THE ROOF

A film by Vittorio De Sica

1956 / Italy/ Runtime: 95 minutes

24^th Jan 2016/ Perks Mini Theater

THE ROOF, largely considered the last masterpiece of Italian Neorealist cinema, dramatizes a single night in the lives of Luisa and Natale, a strikingly good-looking but destitute pair of newlyweds. The couple share a small two-room apartment with several relatives. 

Following a bitter family dispute, Luisa and Natale pack out of this untenable living situation. Luisa turns to a friend for housing, while Natale finds shelter in a tool shed. Realizing that separation is no solution, the couple struggles to build a small shack for themselves.

With very little money or possessions, the young couple struggle to find appropriate accommodation anywhere in the city. All around Rome, squatters are building meager shacks on unclaimed land. This illegal practice is heavy patrolled by officials and if discovered during construction, the authorities order the immediate demolition of the structure. 

Natale works as an apprentice bricklayer and is aware of the Italian law, which stipulates that once a roof is completed on a dwelling, the authorities cannot pull it down.

In an era of economic hardship, how does a newly married young couple gain independence and break the necessity of living with relatives in an over-populated household? Winner of the OCIC Award at Cannes in 1956, The Roof is a memorable, heartwarming tale of love and community amid tough economic times. (Source:Internet)

Vittorio De Sica

Vittorio De Sica, was one of the great directors of the postwar Italian neorealist movement, which represented a large, loud break with Hollywood tradition and dealt with life as it might exist outside sound stages. As one of the world's most influential filmmakers, and as an actor who starred in some 150 movies, Vittorio De Sica built a remarkable film career that spanned half a century. De Sica directed 34 feature films, for which he won numerous international prizes. He was honored with four Academy Awards: two Special Awards, preceding the creation of the Best Foreign Film category, for "Shoeshine" in 1947, and "The Bicycle Thief" in 1949, and Best Foreign Film Awards for "Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow" in 1964, and The Garden of the Finzi-Continis in 1971.

De Sica was born in 1902 in Sora, near Rome, and grew up in Naples in a middle-class family. His career took off in the 1920s whenhe joined a local theater company and became a matinee idol. He later formed his own company, producing plays and co-starring with his first wife, Giuditta Rissone During World War II, De Sica turned to directing. His first four films were routine light productions in the tradition of the Italian cinema of the day. But his fifth, "The Children Are Watching Us," was a mature, perceptive, and deeply human work about the impact of adult folly on a child's innocent mind. The film marked the beginning of De Sica's collaboration with author and screenwriter Cesare Zavattini, a creative relationship that was to give the world two of the most significant films of the Italian neorealism movement, "Shoeshine" and "The Bicycle Thief."    Some more great films followed. Vittorio De Sica died in 1974 at the age of 72.

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10th January 2016; Tati's Mon Uncle

MON ONCLE

A film by Jacques Tati

1928/ France/117 mins/ Col

5.45 pm; 10th Jan 2016 / Perks Mini theater

http://konangalfilmsociety.blogspot.in/

Jacques Tati (1909-1982) only made six features and yet he ranks with the great silent clowns among masters of visual comedy. With Mon Oncle master comedian Jaquese Tati weaves a series of physical gags into a social commentary, creating a rich comedy that can be enjoyed both by casual and intellectual audience. 

For Tati the joke is almost more about the setup than the payoff. Each gag has a meticulous setup that makes the joke all the richer "Mon Oncle" is halfway a silent film, with the dialogue sounding like an unexpected interruption in a library. The music is  simple, cheerful, like circus music while we're waiting for the clowns.

The hero of this tale is Tati’s signature character, Monsieur Hulot, also played by Tati. This small town man lacks grace but makes up for it in heart.  He is often seen in a brown fedora, a tan raincoat, a bow tie, too short pants, striped socks and with his long-stemmed pipe. He hardly ever says anything.

Mr. Hulot  is a lost soul, unemployed, bemused and confused by the modern world. His sister Madame Arpel lieves wants to  help him. She lives with her husband Monsieur Arpel and their young son Gerard n a futuristic architectural monstrosity, and a great deal of the movie's time is spent exploring their cold new world.

"Mon Oncle" introduces us casually to a large cast of local characters, including a street-sweeper who is perpetually in conversation and always means to use his broom but never does, and a produce vendor . There is a tender, subtle subplot involving Betty, the concierge's daughter. There's also a supporting cast of dogs, who are seen in the first shot and the last, and hurry on their doggy business in between. They don't have an important role in the plot; they're just there, checking things out, marking their territory.

Just reach back, take Mon Oncle's hand and head out around the block wherever you live. You never really know just what it is you'll discover on your next stroll through the neighborhood.  (Sorce : Internet) 

Jacques Tati

There are not many filmmaking legends whose entire output can be counted on the fingers of both hands, but this towering, graceful, pipe-puffing auteur, a comedic genius, achieved his reputation on the basis of just six feature films. His theme, his style, his mise-en-scène, all suggested the eternal struggle between Man and Machine; his was a kind of intricate slapstick in which characters found themselves at the mercy of progress, and his affinity for silent-screen comedy was mirrored in his own nearly total abstinence from dialogue (though his uses of natural sound and comic sound effects were nonpareil). In his first feature, Jour de Fete (1949), Tati played a village postman obsessed with modernizing his already-simple job. Four years later, in Mr. Hulot's Holiday (1953), he introduced the umbrella toting, raincoat-clad Mr.Hulot. It was an international smash, and Hulot became Tati's screen alter ego for much of the remainder of his career.

In Mon Oncle (1958), Tati's first color film, Hulot is victimized by an automated house in which-you guessed-everything goes wrong. (It won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film.) He spent years working on Playtime (1967), shot on 70mm film, which pitted Hulot and a group of tourists against the high-tech vagaries of modern Paris, with an extended climax at the opening of a chi-chi restaurant where-that's right-everything goes wrong. Critics hailed it a masterpiece, but it was not a financial success, and a devastated Tati only made two more (small) films before retiring: Traffic (1972), with Hulot traveling to a modern auto show, and Parade (1974), a quasi-documentary showcasing French cabaret acts, with Tati recreating some of his old music-hall routines. He also made a gag cameo appearance as Hulot in Truffaut's Stolen Kisses (1968).  It's lamentable that he left behind so few films, but any five minutes of any of them is sufficient to restore his spirit. (Source: Internet)