just that everyone is human. People act according to their nature, ego, perceived threats, innate goodness and so on. And consequences follow.

The film is rich in sensual physical content. Reminds me of how Ray used the day to day mundane activity of eating in his films. Many of his films are full of scenes of eating during which insightful conversations take place. Cinq fois deus has many bed scenes many of which reveal the characters to a large extent. Ozon is known to use physical intimacy to bring out mental equations. And he does it so very well. We learn a lot both about Gilles (Freiss) and Marion (Tedeschi) from these scenes. Extraordinary direction.

The film leaves you asking whether marriage is a doomed institution (at least in France, and in India, going by the recent trends in big cities). Or is there hope?

Who knows.

Jaane bhi do yaron

I have been told that the blogs I post about my favourite films are too short. Followers would have liked a more detailed account. Of course, my reason was that if I went into more detail, I might divulge the story. It is easily noticeable that these films are rich in narrative. In each of these films, the story plays a very important role. And after all, the aim is that you read the blog, get excited about the film and then try to see it if you have not already seen it.  From now on, I shall try to write in somewhat more detail though. I shall expand the blog on Terra Fria.
The first Hindi film that I want to blog about is Jaane Bhi do Yaron. I do not think there is any even moderately interested Hindi film goer in India who has missed this film. A hilarious comedy by Kundan Shah. Every minute is a treat. Two friends start a photography shop. Their simple effort to earn a livelihood for themselves runs into several complicated hurdles. Initially, it is just the corruption. Of private builders and colluding government officials. Our photographers, played by Nasseruddin Shah and Ravi Baswani, get unwittingly entangled in the maze. Then there is murder which they accidentally chance upon. The way they stumble upon the murder in Antonioni Park is fantastically done. Then of course, all kinds of things happen.
The film has many good actors, like Om Puri, Pankaj Kapoor and others. But the attraction of the film is not that. It is the way sequences are constructed. Some of them are unreal, but you do not even notice because you are busy laughing your heart out. In one scene, Naseeruddin Shah is talking over phone with one of the villains and they are in the same room. It takes courage to plan and execute such a scene.
This film is of course sarcastic as well. In the end, everybody makes merry for themselves, except the two photographers. They are the only ones who were innocent. They thought truth would prevail. They tried to expose the corrupt. Apart from them, everyone else was playing some kind of game or other. Finally, they are the ones who are screwed up.

Terra Fria

Terra Fria, according to Encyclopedia Britannica, is  a monotonous sequence of rolling hills and dry plateaus in the north west corner of Portugal where grains (especially rye) are extensively cultivated and livestock are raised. It means cold land. It is part of a bigger region Trás-os-Montes i.e., across the mountains. Amidst these mountains and rough terrain, the director sets up a gripping tale.  Leonardo and his wife Ermelinda live in the village. Leonardo tries to survive by buying and selling marten and fox furs. Ermelinda, the prettiest girl in the village, starts working as a maid in a rich man's (the only one in the vicinity) house. They form a relationship. How and why Ermelinda did it, is a matter of artistic depiction. What lured her - may be his charm, may be his wealth. The man, a bit of a Casanova, just needed a woman. The ensuing tale of treachury and pain is the meat of the story.

I have seen it only once - in 1992 in Delhi, where every year there used to be (may be still is) a retrospective of award wining European films of that year. In spite of several efforts, I have not been able to get the film in any form. The director Antonio Campo uses the rugged terrain very well. Superlative performance by  Joaquim de Almeida as Leonardo and Cristina Marcos as Ermelinda. The film is set in 1940s, but the issues are time independent. The question that haunts you after you come out of the hall is why do human beings forsake a safe, secure life for risk and treachury? For materialistic gain, for some intangible psychological satisfaction - who knows? Ultimately the destruction is all round.

La femme d'a cote

Francois Truffaut is one of the best directors of all times (yes, I remember Ray, Renoir, Kurosawa, Ozone and many others) and La femme d'a cote is his best. His best known films are Les quatre cents coups and Le dernier metro. However, this film that I am writing about now, appeals right from the beginning for its precision, economy, incisive insight, vividly sensitive portrayal of characters and after all a complete understanding of human emotions. The film is based on love, treachury, lust and blood - in short everything that life is made of. A classic and one of the ten best films that I have seen in my life.

I first saw this in the Hamsadhwani theatre at Pragati Maidan in Delhi. The hall is small and this intense film made the hall seem smaller. The film has Gerard Depardieu and Fanny Ardant in the lead roles. Superb restrained performance from Depardieu. We all know he is a great actor. But this performance required more restraint than anything else and he excels in that. Fanny Ardant has the role of a sensitive woman whose love for Bernard (Depardieu) knows no bounds. They knew each other and Bernard dumped her. As luck would have it, they happen to be neighbours many years later. That unfolds the drama. La Femme d'a Cote literally means The Woman Next Door. By now of course Mathilde (Ardant) is married as is Bernard. What follows is a tumultuous affair.

I recently saw it again and all the things that I like about this film became apparent once more. A lot of the acting in this film is done with eyes. Of course, Depardieu and Ardant are the best in the trade. But the rest of the crew live up to the standard. The film is set in Grenoble. Bernard and Mathilde rent room number 18 in a hotel for their sexual escapades. One day, Mathilde arrives slightly after Bernard and asks the receptionist for the key. The receptionist, a middle aged woman, tells that Bernard is waiting for her in the room. As Mathilde starts climbing the stairs, the receptionist looks at her. A look containing a mixture of emotions.

A gripping tale of basic emotions, the film keeps you on the edge. When I saw the film for the first time, the end came as a shock. Now nearly twenty years later, I know that there could be only one natural ending - the one the director chose. I have hardly seen a more complete film apart from Rashomon and Charulata. I would love to go on and on about this film, but in this blog I try not to reveal the entire plot.

Azur et Asmar

Azur et Asmar is a 2006 animated French feature film, aimed mainly at children. Just as is the case with many such films, this film too holds an appeal for a much wider audience. The film is bilingual - partly in French and partly in Arabic. A neat storyline is what captivates the children. Very well crafted story, delivered with fantastic graphics. Disney makes the best of the animated films - if that is what you thought, you ought to see Azur et Asmar.

However, the extra edge this film has lies in its rich and vibrant use of colours. The colours of landscapes, of the sky, of the sea and of the people set up a different mood altogether. One clearly sees the difference when the plot shifts from cloudy and bleak France to a colourful mediterranean coast of north Africa. The sky is bright, the sun shines, the market place is full of colourful merchandise, people wear colour, trees are tropical and flowers are widespread. There is an unforgettable market scene which is a riot of colours.

The drawings are clearly influenced by old European and Islamic styles. Certain Islamic trends are easily discernible and enrich the film. The Arabic dialogue, which is interspersed with the French, does not come with a subtitle. That seems to be deliberately done.

As far as fairy tales go, it does not get better than this.

Charulata

It is somewhat pointless to write in such a blog about a classic. However, Charulata is different. It is surely one of the best five films I have ever seen, but that is not the reason. Charulata's presence on net is not as much as one would expect. This is arguably Satyajit Ray's best film. Immaculately crafted, everything planned in advance and superbly executed to give the viewer an ethereal experience.

It is the story of a young bored housewife, Charulata (or Charu), in Kolkata in the beginning of twentieth century. The story narrates how three people get together (or apart) in a relationship. The film is steeped in the coziness of affluence, and perhaps for this kind of relationships to prosper one had to be surrounded by affluence. This is very far cry from Ray's take on the famous Bengal famine in 'Ashani Sanket', for example.

The film is shot in black and white because this was still too early for colour in Bangla cinema. The quintessential charm of Kolkata's affluent elite forms the background. The women from such a family, however, had nothing much to do while the men were wondering about various social and political issues. And so if one of the womenfolk in the family had an extraordinary mind, she would be bored. Consequently, when Amal (pronounced Au-mol with 'Au' as in Author), a distant relative, comes to stay with them, Charu immediately has something to do. The bond that forms between them is the theme of the film. Also of course the effect this relationship has on Charu's husband Bhupati.

Ray once wrote that some of the new directors did not consider their job complete unless they had shown their protagonists' pubic hair. See his book Our films, their films, pages 13 and 14. Ray did not need any eroticism to portray the intimacy. He did not have the option either, being a filmmaker in the 1960s in Bengal. He loved to use the "power of suggestion which is inherent in all art". What is important is that in this case, he did not even need to suggest anything at all. The sublime beauty of the film Charulata lies in the fact that the intimacy between Charu and Amal was built on various mundane day to day things with one important exception - their common interest in literature. This was a common thread between them. One feels that intimacy between two human beings had never taken a greater shape than this. Various symbolism are spread in the film. A poignant moment occurs when Charu's husband, being cheated by the rest of the world, comes back to Charu for solace and discovers Charu's passion for Amal.

An altogether complete and enjoyable experience. The film is based on a story by Rabindranath Thakur. The story is good, but the film takes the story to a very different level.