SUDDENLY, ONE DAY

EK DIN ACHANAK

India

1989

105 Min

Color

Hindi

• Currently 4.5/5 Stars.
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DIR Mrinal Sen

PROD N.F.D.C.

SCR Ramapada Chowdhury, Mrinal Sen

DP K.K. Mahajan

CAST Shriram Lagoo, Shabana Azmi, Uttara Baokar, Aparna Sen,Rupa Ganguly

MUSIC Jyotishka Dasgupta

Imagine, one fine day, the man of the house steps out in the evening saying that he would return in some time. He doesn’t tell his wife where he is going but tells her he will return soon. This man never comes back. He is neither reported dead nor there is any information about his location. He simply disappears from the face of this planet. Just thinking about this idea is devastating for someone who has lived in a family.

Mrinal Sen revisits this concept of a person not returning home after addressing it in a previous Bengali film. That film takes place over one night though and the conclusion as well as the ideas that it seeks to evoke are much different from this one. It is hence quite commendable that Sen could use a similar storyline and evoke some deeply affecting ideas by simply changing the missing family member.

After the old man’s disappearance, his family has various recollections and each one draws a certain conclusion about his behavior. The son feels his father was callous and that he didn’t care a hoot about what happened to his family. The younger sister remembers her father as an egotist. The elder sister feels her father tried to hide his ordinariness under a facade of egotism and that he eventually succumbed to it. His wife fears he had an affair with one of his students. These ideas appear to be supported by the memories of the family that we get to see in flashbacks. He seems to have been a person too much involved in his academic pursuits to pay much attention to his family. He has a turbulent relation with his son and feels ashamed that he couldn’t even graduate. His relation with the elder daughter is perhaps the only cordial one in which he happens to share some of his deep thoughts with her. In a telling scene he recounts to her his regret: “Everyone judges a person by how he succeeds in life; There is no value to dedication”. There is another scene where the old man’s student shows him criticism of his article in a journal in which he is accused of plagiarism and dabbling. Even she suggests that perhaps he was a bit careless. The old man gets riled up by the accusations but he has no answer to the critics.

The family members suspect that all these circumstances were behind the old man’s disappearance. In the final scene, after an year has passed since the man’s disappearance, we see each of the family members recounting their feelings about the old man. The wife reveals something he had said the night previous to his disappearance : " The only regret I have is that we live only once".

This film raises some strong questions about the mental tribulations of an intellectual and his desire to be recognized. These questions resonate strongly with me for some reason as I probably have similar doubts as the main character. The fear of being ordinary for an intellectual in this fiercely competitive world is a real one. In this particular case, it results in his literal disappearance from the world but I am sure there are thousands out there who virtually disappear from society by going into their shell. Life remains nothing more than a baggage of regrets in such a case.

RETURN OF THE PRODIGAL SON

NÁVRAT ZTRACENÉHO SYNA

Czechoslovakia

1967

103 Min

Black and White

1.33:1

Czech

• Currently 4.3/5 Stars.
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DIR Evald Schorm

SCR Sergej Machonin, Evald Schorm

DP Frantisek Uldrich

CAST Jan Kacer, Jana Brejchová, Jiří Menzel, Milan Morávek,Dana Medrická

ED Jirina Lukesová

PROD DES Bohumil Pokorný

MUSIC Jan Klusák

Return of the Prodigal son is pretty much an archetypal nihilistic film. The protagonist has tried to commit suicide and is now being treated as if he was mentally ill when his problem is nothing but plain nihilism. He is a liberal who seems to have got tired with the phoniness and immorality that seems to come along with it. He hates his wife sleeping around with other men but being a liberal himself, he can’t complain about it. He is sick of being fed and pampered by his in-laws yet he knows he really has nothing to complain. He also shows his frustration with the phoniness of his employers, the homophobia of people with respect to the dancer and other social ills that seem to vex him but he simply cannot complain as he also is a part of that same society. In a telling scene he gets chased by people calling him a murderer until they realize that it was a case of mistaken identity. That scene pretty much encompasses the story of this prodigal son who essentially has no problem other than a growing conscience that seems to push him back to the ways of morality. It’s just that returning proves almost an impossible task unless of-course, life itself were to end.

The Runner

The Runner
Davandeh
Iran
1985
94 Min
Color
Persian
DIR Amir Naderi
PROD Ali Reza Zarrin
SCR Behrouz Gharibpour, Amir Naderi
DP Firooz Malekzadeh
CAST Abbas Nazeri, Majid Niroumand, Musa Torkizadeh
ED Bahram Beizai
My Rating : 5/5


Amir Naderi’s The Runner is such a powerful film that it literally screams out for the values that it stands for. It’s a timeless film that is especially relevant today for Iran as well as the rest of the world.

Amiroo is an orphan who is often screaming out to distant ships and airplanes. They excite his young mind and he dreams of travelling to far off lands in them. His life unfortunately is full of hardships. He begins working as a rag picker until one of his friends suggest collecting bottles. Later he sells ice water and eventually becomes a shoe shiner. At every stage of these odd jobs he faces injustice and young Amiroo fights it with all his heart. Life is a constant struggle for Amiroo but he is not a person to give up. He has a conviction that he is born to win. In fact, he enrolls himself in a part time school just because he cannot tolerate the taunts of a magazine seller. He memorizes his lessons shouting against the waves of the sea as if challenging nature itself to stop him. In a poignant finale, Amiroo and his friends compete in a race which is an astounding metaphor for their fight against their own destinies. Amiroo predictably wins this race but he also shares his trophy with others. Amiroo is a symbol for the fight to survive in this world full of injustice and betrayal. He is a model of hope for a largely disillusioned world that desperately needs people like him to put up a fight.

The Bogeyman

The Bogeyman
Kummatty
India
1979
90 Min
Color
Malayalam
DIR Govindan Aravindan
SCR Govindan Aravindan
DP Shaji N. Karun
CAST Ramunni, Master Ashokan, Vilasini Reema, Sivasankaran Divakaran, Kothara Gopalkrishnan, Shankar, Vakkil
MUSIC M G Radhakrishnan, Govindan Aravindan
My Rating : 5/5



Films have the power to develop a nostalgia for times in the past that sometimes never actually existed in our lives. Aravindan’s “The Bogeyman” reminded me of a childhood that I hope I had lived.

Aravindan takes us into a fictional village in Kerala with beautiful hilly landscapes. We see the sun rising in the morning, children going to school, the old village lady filling water from the pond and getting teased by the kids, children playing in the school playground, singing songs, studying etc. In short, we see a life free from worries and full of dreams of wondrous lands and fascinating creatures until one fine day, The Bogeyman arrives.

He is a strange person wearing a fake beard, holding a staff and a wooden pole balanced on his shoulder, singing wondrous songs and performing magic tricks. The children are initially scared of him but soon they start getting comfortable with him. The Bogeyman treats them to sweets and games and in return the children take care of him when he falls sick. He is a welcome distraction to the kids and they can’t seem to get enough of him. He evokes a goodness in them as they even stop being nasty with the old lady. They dance and sing along with him, a moment that we wish could freeze in time. But unfortunately, time never stops and one fine day, The Bogeyman decides to leave the village.

Before leaving, he performs one last trick to entertain his dear children. He transforms each one of them into different animals for some time before returning them back to their human form. Unfortunately, one of the boy’s who got transformed into a dog, runs away from the scene as he gets chased by a real wild dog. He is now trapped in the dogs body and has been chased far away from his home. Fortunately, he gets discovered by a teenage girl from a rich family who is fond of dogs. She puts a collar on him and treats him like her pet. The dog remains unhappy even after the love he gets from the girl and finally they decide to set him free. By chance, the dog is able to return to his family where his mother recognizes him. The family tries all kinds of god men to perform ceremonies to transform the boy back into his human form but its all in vain. In the mean time, the old village lady dies. Hopes of The Bogeyman returning to the village start diminishing when one fine day his chanting voice travels across the village and the dog rushes to him. As soon as he hugs The Bogeyman, he is transformed back into his human form. A rather predictable ending you might think.

But then, the boy returns home and does something inexplicable. He releases his pet parrot from the cage into the sky and there are poignant images of birds flying in formations. We now realize that the boy learn’t an important lesson through all his misery which most of us never learn in our entire lives. We take our freedom for granted. We never realize what it actually means to be free. Maybe every village needs a Bogeyman to teach us this important lesson.

The Woman in Rumour

The Crucified Woman/The Woman in Rumour
Uwasa no onna
Japan
1954
83 Min
Black and White
1.33:1
Japanese
DIR Kenji Mizoguchi
SCR Masashige Narusawa, Yoshikata Yoda
DP Kazuo Miyagawa
CAST Kinuyo Tanaka, Tomoemon Otani, Yoshiko Kuga, Eitarô Shindô, Bontarô Miake, Chieko Naniwa, Haruo Tanaka, Hisao Toake, Michiko Ai, Sachiko Mine, Kimiko Tachibana, Teruyo Hasegawa, Teruko Daimi, Kan Ueda, Saburo Date, Sumao Ishihara, Kotaro Kawada, Keiko Koyanagi, Midori Komatsu, Kanae Kobayashi, Kyôko Hisamatsu
ED Kanji Sugawara
PROD DES Hiroshi Mizutani
MUSIC Toshirô Mayuzumi
My Rating : 5/5




Plight of women in prostitution has been the subject of several Mizoguchi films and Women in Rumour (The Crucified Woman) is one of his best takes on the subject. The reason I say this is because this film has a very complex screenplay that Mizoguchi seems to execute with ease without losing out on the main issue of interest. This film is a precursor to Street of Shame; an excellent finale by Mizoguchi on the subject of prostitution which is similar to this film in its basic storyline but handles it from a different point of view.

We are introduced to a madame of a geisha house played by Kinuyo Tanaka whose daughter has just returned from the city after a failed love affair and a suicide attempt. Through the eyes of this new entrant, we are introduced to the mechanics of the household where regular customers arrive at their usual hour. Then there are some customers that require a visiting geisha. Men appear ridiculous and lecherous as they get drunk silly and create a ruckus in the house. Some of them try to lure the geisha’s away from the house in order to cheat them and some have their eyes on the madame to become a partner in the business. Women somehow appear to hold their own in all this madness. They have to tread a fine line in the patriarchal society where they have to take the help of men without getting exploited by them. The running of the household initially seems to embarrass Tanaka’s daughter but with the help of a visiting doctor(who appears to be a good person), her opinion about them seems to change. She realizes the misery of the geisha’s who, more often than not, have to support poor dysfunctional families and try to prevent their siblings from entering the business. Tanaka herself seems to want to give up the business by helping the young doctor set up a clinic and hopes to be his lawful wife some day. Unfortunately, Tanaka’s daughter also seems to fall in love with the doctor who seems to reciprocate this feeling. When Tanaka discovers this mutual love between her daughter and the doctor, she is naturally heartbroken and her dream to escape the business is shattered. Eventually though, we realize that the doctor happens to be a vile opportunist and his treachery seems to bring the daughter and mother closer than ever before. In the meantime, one of the geisha’s at the house dies of cancer and her young sister requests Tanaka’s daughter to let her work in their house as a geisha.

The film reaches a poignant and ironic finale as on one hand, Tanaka’s daughter starts managing the affairs of the house(with Tanaka falling sick) and on the other hand, there is the inevitability of the sister of the dead geisha entering the vile business. The film ends on a wistful remark by one of the geisha’s hoping for a day when there would be no need for poor young girls to sell their bodies to make a living. We cannot help but pray along with her for the same to happen some day. For the moment though, there seems to be no end to this vicious cycle.

A Country of Personal Milestones

There was a time during the first session of the second innings in the third Aus vs India Test match when India were 6 down and trailing by 50 runs that Ravi Shastri made this telling comment. He said that Virat Kohli should now focus on getting his century irrespective of the result of this match, in order to ensure his place in the side. I was shocked and appalled at this comment. It is not that the comment was something blasphemous but it's timing made me realize how horrible our mindset is with regards to cricket. We are a nation obsessed with personal milestones and don't give a damn about the overall outcome. Now that I think of it, this mindset is not just in cricket but in all spheres of life.

In a typical middle class family of India, a child grows up learning that he needs to get good marks to get respect in the society. He is in awe of his colleagues top scoring and making it into premier colleges. It does not matter how much he really learns in school as long as he has good marks to show on his report card. Recently I read this report in Times of India regarding some international exam that tested students skills in math, science and languages. Not surprisingly, our Indian students managed to outscore only Kyrgyztan in the overall tally.

Our country's education system obviously takes the primary blame but I think parents also take an equal amount of blame. They want their children to be engineers and doctors. There is absolutely no encouragement for developing the creativity of the child by introducing him to arts and sports. The arts and crafts that are taught in school are so lousy that they put off a student rather than fascinate the young mind. From my personal experience, I was really disappointed with the arts and music courses taught in my school. The teacher taught us songs and expected every student to sing beautifully. A bad singer was looked down upon. There was no effort to teach students music theory or musical instruments. There was no broadening of horizons of music for the child. All it did was that it ensured that students will not seriously consider music in their lives. Same was the problem with arts and crafts. There was no exposure to students to experience great works of art. Not surprisingly, Film studies were nowhere in picture. Today, film in India can be studied seriously only in FTII and NSD for which there is naturally, huge competition.

Every sphere of life in India is full of such competition. Life is a rat race. You often wonder why a person has to go through all this? Why an average student with genuine interest in some field cannot pursue it just because he doesn't make the cut off grades in some entrance exam? Many people don't have the courage to go against the convention and chart out a career in fields of their interest because they never got any formal education in it. As a result, they are full of self doubt and insecurity and can never find satisfaction in their careers. A lot of the blame goes to our culture which discourages an individual to live life on his on terms.

There is a way out of all this though, provided there is early intervention. Parent's in India have a huge influence on their child's life. Try not to force your child into anything. Expose him to the various pleasures of life. The pleasure of invention and discovery in science,the aesthetic appeal of arts as well as the sense of pride in sports. Recognize your child's strengths and encourage him to pursue it without worrying too much about his career. Do not let him get lost in this mindless rat race or make him develop an inferiority complex. You will be doing a huge favor on that young life.

Once Upon a Time there was a Singing Blackbird

Once Upon a Time There Was a Singing Blackbird
Iko shashvi mgalobeli
Soviet Union
1970
85 Min
Black and White
Georgian
DIR Otar Iosseliani
SCR Dimitri Eristavi, Otar Iosseliani, Sh. Kakichashvili, Semyon Lungin, Otar Mekhrishvili, Ilya Nusinov
DP Abessalom Maisuradze
CAST Gela Kandelaki, Gogi Chkheidze, Jansug Kakhidze, Irine Jandieri, Elene Landia
ED Julietta Bezuashvili
MUSIC Temur Bakuradze
My Rating: 5/5


Guia is a busy man. As he remarks to his mother, “He has so much to do!”, but what he does is arguably inconsequential. He is a very likeable lad and everyone seems to want a piece of him. He has very little attention span and hence keeps flitting around from one place to another but never fails to touch upon other people’s lives, even if its in a small way.

Guia is essentially a drummer in a conservatory, playing on an orchestra. He has a 90min break between his drumming task and he doesn’t waste that time. He ensures that he spends time with all his mates, girlfriends and family, even if its not to their complete satisfaction. The conductor of the orchestra is annoyed with the way Guia disappears in-between, raising everyone’s blood pressure until finally arriving at the nick of the time. He wants to get rid of him but cannot find a good reason for doing so, since Guia always manages to play at the right time.

Guia appears to be extremely accident prone. He is an inherently curious person and hence can rarely walk with his eyes on the road. There are so many interesting things happening around him, that he cannot help but try and absorb as much as he can, before it is too late.

One of Guia’s friend(a doctor) tells him that he isn’t doing what he is supposed to do. A rather profound statement if we think of it. Does any human being know what he is supposed to do in his life? Guia at least makes an attempt to do as much as he can.

Burden of Life

Burden of Life
Jinsei no onimotsu
Japan
1935
66 Min
Black and White
Japanese
DIR Heinosuke Gosho
SCR Akira Fushimi
DP Jôji Ohara
CAST Tatsuo Saitô, Mitsuko Yoshikawa, Masao Hayama, Yoshiko Tsubouchi, Kinuyo Tanaka, Kenji Oyama, Tokuji Kobayashi, Shin Saburi, Chôko Iida, Shozaburo Abe, Haruo Takeda, Tomio Aoki
ED Minoru Shibuya
MUSIC Keizo Horiuchi, Masae Shiba
SOUND Haruo Tsuchihashi
My Rating : 4/5




I have made yet another fascinating discovery in Japanese cinema with Gosho’s “Burden of Life”. Considering that Gosho has directed the first Japanese talkie ever, we can safely say that he was highly instrumental in developing it. Gosho has a very individual style in the shimon geki(home drama) format which has been highly exploited by various legendary Japanese directors.

“Burden of Life” is a relatively small film; just over an hour and at the end there is a feeling that probably the resolution is a bit abrupt. In fact, the audience would have probably loved a bit more of what Gosho was dishing out because it is so tasteful! Gosho favors close ups and multiple shots in his film, a style that I find very different from whatever Japanese cinema I have seen yet. He has a tremendous understanding of human nature, and he has a very matter of fact way of handling scenes. Characters speak to each other very rapidly and mostly the conversation is pretty inconsequential at the moment when it happens. The dialogues though seem to revisit us as an after-thought while a new set of dialogues/voice-overs are taking place. This is a fascinating observation and is subject for much humor and pathos that gets generated as a result. The characters are unimposing but endearing which makes you want to know more about them. There is a busy feel to the cinema and Gosho’s characters seem to be involved in some or the other activity all the time. This gives it a very natural feel and keeps the film moving at a brisk pace. I also found the subject of the film very bitter-sweet and a great insight into the bygone era when people had several children(usually with a huge age difference) and abortion wasn’t in-vogue.

In conclusion, I can remember Saito’s dialogue in the film where he jokingly responds to his young son saying that probably Saito is the person to be most pitied rather than him. I think as an audience and cinephile, I am the person to be most pitied because I can’t help wondering as to how much more treasure lies in the cinema of Japan that I am yet to discover!

Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks

Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks - Part 1: Rust
Tiexi qu
China
2003
176 Min
Color
1.33:1
Mandarin
DIR Wang Bing
PROD Wang Bing, Zhu Zhu
DP Wang Bing
ED Adam Kerby, Wang Bing
SOUND Chen Chen, Bin Hang
My Rating: 5/5 (Great Movie)


I would hate to view this as a documentary. It would possibly shock the developed western world to see the hazardous conditions in which these workers work but the fact is that this is pretty much the reality in most developing countries. I have worked in a factory and I have a first hand experience of this although I could never get as intimate with the workers as the camera does in this film. Anyway, what really impresses me about this work is that the filmmaker had the gumption to tell a story about the ordinary worker who wants to make a living.

The worker regrets not having education and hopes his children don’t have to face hardships like him. He is fed up with his condition but knows that he is pretty much helpless. He hides his sorrow in jokes and laughter. He diverts his attention by playing games, watching porn or playing music. When he can’t do that, he goes ranting about his situation to some coworker or gets into a petty brawl or simply takes a bath. The camera remains a patient observer and listener while all this is happening. It is sympathetic to their concerns. It does not offer an opinion. It simply becomes a part of their lives, following them around like a faithful animal. There is a trust that the camera won’t betray them and it doesn’t. That is where the film maker truly succeeds and I respect him for that.

Although this is a review of Part 1: Rust, the reader is encouraged to watch the next two parts i.e Remnants and Rails. Both are a fascinating insight into the life of the people in the industrial district of Tie Xi Qu district. It's an experience that the enthusiastic cinephile will definitely savor.