The Salt in Our Waters

 The Salt in Our Waters (2020, Bangladesh/France, Rezwan Shahriar Sumit)

A mysterious box. Someone was bound to ask: “What do you have inside?”

“My universe”, replies Rudro (Titas Zia).

What could the box contain? The mystery deepens as the journey continues. Finally, Rudro and the box arrive at their destination to a remote Bangladeshi fishing village. Multiple men are required to carry and transport the box from the small boat.

The Salt in Our Waters (2020)

Once the box opens, the contents are puzzling to some locals. The box contains many sculptures, some clay ones, which are mistaken to be idols by a few men. Gradually, troubling connections start. The village is in the middle of some problems related to lack of ilish fish in the waters. The village chairman (Fazlur Rahman Babu) claims the arrival of Rudro and the idols are responsible for less fish in the waters thereby impacting the livelihood of the villagers. Rudro’s presence is treated with suspicion and he doesn’t help matters as he makes multiple mistakes immediately after arriving, one of the major ones being talking to the local women. He talks to the young, old, whomever he can find. He even talks with the children, which infuriates the elders and religious men who feel he is polluting the children’s minds.

On top of all, he goes off and falls in love with the quiet Tuni (a career defining brilliant performance by Tasnova Tamanna), who is an independent thinker and willing to go against her family and community.

Underneath the surface, there is an old debate in play here: old ways of doing things vs new ideas, religion vs science, blind faith vs rational thought. This eternal battle is omnipresent, not only in Bangladesh but almost all parts of the world. Credit to Rezwan Shahriar Sumit for an insightful treatment which looks at this battle on a personal level yet the film’s layered approach smartly alludes to universal social and economic problems many communities are facing due to changing environmental patterns. The film also takes time to highlight the hardships of the villagers and the daily dangers they face fishing in the choppy waters. In a remarkable sequence, Rudro feels the full brunt of the choppy waters as he goes along with the fishermen out to sea. The Chairman, an experienced fishermen, warns Rudro about the stomach churning waves but Rudro ignores the Chairman. The brilliantly filmed sequence proves to be an eye-opening one for Rudro whose perspective changes after he returns.

There is a poetic brilliance to The Salt in Our Waters which is packed with many stunning images and plenty of contemplative moments, especially when the camera observes the approaching storm and violent waters. Even though The Salt in Our Waters was released in 2020, it is an early contender for one of the best films of 2021.

The Salt in Our Waters (2020)

Snapshots of Havana

Rooftop View

Havana, from on High (2019, Canada, Pedro Ruiz)

Following images are from the documentary.

At the start of the film, we get to witness some local's morning coffee preparation.

Street View

Some of the best images of Havana and Cuban coffee are in Drift Magazine, Volume 3.

A few other Havana images can be found on Drift magazine's instagram page.

The Films of Edward Yang

 "Did you like the movie?"
"A bit too serious".
"You prefer comedies?"
"Not really. But it didn't have to be so sad."
"Life is a mixture of sad and happy things. Movies are so lifelike, that's why we love them."
"Then who needs movies? Just stay home and live life!".
"My uncle says we live three times as long since man invented movies."
"How can that be?"
"It means movies give as twice what we get from daily life."
-- Yi Yi (A One and a two), Edward Yang

Once again, I started at the end. Yi Yi (2000) was the last film that Edward Yang directed but it was the first of his films that I saw. To make matters worse, I saw the film shortly after Edward Yang passed away on June 29, 2007 at the age of 59. Just as I was discovering the works of one of the best directors in the world, he was gone thereby depriving the world of his talent. The extent of that loss has become more stark in the last few years especially as the status of Taiwan changes politically, economically and even socially. I wasn’t aware of any political, economic and social aspects covered in Edward Yang’s films back in 2007. These aspects didn’t catch my eye as I watched a few more of his films over the years such as A Brighter Summer Day (1991), Taipei Story (1985) and The Terrorizers (1986). Therefore, it felt appropriate to do a proper spotlight and watch all his features in order.

The plan was to watch all of Edward Yang’s seven features and the first short he directed as part of the omnibus In Our Time.

In Our Time (1982, Tao Te-chen, Edward Yang, Ko I-Chen, Yi Chang)
That Day, on the Beach (1983)
Taipei Story (1985)
The Terrorizers (1986)
A Brighter Summer Day (1991)
A Confucian Confusion (1994)
Mahjong (1996)
Yi Yi (2000)

Note: I couldn’t get the DVD of Edward Yang’s first feature That Day, on the Beach, which is also Christopher Doyle's first film as a cinematographer. The DVD was available a few years ago but I delayed getting it and now it is out of print. So I continued the spotlight without it.

Edward Yang’s name is associated with the “New Wave of Taiwanese Cinema” along with that of Hou Hsiao-hsien, Tsai Ming-liang and Ang Lee. However, as it turns out, within this New Wave of Taiwanese Cinema, there are 2 phases with Edward Yang and Hou Hsiao-hsien falling in the first phase while Tsai Ming-liang and Ang Lee being in the second phase. The association between Hou Hsiao-hsien and Edward Yang is more solidified as well due to their collaboration on Edward Yang’s early films. Hou wrote and acted in Taipei Story while also starred in Yang’s first feature, That Day, on the Beach. Both were also born in 1947 with Hou being older by a few months.

Hou in Taipei Story

However, Edward Yang’s style and themes are quite different from those of Hou Hsiao-hsien, Tsai Ming-liang.

Confucius: The City is too crowded
Disciples: What can we do about it?
Confucius: “Make the people rich”
Disciples: “What comes next after they are made rich?

2,000 years of poverty and struggles later,
It took a city named Taipei just 20 years to become one of the wealthiest cities in the world.

The above words are shown at the start of A Confucian Confusion (1994) and outline one big aspect covered in Edward Yang’s films. His films, starting with 1985’s Taipei Story, depict how Taiwan’s role in the world changed. Taiwan and its capital city, Taipei, went through a technological manufacturing change starting in the 1980s. 

This change impacted the social and economic life in Taiwan with regards to jobs/career and the tension this new working life would put on relationships. That is why Yang’s films feature many isolated characters and relationships in turmoil, themes and elements often found in Western films. However, Edward Yang depicted isolated characters in a different manner than Hou Hsiao-hsien and Tsai Ming-liang. Tsai Ming-liang has shown lonely characters in his films but these characters live on their own or are seeking companionship. On the other hand, Edward Yang depicted isolated characters in a relationship or within a multi-generational family. Showing families and how different family members impact each other is a key part of Edward Yang’s films.

Yi Yi feels like the culmination of Yang’s career and all the various themes he explored in his earlier films. Yi Yi contains combines elements of Coming of age, romance/relationship/marital problems and career/economic discussions. 

A Brighter Summer Day

Edward Yang explored Coming of Age in more detail via In Our Time and A Brighter Summer Day while he depicted career discussions and relationship/marital problems in varying degrees in That Day, on the Beach, Taipei Story, The Terrorizers, A Confucian Confusion and Mahjong. Gangs and violence are missing from Yi Yi and this is an element that Yang showed in A Brighter Summer Day while Mahjong is a more detailed coverage of the gang world and violence. The Terrorizers is also book-ended by a violent aspect which is nicely woven into the story.

The Terrorizers

Put together, all these films highlight the changing nature of Taiwan historically, politically, economically and socially. The inclusion of economic aspects is also based on Edward Yang’s career and how he came into movies. 

Robert Sklar's Cineaste interview from 2000 is worth reading but these words from Yang helped illuminate some scenes in Yi Yi:

"I found a job in Seattle at a research laboratory that contracted to do classified defense projects in microcomputers. I was among the first generation of designers and applicators for microcomputers and microprocessors. "

This explains the details regarding the dialogues/scenes of computer design and venture capitalists shown in Yi Yi. Edward Yang was familiar with this computer world in real life and he found a smart manner to incorporate aspects of this tech world. Of course, to Yang’s credit, he doesn’t include any detailed technical discussions but instead uses the tech world as a lubricant to depict human relationships, how people interact with one another and what motivates some people.

Edward Yang’s films covered the first phase of Taiwan’s economic change. Now, as Taiwan is in the middle of another economic change, I thought of Edward Yang again.  What would Edward Yang make of Taipei today?  The following quotes from Amy Qin and Amy Chang Chien’s NYT article stand-out:

The relatively few people who are allowed to enter Taiwan have been coming in droves, and they’ve helped to fuel an economic boom.

The influx of people helped make Taiwan one of last year’s fastest-growing economies — indeed, one of the few to expand at all.

Steve Chen, 42, a Taiwanese-American entrepreneur who co-founded YouTube, was the first to sign up for the gold card program. He moved to the island from San Francisco with his wife and two children in 2019. Then, after the pandemic hit, many of his friends in Silicon Valley, particularly those with Taiwanese heritage, began to join him — a reverse brain drain, of sorts.

Taiwan’s leaders say the infusion of foreign talent has given a shot of energy to its tech industry, which is better known for manufacturing prowess than for entrepreneurial culture.

The economic changes in Taiwan are also changing the social life on the island. Maybe in the future, someone will document the evolving changes in Taiwan but Edward Yang covered it first. For that, his valuable cinematic contributions to the world will forever be cemented.

Other reading:

1. Jonathan Rosenbaum: Exiles in Modernity

2. David Bordwell: A Brighter Summer Day
3. Bordwell again
4. Lawrence Garcia on Yi Yi

Delphine and Muriel Coulin's The Stopover

Voir du Pays / The Stopover (2016, France/Greece, Delphine and Muriel Coulin)

When it comes to depicting Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in war movies, a majority of Hollywood films focus on an individual. Such films show how an individual, mostly male, is left on their own and has to find a way to cope. This type of depiction reduces the issue to an individual problem and fails to tackle the problem on a larger scale. That is why Delphine and Muriel Coulin’s The Stopover feels remarkably insightful and eye-opening. The film, adapted from Delphine Coulin's book, shows how French soldiers stop for a three day decompression session in Cyprus when returning from Afghanistan. This three day break is meant to help the soldiers adjust to life in the real world before returning to their families. As one of the characters Marine (Soko) puts it, the government and military want to remove all bad images from the soldiers and return them only with clean images back to their families.

Given the trauma soldiers face in war, a three day decompression session isn’t enough. However, it is better than 0 days which is the case with many countries. Of course, as the film highlights, this strategy isn’t perfect. The first aspect is the culture shock of going from Afghanistan to a Cypriot beach resort, or as Max (Karim Leklou) puts it “Going from burkhas to thongs”.

The other aspect is that each person deals with issues in their own way. This is emphasized repeatedly in the film as some benefit from talking about their feelings while others prefer solitude. Then there is the aspect of what one should discuss in front of their superiors and colleagues. In the film, the sessions involve using virtual reality to put the soldiers back in the mental space of their missions. There is a psychiatrist available to observe and offer a one-on-one session if needed. The soldiers are told to be honest in what they say. However, the film shows honesty doesn’t always go down well. This is because in some cases there are unwritten military rules which are violated if one is honest about the failure of a mission or who was responsible for the loss of troops’ lives. Violation of these unwritten rules don’t result in any healing but instead may add to more problems for a solider.

Delphine and Muriel Coulin's smart script and direction, which won Best Screenplay at Cannes’ Un Certain Regard in 2016, depict events in a layered manner sprinkled with humour and compassion. There is a lot of material this film covers but full credit to the sisters that they allow each issue its own space on screen. The film covers multiple characters but in a few minutes, we are able to get an accurate understanding of their differing personalities. The film is mostly filtered from the perspective of three women soldiers, Marine (Soko), Aurore (Ariane Labed) and Fanny (Ginger Romàn). Marine and Aurore are shown to be childhood friends and they get most of the screen time but Fanny’s presence is crucial and the film shows that at the end of the day, the three women soldiers have to fend for themselves against the male egos. The inclusion of a few crucial scenes highlights another complicated layer of the military with regards to the differing treatment between men and women and also how abuse is allowed to go unchecked.

The film premiered at Cannes in 2016 but frustratingly the film was not included in the Main Competition. Admittedly 2016 was a strong year for Cannes but The Stopover is one of the best, if not the best, movies about war to be ever made. It deserved to be in the Main Competition on merit and if it had been included, then perhaps it would have gotten more coverage and would have been discussed and seen by more people.

Gurvinder Singh's Alms for a Blind Horse

Anhey Ghorhey Da Daan / Alms for a Blind Horse (2011, India, Gurvinder Singh)

Gurvinder Singh’s brilliant debut film depicts the hardships that Indian farmers/workers face in their daily lives as they battle greedy landowners while living alongside pollution generating coal stacks. The film’s realistic portrayal of life in Punjab is rarely seen in cinema, as is the film's style. The film came out in 2011 but its style is not like other contemporary Indian movies. Instead, the film’s mise-en-scène is more akin to that of the Parallel Indian Cinema of the 1970s and 80s especially that of the great Mani Kaul. That is not a coincidence because the late Mani Kaul served as a creative producer on Anhey Ghorhey Da Daan.

Nods to Mani Kaul’s cinema are apparent early on from the daily morning rituals of the farmers to even how interactions are portrayed in the film. The camera only shows what needs to be shown and no dialogues are wasted.

In one quiet beautiful sequence, the local farmers visit the village leader to complain about their land troubles. A few words are exchanged. The village leader gets up, quietly walks over and brings his gun with him. That gun, which doesn’t need to be used, is a reminder to the villagers who is the boss.

 

Gurvinder Singh has smartly stitched in plenty of references to social, economic, health and political problems plaguing locals within the film’s framework. For example, problems about alcohol addiction (prevalent in Punjab) are part of a discussion among some locals while union protests are in the backdrop as characters are trying to cross the street.

 

 

In other films set in Punjab, one only sees lush green fields. Yet, that is not the case here. Singh and Satya Nagpaul’s camera capture elements that are absent from other Indian cinema. For example, I can’t recall seeing coal stacks in any other recent Indian film. Yet, the omnipresent coal stacks which are quietly polluting the skies and leading to health problems are a major source of power in India. Anhey Ghorhey Da Daan corrects that omission and one can see coal stacks in many scenes.

Mani Kaul sadly passed away on July 6, 2011, a few months before Anhey Ghorhey Da Daan debuted at the Venice Film Festival. In that sense, Gurvinder Singh’s cinematic gift carries the torch passed on from Mani Kaul.

On another note, Singh’s follow-up film Chauthi Koot debuted at Cannes’ Un Certain Regard in 2015 and is a riveting piece of cinema.

Il Posto

 Il Posto (1961, Italy, Ermanno Olmi)

The great Italian director Ermanno Olmi, who sadly passed away in 2018, is more famously associated with his 1978 Palme d’Or winning The Tree of Wooden Clogs. However, it is his 1961 Il Posto (which won the Italian critics’ award at Venice Film Festival) that is a personal favourite. The film won my 2014 Movie World Cup beating out Robert Bresson’s L’Argent 5-3. I recently revisited the film to see how it holds up.

Il Posto brilliantly depicts the journey of young Domenico (Sandro Panseri) entering the workforce with precise detail starting with the stress associated with writing an exam to nervous anticipation of a job interview to the fate that awaits when one gets the job; the dreaded office desk where a person can spend decades sitting in one spot. 

A promotion means a person moves up just one spot to a desk nearer to the front.

As Il Posto shows, this front desk has more light while the desk at the back of the room is partially dark. Using such a simple technique of depicting rows of desks lit differently, Olmi is able to highlight the hierarchy and seniority that exists in offices. Of course, a variation in other companies is that a promotion signifies moving to a better cubicle or an office with a window. 

Olmi also manages to incorporate plenty of tiny details that highlight workplace rituals and customs while portraying differences in big city life vs a smaller town. Domenico lives in Meda, a small town, on the outskirts of Milan. Time has no meaning in Meda while the pace of life slower with horse-carts still visible. However, the pace of life in Milan is faster and life is dictated by the clock. Domenico quickly learns this as he has to wake up early to catch the train to get to his job interview in Milan.

In the office, the clock dictates everything. If one is late to office, then a late slip has to be signed by the big boss.

As soon as the clock indicates lunch time, everyone rushes out to grab a bite to eat before they have to return back.

And then there is the waiting for the clock to indicate the end of the work day.

Il Posto also lovingly incorporates elements of romance and the excitement, hesitation, jealously, waiting and expectation that comes with meeting someone. Olmi’s beautiful film was made back in 1961 but it will always be contemporary as long humans have to find a job or have to seek out a companion.

I absolutely loved watching this film again and appreciated many of the details I missed seven years ago. Of course, all these details were always in the film. This line from Pedro Almodóvar’s Pain and Glory applies to my heightened appreciation:

“The film is the same….It’s your eyes that have changed.”

A Machine to Live In

 A Machine to Live In (2020, USA, Yoni Goldstein/Meredith Zielke)

A city is made by its people, within the bounds of the possibilities that it can offer them: it has a distinctive identity that makes it much more than an agglomeration of buildings. Climate, topography and architecture are part of what creates that distinctiveness, as are its origins. Cities based on trade have qualities different from those that were called into being my manufacturing. Some cities were built by autocrats, others have been shaped by religion. Some cities have their origins in military strategy or statecraft. — The Language of Cities, Deyan Sudjic

All cities have their own unique identity even though a city may have many common elements with other cities. When people use words such as “City of Love”, “City of Dreams” or “City that never sleeps” to describe a city, it isn’t just one aspect that causes a city to get such a label. Instead, it is the overall essence of a city and the feeling it generates that cause people to label a city. Sometimes, the description of a city is amplified by paintings, literature, films, music or political/social acts that cause people to associate a city in a certain way.

What to make of Brasilia, the capital city of Brazil?

 

When I first saw pictures of Brasilia years ago, my first thought was the city wasn’t real. It didn’t look like it was constructed by humans but instead felt like an extraterrestrial city. It turns out I wasn’t the only one who felt that way. Yoni Goldstein and Meredith Zielke’s A Machine to Live In looks at Brasilia from various angles and tries to capture some of the realities, myths and cultish beliefs about the city.

A Machine to Live In isn’t a pure documentary but feels like a docu-fiction hybrid, especially since the film defies genres due to its multiple tones and cinematic references. In some moments, the film takes on a serious tone in highlighting discussions of aliens and Brasilia’s architecture. And then a few moments later, the entire tone feels similar to that of Todd Haynes’ Safe in highlighting the frauds who have their own agenda in perpetuating certain beliefs.

The film has many quotes from Oscar Niemayer, one of the chief architects of Brasilia, and the brilliant writer Clarice Lispector which lends gravitas to proceedings while the hypnotic music coupled with stellar images produces a trance like impact.

The end result is a film that aligns more with a dreamy vision of Brasilia even though the camera is looking at the real city itself and features some of the residents who toil away in the city.