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| MOVIES WITH AN ASIAN TOUCH
The 35th International Film Festival of India 2004 to be held in Goa from Nov 29th to Dec 9th 2004 will showcase more than 200 films. The highlight of the festival will be the Asian Competition Section. The Goan Observer brings you the synopsis of some of the movies that will be screened in that category. Features Desk Bow Barracks Forever (India) Bow Barracks Forever is Anjan Dutt’s second feature film after Bada Din in Hindi, with Shabana Azmi in the lead. Dutt has waited six years to make a relatively low budget film close to his desires as possible. “I had to make this film just to reassert the wonderful, crazy world that is fast disintegrating. I stressed on the human aspect, more than the issue because, finally people to me are important,” he says. “People” are what Dutt’s film is all about. Eccentric, colourful people fill the screen, holding on to a crumbling tenement in Bow Barracks, Calcutta. The issue is, can they survive? Will they give in to a promoter or the corporation? The story centres around Emily Lobo, a middle-aged Anglo-Indian widow and her son Bradley. She is famous for her cake and wine, and makes a living out of it. Her only dream is that one day her elder son Kenneth, would take them to London. Bradley is a DJ at a music store barely surviving, has an affair with a neighbour’s wife. The neighbours wife Anne, is beaten up regularly by an alcoholic husband Tom, and yet she maintains a soft, quiet exterior, for the love, hopes and dreams she shares with Bradley. There is “Peter, the Cheater,” an alcoholic who lives by cheating the neighbourhood. The hyper Goan Melvin, and his outrageously seductive wife Rosa, the adolescent flirtatious Sally, are all characters, who inspite of their weaknesses and failures, come together to embody the undying spirit of Calcutta. Lillette Dubey, Victor Banerjee, Moon Moon Sen, Neha Dubey, and Clayton Rodgers as “Bradley,” are all outstanding. Fine ensemble acting, and each vignette manages to be more poignant and compelling than its predecessor. Director Anjan Dutt keeps things from becoming too heavy by adding deft touches of comedy and catching instants, spontaneity and freshness.
The spirit of ‘Lalon’ (Bangladesh) Tanvir Mokammel’s much talked-about film Lalon features eminent actor Raisul Islam Asad in the titular role, and it endeavours in portraying the mores in the great mystic poet’s life. What might seem to be the principal attraction of a film based on the life of a mystic folk singer like Lalon, in fact, turned out to be the most incoherent element in the film Lalon. Another aspect of the movie that falls short of becoming a ‘movie’ is that it lacks a good story line. Biographical films do not necessarily mean the portrayal of an event-less life. Except for the sequence where Lalon, returns to his village after a long spell of small pox, was refused any place in the society, nowhere in the movie is there a hint of suspense. The cinematography of the film is, however, very good as was expected from the renowned camera-wizard Anwar Hossain. One aspect of the film is very appreciable and that is the inclusion of a good number of real life Bauls who project some true features of the minstrels’ lifestyle. Renowned folksingers like Farida Parvin, Farida Yasmin, Kangalini Sufia, Kartik Das Baul have sung the songs used in the film.
Turn Left at the End of the World (Israel-France) One of the most successful Israeli films of the last decade, Avi Nesher’s Turn Left at the End of the World is a well-drawn portrait of the uneasy relationship between various immigrant communities attempting to fit in and get along with each other in their new land. Chock-full of characters and incidents and occasionally lapsing into overly broad comedy and melodrama, the film is an overstuffed melange that is never less than interesting despite its awkwardness. The picture recently served as the opening-night attraction at the Israeli Film Festival in New York. The story principally concerns two families: one Moroccan, that has been in Israel for many years, and the other newly arrived Indians. Placed by the government in a small town on the edge of the desert, the families make their living at the town’s sole employer, a bottle factory. This is particularly troubling news for Roger (Parmeet Sethi), the darkly handsome head of the Indian clan, who is chagrined to learn that his handsome new suit is hardly suitable attire for the menial factory work to which he’s been consigned. Regarding each other with wary suspicion, the families soon develop complicated ties. The two young daughters, Indian Sara (Liraz Charchi) and Moroccan Nicole (Neta Garty), form a hardly encouraged friendship. And Roger finds himself in a torrid affair with Simone (Aure Atika), a young and sexy widow. Some of the story’s dramatic elements include Nicole’s sexual relationship with a new teacher at her school, the life-threatening illness of Sara’s mother, and a strike at the factory instigated by the Moroccan employees. Comic relief comes in the form of a cricket game organized by the Indians looking to recapture some of their old life.
Walk on water Eytan Fox’s Walk on Water stars Lior Ashkenazi, who won raves for his role in “Late Marriage,” as an Israeli intelligence agent who goes undercover to plan the assassination of a notorious Nazi criminal. In Israel, the agent befriends the Nazi’s gay grandson (Knut Bergen) and granddaughter (Carolina Peters) and later visits Germany to discover the family’s secrets. The American-born, Israeli director Fox previously directed Yossi & Jagger, a feature about gay Israeli army soldiers - which won prizes at the Tribeca Film Festival, Jerusalem International Film Festival and others.
‘Old women’ (Russia) Gennady Sidorov in this Russian film portrays a forgotten Russian village in the middle of no-where, with no electricity, a population of old women living simple, ordinary lives and only one man, who suffers from Down’s syndrome. One day, a family of refugees from Central Asia come to settle in the village. They are not welcome…..
Rider Named Death (Russia) Based on a novel by notorious pre-Revolutionary Russian terrorist Boris Savinkov, Karen Shakhnazarov’s costumer “Rider Named Death” instead of using its hot-button issues as a present-day hook, sticks with a 19th century mindset which it accompanies with elegant turn-of-the-century decors. This exquisite, self-contained curio will doubtless travel far on fest circuit and but the sinister hero, sadly lacking in villainous panache. Gorgeous set design by Ludmila Kusakova stacks the deck even before the plot kicks in. It would be criminal to destroy such stunning works of art as the raspberry-colored palace of the Grand Duke or blow up a masterful layout where even beggars figure as essential parts of the decor. Director Shakhnazorov’s sumptuous set pieces include one staged in a palatial ante-chamber where a splendidly garbed, ravishing young woman prettily begs for an audience with a minister and, once admitted to the attentive official’s presence, calmly pumps him full of lead. A more explosive assassination attempt fills the cobblestone streets with screaming horses and swirling black smoke that clears to reveal the casualties. Lastly, in the stately marbled halls of the Bolshoi theater, coincidentally empty of guards, an assassin enters the Grand Duke’s box and shoots him at point-blank range, while onstage a lively opera continues without pause. The conspirators meet in a cavernous cabaret where dancers perform a suggestively choreographed can-can, their hairdos, costumes and clownish poses straight out of Toulouse-Lautrec. Except for George (Andrey Panin), the revolutionists’ cold fish of a leader, the rank and file’s intensity markedly contrasts with the promiscuous decadence of the overall milieu. A chilly assassin, voluptuously obsessed with his victim’s demise, Panin’s George seems more dedicated to death than to justice.
Against the Tide (Sri Lanka) Award winning film-maker Sudath Devapriya’s new film is set in the rural Sri Lanka of 1989. The civil war is raging, but it hasn’t yet touched the life of nine-year-old Sirimal, who lives an idyllic life with his mother and his boatman father, helping him ferry passengers over to their island every day. Sirimal is adored by his dad who is easily softened by his son’s beaming smile. One day his father is requested to ferry a group of strangers with guns over to the island, and they are shortly followed by the army. Gun battles and arrests soon ensue and Sirimal’s world is changed forever by his father’s disappearance. As their local society descends into anarchy and bloodshed Sirimal and his mother desperately hang on to hope, setting out on a quest to find the missing parent.
Fire Fighters (Sri Lanka) Who are the owners of this earth? Of course of all species humans are the most intelligent and the most developed but does that mean that all other living beings should only serve the needs of humans? No, this earth belongs to all of us. “Us” means all living beings including trees. We must all care for it and share it, not tear it. Sediris, a hunter in a remote village, accompanies his 10-year old son Tikira on hunting in order to teach him the trade. Other villagers do not enter the forest as Sediris has scared them with false rumors of ghosts. The sudden appearance of a monk with a young disciple becomes a threat for Sediris. Various attempts by him to remove the monk fail. Meanwhile the secret friendship between the two boys grows into a strong bond, challenging the adults. Inspired by the little monk, Tikira gradually learns to love the animals instead of killing them. The villagers begin to accept the monks despite Sediris’s threats. One day while fleeing away from the villagers Sediris accidentally runs into one of his own gun-traps and loses a limb. Helpless with six children and two wives Sediris is surprised to see the monk he hated is there to help him. The two boys become inseparable and Tikira’s life changes drastically. |
