Barcelona (1994)

Director: Whit Stillman
Writer:    Whit Stillman
Cast:       Taylor Nichols, Chris Eigeman, Tushka Bergen

Ted, a stuffy white guy from Illinois working in sales for the Barcelona office of a US corporation, is paid an unexpected visit by his somewhat less stuffy cousin Fred, who is an officer in the US Navy. Over the next few months, both their lives are irrevocably altered by the events which follow Fred's arrival, events which are the trivial stuff of a comedy of manners at first but which gradually grow increasingly dramatic.

Yeah right, it is not a post on how Capello's Milan raped the favorites, Cryuff's Barcelona, 4-0 in the 1994 Champions League final. I had recently discovered Whit Stillman through his debut film 'Metropolitan'. This is his second film after a long gap of four years and he had a significantly higer budget of $3 million to work with. It took me about three weeks to obtain the 1.7GB print and it was totally worth it because of the exquisite way it is visualized. Barcelona frequently figures at top among the best cities to visit/live lists and lent itself very well for films. We are now very familiar with such English films set in European cities with Woody Allen filming his recent ones there. One could really say Whit Stillman got there first, but then again, considerable Woody Allen influence is there in Stillman's films itself.

In 'Metropolitan', we had rich kids from privileged background fretting about the hate that other people have for them and worrying about downward social mobility. Instead of that, we have two American guys fretting about the hate that people from other nationalities have for American, quite unreasonably in their opinion. That and other things like why Europeans look down upon US 'culture', which Americans themselves accept in a self-deprecating manner. It is summed up in the below conversation.

Fred: Maybe you can clarify something for me. Since I've been, you know, waiting for the fleet to show up, I've read a lot, and...

Ted: Really?

Fred: And one of the things that keeps popping up is this about "subtext." Plays, novels, songs - they all have a "subtext," which I take to mean a hidden message or import of some kind. So subtext we know. But what do you call the message or meaning that's right there on the surface, completely open and obvious? They never talk about that. What do you call what's above the subtext?

Ted: The text.

Fred: OK, that's right, but they never talk about that.

It is tremendously funny like you would expect and is a must watch if you are a fan of Woody Allen. Film is quite hard to describe and best way to do is to say it is like a Woody Allen film. Stillman's first three films are supposed to be part of a trilogy with the third and last one being 'Last Days Of Disco', which I am going to watch pretty soon. Both Taylor Nichols and Chris Eigeman were in Metropolitan as well.

Marta: Ramon is very persuasive, and he painted a terrible picture of what it would be like for her to live the rest of her life in America, with all of its crime, consumerism, and vulgarity. All those loud, badly dressed, fat people watching their eighty channels of television and visiting shopping malls. The plastic throw-everything-away society with its notorious violence and racism. And finally, the total lack of culture.

Rating: 4/5 

                                                                    

വിധേയന്‍ (Vidheyan) (1994)

Director: Adoor Gopalakrishnan
Writers:  Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Paul Zacharia
Cast:       Mammootty, M.R. Gopakumar, Tanvi Azmi
Language: Malayalam, Kannada

It is a cinematic adaptation of the Novella 'Bhaskara Pattelarum Ente Jeevithavum' by Malayalam writer Paul Zacharia and it explores the master-slave dialectic in Southern Karnataka settings. Thommy (M.R. Gopakumar) is a Christian migrant labourer from Kerala who is new to the Karnataka-Kerala border village in which Pattelar (Mammootty) is sort of the feudal overlord. When they first meet, Pattelar proceeds to humiliate the migrant and subsequently rapes his wife. Even though Thommy is enraged at first he is helpless to do anything about it. On top of that he is co-opted by Pattelar into his inner circle by offering him a job in the local toddy shop and makes him his trusted servant. The title of the film translates as 'The Servile' and is told from the perspective of Thommy.

Going by the above synopsis some would presume that the film is a tale of cruelty told in a very serious fashion. My memory of it from watching bits and pieces of it when I was very young was also like that. But it is told with plenty of black humor with minimal dialog. Pattelar is not portrayed as the uber bad guy and is someone with his own insecurities and vulnerabilities. When he asks Thommy's help to kill his wife and make it look like an accident, he quips that her brothers can be a troublesome if it is not done properly. The feudal master-slave dynamics still exist in many rural parts of India but is extinct in Kerala. The time period that the film is set in is not mentioned explicitly and I would guess it to be mid 70s or something like that. The character Pattelar speaks Kannada as his mother tongue and delivers Malayalam in a very odd manner when he speaks to Thommy. It was off-putting initially as it also sounded different  to Mammootty's normal voice and we are so used to how he speaks. M.R. Gopakumar is amazing in his role as Thommy but it was Mammootty who got the national award for his role in this film. On balance, I think the former was more deserving to win but one should praise the latter for accepting such a role that would be considered by many to be very negative. Trivia: Steven Spielberg wanted to work with Indian actor M.R. Gopakumar in the movie, but due to his passport traveling issues he was unable to accept that offer to act in Lost World: Jurassic Park.

I hadn't seen any of the Adoor Gopalakrishnan films in its entirety prior to watching this and Vidheyan was indeed a great watch. The recent Malayalam films from him doesn't look very interesting and I don't know whether it is due to the fact that he is hamstrung by limited actors from this generation. In Vidheyan, the dialog delivery in the able shoulders of its two leads is quite safe but lesser actors can certainly make it quite grating to watch. There is one scene towards the end when Pattelar and Thommy decides to go into hiding and we see Thommy's wife crying and approaching someone. You expect that she is actually approaching Pattelar to complete Thommy's emasculation but  instead she goes to Thommy. Then Thommy consoles her that he will take care of Pattelar as if that is top of her worries and that was amazingly funny and sums up the film as a tragi-comedy. As far as technical things go, I watched a really shite youtube print of the film and it is not fair to comment based on that. Anyway it is shot in a very raw manner and the approach is that of realism. I guess if you are looking into Adoor Gopalakrishnan's filmography, Vidheyan will be a very good film to start with.

Rating: 4.5/5 

                                                                             

पीत्रा, पुत्रा और धर्मयुद्धा (Father, Son, and Holy War) (1994)

Director: Anand Patwardhan
Writer:    Anand Patwardhan

It is a documentary by Anand Patwardhan examining the patriarchal nature of Indian society. Archaeological evidence points that many of the pre-agrarian societies were either matriarchal or both genders had equal standing. The lack of knowledge about the role men play in reproduction was a factor in this. Domestication of animals and emergence of agriculture increased the tendency to war which made the societies more patriarchal. The religious institutions that followed also entrenched this and all the three major religions in India exhibit the same-Christianity with their adopted pagan concept of Virgin Mary, Witch hunts etc, Hindus with Sati and as for Islam-where should I begin....

It starts with footage from post Babri Masjid demolition riots in Mumbai. Coming after his previous documentary-'Ram Ke Namm', Patwardhan, as he states in it thought he will make one on religious violence. Instead. he proceeds to examine how women are oppressed in Indian society and looks at the issue of Sati, which is officially banned but still some stray occurrences of it happens in rural India. As one woman explains, Sati solves many things for the family. If you have a young widow in the family you can do either of the two things-keep her in the family which has negative monetary consequences or drive her out from the family which can bring shame to them. So thus emerged an ingenious solution of Sati-you can kill her in the name of Sati during the husband's funeral and since it is considered Holy, you may even build a 'Mandir' and proceed to collect donations. Patwardhan also explains how the caste system got established in India with the Aryan invasion, which is essentially a group of fairer outsiders conquering the land of darker skinned people. Caste system (different groups are called 'Varnas' in Sanskrit which stands for color) was established to maintain the hierarchy and purity within each groups. Education was allowed for male members of the 'Brahmin' community only and the patriarchy in their group was transferred to other castes as well. 

                                              

There was also one segment on some Yaga conducted in Durbar Hall Ground, Cochin, for which childless couples were selected to attend based on submitted applications. Patwardhan interviews a a very highly educated couple with the husband being an LSE educated economist. He explains hilariously that Santhanagoplam are sound vibrations- err... all sounds are vibrations dude...A priest states that the mantras causes vibrations which affect the genitals solving their problem if the couple truly believes in the Yaga. Well, last part could be scientifically possible and can be seen as an interpretation of that Paulo Coelho quote, bastardized by all MBA nitwits. There is also one segment on Muslim women who are oppressed by the system of Talaq among many other things. This is something that has been aided by the Indian state which has given different set of marriage laws for various religions.

Overall it is a great watch but a minor criticism would be the episodic nature of different segments. It was anyway created as a two part documentary and like all Patwardhan documentaries, it was banned initially despite winning several national and international awards. In 2004, the European DOX magazine listed it as one of the 50 most documentaries of all time.

Rating: 4/5