Copa America 2011: Mexico

Entry #4 for the Copa America 2011 Book & Film Festival.

Book: The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela

Mariano Azuela’s book gives a ground level view of the Mexican Revolution, a landmark historical event that continues to be a source of inspiration for literature and cinema. Revolutions are often messy and sometimes very bloody. Over time, the graphic details of a revolution are softened in favour of the legacy of the revolution and impact it had for the nation and its citizens. Azuela’s book, originally published in 1915, etches out such vivid characters and situations that ensures one will never forget the blood and sacrifice that went into the revolution. The book uses the character of Demetrio Macias as an anchor to depict the revolution and blood letting that occurred. At the start of the book, Demetrio is just a peaceful man but he is thrust into the struggle after his house is burnt down.

“Why didn’t you kill ‘em?”
“Their hour hasn’t struck yet.”
They went out together; she bore the child in her arms. At the door, they separated, moving off in different directions.
The moon peopled the mountain with vague shadows. As he advanced at every turn of his way Demetrio could see the poignant, sharp silhouette of a woman pushing forward painfully, bearing a child in her arms.
When, after many hours of climbing, he gazed back, huge flames shot up from the depths of the canyon by the river. It was his house, blazing....

The above lines come just four pages into The Underdogs and the book does not ease up after that but dives deeper and deeper into the eye of the storm. The Underdogs paints a stark picture of how some people break free from their principles when dealing with survival, poverty or power. The book is made up of quickly paced short chapters akin to scenes in a film. The words are carefully chosen and properly convey the sentiments of the characters without ever feeling dramatic or un-needed. Azuela’s book is a combination of his personal experiences and fictional recreation based on accounts he heard from soldiers and people effected by the revolution. The end result is a work that depicts many powerful scenarios that stay long in the memory.

Film: Duck Season (2004, Fernando Eimbcke)

Best friends Flama (Daniel Miranda) and Moko (Diego Cataño) have a fun afternoon planned out involving video games and pizza. Their video game duel is first interrupted by the young girl next door, Rita (Danny Perea), who wants to borrow the oven for some baking. The boys let her in and resume their gaming only to get hungry. They order pizza from a shop that promises the pizza will be free if it is not delivered under 30 minutes. The delivery man Ulises (Enrique Arreola) manages to arrive a shade under 30 minutes but the boys don’t open the door and count down the seconds until the 30 minutes are up. They then refuse to pay because they claim Ulises missed his deadline. Ulises refuses to leave until he has been paid and a showdown emerges between him and the two boys. Eventually the stalemate is broken when it is agreed the pizza money fate will be decided by a soccer video game. The game is in on the verge of completion when the electricity goes out, something which even disrupts Rita’s baking, a baking task that never seems to end. The four lay around on the couch and new friendships are developed and their personalities are altered due to the presence of some marijuana brownies. Ulises is not happy in his job and not pleased with the direction his life has taken and the brownies only help bring him clarity.

Fernando Eimbcke’s film is shot in Mexico but it has a universal theme and could take place in any city where a combination of video games, pop, pizza and hormones has the power to alter an otherwise average day. The film also raises some other issues, merely by its absence such as the issue of parenting and how it has an effect on young children. The film’s title comes from a painting of ducks in the living room and as per picture, the lives of the four characters undergoes a migration of sorts even though neither of them physically leave the apartment.

Copa America 2011 Campaign

The Mexican team that arrived at Copa America was not the goal scoring machine that won the Gold Cup but instead a younger team, with many talented prospects. A combination of a doping and off-field scandal left Mexico without more than half their senior squad so an U-23 Olympic level team took to the field in Argentina. For such an inexperienced squad, Mexico looked dangerous at times in their 2-1, 1-0 and 1-0 losses to Chile, Peru and Uruguay respectively. Still, a lot is expected from the Mexican national team no matter which age level team takes part because of the immense following of the game in Mexico and also because of the skillful talented players that are present. So it was surprizing to see Mexico finish not only bottom of Group C but also as the only team who did not earn a single point at Copa America. The three games surely provided a valuable lesson for the young players, some of whom will most likely play a part in the senior team’s qualifying campaign for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

Copa America 2011: Bolivia

Entry #3 for the Copa America 2011 Book & Film Festival.

Book: Aurora by Giancarla de Quiroga

Giancarla De Quiroga’s Aurora uses a cinderella like romance story as a springboard to examine political and social changes that played a part in the Bolivian revolution of 1952. The wealthy landowner Alberto returns from Europe to find no shortage of suitors seeking to marry him. However, he ignores all the flashy girls and is instead smitten by young innocent Aurora at a party. He seeks her out and wants her to run away with him without getting married. At first, the thought of running away without marriage terrifies Aurora who proclaims it a sin. But her feelings for Alberto take over and she leaves her life behind to join Alberto at his hacienda. Their love blossoms and allows them to weather economic hardships to turn the hacienda into a profit making enterprise by using the land to grow and sell vegetables. At the peak of the hacienda’s profitable ways, Alberto starts to get disenchanted with his Bolivian life and yearns to return to France where he thinks his true joy resides. He wants to sell all his land and begins to neglect his surroundings just as Aurora opens her eyes to life around her. She begins to teach the native Indian peasants and workers to read and her act is in direct defiance to Alberto and society. Alberto’s health gets progressively worse but he is preoccupied only with escaping to France. Their love is on the verge of extinction but things take a dramatic turn when the revolution reaches their land forcing them to turn to each other for safety.

The book mirrors the political and economic change in Bolivian rural life from the 1930’s until the early 1950’s with the emergence of peasant uprisings. By placing the character of Aurora as a teacher of the peasants, De Quiroga has created a character that is in tune with the suffering and needs of the workers. On the other hand, the detached Alberto represents a rich land owner oblivious to the needs of his workers. Even when the truth about the worker’s condition is revealed to Alberto, he ignores facts and turns the other way. Eventually, his ignorant ways result in a fiery finale.

Film: Cocalero (2007, Alejandro Landes)

Bolivian films are not frequently seen in international cinematic circles but that does not mean that Bolivia is absent in cinema. In fact, the last few years have seen plenty of documentaries set up shop in Bolivia centered around Cochabamba (regarding water & privatization) or the Potosi mines while many books and articles have mentioned either the changing political face of Bolivia or coca leaves farming. So it seems very appropriate to view a film that manages to cover both political and coca discussions. Alejandro Landes’ Cocalero highlights the rise of Evo Morales and sheds light on the grass-roots movement that supported his election. The debate about coca leaves and farming is certainly forefront in the film as is the clash between the different classes in Bolivian society. As per the film, media bias certainly fueled hatred and fear of Morales. Landes’ camera does not shy away from depicting some of this bias and even shows some of the abuse heaped on Morales in the cities. Such documentation helps show the fine line between a person been treated as a hero by some and a villain by others. Basically, if a political candidate does not have the same governing principles as a group of people, he is demonized and represented as evil by the group.

Note: Interestingly, the film follows Morales to Mar del Plata for a conference attended by both Hugo Chavez and Diego Maradona. This is the same conference that Emir Kusturica filmed for the 2008 documentary Maradona by Kusturica. No doubt there were hundreds of cameras at the conference but it is fascinating that footage of one event shot from two different angles have been used in two separate films. In a sense, Landes' & Kusturica's films form a documentary version of the film Vantage Point.

Copa America 2011 Campaign

Bolivia started the Copa America in incredible fashion by holding hosts and favourites Argentina to a 1-1 draw. The tie gave Bolivia a reasonable chance of making the Quarter-finals especially since their second game was going to be against the U-23 Costa Rican team which only had 5 overage players. Surprizingly, Bolivia were brought crashing down to earth. Not only did they lose 2-0 to Costa Rica but also had two players sent off in a largely one-sided game where Costa Rica ran circles around Bolivia. Costa Rica found plenty of space behind Bolivia’s non-existent defense and could have had more than just their two goals. Bolivia’s elimination was complete even before the 30 minute mark in their final game with Colombia when Bolivia’s defensive weakness were exposed by Colombia as they raced to a 2-0 lead. A neat through ball by Colombia found Falcao behind the entire Bolivian line and he duly finished the chance in the 14th minute. He tucked away a penalty in the 28th minute after another defensive mix-up forced Bolivia to concede a penalty. In fact, Colombia did not have to exert themselves too much in the first half as Bolivia’s only chances to get a goal appeared to be via set-pieces. Overall, Bolivia could not muster a decent response and Colombia calmly progressed to the Quarter-Finals as Group A winners, while Bolivia finished bottom of their group.

Note: Evo Morales is a soccer fan as evidenced by Oliver Stone’s South of the Border so it was not surprizing to see him in the stands for Bolivia’s game against Colombia.

Healthy Cinematic Nourishment

David Bordwell has written a perfect response in defense of slow & nourishing cinema. Bordwell's entire article is an essential read but the final line in this paragraph is a fact that most film critics and film magazines regularly ignore:

Still, Kois’ complaint touches on something important about film history. We have a polarized film culture: fast, aggressive cinema for the mass market and slow, more austere cinema for festivals and arthouses. That’s not to say that every foreign film is the seven-and-a-half hour Sátántangó, only that demanding works like Tarr’s find their homes in museums, cinematheques, and other specialized venues. Interestingly for Kois’ case, many of the most valuable movies in this vein don’t get any commercial distribution. The major works of Hou, Tarr, and others didn’t play the US theatre market. Sátántangó is just coming out on DVD here, nearly twenty years after its original appearance. Most of us can’t get access to the most vitamin-rich cultural vegetables, and they’re in no danger of overrunning our diet.

In New York on any given night a film lover has atleast half a dozen worthy healthy cinematic options but the average cinephile living outside of New York has limited access to seeing rich cinema in theaters. So it is not a surprize that a put down of slow cinema would originate in a New York publication. The rest of North America, including Canada, has mostly cinematic junk food options.

The foreign film theatrical & DVD rental options in Calgary have gotten worse in 2011 when compared to 2007-08. The city still has three art house cinemas but the selections are not as diverse as a few years ago. The three cinemas have to regularly program Hollywood fare as the foreign distribution of films in Canada appears to have slowed down, especially outside of Toronto. On top of that, Calgary now only has one DVD store (Casablanca Video) where one can rent foreign/indie films. A few years ago, there were 3 excellent DVD stores (Video & Sound, Bird Dog Video and Casablanca) which carried the newest foreign films from around the world. Also, VHQ (owned by Movie Gallery) carried some foreign films titles as did Blockbuster & Rogers Video. However, all VHQ stores shut down as of last year and a handful of Blockbuster & Rogers Video stores have closed as well. Elsewhere in Canada, things are not that optimistic for DVD rentals either. In Edmonton, Sneak Preview closed up shop after nearly 30 years in business and Vancouver's Videomatica also announced plans to close up at the end of summer. Videomatica is still one of the best DVD stores in Canada and their DVD mail rental service is exceptional (majority of my film spotlights from my 2007-08 were possibly only because of Videomatica). Plus, zip.ca's foreign DVD rental selection has drastically gone down in the last few months leading one to question how long they will be able to hold on.

However, there is no shortage of Hollywood films in any Canadian or American city. If one wanted to gorge on the latest robot transformation exercise, then one can stumble into a multiplex near one's residence. If the off chance that someone missed the theatrical release of this Hollywood film, then the DVD, special edition Blu-Ray, special special director's cut with more noise edition DVD/Blu-Ray combo of the film will be available in every big chain grocery story in every city. Basically, one can never be short of junk food. And one cannot go too long before someone defends the virtues of cinematic junk, both here in North America and in India as well. Last week's tragic news of Mani Kaul's passing brought out plenty of remarks from a few Indians who said Kaul's films were difficult to follow. In fact, the late Manmohan Desai, famous for his Bollywood action/revenge films with Amitabh Bachchan, once remarked that it was harder to make "masala films" (popular commercial films) but anyone cold make an art film like Mani Kaul's debut feature Uski Roti. A variation of those words were repeated online last week when some people defended the junk of Bollywood over Indian art cinema.

Too much junk food is not good for the human body. Neither is too much cinematic junk. But of course, the argument is that one person's junk is another person's sophisticated taste.

Slow cinema in two takes in everyday life

1) Man Shaving his face

No matter how many blades get added to a razor, shaving is an activity that cannot be done in an instant. Certain portions of a man's face (especially around the chin) require one to slow down and carefully shave lest one cut oneself. Shaving is also a boring task. I am sure no man wakes up every morning and looks forward to shaving his face. Yet, it is also an essential task. Some people do get tired of shaving and grow a beard or variations of a beard to avoid cutting their facial hair. However, the men that shave everyday are heroes in their own slow cinema.

2) Ultrasound

Every parent will talk of the thrill in watching their baby's ultrasound video. The images are not the clearest nor is there any sound but the black and white grainy video is one of the most riveting set of images that a parent can see. In fact, parents will be patient and watch carefully for the slightest movement of the baby. Sometimes, the baby moves and sometimes he/she does not. An ultrasound video might offer much slower images than any of Hou Hsiao-Hsien's or Béla Tarr's films but no parent will ever describe their baby's ultrasound in the following manner:

"It was boring. Too slow. There was not enough action. The baby just sat there not doing anything."

Emotional interest --> visual cues

So why are ultrasound videos so enchanting for parents? Because the parents have an emotional stake in the ultrasound video. They are emotionally hooked and they will automatically adjust their eyes to look only at the baby and nowhere else. They do not need any cues to help them through the video. The same can apply for cinema as well. If cinema viewers have an emotional interest in the film, they will be able to adjust their eyes automatically to pick up objects of interest. By default, most audience have no emotional interest in robots or ogres but Hollywood assists film viewers by tacking on an emotional layer to their stories. Hollywood wants audience to care for a CGI generated image so dialogues are carefully written to incite support and even some humor is added to give personality to non-humans. Bollywood is another example of cinema overloaded with emotional manipulation. On the other hand, art cinema does not generate artificial emotion so that can leave some viewers lost and they would have no idea where to look.

When tourists walk out on a foreign street for the first time, some have a map and check for directions while some just follow any path in front of them. Cinema can be tackled in the same manner, either with a map or a complete dive into the unknown. Some effort is required on behalf of the cinematic tourist but the rewards are worth it. The problem is access to foreign cinematic roads is getting limited each year and maybe in the future (say next year), the only way to access rich foreign cinematic paths might be through hidden underground portals, lurking underneath some treasure bay.

Copa America 2011, Round 2 of games

While there were some surprizes after the first round of games, the second round of games painted an even more fascinating picture.

Group A:

Argentina 0-0 Colombia
Bolivia 0-2 Costa Rica

Group B:

Brazil 2-2 Paraguay
Venezuela 1-0 Ecuador

Group C:

Uruguay 1-1 Chile
Peru 1-0 Mexico

What this means is after having played two games each, Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay are still without a win after they all drew their opening two games, as did Paraguay. The under-23 Costa Rican team sprung a real surprize by outplaying Bolivia 2-0 to register a win, while Colombia, Venezuela, Peru & Chile all sit comfortably on top of their groups with 4 points each. The only team without a point is Mexico but that was expected as this is not the same Mexican team that won the Gold Cup but a younger Olympic team with only 5 overage players.

On paper, Argentina and Brazil have some of the best players in the world but their games have proven that the best players cannot function in a system not suited to their strengths. Argentina's coach Sergio Batista insisted on having Messi, Tevez & Lavezzi start up front against Colombia even though the first game proved there was no understanding among the trio. Just putting three talented players on the field does not mean the three would suddenly sync up. An example of how three players should properly link up is provided by Uruguay's trio of Diego Forlán, Luis Suárez & Edison Cavani. The three Uruguayan players look like they are a team and have an understanding of where the other players are. Still, the three were not on the same wavelength for a good portion of Uruguay's opening 1-1 tie with Peru & were absent in the second half against a Chilean team that eventually benefitted from more possession. Chile's game with Uruguay was a nasty affair with plenty of fouls and play-acting but when Chile applied the tiniest bit of pressure, Uruguay fizzled away and could not muster a response.

Brazil have been plain awful and have been even worse than Argentina. Even though the Brazilian coach Mano Menezes dropped Robinho against Paraguay, his formation still failed to produce any flowing football. Jadson's opener provided relief for everyone in the Brazilian team but it merely disguised the fact that the team had no real bite. In the second half, Dani Alves fell asleep and allowed Paraguay to easily take a 2-1 lead. One would have expected Paraguay to hold on given their defensive strength and the fact that Brazil kept trying the same thing over and over again with no success. Brazil's game plan was to only go through the middle, something that played into Paraguay's hands. Brazil offered no threat from either of the wings and were poor on set-pieces. Normally, Dani Alves is known for his width play at Barcelona but he was kept expertly in check by Paraguay. Then with time running out, a ball through the middle trickled through to substitute Fred who smartly turned and grabbed an undeserved last minute equalizer for Brazil.

Of course, all these results are not as drastic since 8 of the 12 teams progress to the next round. So Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay are still in good shape to advance but depending on where they finish in the standings would determine who they would meet in the next round. A Brazil-Argentina final might not happen as the two could now meet early on. However, based on the first two games, a Brazil vs Argentina game might not be an enticing football feast anymore but more of a tactical misfire with both teams coaches trying to force their squads to play a system the players do not understand.

In Remembrance: Mani Kaul

Sad news emerged today that Mani Kaul, one of India's greatest film directors, passed away at the age of 66. His name is hardly familiar in the West and even in India, his films remain out of reach for most Indians. Kaul's features are available through various sources on the internet but DVDs of his films are next to impossible to find. As per Chidananda Das Gupta in his book Seeing is Believing hardly any film of Mani Kaul was "released in public theatres" in India. So this means a few generations of Indians have never seen anything by him. Not surprizingly, knowledge of his films is almost non-existent in the wider global cinematic sphere.

Thankfully, some articles and websites are keeping his legacy and memory alive.

Indian Auteur has done an excellent job in discussing Kaul's films and writing. Here are two articles on their website, with the first being an essential read because it was written by Kaul himself:
Beneath the surface: Cinematography and Time
&
Call Money or Mani Kaul

Srikanth at The Seventh Art has a wonderful post about Mani's films and also has a collection of writings and interviews.

Catherine Grant also has a nice round-up at Film Studies for Free.

Hopefully, a global retrospective of Mani's films is done and a clean DVD transfer of his films is finally realized.

Copa America 2011, first five games

The opening five games of Copa America have produced just five goals with three of the top teams held to draws. Hosts Argentina needed a late goal to salvage a 1-1 tie against Bolivia, while Brazil were without any bite or tactical ideas in their 0-0 draw with Venezuela and Uruguay drew 1-1 with Peru. Of the three top teams, Uruguay looked the most coherent although they had their slack moments in the first half when passes were wayward and the players lacked sharpness. Colombia have been the only team to register a win so far with a 1-0 result over a young Costa Rican team, reduced to 10 men for more than an hour of the game. Paraguay and Ecuador also drew blanks in the other game on Sunday night.

Jonathan Wilson has an insightful article as usual on Brazil & Argentina's shortcomings so far.

That fact, the way Brazil lost their way after half-time, is probably the biggest concern for Mano Menezes. In the first half Neymar was lively, if a little inclined to over-complicate; in the second he vanished. Ganso, in just his second appearance for the national team, struggled to make an impression, and seemed at times to be playing too far forward, so he was always receiving the ball under pressure. Pato, operating as a more orthodox No9 than might have been expected, was the pick of the forwards, one touch in taking down a long diagonal from Dani Alves quite sublime, but Robinho flickered to little effect.

Argentina had similar problems on Friday. Sergio Batista's talk of making Argentina play like Barcelona always seemed over-ambitious – trying to create the work of a decade in a fortnight – and so it proved. Lionel Messi may have played as he does for Barça, but it didn't matter, because Ezequiel Lavezzi, Carlos Tevez, Ever Banega and Esteban Cambiasso didn't play much like David Villa, Pedro, Andrés Iniesta and Xavi. Nor did – or can – Javier Zanetti and Marcos Rojo offer the sort of thrust from full-back provided by Dani Alves and Eric Abidal.

Batista criticised his team for becoming "too vertical" – a term, if not coined by Marcelo Bielsa then at least popularised by him, describing the tendency to head directly for goal, whether with long passes, dribbles or runs, rather than patiently building play. It usually suggests a lack of patience, a sense of anxiety, and Brazil could be said to have suffered the same problem (which isn't, of course, a million miles removed from a succession of England coaches lamenting the long-ball, headless-chicken tendency). Too many players tried to solve the problem individually, every dribble down a blind alley, every aimless cross, signifying a lack of faith in the team unit. That touches on a deeper issue – the growing gulf, both in terms of quality and entertainment, between club and international football.

All this means is the second round of the group games promise to be more urgent and interesting with Argentina taking on Colombia on Wed July 6th, Brazil going against Paraguay on Sat July 9th and Uruguay meeting Chile on Friday, July 8th.

Copa America 2011 Book & Film Festival

The Copa America is just 8 days away which also means my deadline to finish all the selections for the Copa America Book & Film Festival is fast approaching. While I had finished watching most of the South American films by end of January 2011, the books have taken a lot longer to get through than originally planned. Reading 12 books in 6 months is not a difficult target to achieve but that task was made a bit more challenging by my decision to see as many as 200 films in that 6 month period. As things stand, I have just two more books to get through but I will have to stretch the reading past my self-imposed deadline of June 30. Also, an unexpected addition to my original selection occurred after Japan withdrew from Copa America but I still retained the Japanese novel & film while adding a book and film from Costa Rica.

Quick re-cap of the rules

The entries will not be placed into the following three groups as per the soccer tournament:

Group A: Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, Bolivia
Group B: Brazil, Paraguay, Ecuador, Venezuela
Group C: Uruguay, Chile, Mexico, Peru

Instead the top 3 books and films will be chosen from all the selections. However, I will still do a comparison of the soccer vs book/film group standings.

The Japanese entries and the bonus films will not be eligible for the competition.

The Selections

Here in summary of all the entries -- 13 books, 19 films (including the 6 bonus films).

Argentina:

Book: Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar
Film: Crane World (1999, Pablo Trapero)
Bonus Film: Lion's Den (2008, Pablo Trapero)

Bolivia:

Book: Aurora by Giancarla de Quiroga
Film: Cocalero (2007, Alejandro Landes)

Brazil:

Book: Zero by Ignácio de Loyola Brandão
Film: Black God White Devil (1964, Glauber Rocha)

Chile:

Book: The Secret Holy War of Santiago De Chile by Marco Antonio de la Parra
Film: Tony Manero (2008, Pablo Larraín)


Colombia:

Book: The Armies by Evelio Rosero
Film: Crab Trap (2009, Oscar Ruiz Navia)
Bonus Film: The Wind Journeys (2009, Ciro Guerra)

Costa Rica:

Book: Cocori by Joaquin Guteierrez
Film: Cold Water of the Sea (2010, Paz Fabrega)

Ecuador:

Book: The Ecuador Reader, edited by Carlos De La Torre
Film: Cronicas (2004, Sebastián Cordero)
Bonus Film: Ratas, ratones, rateros (1999, Sebastián Cordero)

Japan:

Book: Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
Film: Tokyo Sonata (2008, Kiyoshi Kurosawa)

Mexico:

Book: The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela
Film: Duck Season (2004, Fernando Eimbcke)

Paraguay:

Book: I, The Supreme by Augusto Roa Bastos
Film: Noche Adentro (2009, Pablo Lamar, 17 min)
Bonus Film: I Hear Your Scream (2008, Pablo Lamar, 11 min)

Peru:

Book: Conversations in the Cathedral by Mario Vargas Llosa
Film: Milk of Sorrow (2009, Claudia Llosa)
Bonus Film: Madeinusa (2006, Claudia Llosa)

Uruguay:

Book: Body Snatcher by Juan Carlos Onetti
Film: A Useful Life (2010, Federico Veiroj)

Venezuela:

Book: Chronicles of a Nomad by A.A. Alvarez
Film: El Don (2006, José Ramón Novoa)
Bonus Film: Araya (1959, Margot Benacerraf)

---

Currently, only comments on the entries from Colombia and Venezuela are posted. The remaining 11 posts will be put up during the actual Copa America soccer tournament, which goes from July 1 - July 24.

Parisian beauties

Paris (2008, France, Cédric Klapisch)

Paris is often called a seductive romantic city. So it is not surprizing that a film titled Paris should feature plenty of romance and some enticing seductive women. After exploring relationships and friendships in Barcelona in L'auberge espagnole (2002) and Russian Dolls (2005), Cédric Klapisch turned his camera towards Paris to create an engaging film. The main star of Paris is Romain Duris but the women light up the screen with their presence. Here are just some of the beautiful women that grace the camera in Paris:

Chalo Dilli

Chalo Dilli (2011, India, Shashant Shah)

The past few years have produced some engaging Indian films shot exclusively in New Delhi. Films such as Khosla Ka Ghosla, Oye Lucky Lucky Oye, Band Baaja Baaraat, Love, Sex Aur Dhoka, Do Dooni Chaar and No One Killed Jessica portrayed interesting stories that were superior in quality to the average Bollywood film and were still accessible to a multiplex crowd. These films proved that audience do not have to “leave their brains at the door” to enjoy a film. Although these six films varied in quality and style, the only thing they had in common was their New Delhi setting. Now Shashant Shah’s Chalo Dilli shows that a good film does not have to be set in Delhi but just needs to have Delhi mentioned in the title. As per the title which translates to "Let’s go Delhi", the film is about a journey to the Nation’s capital. The film takes the familiar comedic framework of pairing two opposite personalities on a road journey shown in Planes, Trains and Automobiles and Due Date to elicit laughs. However, Chalo Dilli is also infused with the charm and energy of Jab We Met but reverses the male-female characters from Imtiaz Ali’s film and eliminates any romantic angle between the duo. The real driving force of Chalo Dilli is Vinay Pathak’s brilliant performance. Pathak is a delight in any film he does and brings plenty of energy and charm to his roles. He steals the show when he is given main roles such as in Dasvidaniya (also directed by Shashant Shah) or Bheja Fry and even manages to liven a film despite having a small role. Pathak’s character of Bobby was the best thing about an awful film like Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi. Pathak is at his best in Chalo Dilli with a character that is equally charming and annoying. His positive upbeat character is a perfect ploy to the negative attitude of Mihika, played by Lara Dutta. The differences between the two characters is as diverse as that between Poppy (Sally Hawkins) and Scott (Eddie Marsan) in Happy-Go-Lucky.

Chalo Dilli is a predictable film that navigates within a familiar framework used in many commercial Bollywood films but Shashant Shah shows that it is still possible to make a smart film within that confined framework. In that regard, Chalo Dilli is an essential film in helping to draw indian audience away from the commercial junk of Bollywood. There is nothing difficult about Chalo Dilli and it is a film that can appeal to anyone used to a multiplex feature but it is without the vulgarity or substandard qualities seen in majority of Bollywood comedies, such as those that populate any Anees Bazmee or Sajid Khan feature. For safe measure, Chalo Dilli has a completely needless item number featuring Yana Gupta just to ensure that audience who need a song to digest their film can have no excuse to stay away. Also, film lovers used to seeing only “big stars” in their Indian films cannot complain either as Chalo Dilli does indeed have a “big star” whose character makes an appearance late on to save the day. However, despite being an accessible enjoyable film, it is a safe bet to assume that audience will causally pass over Chalo Dilli or treat it with a shrug of the shoulder and say that the film "theek hai" (ok) and is nothing to get excited about while eagerly rushing to watch substandard Bollywood fare.

A Serbian Film

A Serbian Film (2010, Serbia, Srdjan Spasojevic)

Once upon a time, a man screwed for a living. Then he retired to live happily with his family. But he still missed his screwing life, so he often watched videos of his screwing exploits. One day, a former screwing partner of his appears and offers a chance where he can screw again but this time in an artful manner and for lots of money. The man thinks it over. He needs the money because his happy life isn't cutting it. So he takes up the screwing job and signs on the dotted line. Of course as it often happens when an offer is too good to be true, it usually isn't. His screwing job ends up screwing with his head and causes his family to get screwed over as well. So the happily ever after ending never comes and the screwing continues long after the fade to black.

That in a nutshell is A Serbian Film. The film has had a lot of hype around it and most of it revolves around a few questionable scenes. However, without those scenes the film is just an upgraded version of a B grade movie about screwing. The director on the other hand claims his film is about the horrible psychological damage caused by the Serbian war where people were screwed physically and mentally. Such an explanation appears to be a ploy to attach a deeper meaning to an otherwise average film. It may have happened that someone told Srdjan Spasojevic that the screwing represented the plight of the Serbian people perfectly and such words probably encouraged the director to sell his film as a political statement. The director’s ploy has certainly worked. The fake political suffering tag coupled with the screwing scenes has ensured the film a cult following and instant talking points. If Srdjan truly wanted his film to represent the screwing of people’s psyche, then including rape sequences is the not the best way to depict that because such scenes draw attention to themselves and prevent any insight into the character’s mental suffering. Thankfully, there is an appropriate example of a Serbian film that properly manages to get across the suffering of its Serbian characters. Mladen Djordjevic’s The Life and Death of a Porno Gang accomplishes everything that Srdjan Spasojevic claims his film does but The Life and Death of a Porno Gang manages to do it without needless rape sequences. There are torture sequences in ...Porno Gang and even snuff film making but the film does not only focus on torture but establishes a larger framework which shows how society traps the main characters and suffocates them into making the choices they eventually make.

The titles of both films are misleading as well. The Life and Death of a Porno Gang contains very little porn and is a case study about a few characters marginalized by society. On the other hand, A Serbian Film has nothing to say about Serbia but looks at various forms of porn, including torture and child porn. Needless to say, the lesser of the two films has gotten all the attention while a worthy film like The Life and Death of a Porno Gang has all but disappeared. Interestingly, both films still have reference points to Emir Kusturica's Underground. The Life and Death of a Porno Gang picks up where Kusturica's film ended and shows a much bleaker future. Also, one of the characters is shown wearing a jacket with the word "underground" clearly visible. A Serbian Film fulfills a statement uttered in Underground -- "A War is not a War until a brother kills a brother".

2011 Champions League Final

Barcelona 3-1 Manchester United

Saturday, May 28 2011 will go down in history as the day when a truly classic Champions League final was played out at Wembley between two giants of the modern game. The game unfolded as one would have expected but the extent of Barcelona’s dominance was still mesmerizing to watch. Barca are known to pass their opponents into oblivion but to do that in a final is a truly remarkable feat. Xavi is the king of sideway passes and once again he showed that there is a purpose to every square pass, that patience will duly be rewarded and if one looks hard enough, then spaces will appear out of nowhere. In an honest interview back in February, Xaxi talked about his love for finding spaces:

Think quickly, look for spaces. That's what I do: look for spaces. All day. I'm always looking. All day, all day. [Xavi starts gesturing as if he is looking around, swinging his head]. Here? No. There? No. People who haven't played don't always realise how hard that is. Space, space, space. It's like being on the PlayStation. I think shit, the defender's here, play it there. I see the space and pass. That's what I do.

And he once again found space for Barca’s opening goal. Patrice Evra drifted a few steps towards Messi leaving open a space through which Xavi played a perfect pass towards Pedro who calmly slotted home the opener. It was a truly remarkable goal which combined Barca’s passing, intelligent off the ball movement and their remarkable space manipulation.

Messi’s second goal was equally remarkable as well. He picked up a pass from Iniesta, took a few touches, managed to find space where none existed and then in an instant slammed a powerful shot past a static frozen Manchester defense. Barcelona’s constant pressure paid off for the third when Villa curved home a beautiful shot to seal the game. Interestingly, Manchester managed to score a Barca type goal of their own after Rooney and Giggs exchanged passes before Rooney placed his shot perfectly into the top corner to register Manchester’s only shot on target over the course of the 90 minutes.

Overall, it was a perfectly officiated game as well with the referee hardly visible during the entire game as he let the game flow perfectly without any stoppages. The fact that the first half had no stoppage time speaks for itself. Also, it was nice to see Dani Alves and Busquets not ruin the game by taking unnecessary drives.

My Champions League fantasy league for the final featured the following players:

As per the points rules:

A captain earns double points
A striker earns 4 points for a goal scored
A midfielder earns 6 points for a goal scored
A defender earns 8 points for a goal scored
A defender also gets -1 point for each goal conceded

Messi was my captain because I was certain he would score, which he did thereby earning me double points. I had a feeling that one of Hernández or Rooney would score but I picked both of them. Rooney scored but Hernández was invisible because he was left isolated and had no support. Originally, I started this Champions League season with David Villa in my first 11 but I dropped him a few weeks ago. Villa works extremely hard off the ball but I did not expect him to score a goal in the final because he always seems to get subbed off late in the game. This time around, he scored a precious third goal before getting subbed off, again.

My midfield was easy to pick. I picked the players that I thought would likely score or have an assist. Pedro duly scored off an assist by Xavi while Iniesta also notched an assist. However, I had expected to see a lot more from Valencia but that did not happen.

Defense was always going to be a losing endeavor. I did not expect either team to keep a clean-sheet so I knew I would not get any bonus points for a shut-out so at best I was hoping neither team would concede too many goals. Also, if a defender from Man Utd was likely to score a goal, I figured it had to be Vidic from a corner. But Man Utd got zero corners so Vidic never ventured into Barca’s penalty box.

As per the points system for the goalkeeper, each goal conceded is -1 point but a goalie gets 1 point for every 3 shots saved. This created the bizarre situation where Edwin van der Sar earned more points than Victor Valdés, despite Man Utd letting in 3 goals. Valdés let in one goal (-1 point) and got one yellow card (-1 point) but had no saves to make. Therefore, his total ended being 0 points with his 2 points for starting the game nullified by his yellow card and single goal conceded. On the other hand, van der Sar let in 3 goals (-3 points) but made 9 saves (+3 points), which meant he got 2 points (for being named in the starting 11).

[Update May 29:] van der Sar was only awarded 1 point as soccernet's reports show that he made 6 saves thereby earning him 2 points. This is in contrast to the official UEFA reports which show that he made 9 saves. Defense cost me valuable points as my selected 3 defenders + goalkeeper earned me a total of -1 point. Rafael did not play but I had his brother Fabio listed as a sub, who duly earned 0, the same as Alves and Valdés. Vidic got -1.

Finally.....

Apparently, there is a tradition that when an away team wins a final in the opponents country, the winning team cuts the soccer net and takes it home. So Barcelona’s players and staff found a few pair of scissors and went about removing the goal net after the trophy presentation. Piqué happily ran off with the goal net on his shoulders. Maybe, he will present the net to Shakira as a gift?

The Actuality Dramas of Allan King

The first time I heard a film described as an actuality was when Allan King mentioned it in the Q&A session following a special screening of his film A Married Couple. The word perfectly described A Married Couple because the film was an actual documentation of the ups and downs of a married couple’s relationship. Sadly, a few months after the special Calgary Cinematheque screening Allan King passed away. That made the screening of A Married Couple even more special.

The 2008 screening of A Married Couple meant that the film was once again starting to get some attention almost four decades it was released. Then last year, Criterion released a box-set of Allan King’s films, naturally called The Actuality Dramas of Allan King. Having already seen A Married Couple, the other four films were part of this spotlight.

Warrendale (1968)
A Married Couple (1969)
Come On Children (1972)
Dying at Grace (2003)
Memory for Max, Claire, Ida and Company (2005)

The subject material of all five films is sensitive and intimate. Warrendale captures day to day life in a rehabilitation home for emotionally disturbed kids, A Married Couple shows the turbulent and tense moments of a marriage, Come on Children brings forth some teenage concerns and attitudes, Dying at Grace shows terminally ill patients in their final moments of life and Memory for Max, Claire, Ida and Company sheds a light on behaviour and moments associated with human aging.

The only film out of the five that is not shot in its original location is Come on Children. Warrendale is shot exclusively inside the rehabilitation home, A Married in Couple takes place in either the couple’s home or their office and both Dying at Grace and Memory... are shot respectively in the health center and nursing home where the patients lived. On the other hand, Come on Children required the subjects to leave their natural homes to go live in selected location. This is how the idea for the film came about:

King interviewed three or four hundred people between the ages of thirteen and nineteen from the middle-class suburbs of Toronto about their unsatisfactory presents and desired futures. The most common comment he heard was that they wanted to be left alone by hassling cops, teachers, parents, and other authority figures. So King granted their wish, inviting a cross section of them (five boys, five girls) to live on a remote farm for ten weeks, without supervision, to be filmed at all times.

The end result is a cinematic experiment decades ahead of its time. Basically, the film predicts modern day reality shows such as Big Brother by having a camera capture the life of its subjects round the clock. Initially, the constant presence of the camera draws hostile reactions from two teenagers with one of the teens trying to place his hand on the camera and telling the camera man to get lost. But eventually, the teens go about their lives naturally as the camera becomes a part of their lives.

Memories and Death

We have a desperate need as human beings to understand reality, and we go to desperate ends to avoid that reality......

The curious thing is that when you do look at reality and face it, it is no longer fearsome. -- Allan King

Both Dying at Grace and Memory for Max, Claire, Ida and Company go to great lengths to portray that reality and as such present plenty emotionally touching and tearful moments. It is hard to imagine how Peter Walker shot both films objectively because the material certainly would not have been easy to film, especially that of Dying at Grace where some of the patients pass away in presence of the camera. At times, it feels intrusive to observe intimate family moments when a loved one has passed away but the film was conceived with the blessing of the patients and their families. In that regard, one hopes audience find positives in observing such tender moments.

Interestingly, Allan King’s first and second last feature complete a cinematic circle. In Warrendale, there is a significant moment when the staff talk to the children about the death of a cook. This discussion leads to the film’s main crisis point as some children emotionally break down and become difficult to control. In Memory for Max, Claire, Ida and Company, the nursing home staff talk about the death of Max to the other residents. Naturally, given their age and health, the reaction of the other residents is muted and different from the children in Warrendale. Yet, the discussion about death is similar in both films even though the people listening to the news are on opposite ends of an age spectrum.

Overall

Personally, A Married Couple is my favourite overall film from the five. Also, it is a film that one can objectively observe without letting any emotional filters get in the way. Any person who has experienced a relative losing their memory as they aged would find Memory for Max, Claire, Ida and Company a tough viewing while Dying at Grace would be more difficult to view for anyone who has ever lost a loved one. Warrendale is an amazing film from a cinematic technique but some of the methods for the children's rehabilitation are not the easiest to digest. The weakest film in the group ends up being Come on Children. That has a lot to do with the subjects captured on camera. The children had total freedom to do as they pleased but after a few days, they settled into a routine of singing and lying around. Their biggest struggle came when they had to discuss who had to clean the kitchen. No amount of editing could have enriched the material but still the film offers an interesting case study about the behavior and concerns of some teens in the early 1970’s.

Actuality = Direct Cinema - embedded presence

Allan King’s debut feature Warrendale is an incredible piece of cinema that lays out the actuality filming style King would follow in his subsequent films. This style involved shooting primarily in an indoor location, acutely observing humans in tender and sensitive moments without the presence of a director or a narrator. Allan King removed himself from the room while his cinematographer lived and filmed freely without inhibitions. The fact that Allan King was not present in the room during filming is what probably differentiates his actuality style from Direct Cinema which required the filmmaker to be embedded constantly in their shooting environments. The tender and sensitive subject material of Allan King’s films necessitated him to be absent from the room because his presence would have indirectly influenced his subjects or would have broken the intimacy that could be offered by a silent cinematographer whose job was to shoot everything without any filters or editing.

Allan King’s techniques should be treasured and his works deserve a wider appreciation. His topics may not find many takers but the technique used in his actuality films can certainly lead to a more rich and pure form of cinema.

note: The subject material of Memory for Max, Claire, Ida and Company reminded me of Jean-François Caissy’s Journey’s End, a Canadian film that I saw at last year’s CIFF. Journey’s End also observes its elder subjects without any voice-over narration and offers an unfiltered look at their lives.

Finally, an energetic supercharged trailer

In the latest Cannes roundup, David Hudson has put up a trailer for Bollywood: The Greatest Love Story Ever Told co-directed by Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra (Rang De Basanti, Aks) and Jeff Zimbalist (Favela Rising, The Two Escobars).



It is one of the best trailers I have seen in a while. In just a few minutes, it manages to capture the wild crazy energy of Bollywood complete with the sultry item numbers, hot & wet dreamy women, lavish songs, mega superstars, sinister villains (Gabbar....mouhaha) and crazy action sequences. Even though I spend a lot of time complaining about the worst that Bollywood has to offer, I cannot deny the fact that it is the cinema that I grew up with. A huge chunk of my cinematic memory is associated with it and plenty of images and moments that I cannot shake off for a long time.

There are many cinematic gems I am looking forward to from Cannes and now I can add this documentary to the top of the list purely from a guilty pleasure point of view :) If the film is half as good as the trailer, then it would be an amazing bonus.

Interestingly, the documentary is co-directed by Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra. Just a day ago I revisited parts of Mehra's Rang De Basanti, a film that impressed me for the most part but also frustrated with a few minor elements. Still, it was a truly memorable cinematic experience watching it in a theater. The title song is remarkable and even now I am moved by Daler Mehndi & Chitra's vocals and A.R Rahman's mesmerizing music:

Spotlight on José Mojica Marins

Before City of God came out in 2002, the only Brazilian films that were available for rent in my city were José Mojica Marins’ Coffin Joe films. I often picked up the eye-catching VHS covers with titles such as At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul, or This Night I Will Possess Your Corpse but always put the videos back. Then after City of God was released, a slow influx of new Brazilian films starting appearing on DVDs. So Coffin Joe was no longer the only Brazilian choice available and I moved on. Yet, José Mojica Marins’ fictional character was never totally invisible from my eyes. Sometimes a clip from one of Coffin Joe’s films caught my eye on TV or some reference in a film magazine kept his name lingering around. Of course, his appearance was not easy to forget either -- the black top hat, the cape, the beard and those ultra long finger nails.

However, I had no desire to visit his work. All that changed when I came across Sight and Sound’s September 2010 Issue on Latin American Cinema.

In an insightful and wonderful article titled No Turning Back, Sergio Wolf talks about the Latin American cinema explosion in the last decade. The following lines stuck with me:

In Brazil, João Moreira Salles reinvented the international career of Eduardo Coutinho, who had been living in difficult circumstances and making television for many years until Moreira Salles helped him with the outstanding Edifício Master (2002). The documentary-maker Paulo Sacramento, meanwhile, rescued another Brazilian - José Mojica Marins, the John Carpenter of São Paulo - by producing Embodiment of Evil (Encarnação do Demônio, 2008) after Martins had endured almost ten years of inactivity.

If someone from a new generation of Brazilian cinema helped a filmmaker from another generation, then I just had to find out what was worth rescuing. So I decided it was time that I faced Coffin Joe in his full attire, nails and all.

This spotlight contains six films directed by Marins and one documentary on his work.

At Midnight I’ll Steal Your Soul (1964)
This Night I’ll Possess Your Corpse (1967)
Awakening of the Beast (1970)
End of Man (1971)
Strange Hostel of Naked Pleasures (1975)
The Strange World of José Mojica Marins (2001, André Barcinski/Ivan Finotti)
Embodiment of Evil (2009)

The Coffin Joe Trilogy

At Midnight I’ll Steal Your Soul, This Night I’ll Possess Your Corpse and Embodiment of Evil are the three films that constitute the Coffin Joe Trilogy. There are several other José Mojica Marins films where the director plays the Coffin Joe character but those other films features his character in different scenarios or limited roles where his character is mostly restricted to the opening credits to give speeches about the universe and purpose of life.

In the trilogy, the same character of Zé do Caixão (played by Marins) continues his obsessive search of finding the perfect woman to mate with so that he can have his perfect son. Zé wants a son because his believes he can achieve immortality by having his lineage continue through a heir. In his pursuit of that perfect woman, Zé rapes, tortures and kills many women, along with killing any men that stand in his way. His torture methods get more gruesome with each film and the body count of his victims increase. The extent of torture in the first two films is restricted mostly to having women in lingerie tormented by spiders and snakes. Such torture methods would not have sufficed for the third film because Embodiment of Evil was released in 2009 at a time when torture and gory films were no longer underground but openly shown in multiplexes, in 3D no less. So Embodiment of Evil is by far the most graphic of all three films and features naked bodies hung up by hooks and tortured repeatedly. Blood is on ample display and there are scenes which are meant for shock value only, such as a nude woman extracted from inside a pig’s body and covered in blood. Blood was not that much of a factor in the first two films mostly because of the lack of color. At Midnight I’ll Steal Your Soul is completely in black and white while This Night I’ll Possess Your Corpse is also in black and white except for a small segment near the end which features Zé descending into hell.

Overall, Embodiment of Evil is the weakest of the three films and features scenes of needless violence and torture. Although the film is also updated to represent modern times in Brazilian cinema and features police-gang clashes in favelas. At Midnight I’ll Steal Your Soul is made with the least budget and does a decent job of laying out the character and his motives. This Night I’ll Possess Your Corpse features an amazing opening credit sequence. The titles and crew names appear in shaky and vibrant letters against visuals of spiders and snakes crawling on women with a background score of screaming women. This combination produces a jarring effect and prepares one for a horrific cinematic ride.

Note: the image of Coffin Joe under the title At Midnight I’ll Steal Your Soul misled me. I believed those words were Coffin Joe's threats towards his victims but as it turns out, those words were meant for Coffin Joe. After he is cursed, he is told that he would die at the stroke of midnight.

Drugs and censorship

Awakening of the Beast depicts a drug culture and features a panel discussing the impact of drugs in corrupting the morality of ordinary citizens. The panel led by a doctor also debate the role of José Mojica Marins’ films in corrupting citizens. Marins is invited to the panel to present his side and also stands trial in a fake segment within the film to defend himself and his films. As part of his experiment to observe the effects of drug usage, the doctor administers LSD to five volunteers. The effect of those drugs causes the volunteers to slowly drift away from reality and land up in a nightmarish world where their fantasies and fears play out in a hellish setting. The visuals of this hellish world take up almost the last 20 minutes of the film and are similar in set design to the version of hell shown in This Night I’ll Possess Your Corpse. There are several dialog free sequences in the film, including a sequence where a woman high on drugs dances on a table in a room full of men. The woman’s dance sequence flows quite easily without any dramatic cuts and is one of the best extended scenes found in any of José Mojica Marins’ films.

The final conclusion of the doctor’s experiment is that drugs do not corrupt moral citizens but only awaken inner demons within humans who already have devilish intentions buried within their psyche. José Mojica Marins is also cleared of any wrong doings both by the panel and the fake trial. Such a conclusion and the scenes of drug usage were probably reasons why the military dictatorship in Brazil banned this film in 1970. The film was eventually released 20 years later.

A prophet emerges

The opening sequence of End of Man has a tiny glimpse of Coffin Joe but otherwise End of Man is the only film in this spotlight which is entirely free of the Coffin Joe character. Marins plays a man who emerges naked from the sea and goes about preaching to the locals and performing miracles. He develops a cult following and is considered by locals to be a prophet. It is only at the end of the film that the prophet’s true identity is revealed and that revelation is another poke by Marins on the blind faith that people have in religion. José Mojica Marins always questioned the value of religion and its rituals through his characters starting from At Midnight I’ll Steal Your Soul onwards and End of Man continues that trend, especially the ending.

Technically this is the weakest out of the six features and contains substandard acting, editing and camera work. In fact, watching this film reminded me of some of the worst Bollywood films from the 1970’s to 80’s, minus the nudity.

Note: A party sequence in End of Man where the crowd chants “everybody naked” is duly expanded in Strange Hostel of Naked Pleasures.

Strange Hostel of Naked Pleasures

The title says it all. A hostel where strange occurrences take place and where people are either naked or seeking pleasure, or both. The opening ten minutes of the film are almost dialog free and depict an elaborate dance ceremony which resurrects Coffin Joe from the dead. Coffin Joe then gives his customary speech about the universe, existence, fate and life before taking charge of this special hostel. All along Joe’s eyes see everything, the future and past of the guests arriving in the hostel to seek pleasure. In fact, a trailer of the film could be cut with Coffin Joe’s voice as such:

Ladies look at my eyes
now look at the room with naked people
now back to my eyes
look at another room where an affair is happening
back to my eyes again
now look at that room with people gambling
now back to my eyes again.

One can find repeated shots in José Mojica Marins’ films but Strange Hostel of Naked Pleasures takes that to an extreme with plenty of repeated closeups of Joe’s eyes, naked flesh and shots of the hostel in a dark stormy night with lightening.

A documentary to bring it all together

The Strange World of José Mojica Marins is a well made documentary that introduces us to the world of Coffin Joe and gives us as a closer look at José Mojica Marins. Marins love of film is apparent from this documentary and he relishes the fact that he is a self taught filmmaker. He mentions that he was literally born in a cinema as his parents owned a cinema hall and he grew up watching plenty of films and spending all his time in a theater. That love for film resulted in him making plenty of films at an early age. In fact, no opportunity was too good for Marins to pass up to make a film. When he went in for eye surgery, he had a camera crew in the operating room and directed them while being under the knife. His plan was to use the footage for a later film but that film was never completed. At the end of the documentary, we are told that there are another dozen or so uncompleted films by Marins. Since the documentary was released, Marins did finish his Coffin Joe trilogy with Embodiment of Evil and he may get a chance to make more of his films.

The film also shows what a wildly popular character Coffin Joe is not only in Brazil but internationally. Marins made many personal appearances dressed as Coffin Joe and attracted plenty of admirers. Unfortunately as per the film, Marins was never financially well off. No details are given but that fact becomes clear with the Sight and Sound article when Paulo Sacramento had to help produce Marins’ Embodiment of Evil, more than forty years after Coffin Joe first appeared on screen.

This is not the end...

The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he did not exist.

Slightly changing this The Usual Suspects quote:

The greatest trick Coffin Joe ever pulled was convincing the world he did not exist.

Because every time Coffin Joe is supposed to be dead, he comes back. He is left for dead at the end of At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul but makes a remarkable recovery at the start of This Night I’ll Possess Your Corpse. He sinks to his demise in This Night I’ll Possess Your Corpse but through magical cosmic powers is resurrected several times until he finally materializes in flesh serving time in a jail cell at the start of Embodiment of Evil. The ending of Embodiment of Evil shows that Coffin Joe more than gets his wish after all, with not one son but multiple offsprings on the way. Coffin Joe always believed the only way he could be immortal was with a perfect son. So if there are indeed multiple sons of Coffin Joe on the way, then maybe he will be a cinematic presence for many decades to come.

Comments..

I had low expectations from this spotlight and there were many moments which confirmed those low expectations but there were also some aspects with surprized me. In a way, I agree with Neil Young’s assessment:

But the odd thing about the Mojica Marins pictures is that, despite their numerous individual deficiencies, they do cohere and combine into a whole that's much more effective than their separate parts….

One can see the full cycle of action-reaction consequences cycle through the various Coffin Joe films where his mistakes come back to haunt him and further curse him.

Finally....Christoph Huber’s article on José Mojica Marins is worth reading.

The Direct Cinema of Michel Brault

"This is Canada?"

These were the words that came to my mind when I first saw Michel Brault’s Les Ordres a few years ago. The film showed how in 1970 hundreds of citizens in Quebec were arrested without a warrant and held indefinitely without ever getting a charge laid against them. It was eye-opening to see such an incident took place on Canadian soil and Brault’s film was my first introduction to this portion of Canadian history. As it turns out, Les Orders was also Brault’s most accessible film on DVD and part of that reason might be because the film won him a best director award in Cannes 1975. Brault's remaining films remained out of reach until I came across National Film Board’s (NFB) box-set of his earlier films from 1958-1974. The five disc collection contains four features, nine shorts and two bonus documentaries on Brault.

My spotlight of four features and four shorts is based on a subset of films from that box-set:

Les raquetteurs (1958, 15 min)
La lutte (1961, 28 min)
Québec-U.S.A. ou L'invasion pacifique (1962, 27 min)
Pour la suite du monde (1963)
Geneviève (1964, 28 min)
Entre la mer et l’eau douce (1965)
L'Acadie, l'Acadie?!? (1971)
Les Ordres (1974)

The NFB package also contains an excellent collection of essays & articles on Brault’s films in French and English. However, as per the introduction all the essays are presented in their original language without translation, which means there are more French essays than English ones. Still, the few English essays provide an essential look at Brault’s filming methods and even the concept of "cinéma direct" ("Direct Cinema"), a movement that I was completely unaware of.

Candid Eye

The road to Direct Cinema starts off with the Candid Eye productions of the CBC. In the essay How to Make or Not to Make a Canadian movie (La Cinémathèque canadienne, Montreal, 1967) included in the box-set, Wolf Koenig describes how the inspiration and genesis of the Candid Eye movement started. The original idea that Koenig and others proposed to the CBC for their films was:

..Record life as it happens, unscripted and unrehearsed: capture it in sync sound, indoors or out, without asking it to pose or repeat its lines; edit it into moving films that would make the audience laugh and cry (preferably both at the same time); show it on TV to millions and change the world by making people realize that life is real, beautiful and meaningful, etc. Management was understandably puzzled by this proposal. We were told that films cannot be made like this -- that there would be difficulties...

Some of the difficulties that Koenig and other Candid Eye filmmakers encountered are still a challenge for art, independent and foreign filmmakers today.

....We roamed the grounds with haunted looks searching for reality, ready to siphon it into our Bolex whenever it should appear. We got some pretty pictures but it was impossible to cut them into film.

This unconventional kind of documentary film presented new and disconcerting problems. For instance: How does one get an audience to look at a film that doesn’t have a story or even a conventional message? Worse: how does one get script approval from management for a film without a script? Or: how can one get close to the subject with all those clumsy cameras and lights and microphones, without scaring him off? And how, in God’s name, could we be sure of being present when the moment of truth arrives? We couldn’t very well shoot every boring minute of the hero’s life, waiting for his soul to reveal itself (although, at times, we did). There were many such questions...

The breakthrough and inspiration for Koenig came courtesy of a ..book of photographs called The Decisive Moment by Henri Cartier-Bresson. Koenig goes onto explain that the book’s "foreword became our bible. We followed it verbatim."

Sections of the foreword are included by Koenig and those are reproduced below.

The picture-story involves a joint operation of the brain, the eye and the heart. The objective of this joint operation is to depict the content of some event which is in the process of unfolding, and to communicate impressions. Sometimes a single event can be so rich in itself and its facets that it is necessary to move all around it in your search for the solution to the problems it poses -- for the world is movement, and you cannot be stationary in your attitude towards something that is moving...

We photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing, and when they have vanished, there is no contrivance on earth which can make them come back again. We cannot develop and print a memory...for photographers, what has gone, has gone forever...Our task is to perceive reality, almost simultaneously recording it in the sketchbook which is our camera. We must neither try to manipulate reality while we are shooting, nor must we manipulate the results in a darkroom...

...In whatever picture-story we try to do, we are bound to arrive as intruders. It is essential, therefore, to approach the subject on tip-toe --even if the subject is still-life. A velvet hand, a hawk’s eye- --these we should all have...

The profession depends so much upon the relations the photographer establishes with the people he’s photographing, that a false relationship, a wrong word or attitude, can ruin everything. When the subject is in any way uneasy, the personality goes away where the camera can’t reach it. There are no systems, for each case is individual and demands that we be unobtrusive, though we must be at close range...
There is subject in all that takes place in the world, as in our personal universe. We cannot negate subject. It is everywhere. So we must be lucid toward what is going on in the world, and honest about what we feel.

Subject does not consist of a collection of facts, for facts in themselves offer little interest. Through facts, however, we can reach an understanding of the laws that govern them, and be better able to select the essential ones which communicate reality...

If a photograph is to communicate its subject in all its intensity, the relationship of form must be rigorously established. Photography implies the recognition of a rhythm in the world of real things. What the eye does is to find and focus on the particular subject within the mass of reality. What the camera does is simply to register upon film the decision made by the eye...One does not add composition as though it were an afterthought superimposed on the basic subject material, since it is impossible to separate content from form. Composition must have its own inevitability about it...

I believe that, through the act of living, the discovery of oneself is made concurrently with the discovery of the world around us which can mold us, but which can also be affected by us. A balance must be established between these two worlds -- the one inside us and the one outside us. As a result of a constant reciprocal process, both these worlds come to form a single one. And it is this world that we must communicate. -- English translation of "Images à la sauvette" (èd, Verve, Paris, 1952).

And so the Candid Eye movement was born.

Direct Cinema

Our films have, above all, been
an impassioned appropriation
of the social environment.
The picturesque (the outsider’s view)
has yielded to the familiar; the myth
has yielded in the face of reality.
-- Gilles Carle, Parti Pris, 7
(April 1964)

David Clandfield’s insightful essay From the Picturesque to the Familiar: Films of the French Unit at the NFB (1958-1964) begins with this quote from Carle, who was a member of the French Unit at the National Film Board. As per Clandfield, Carle made the above comment when the direct cinema movement was coming to an end because "..the tightly knit group of francophone filmmakers at the NFB was dispersing."

David Clandfield describes the emergence of direct cinema, its similarities and differences from the Candid Eye films of the NFB.

Technically, of course, both movements had much in common: shooting without script or conscious staging, use of light-weight equipment, a search for the real which deliberately shunned the dramatic of the heroic.

However, the two movements differed when it came to the involvement of the filmmakers with the project.

For the Candid Eye filmmakers, the subject of the film was its subject matter rooted in objective reality. The starting point was a social or human event-- ephemeral, inscribed in an ephemeral world-- the form and meaning of which require the mediation of the filmic process to become evident. The function of the filmic process, then, was not to mould but to reveal form, and with it meaning.

For the cinéma direct filmmakers, the point of departure is the filmmaking process in which the filmmaker is deeply implicated as a consciousness, individual or collective. It is this process--this consciousness--which gives form and meaning to an amorphous objective reality. Instead of effacing their presence, the filmmakers affirm it.

Instead of rendering the technical process transparent (supposedly), they will emphasize its materiality. Instead of standing apart from their object of study or enquiry, they will implicate themselves within in. Their search for the authentic will involve not only the critical detachment of the empirical investigator in order to strip away “myth” or misconception, but also commitment to the social project under investigation in order to avoid the pitfalls of he aesthetic or the “picturesque.” The overt personal involvement of the subject-filmmaker in the object-reality of the pro-filmic event was, then, the key distinguishing factor of the Québécois cinéma direct from the Anglophone Candid Eye.

.....Instead of standing apart from their object of study or enquiry, they will implicate themselves within in.

These words from David Clandfield’s essay about the Direct Cinema technique made me think of embedded journalism. In the last few years, embedded journalism has come to refer to the reporting style where journalists travel along with the military units they are covering. This also means that the journalists share the same working space as the military officers. It turns out that Direct Cinema used such closeness a long time ago as part of its filming methodology. The personal involvement of Brault is apparent from L’Acadie l’Acadie?!?, a film which shows the Acadian identity struggle that took place in the University of Moncton in New Brunswick. As part of their protests, the university students locked themselves in the university buildings. Brault was also locked indoors with the students and that allowed him to get close to the students and record their true feelings/actions.

In a sense, embedded filming was a key component of Direct Cinema, which means Direct Cinema was a pure form of cinema because the filmmaker inserted himself/herself into the environment of their subject and filmed without any inhibitions or filters. The filmmaker did not direct his/her subjects nor did the filmmaker interfere in the subject’s words or actions. This detachment allowed the filmmaker to portray reality as objectively as possible.

Heavy camera, Mobile movement

One of the original problems of the Candid Eye movement that Wolf Koenig posed was the difficulty of heavy camera equipments:

Or: how can one get close to the subject with all those clumsy cameras and lights and microphones, without scaring him off?

Nowadays with light digital cameras such problems do not exist. However, this was a relevant problem back in the late 1950’s through early 1970’s. Yet, this problem did not prevent Brault from making remarkable films where his camera’s presence is non-existent. His films demonstrate mobile camera movement that captured a wide array of shots, often taken with a single camera and no multiple takes. Such a feat would be difficult today, but it is truly remarkable to think that he and his crew managed this five decades ago. The film that is a shining example of Brault’s techniques is L’Acadie l’Acadie?!? where the camera directly places the viewer within the same university halls as the students thereby making the audience a silent member of the political discussions taking place. Brault does now allow the camera to merely record at a distance but manages to allow the audience to get close with a few select vocal leaders of the student union by varying camera angles when the students are shown during heated debates or in moments of silence. The camera moves in close when it needs to and pulls away appropriately to provide a more complete picture. Such movement and closeness of the camera allows the camera to be an invisible interviewer that is probing the subject to get their true feelings out.

Culture, Rituals & History

Michel Brault’s films are not only about beautiful technique but they document Canadian cultures, traditions and history that would otherwise be lost over time. Les Raquetteurs records the celebration and tradition surrounding a snowshoe competition in Sherbrooke in the late 1950’s while La lutte shows the rituals that were identified with professional wrestling in Montreal Forum and also in back-street wrestling parlours across Montreal. Pour la suite du monde shows a traditional whale-catching practice that was part and parcel of life in Île-aux-Coudres, a small island in the St. Lawrence River. The film is also a reminder of the complex nature of Canadian history. In the film, a short discussion about Jacques Cartier between two town residents shows that Canada’s history changes when it is viewed either via French, English or Native perspective. In his wonderful book A Fair Country John Ralston Saul mentions that a true picture of Canadian history has to take Métis and other First Nation ethnicities into account. Such an inclusion would mean a three pronged view of Canada’s past as opposed to the current situation where Canadian history is only viewed through either English or French eyes. Pour la suite du monde is from a French perspective but it raises the point if the origin of some rituals, such as Beluga whale hunting, would change when Natives would recount their history.

In 1969, New Brunswick became the first and only bilingual province in Canada. However, the journey to get bilingual status was anything but easy. L'Acadie, l'Acadie?!? shows a fraction of this struggle by highlighting the efforts of students in the University of Moncton to get bilingual status so that they could continue to speak in French and thereby preserve their Acadian identity. The film is from the perspective of the University students but a segment shot in city hall illustrates the divide between the English speaking majority and the Francophone minority in Moncton. In the city hall meeting, every time the University of Moncton students tried to speak, their voices were attempted to be drowned out by coughs and disapproval from the English speakers. Interestingly, this divide over language extended to cultural differences as well about Acadian identity. Such debates about cultural and language freedoms have reignited recently in Canada, especially in Quebec, as new waves of immigrants enter Canada. So L'Acadie, l'Acadie?!? is a timely reminder that a society can never be fully functional if one side tries to ignore the history and cultures of another side.

Les Ordres shows what happened in Quebec under the cover of the 1970 War Measures Act. As part of the War Act’s wide ranging powers, ordinary citizens were arrested without cause. The citizens were not physically tortured and eventually released but as the film shows, threats of death and murder were used to keep some prisoners in a constant state of mental agony. In a few segments it becomes apparent that some of the prison guards were on a power trip and were enacting their own version of the Stanford Prison Experiment. Les Ordres is based on a collection of interviews from some of the more than 400 arrested citizens and is essential viewing because it shows how easy it is for a democratic society to descend into a police state.

Identity, Modernity & Roots

Brault’s first fiction feature Entre la mer et l’eau douce is a fascinating film that shows the rise to fame of an ordinary young man who leaves his small isolated village to find work in booming cosmopolitan Montreal. The film’s title is explained perfectly by André Loiselle:

The title comes from the diary of Jacques Cartier, read by Alexis Tremblay in Pour la suite du monde, in which the 16th century French explorer describes beluga whales as snow-white fish that live in the river between the sea and fresh water. For Brault, however, what lives between the sea and fresh water is less the whale than the young French-Canadian man who is torn between two worlds: the sea, the past, the country and the elders, and the fresh water, the city and modernity.
-- André Loiselle, Tradition and Modernity from Montreal to Acadia and Brittany. Entre la mer et l’eau douce, Éloge du chiac, L’Acadie l’Acadie?!? and Les enfants de Néant.

In Entre la mer et l’eau douce Claude Tremblay (played by Claude Gauthier) leaves behind his Native lover in his village when he goes to Montreal, where he drifts in between jobs and affairs. Yet, he cannot forget his original love or his country roots despite swimming in a modernized city. His past is a contradiction with his present situation and that tension offers inspiration for his music. Claude’s portrayal and the film title can also refer to the tensions regarding Quebec’s nationalistic identity with the rest of Anglophone Canada and even with its native past. The fact that Claude left his Native lover behind could be taken to mean that in order to proceed ahead Quebec and thereby the rest of Canada moved away from its true origins. In the film, the question of Quebec’s independence is brought up by an Anglophone in a bar. The stranger who made the comment was drunk but his words are ones that have been echoed by many sober people across Canada over the decades. Even though Entre la mer et l’eau douce was released in 1965, questions about Quebec’s independence have never gone away and have been exploited over the decades by various politicians (both anglophones and francophones) to divide the country.

Films & Comments

Michel Brault’s films are essential viewing not only because of the fascinating Direct Cinema technique but also because they are a valuable asset to understand Canadian history. His films may be centered around Eastern Canada but one needs to hear the French Canadian perspective in order to get a better understanding of how Canada has evolved to become what it is today.

Thankfully, some of Brault’s films are available for free viewing on NFB’s website.

Note: I have only verified the films are viewable in Canada and I am not sure if they will also play in other countries.