Critique of the Critics

Yesterday I, Mayank, Golak and Smriti went for the 6;30 show at siri fort. The movie was "Hia W'Houa" (She and He). And the director was Elyes Baccar, who was there to answer questions. I won't say much about the movie, apart from the facts that there was just one set, an apartment of two rooms; two main characters; and it was pretty experimental.

What was most interesting was the question answer session.

Anchor: We have the director Mr. Baccar here. If you have any questions ....

Critic 1:mmmbbbl mmmmbbbbll mmmbblll

audience (chorus):plz speak in the mike.

Critic 1:I was saying that your film was remarkable, economy of sets, characters, and it was almost like a play. At least I concieve it as such. Where you influenced by the 'The theatre of the absurd', say Beckett.

Director:Yeah, I like Becketh, as he zays a lot without zaying anyzing. Just by actions. etc..etc..

Critic 2:The last scene, I think it made the film fall into hyper-reality. Where we know that this cannot be real but still subconsciously think it is real. The pain, angst, his infertility (other words), which He must have felt definitely play a big part. The woman in his life about whom we don't know a lot. The Un-knowledge we have of her makes her seem unreal.

Critic3:Did you intend it to be sadomaschist, or sadist. As in when the girl seems to torture him. What did you intend to achieve?

Director: I wrote the film keeping logic aside. The most difficult thing for me was to keep that feeling, which came to me when I wrote the first line, throughout the script. I mean to keep that feeling throughout making the film. There is no logic to it. I wrote it, something came out, the end result is this film. If I were to direct this film now, I might do it differently, change the camera angles, change in direction etc. So your question is a big questionmark for me.

Critic 2(to critic 3) :You mentioned about sadism and sadomasochism, but I completely disagree. I think there's definitely a homage to Fellini's 'Leather .mmbbl mmmbl', in this film. Also the way ..... ... is ......... etc..etc..

In short I hate critics.

Osian's cinefan - 2007

7 films in 2 days.
Sansho, The Bailiff (sansho dayu by Kenji Mizoguchi) - A prostitute named Namigaki has made this song famous throughout the sado province. " Zushiooooooo......... Anju......something something....something something...", which is actually due to her yearning for her lost son Zushio and daughter anju. The bailiff is the evil slave master.

Times and Winds (Bes Vakit by Reha Erdem) - The camera work was marvelous and the characters chose to sleep in the undergrowth whenever they needed escape. Weirdly funny.

Days of Glory (Indegenes by Rachid Bouchareb) - The muslims from Algeria (which was a colony of france) fought alongwith france in the world war, against Nazism. The motto of the war was liberty, fraternity ...and such. Meanwhile it occured to them they needed liberty from french too.

The Yacoubin Building (Omaret Yacoubian by Marwan Hamed) - A building called 'The Yacoubian' stands witness the changes in the social and political world of Egypt.

Dancing Bells (Challangai by Deepak Kumar Menon) - The story of people of indian origin (tamils mostly) who are in malaysia. Though the production quality was ..cheap, the acting, the dialogues were excellent.

Opera Jawa (by Garin Nugroho) - An entire film narrated in the opera style. This film was the most experimental of the lot. Throughout the film people dropped out like rabbits running on normal batteries. While i was on duracell.. :D. 

I wish i understood javanese, coz all the poetry was lost in the translation. And the dance varied from traditional to the robot to the modern style.

Falafel (by Michael Kammouin) - Once on an island in Sumatra, it rained Falafels over a ghetto. The people of that ghetto ate falafels for 15 days. BTW falafels are a dish, which look like a cross between a cutlet and a bhajiya. When falafels are fried they float on the oil. But once in 5-6 months one of them denies to do so. Contradicting Archimedes and Newton it sinks to the bottom. This is called the runaway falafel. The hero of the film picks up the one that sinked and himself got sinked into a whirlwind of a night.

Domicile Conjugal

Saw 'Domicile Conjugal' today, with sudeep and mayank. I have started liking french cinema more and more. The best thing that i liked about this movie was that it seemed as if it had layers. The outtermost layer would be the comedy, which everyone understands and laughs at. The indications of the second layer would be the surreal touches, the out of the ordinary things which happen, like the flowers in the vase opening up 500 frames/sec and popping out small paper messages. These subtle hints which indicate at a second layer of meaning.

And the worst part of this movie was that I couldn't see any coherent second layer.

last night

the octopus clouds slimed forward
towards its prey
I laid there on the plastic mat
eyeballing it
but it sprayed after all
to my dismay.