alternarrative

Since Slumdog Millionaire has been talked about so much since it made its way to the Oscars, thought I’d share some thoughts here in light of their spectacular win last Sunday. I hadn’t heard of it even a day before I first went to watch it, but found a very positive review through google when some friends asked if I wanted to go check it out. Well, we eventually couldn’t, becuase it was the day after realease and was all sold out at at our small neighborhood theater where they only show foreign and indie films. By the time I got to watch it about a week later at the big main theater in Boston, everyone was raving about how awesome it is.

I’m not gonna lie: I loved it. So much so, and especially the music, that I came out dancing. It was a bit of a shock, because the movie departs so much from the kind that I like. One of my friends was not too impressed; she complained how unrealistic it was. True, the whole melodrama is pretty fantastical. But then another friend pointed out that it was precisely the remarkably realistic portrayal of Mumbai that made the film so touching. So there we go: the tricky balance of the believable and the mandatory suspension of belief that every literary project must pursue.

But here are the more interesting questions, ones that people have been debating about all over: what to do about a film that has been hailed as representing India to the world, but was actually made by a group of British filmmakers. What about those Indians who were (and some still are) protesting that the film fetishizes on poverty, and paints a picture of India as a third-world developing country, without showing the “real,” “modern” Mumbai. (more…)

I finally got to watch Caramel (2007) last night at a screening by a Lebanese initiative at KSG. It’s a very well-made film, all the more impressive considering that one of the main characters, Layale, was played by director Nadine Labaki herself—which I found out only at the end as the credits were rolling. I think the element that stands out most is the delectable sense of humor that runs throughout the film, and which places it squarely in the genre of comedy. The other thing I felt or imagined was a distinct nostalgic tenor, heightened by the many quiet, pensive moments in the narrative, by a certain use of colors (as in the poster image), and by its attention to inter-generational encounters (most notably with the character of the utterly adorable old woman, Rose’s older sister). In that sense, I think of the film as almost a recounting of a Beiruti belle époque, of a magical but lost era before the long and disastrous Lebanese civil war (although I think the story’s setting is contemporary). It is also rather ironic, as I could not help but keep thinking of as I watched the film, that the shooting for Caramel was apparently finished just nine days before that other recent war, when Israel attacked Lebanon two summers ago. And if you’re following the news this week, Beirut is again in the midst of crisis right now, and the worst fear is that we are on the brink of another civil war.

As most reviews have noted, Caramel is unique in completely ignoring politics: apparently the only Lebanse film that does not speak of conflict. But of course, it would be mistaken to say that it’s not political (is any story ever really apolitical?). Rather, the story of the five women at the heart of the movie appeals to the more universal, the more human story of women’s struggles as women. By showcasing resistance while also locating it in everyday life, imbued with humor, the film ends up being a deeply humanistic portrayal of society. Considering that this is her debut feature film, we should expect more great works from Labaki.

Several weeks ago, I got to see The Syrian Bride again at a screening at MIT on the occasion of International Women’s Day. I realized that I didn’t blog about the movie when I first got it through Netflix nearly two years ago, but it’s an utterly remarkable movie that deserves mention here–if only to ask people to see it, if you haven’t already. The story is set entirely on the wedding day of Mona the bride, who nonetheless plays a relatively smaller role in the film. The rightful protagonist is the elder sister Amal, played by the preeminent Hiam Abbas–who many of you will recognize from Paradise Now. In fact, much of the cast should be familiar if you’ve seen a handful of Israeli/Palestinian movies. While I think the strongest message of the film is in its critique of the nation-state system and the modern bureaucracy, it offers a rich portrait of this Druze family that simultaneously explores big and complex questions of religion, culture, and politics. The theme of gender emerges as cutting across all of these. With a great balance between serious drama and a memorable sense of humor, the film affects in mutiple and uncertain ways, even as the remarkably powerful ending leaves you in helpless melancholy.

Saturday evening, I was at the Harvard Film Archive for the debut of an independent film called Marrakech Inshallah. I didn’t know before I went to watch it that this was the debut, though I did know that director Steffen Pierce was going to be there (I learned that he serves as Assistant Curator at the Harvard Film Archive). It wasn’t completely random that I picked up on this event: randomly enough, earlier this year at Yale I had happened to be at a screening of a fairly obscure documentary titled The Bride Market of Imilchil, directed by the same Pierce and his brother.

I enjoyed Marrakech Inshallah, though it kept reminding me of my ignorance of anthropology, since the film evoked numerous issues concerning ethnography. The central narrative, however, was about a little boy’s journey from his rural Berber home in the mountains to the busy urban setting of Marrakech. The voiceover of the 12 year old, in first person, was very distinct and sometimes almost funny, even for someone completely unfamiliar with the dialect he was speaking.

One of the interesting aspects of the Pierce brothers’ work, as evident from both the films I have seen, is their call to attention on the process of filmmaking itself. And so in the Bride Market of Imilchil, for instance, they avoid making the deceptive implication that it’s only a “documentary”: the camera is, of course, as much a part of the “reality” being filmed. But even in Marrakech Inshallah, a work of “fiction”, they include an episode in which the characters are interviewed in front of the camera of a Western journalist/filmmaker (played by Steffen himself). During the Q&A session following the screening, I jumped on the opportunity and asked Steffen Pierce to comment on this matter. His response was quite elaborate: apparently, after they had shot Bride Market, all of the people that they had interviewed were later questioned by the Moroccan authorities (who weren’t sure what kind of film these Americans were making). Steffen also referred to the classic incident that provokes questions about the philosophical status of such “journalistic intervention”: this was the case of the photographer who was about to shoot a political execution, but asked the authorities to delay it a little bit, because the sunlight wasn’t right (!). Can the camera ever capture an objective reality?

I should note, by the way, that something about Steffen and his brother Christian reminded me of the Coen Brothers (arguably my favorite filmmakers ever). Maybe just the fact that they’re two director brothers, just like Joel and Ethan; but also something about their looks (the beards?).

Just ‘okay’ movie. But I enjoyed it. At the very least, it brought back memories of my childhood craze about Superman. He was the only real superhero: I never cared about Spider Man, Batman, or any of the many other lame ones.

The other day I finally watched Memoirs of a Geisha — I had the Netflix DVD on me for the last 3 weeks, but never had the time/mood to watch it. Honestly, I didn’t like the movie as much as I thought I would (Note that I’m speaking as someone who did not read the book). For one thing, because the characters spoke English (accented to varying degrees), with occasional Japanese phrases, the whole movie felt somewhat inauthentic. I think I would’ve preferred it to be in Japanese with English subtitles (clearly, I’ve been corrupted by watching too many ‘foreign films’!). Also, I don’t think the narrative voice come across as having as much force and intensity as the movie deserved. There are other little things here and there, not all of which I can pinpoint, but overall, it wasn’t a movie that left a strong impression on my mind and not one that I would be keen to watch again.

I think a worthy comparison would be the excellent Turkish film Harem Suare, which I have reviewed before. They explore some similar themes, although of course in very different circumstances. Both the geisha and the concubine, in their respective worlds, engage in a difficult struggle to achieve and maintain their individual identities as women within the inherent patriarchal system. And as a part of that struggle, they both have to deal with female rivalries and conspiracies. Both movies are eventually pretty depressing in their reflection of a reality in which woman’s existence is for man (But then there’s always some form of subversive resistance, even if just in the act of loving). Both movies have a strong sense of nostalgia running through the story-line, recalling an ‘old world’, almost a belle epoque, that is upset by war or revolution.

But ultimately, Harem Suare is a much better movie than Memoirs of a Geisha: not least because of the former’s thoroughly captivating narrative, the stories within the stories, the experimentation with colors, and the development of strong yet elusive characters.

So I went back to the Whitney last night for another good Italian movie. After Midnight (2004) is a very enjoyable film, all the more because it leads into some reflection on the art of film itself. Essentially the story is no more than another cliched plot involving two guys in love with a woman (and so the narrator asks at the end, why do we still watch it?), but it is nonetheless full of interesting and original elements, not least of which is its setting: a museum of cinema (The Mole Antonelliana in Turin, Italy). The director draws a lot of inspiration from the classic filmmaker Buster Keaton, whose films appear as a motif in After Midnight. The movie also uses the Fibonacci numbers as another interesting motif, connecting it to mathematics of relationships, and to the meaning of life in general. The most noticeable aspect of After Midnight however, is its use of digital photography. The entire movie was shot in high definition video, so the images stand out starkly realistic on the screen (But then again, they’re also more than real, since what we see with a digital camera is different than what we see with the naked eye). Thus the movie also becomes a witness to the evolution of technology, as we watch it and compare it to the late 19th and early 20th century clips within it. Overall, a definitely recommended watch.