Nattvardsgästerna

This is probably the deepest study of Christianity that I have come across in a film. Bresson is more general, and more at easy and convinced of his faith and his thoughts but Bergman deals with a problem and he does a great deal presenting the problem. Winter light, part of the trilogy of faith, with Through a glass darkly and Silence. This is Bergman’s favourite film, may be because of the amazing incisiveness with which he deals with his subject.

The film rotates around Tomas Errikson played by Gunnar Björnstrand, a pastor in a small town who is no longer sure of his faith, and hence doesn’t have all the answers, yet he conducts regular sermons mechanically failing to give advice which could have prevented his parishioner’s death [Max von Sydow]. Then there is the odd and atheistic Marta [Ingrid Thulin] and Gunnel Lindblom. I loved Gunnel Lindblom in the film. She is so subtle and natural and modest and inconspicuous, even with her baby. Ingrid Thulin is good, but Lindblom is simply the best. She handles with traditional ease and maternal anxiety simultaneously her husband’s crisis and his consequent death. These are separate elements in the story, yet inside church everyone serves a symbolic function; especially the crooked sexton and the cynical organ player serve only to heighten the crisis which is partially resolved in the end.

Sven Nykvist’s cinematography. Alternately making the cast look two dimensional by focusing on their figures through out the movie and not as part of a larger background, it undercuts their insignificance and emphatically state that this is not a movie about men or women. It is about god, and what the different men and women in the church view him as. Nykvist also makes the winter permeate every scene, ensconcing the viewer in a pre-emptive quest which can end only with more agony.

I do not know. Perhaps being irreligious has got something to do with the movie. Bergman himself was an atheist, and many atheistic friends have been moved by the film. I cannot tell if the portrait of a crumbling church and the dwindling faith of the past can provide succour to the faithless but I think it’s got more to do with the ending of the film than with the bleakness and wintry misery. The ending is not a regular denouement, for the pastor prepares to conduct the mass mechanically even after the scene of faith with the sexton, and after knowing that only Marta came for it. Yet I am not sure if the doubts and points raised by the misguided sexton-who began reading the bible to go to sleep-should be pinned down as the ideological crux of the film. I’d also hate to see it as a simple case of thesis, antithesis and synthesis: the pastor’s lack of faith, Jonas’ confirmation of it and in the end, a rejection of it through an answer about silence, how the son of god had to bear it as well. Here I feel that Jonas’ confirmation would have been the synthesis technically-with the answer of suicide to an excruciatingly empty life on earth. But that is not what the film says in the end; it advocates nothing but it clearly rejects paths set by Marta or the organ player or even the sexton.

I think perhaps this movie leaves such a powerful impression among atheists, is because the film is predominantly individuals though of course foreshadowed by the church as a whole. And I think it is herein that we find the answer to the film. Nothing in the movie can be seen as answer to the question of doubt of faith. When the sexton elaborates on Jesus’ suffering as spiritual and emotional and not physical, first being forsaken by his own friends and disciples and then by his father; we are here presented with a revolutionary idea. Here, emphasizing on the man of Jesus, Bergman resists the viewer’s impulse to register his suffering at par with him because he is a separate individual from whom we may learn not imitate. This discussion of god’s silence thereby identifies the problem- it is up to every person to individually find answers that may placate him.

Rembrandt fecit 1699

Rembrandt fecit 1699 is a dutch film made by Jos Stelling. It covers a lot of Rembrandt’s life; if narrative were to be divided with his relationships with three women: with his wife Saskia van Uylenberg, nurse Geertje Dircx and maid Hendrickje Stoffels. This is not a great movie, and unless you are interested in the visual arts you will find the movie painfully boring

Firstly, other than roughly following his life, the movie neither offers a thorough exploration of his art or of his personal life. I am inclined to think that if Rembrandt were to send Geertje Dircx to the bridewell asylum and have Hendrickje Stoffels be punished for the act of fornification and paint the subtle Nightwatch, then he probably wasn’t the bleak, caught-in-my-very-own-private-world artist. Such artists are often products and creations of the twenty first century.

To have painted his very famous domestic scenes, he probably had a way with people and to observe requires being at ease with people. In the film sadly, the bleakness of last years foreshadows even the first years. Sad and drooping, he rarely talks through out the movie. The personal ambition is underscored but his luxurious lifestyle and commanding very high prices for his paintings figure, implying that this movie though a biopic, is plot-driven-which is a very bad thing to happen when you are talking about a person. The film tries a little of that I think, in the beginning when we see Rembrandt making faces in the mirror, dressing up and all, to create self portraits. He also plays with his young son, Titus and Geertje’s attachment to the child is also shown tenderly. But these random scenes are too random to change the overall foreboding tone of the film. Considering, how much that renders the film a drag, it is a very unforgivable flaw indeed.

Secondly, the film portrays the life of the sequestered private individual Rembrandt; no mention is made of the other painters which would have been all right, if he weren’t working right through the Dutch Golden age with other big shots like Vermeer and Ruisdael. Or even Frans Hals, if his achievements in portraiture put him any closer to Rembrandt. The movie is also quite amiss when it comes to Rembrandt’s own works. Other than providing a nebulous outline of his family life, the director does not progressively look at his works, or diachronically, when he was painting very Christian themes such as Stoning of Stephen or the later, myth influenced themes of Rape of Europa or Rape of Ganymede. Instead, Rembrandt is shown to be fleetingly assessing a Bible later in the movie but the fact is because of his catholic upbringing and the catholic master, the influences were more deep seated than drawn later because of the economic difficulties in later years.

Thirdly, it is a bad movie in so many ways. Apparently it is one in the series to come, on very famous Dutch men. May be that explains the egoistic wrapping of the movie around the man, and his headlong diving in to the misery of his last years when with the brush of fiction, so much could have been developed-like beautiful Titus or what becomes of Cornelia. But, hey, as an introduction to Rembrandt or simply to watch a painter paint, which is what I wanted; a good watch.

La Notte

I had watched L'avventura a long time back, and I remember feeling very very bleak. In keeping with the rules of a trilogy [thou shalt not deviate from the bleakness/happiness etc], La Notte or The night is not entirely different, but unlike L’avventura which relates an event’s impact on people, La Notte focuses on people in events, however misleading the name might be!

There is a certain economy which defies psychological attribution. It is obvious that the story is about two individuals-may be leaning towards Lydia as the viewer feels that the camera sees through her eyes, especially the scenery and backgrounds. The continual industrial imagery with the claustrophobic skyscrapers and the constant search by moving across different places and pausing only to stare at random people only to look away when the eye meets the eye. It embodies her weltanschauung of sorts, and also her vulnerability, a strange aloofness with people with unwillingness to commit.

Psychologically, what does Antonioni attempt to present? It is not the society, it is not the person- may be, it’s two persons or if Tomasso’s death in the course of the movie could be seen as symbolic; a futile attempt to integrate oneself back in the society with all the distances I or you, may personally create. Tomasso looks like a scepter, especially on Lydia’s face, the viewer is spurred, in the morass of meaning making, to think that his dying might have been the impetus for the crisis that the movie explores. For, La Notte does capture life when passing through a crisis and its success lies in a truthful telling of it. 

Marcello Mastroianni plays the intellectual, and he is as suave as in other films of his, perhaps a role underplayed deliberately not unlike the subtle writer in 81/2. Every great actor has a mark that differentiates him from other great actors. For Anatoly Solonitsyn, is his casual charm, for Max Von Sydow it is the suffering etched into his face, for Gunnar Björnstrand  it is his stoicism and similarly, for Mastroianni, it is that he bares his soul and can genuinely look lost. Totally, purposefully and innocuously. But Mastriani is lost on me for this movie, for I am bewitched by the actress-Jeanne Moreau with her beguiling face and sad looks. I cannot decide about her. There is something distasteful about that face, it hides years of age but then it looks so openly and cleverly you are not allowed to judge her while she judges and passes on. She plays the wife with a swiftness which suggests a pre-emptive ending of the story, and in the end of the film when she is smothered by her husband with kisses she cries out that she doesn’t love him anymore, repeating her earlier sentiment only this time it smacks of a peculiar detachment-eager to get away from the scene-but of course he doesn’t stop, and the movie ends there thus drowning her defiance with the greater power of the two in a marriage, or may be, backfiring in a confrontation in to buying a deal you had you decided you don’t want.

 

I don't particularly like the story. My mind is screaming, what a rotten plot, but out of deference to the master, I am just going to say the story didn't go too well toward the end. In a review I read of the movie, the critic praises the imagery in the movie, and all the freudian undercurrents; what with Giovanni getting seduced by a brazen woman right after an intense scene with their dying friend, but it gets stilted with the regular plot line toward the end.

So in the middle of this failing marriage, comes the beautiful Valentina who Giovanni is attracted to and who Lydia doesn't seem to mind. Then there is the other guy who Lydia goes out with and gets wet in the rain, but again these typical foils annoy me so very much :| after all, Monica Vitti is a great actress in her own right, must she have appeased her lover at the time, Antonioni and messed up his beautiful movie? No. She is so superfluous to the movie, with her troubles and tribulations. A little piece, she hesitantly shows Giovanni, is truly the most B.S. I have heard any one utter in a great movie. But, yes, may be that was the point.

I like Antonioni when he is simple like when in the end, Lydia reads out a love letter and Giovanni doesn't remember that he himself had written it. That, that, is a beautiful moment. It is a nice movie with powerful performances from Giovanni and Lydia, standing still as they are, in the middle watching their marriage float away. It is in these movies, that the ending really does not matter, and as with the time in the movie, it only goes forward and more.

The Color of Pomegranates

The Color of Pomegranates is a 1968 film by the Soviet Armenian director, Sergei Parajanov. It follows the life of the armenian ashug [something like a 'mystic troubadour'] Sayat Nova-King of Song. It is easier to talk about this movie through images for, the film bursts with colour.

Tarkovsky taks about his predilection for poetry in cinema by differentiating poetically linked cinema from the traditional narrative of images linked together. But, in a film that is thoroughly and truly picturesque, it redefines conventional narrative by linking images through images. Tarkovsky claims logical sequentiality is banal, and poetry in cinema participates the viewer. But what does Parajanov do through his images? It functions a similar role to iconography, where images serve to point and direct toward multiple layers of meaning.

The images in the film stand still for a second, enough to impress on the reader the colors; they are sometimes aided by sound as well, like when men mechanically grind grapes with their feet or with the songs used when mourning the death or Sayat Nova's poems used in the film. However all these serve to heighten the effect of the image or the picture, if that sounds independent and not the other way around. 

The film traces the poet's growth, from his childhood to his sexual awakening even registering his wife's death to a rapid change in color of lace from red to black, and eventually his death. 

 But saying that the movie is about Sayat Nova alone would be swatting it with a simplification. Armenian culture seeps through, in every image. The movie doesn't allow you much to think, for it is such a graphic movement in toto, so you are left gaping at beauty in the end, is all.

 I like the poet though. He is so curious and so awestruck by his life and the life around him that it is really nice and warm to watch him. Every phase in his life envelops his face with a dominant emotion, that it sets the tune to the story inside the story. 

The viewer watches this movie as a voyeur, of the highest order. The complete access to the images and thus life, imply an unawareness of the watcher. Thus it is like watching through a glass very clearly except that the images trapped inside cannot see us. But I won't take this voyeur-pass for granted; because the images does allow for subjective identification. In a traditional movie, the viewer identifies through the process of immersion, which you might think impossible in an image-movie. But Sayat Nova manages to filter, and selectively grant you access to the poet, the poet alone-for the poet is the object and the rest are after all the background. 

When I say the movie is full of images, I might have categorized it too roughly in the imagist file, but he took inspiration from Tarkovsky, Dear Parajanov, he created a poetry of his own.

This is Spinal Tap!

I cannot begin to write about this movie! I have this really bad habit of skimming through the film as soon as I get it, and invariably judging if the film is any good. That way, This is Spinal Tap, looked like a regular bore-what with it being a rockumentary [documentary, did you say?] and chronicling lives of fictitious rock stars. To the first, i generally hate documentaries-god help al gore-to the second, I distinctly remember being appalled by The Doors-the 1991 biopic on the rock band with its very own original lame attempts at impressions of a stoned mind. Ah, but what pleasure watching this one was. I think I'll watch Almost famous now, a previously rejected movie-which when skimmed looked like a loser's personal diary of little achievements.

TIST is a film of quirks, and while royally satirizing the rock stars' very own lives, it is a nice surprise that Spinal Tap manages to retain its idiosyncrasies and originality, and carve an abominably likable niche of its own- which is why they have released almost like an album with the Smell my glove cover-the sleek black mirror thing, and not the original greasy nude lady on leash. Some lyrics from probably the most popular song, Big Bottom :

Big bottom
Big bottom
Talk about bum cakes,
My gal's got 'em.
Big bottom,
Drive me out of my mind.
How can I leave this behind?

This film is racy and good. David St Hubbins, Derek Smalls and Nigel Tufnel played by Micheal Mckeen, Harry Shearer and Christopher Guest respectively. St Hubbins is the patron saint of footwear. Nigel has a room full of guitars, of which one he has never played, and one at which you cannot look at or point at after some time. 

My favourite performance is of Nigel's, the lead guitarist of the group and childhood friend of David's. Apart from all the wacko lives, the rockstars live, C Guest manages to underplay emotions and swim in the right currents when necessary-thus bringing the essential plot to a regular story by leaving the band once and returning in the end capturing the essential denouement in a story about a rock band-through a reunion. The girlfriend who is too big a part of the band now, the manager who knows them through and through, weird people who cannot understand their music are all there. The answer when asked by Marty Dibergi played by Rob Reiner if they are losing popularity, is that they have just got a more selective appeal now. 

Reminiscences are an important part of the movie- the singers continuously remember their past lives for Marty thereby producing the viewer with the story but at the same time, as a tribute and pointer to the actual lives of the rock stars, so subtly captured when the Tap pays a visit to Elvis Presley, after realizing that their popularity that once soared, is now at 'where are they now' rocks.

 Before I wrap this baby up, I would like to state emphatically that if not tailored to meet any genre, it is definitely a very very funny movie- advantage of making a satire you might say, but clearly, no for every moment from the hideous anorexic fan, to the changing accents all through the movie, the stonehenge, the deaths of all the drummers in the band-one even of spontaneous combustion-and Derek keeping a cucumber in his underwear are heights of comedy; separate events that can crack you up any time.

What kept me up till 3:40 to write about the movie however, is how fast paced the movie actually is, jumping from character to character, entwining simple lines in a delicate way as Nigel says, to produce a compilation that shows you all the different emotions in the life of a band-even veering slightly to the sad private individual who is so lost in all the band shit and never gets to speak, and who perhaps realises that, he is just a fad and that everything will come to pass.

It is a beautiful movie, with the right colours and the right texture of the 1990s like with most other Rob Reiner movies. However this one lacks any agenda, one to motivate or make you cry. This is primarily a tribute to rock music and the unbiased handling of their quirky lives through the eyes of the interviewing Marty who only raises the film's credibility as an attempt to see through, to the lives of the reigning and falling gods in music.