Screening on 04th Nov 2007 : Woody Allen's THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO

The Purple Rose of Cairo
- at 84 minutes,it's short but nearly every
one of those minutes is blissful. -New York Times

A film by Woody Allen
Year : 1985
Nominated for Oscar and another 14 wins & 11 nominations
English with English sub titles ; Run Time : 84 Minutes
4th Nov 2007 ; 5.45 pm ; Ashwin Hospital Auditorium, Ganapathy
Konangal – Call : 94430 39630

The Purple Rose of Cairo is not merely one of the best movies about movies ever made. It is still more unusual, because it comes at its subject the hard way, from the front of the house, instead of from behind the scenes. Its subject is not how movies work but how they work on the audience. –Time Magazine

The Purple Rose of Cairo

A delightful tale centered on how cinema can change lives, if only when the lights are down, Woody Allen combines romance with intelligence to great comic effect.

Click here to view clipping from 'Purple Rose Of Cairo'

Jeff Daniels playing the dual roles of Tom, a character in the film-within-the-film, and Gil, the actor who portrays Tom. Tom literally breaks the fourth wall, emerging from the black-and-white into the colorful real world on the other side of the cinema's screen. He is drawn out by Cecilia (played by Mia Farrow), a film buff who goes to the movies to escape her bleak 1930's Great Depression life and loveless marriage to Monk (Danny Aiello). The producer of the film finds out that Tom has left the film, and he and Gil fly cross-country to the New Jersey theater where it happened. This sets up an unusual love triangle involving Tom, Gil and Cecilia.

The Purple Rose of Cairo contains so many wonderful elements that it seems arbitrary to pick out any as special, yet there is one theme which runs strongly throughout the entire film. This is the manner in which common relationships are turned upside-down, most obviously with the transition of Baxter from fiction to reality. Further along this resonates with the abandoned film cast switching from performing to viewing, as they wait to finish their scene, and the flipped relationship of Cecilia and Monk. Perhaps this is Allen's way of indicating that a movie, no matter how frivolous, can have a worthwhile impact on its audience (together with the fact that the real world can never be as perfect as the fictional, that this is a pipe-dream)? If so, it can all be summed up in the expression of Mia Farrow as she sits entranced while Astaire and Rogers dance their hearts out; in a series of subtle graduations her face transforms from a mask of sorrow to radiant joy (even though the world outside remains as horrid as ever). Such is the power of the moving-picture!

It also recalls Mr. Allen's own small classic of a story, ''The Kugelmass Episode,'' about a professor of humanities who becomes so infatuated with Madame Bovary that he finds himself inside the Flaubert novel making mincemeat of the plot line.

Though Mr. Allen does not actually appear in ''The Purple Rose of Cairo,'' his work as the film's writer and director is so strong and sure that one is aware of his presence in every frame of film. It doesn't overwhelm the contributions of the others, but illuminates them, particularly the glowing, funny performance of Miss Farrow. It's as if this wonderful actress, in spite of her English stage credits and all of her earlier films, was finally awakened only when Mr. Allen cast her in ''A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy,'' ''Zelig'' and, most spectacularly, ''Broadway Danny Rose.''

On a side note, the performances and script are both excellent (each bolstering the other). There's a wealth of humour to be found in the story, particularly in the way Baxter tries to apply movie precepts to the real world, although this is leavened by a deep emotional counterbalance (skillfully applied by Allen). If anything, The Purple Rose of Cairo is a touch too manipulative, notwithstanding the terrific finale.

Woody Allen

Woody Allen (born Allen Stewart Königsberg on December 1, 1935) is a three-time Academy Award-winning American film director, writer, actor, jazz musician, comedian, and playwright. His large body of work and cerebral film style, mixing satire, wit and humor, have made him one of the most respected and prolific filmmakers in the modern era.[1] Allen writes and directs his movies and has also acted in the majority of them. For inspiration, Allen draws heavily on literature, philosophy, psychology, Judaism, European cinema and New York City, where he was born and has lived his entire life.

Allen was born and raised in New York City to a Jewish family; his grandparents were Yiddish and German-speaking immigrants. Nicknamed "Red" because of his red hair, he impressed students with his extraordinary talent at card and magic tricks.Though in his films and his comedy persona he has often depicted himself as physically inept and socially unpopular, in fact Woody Allen was a popular student, and an adept baseball and basketball player.

Click here to watch Woody Allen interview - you can continue the interview further with links provided here.

Click here to view Woody Allen's monologue from his film Annie Hall

To raise money he began writing gags for the agent David O. Alber, who sold them to newspaper columnists. At sixteen, he started writing for stars like Sid Caesar and began calling himself Woody Allen, which would remain his moniker (although it's unclear if Allen ever legally adopted the stage name). He was a gifted comedian from an early age. After high school, he went to New York University where he studied communication and film, but, never committed as a student, he was thrown off his course due to lack of punctuality and commitment. He later briefly attended City College of New York.

His first movie production was What's New, Pussycat? in 1965, for which he wrote the initial screenplay. He was hired by Warren Beatty to re-write a script, and to appear in a small part. His first conventional effort was Take the Money and Run (1969), which was followed by Bananas, Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask), Sleeper, and Love and Death.

In 1972, he also starred in the film version of Play It Again, Sam, which was directed by Herbert Ross. All of Allen's early films were pure comedies that relied heavily on slapstick, inventive sight gags, and non-stop one-liners. Among the many notable influences on these films are Bob Hope, Groucho Marx (as well as, to some extent, Harpo Marx) and Humphrey Bogart.

Annie Hall marked a major turn to more sophisticated humor and thoughtful drama. Allen's 1977 film won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture – an unusual feat for a comedy. Allen’s has written and directed 43 movies till dates which includes many greats like Manhattan, Hanna and Her Sisters .

Allen continues to write roles for the neurotic persona he created in the 1960s and 1970s; however, as he gets older, the roles have been assumed by other actors.

Konangal Outreach Programme screening on 28th Oct 2007 : Not One Less

Run time: 109 min / year: 1999 / Chinese with English sub titles / On 21^st Oct 2007 at 6 PM at Aruna Thirumana Mandapam , Opp Spencer Super Market, NSR Road, SB Colony / Contact : Call :4376226 ; 9443039630

Not One Less

Yimou Zhang’s "Not One Less" enlarges the possibilities of filmmaking even as it grounds itself in one of cinema's oldest, most basic principles: the camera's ability to document reality. Despite its deliberate austerity, "Not One Less" is extraordinarily rich. And despite the look and pace of raw documentary film, the movie is a splendid, assured piece of storytelling. Its narrative emerges slowly and organically from a mass of observed detail so that it feels like a series of events the camera has discovered out in the world, rather than like the realization of a scheme the filmmaker has devised beforehand in his mind.

At the center of "Not One Less" is Wei (Wei Minzhi), 13, a primary school graduate who has been pressed into service as a substitute teacher in the Shuiquan Primary School. The teacher leaves one stick of chalk for each day and promises her an extra 10 yuan if there's not one less student when he returns. Wei stands a few inches taller than her charges, and it is hard not to hear more than a trace of irony in their voices when they address her, according to the dictates of courtesy and custom, as "Teacher Wei."

Her main qualifications, other than the fact that no one else wants the job, are an innate, unsmiling bossiness, neat handwriting and her ability to perform, in a tentative, quavering voice, one song about Chairman Mao. Wei Minzhi's performance, if that is the word for it, slowly takes on a heroic cast. Her character is composed of equal parts pigheadedness and cluelessness, which is to say that she's 13 in a way that anyone who knows a real 13-year-old, or has been one, will recognize. When troublemaker Zhang Huike manages to runs away from school, forced to try to find work in the nearby city of Zhangjiakou to support his ailing, debt-ridden mother, Wei has a mission: to get to the city, recover Zhang,.

The neorealist elements of Not One Less contribute to its ability to transcend the sentimental. All of the actors in the film are amateurs. Moreover, most play a version of who they are in real life: the mayor is actually Tian Zhengda, a village mayor; the TV station manager is, in fact, the manager of a local station in Zhangjiakou. The two central children, Wei Mingzhi and Zhang Huike, who play characters of the same name, were found in rural Hebei schools after a long search by the director and his team. This semidocumentary aspect of Not One Less—its use of hidden cameras (during Wei’s interactions with crowds in the city, for example), location shooting, and natural lighting—results in a fascinating uncertainty. There is a sort of ambivalence or play between the different genres of realism, staged documentary, and fiction that is reminiscent of recent masterpieces of Iranian cinema (Makhmalbaf and Kiarostami being the two most prominent exponents) "Not One Less" earns its emotional payoff the hard way. It may be the greatest film ever made about obstinacy, which it reveals to be not only a virtue, but also a species of grace.

This screening is supported by : HOLLYWOOD DVD SHOPEE , NSR Road, Coimbatore ; Ph 4382331 , : 98416 58466

Yimou Zhang

Zhang was born in Xi’an in 1951 to parents of "bad" class background and reportedly sold his own blood to buy his first camera. He grew up in socialist China where class struggle dominated life and literature. Like many young Chinese of the time, he was sent to farms and factories during the Cultural Revolution and so gained grass-roots knowledge of life in China. His portfolio of photographs helped win him admission to the cinematography department of the Beijing Film Academy in 1978, after successfully appealing a decision to bar him on the basis of age..

Zhang's first work, One and Eight (as director of photography), was made in 1984 together with Zhang Junzhao. Zhang's input was telling: he shot from obscure angles, and positioned actors and actresses at the side, rather than center, to heighten dramatic effect, using a “unique and emphatic visual style, based on the asymmetrical and unbalanced composition of the shots and the shooting of color stock as though it were black and white". Like his fellow students, these aesthetics signaled a departure from the tradition interrupted by the Cultural Revolution. Local critics immediately sat up and took notice of this new cohort of daring artistes who were defying conventions of Chinese cinema.

In 1985, in appreciation of his talent, Fourth Generation director Wu Tianming invited Zhang to Xi'an Film Studio for his upcoming project Old Well. Filming of Old Well was completed in 1986, with Zhang as co-acting as cinematographer and actor — a role that won him Best Actor at the Tokyo International Film Festival. In return for his participation in Wu's project, Zhang made Wu promise logistics support for his own first directorial effort, a project that he had envisioned for some time.

In 1987 Zhang embarked on his directorial debut, Red Sorghum, starring Chinese actress Gong Li, handpicked by Zhang, in her first leading role. Released to widespread critical acclaim, Red Sorghum catapulted Zhang into the forefront of the world's art directors, winning him the Golden Bear for Best Picture at the 1988 Berlin Film Festival. He has directed 17 films till date.

Nevertheless, we could say that Zhang Yimou himself is a son of China whose filmmaking gazes at past, present and future through the "son". In this sense, generation and gender are equally important in his films although the visual and often spectacular focus is on his female leads. Gong Li is his most famous star and his pictures with her are his most famous films. His propensity for visual display has been fiercely criticised in China for its exoticism and lack of historical authenticity. However, Zhang does not claim that his films document China or its people; he creates fictional worlds through moving images that often defamiliarise, shock, seduce, and subvert. He documents desire instead, circulating themes that have long haunted the national psyche and using seductive image-ideas that marry reality, dream and nightmare.

Screening on 21st Oct 2007 : BREATHLESS

A film that broke every dictate of

the conventional film making

Jean-Luc Godard’s

BREATHLESS

French with English sub titles
Country : France
Year :1960
Run time : 90 minutes
21st October 2007 - 5.45 pm
Ashwin Hospital Auditorium
Sathy Road ,Ganapathy, Coimbatore
Call :4376226 ; 9443039630

Compared to Hollywood conventions, this film stands out, because it takes conventions aside and speaks in Greek to them. This is a classic due to the conventions it created: it defined French New Wave with its hand-held camera shots and improvised dialogue. Truffaut and Godard stated in Cahiers du Cinema that film should express the soul. A Bout De Souffle is a film relating to the auteur, Godard, in ways films today can only admire.

The film also vibrates with onscreen references to popular culture and the affects of the media in ways that anticipate later theorists of the postmodern. It draws, albeit unconsciously, on Marshall McLuhan's contemporary ideas on the 'Global Village' and Roland Barthes' work on the dominance of culturally produced signs in society. Belmondo's character is literally obsessed with Bogart's poster and screen persona, and constantly checks out his style against cinema posters of 'Bogey' as well as imitating his gestures in numerous mirrors.

Belmondo is excellent, and classically existential (rather like Mersault in Camus' The Outsider) as the feckless young hood who steals a car, kills a motorbike cop, and chases after some money that is owed him for robberies past so he and his casually picked up yank chick (Seberg with a cropped head look that became existential de rigeur for years) can get to Italy.

Other cultural references and film in-jokes swarm throughout Breathless: admired cult stylist, the film director Jean-Pierre Melville, appears as a celebrity novelist being interviewed; Daniel Boulanger appears as the police inspector. Jean-Louis Richard and Philippe de Broca appear, and there are also bit appearances by Godard, as an informer, by Truffaut, and Chabrol (who also acted as supervising producer).

And of course there are many legends about the actual shoot including the use of wheelchairs as camera dollies. Renowned cinematographer Raoul Coutard's legendary ability in hand holding heavy 35mm cameras in long takes also comes to the fore. Coutard's amazing work, predating Garret Brown's invention of Steadicam, can be seen at its best in Jean Rouch's short contribution to the compilation film Paris Vu Par (1965). This begins with a hand-held shot that traverses many rooms, an elevator, and street, and runs for a full 20 minutes!

Click here to view a scene from Breathless

Finally there was the matter of the film stock which was in fact painstakingly hand-joined rolls of a very fast Ilford black and white still camera stock along with short ends of other stocks. This produced the grainy 'naturalistic' effect that Ken Russell – and later just about everyone else – was to borrow for his social 'realist' documentaries. Just about everything that looks different about Breathless became the signifiers of alternative, radical, independent film almost immediately.


Jean-Luc Godard

Jean-Luc Godard was born in Paris on December 3, 1930, the second of four children in a bourgeois Franco-Swiss family. His father was a doctor who owned a private clinic, and his mother came from an preeminent family of Swiss bankers. During World War II, Godard became a naturalized citizen of Switzerland, and attended the school in Nyons ( Switzerland ). His parents divorced in 1948, at which time he returned to Paris to attend the Lycée Rohmer. In 1949, he studied at the Sorbonne to prepare for a degree in ethnology. However, it was during this time that he began attending the François Truffaut, Jacques Rivette, and Eric Rohmer. In 1950, Godard with Rivette and Rohmer founded a "Gazette du cinéma", which published five issues between May and November. He wrote a number of articles for the journal, often using the pseudonym 'Hans Lucas'. After working on and financing two films by Rivette and Rohmer, Godard's family cut off their financial support in 1951, and he resorted to a Bohemian lifestyle that included stealing food and money when necessary. In January 1952 he began writing film criticism for 'Les cahiers du cinéma'. Later that year he traveled to North and South America with his father, and attempted to make his first film (of which only a tracking shot from a car was ever accomplished). In 1953, he returned to Paris briefly before acquiring a job as a construction worker on a dam project in Switzerland. With the money from the job, he made a short film in 1954 about the building of the dam called _Opération béton (1954)_ (Operation Concrete). Later that year, Godard's mother was killed in a motor scooter accident in Switzerland. In 1956, Godard began writing again for 'Les cahiers du cinéma' as well as for the journal "Arts". In 1957, Godard worked as the press attache for "Artistes Associés", and made his first French film entitled _Tous les garçons s'appellent Patrick (1957) (Charlotte et Véronique). In 1958, he shot Charlotte et son Jules (1960) (Charlotte and Her Boyfriend), his own homage to Jean Cocteau. Later that year, he took unused footage of a flood in Paris shot by Truffaut and edited a film called Une histoire d'eau (1961) (A Story of Water) which was an homage to Mack Sennett. In 1959, he worked with Truffaut on the weekly publication "Temps de Paris". Godard wrote a gossip column for the journal, but also spent much time writing scenarios for films and a body of critical writings which placed him firmly in the forefront of the 'nouvelle vague' aesthetic, precursing the French New Wave. It was also this year that Godard began work on À bout de souffle (1960) (Breathless). In 1960, Godard married Anna Karina in Switzerland. In April and May, he shot Petit soldat, Le (1963) in GenevaParis. However, French censors banned the film due to its references to the Algerian war, and it was not shown until 1963. In March, 1960, À bout de souffle (1960) premiered in Paris. It was hugely successful both with the film critics and at the box office, and became a landmark film in the French New Wave with its references to American cinema, its jagged editing, and overall romantic/cinephilia approach to filmmaking. The film propelled the popularity of the male lead Jean-Paul Belmondo with European audiences. In 1961, and was preparing the film for a fall release in

Goddard's work is phenomenal . From 1954 to 2006 Goddard has directed and given us 90 films and still he is busy . He is currently living in Switzerland. Like Ingmar Bergman, Goddard is one of the most important golden pioneers of Cinema , whose works have raised the art of Cinema to the level of literature and universal respect.

Screening on 07th Oct 2007: KES

KES
Film by Ken Loach
Country : England
Year : 1969
Duration : 110 Minutes
Ashwin Hospital Auditorium , Ganapathy CBE
07th October 2007 ; 5.45 pm
Call 94430 39630

Ranked seventh in the British Film Institute's recent selection of the 100 favourite British films of the 20th century, Kes remains Ken Loach's masterpiece. While the director has reached similar aesthetic heights in subsequent years (Days of Hope [1975] and Raining Stones [1993] immediately spring to mind), the film remains a template for Loach's abiding concerns: the struggle of the British working class to achieve life's basic needs, dramatised through the plight of an individual character; the significant impact of public institutions upon personal lives; sensitive performances with an ear for regional dialects; and an unobtrusive yet evocative visual style that illuminates character and place in a naturalistic fashion. Arriving as the '60s drew to a close, Kes heralds the end of “kitchen sink realism” and the true arrival of one of contemporary cinema's major artists.

Click here to watch the trailer of the film 'KES'

Kes details the life of Billy Casper (David Bradley), a lonely teen facing a bleak future in a Yorkshire mining town. An outcast at school, Billy's slight frame and unkempt appearance make him an easy target for teachers and bullies alike. Unfortunately, home provides no respite. Billy's father is absent, his inattentive mother (Lynne Perrie) offers little guidance or love (referring to Billy as “a hopeless case”), and his abusive older brother Jud (Freddie Fletcher) takes out his hostility through punches and insults. However, hope appears in the form of a kestrel, which Billy captures as a fledgling and trains to fly on command. Soon, the bird reveals not only Billy's untapped potential, but also his desire to escape his toxic environment. It's no accident, of course, that Billy is obsessed with the only bird owned by the lowest social orders during medieval times. As Loach notes, “It's a bird for the riff-raff of the world.”

Ken Loach

Born in 1936 at Nuneaton,Warwickshire, England (his father was a factory electrician), Loach attended King Edward VIGrammar School and following two years in the RAF read law at St Peter's College, Oxford. There he performed in the now well established comedy group, the Oxford Revue. He started out as an actor in repertory theatre, but in the early 1960s moved into television direction and was credited in this role on early episodes of Z-Cars in 1962.

In 1966 Loach made the socially influential docu-drama Cathy Come Home portraying neglected subjects such as homelessness and unemployment, and presenting a powerful and influential critique of the workings of the Social Services. In the late 1960s he started directing films, and in 1969 made Kes, the story of a troubled boy and his kestrel, based on the novel A Kestrel for a Knave by Barry Hines. It remains perhaps his best known film in Britain. Till 1990 he faced many difficulties with his projects.

Loach experienced a miraculous, creative resurgence in the 1990s with the advent of Channel 4 funding and producers Sally Hibbin and Rebecca O'Brien. His recent films invest warmth and humour in their characters' plights while allowing political alternatives to develop naturally out of the narratives. Like Cathy Come Home or Kes, they also sympathetically address the issues facing working class families, including union politics (Riff Raff [1991], Bread and Roses [2000]), familial difficulties (Raining Stones, Ladybird Ladybird [1994]), drugs and alcoholism (My Name is Joe [1998], Sweet Sixteen [2002]) and contemporary political struggles (Hidden Agenda [1990], Carla's Song [1996]) and Wind That Shakes The Barely [2006].

Ken Loach is a director admired, and often loved, all over the world. For his remarkable output, Loach has won numerous international prizes and long overdue critical recognition . Despite political ebb and flow, fickle artistic trends and film financing difficulties, he remains steadfast in his commitment to progressive ideals and a personal cinema. Loach's films are art of the highest order. While exposing the failings and limitations of human experience, they also provide a path to change and progress. His body of work firmly celebrates the fact that life is worth living.

Courtesy : Senses Of Cinema , Wikipedia .

Dinamalar 16 07 2007 Click on this write up for larger image.

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16th Sept : Ballad of a Soldier

Ballad of a Soldier

A Film By Grigori Chukhrai
Nominated for Oscar. Another 4 wins & 2 nominations
Year :1959 Country : Russia
Run time : 89 minutes ; Russian with English Sub titles.
Ashwin Hospital Auditorium, Ganapathi , Coimbatore
16th Sept 2007 , 5.45 pm ; Call 94430 39630
Email : konangal@gmail.com

Russia's fight against the Nazi war machine cost that country 20 million lives. Ballad of a Soldier takes a simple premise — one young soldier, Alyosha 's journey home to visit his mother — and shapes it into a polished lens. Through that lens Ballad projects those 20 million, and at the focal point burns a humane, non-dogmatic meditation on the incalculably tragic cost of war.

We are told at the outset that Alyosha is killed at the front, never to return to his mother, to Shura, or to anyone else again. Ballad of a Soldier's conclusion strikes a single, clear tone with one of the most poignant of wartime questions — what if? What if Alyosha, decent and honorable and deserving of a full life, had not died in the war? What could he, and by extension some 20 million Alyoshas, have become? What could this everyday hero have contributed if he'd been allowed to fulfill his promise? Ballad doesn't answer the question. Instead it tells us that Alyosha dies a "simple Russian soldier" (a citizen of a country, not an ideology) because he never had the time or opportunity to be anything else.

Technically rich yet possessing a refining simplicity, Ballad of a Soldier is a quietly powerful work that could have diminished into soapy melodrama or government-stamped rhetoric. Instead, director/co-writer Grigori Chukhrai delivered a personal ode, one indeed as emotive and straight-shooting as a ballad, to his own postwar generation. He did so with then-distinctive attention to varying responses war brings out in individual people, with moments of unmistakable (and now sweetly chaste) sexual heat, and without resorting to the clichés, stilted symbols, or pompous phraseology that did so much harm to Soviet cinema.

Grigori Chukhrai

Grigori Naumovich Chukhrai (Russian: Григорий Наумович Чухрай; May 23, 1921--October 28, 2001) was a prominent film director and screenwriter in the former Soviet Union. He is the father of director Pavel Chukhrai.

He was born in Melitopol in the Zaporizhia Oblast of Ukraine. A decorated veteran of World War II, Chukhrai's wartime experiences profoundly affected him and the majority of his films were connected with events of the War. At war's end, he studied filmmaking at the Soviet State Film School and then developed his craft as a director's assistant at the Kiev Film Studio. By the mid 1950s, he began writing and directing his own films, gaining cinematic recognition outside the Soviet Union at the 1957 Cannes Film Festival with his film Sorok pervyj (The Forty-first).

In 1959, Chukhrai co-wrote and directed his greatest work, Ballad of a Soldier. A story of love and the tragedy of war made without the usual Soviet propaganda, the film received great acclaim at home earning the prestigious Lenin Prize. It was heralded internationally for both its story and cinematic technique and at Cannes in 1960 the film was awarded a special jury prize for "high humanism and outstanding quality." Ballad of a Soldier overcame the Cold War barrier and premiered in the United States in 1960 at the San Francisco International Film Festival in San Francisco, California. The film won the Festival's Golden Gate Award, for Best Picture and for Best Director for Grigori Chukhrai. Playing worldwide, the following year it earned the BAFTA Award for Best Film. Grigori Chukhrai and script co-writer Valentin Yezhov were nominated for an Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay.

Chukhrai's next film, released in 1961, was titled Chistoye nebo (Clear Skies) and told the story of a Soviet pilot who survived Nazi imprisonment during the war but was later accused of being a spy. In 1984, at age 63, Grigori Chukhrai directed his final film. He wrote a book of war memoirs and in 1994, for his lifetime contribution to film, Chukhrai was given a Nika Award, the Russian film industry's equivalent of an Oscar.

Grigori Chukhrai died of heart failure in Moscow in 2001 at the age of eighty.

Konangal Outreach Programme Screening on 9th Sept 2007 : Rabbit-Proof Fence

Leaping The Fence Of Australia's Past

Rabbit-Proof Fence
A Film By : Phillip Noyce
Year : 2002, Run Time : 93 minutes ; Country: Australia
Screening on 9^th Sept 2007 at 5.45pm
Venue : Aruna Thirumana Mandapam , 279, 280 N S R Road (Opp.Spencer Supermarket ) Coimbatore.
Call : 94430 39630 , 98416 58466, 4382331 .

Rabbit-Proof Fence is based on the book ‘Follow The Rabbit Proof Fence’ by Doris Pilkington Garimara. It concerns the author's mother, and two other young mixed-race Aboriginal girls, who ran away from the Moore River Native Settlement, north of Perth, in which they were placed in 1931, in order to return to their Aboriginal families.

Based on true events, "Rabbit-Proof Fence" is a moving story of racial prejudice, agoraphobic desert vistas, and amazing endurance as three girls walk 1,500 miles to find their mothers in 30s Australia.

These are the shocking facts behind the movie: during the early years of the 20th century, white Australians panicked about the supposed disaster of an "unwanted third race" of "half-caste" Aborigine children.

Special detention centres were set up across the continent to keep the mixed race children from "contaminating" the rest of Australian society, and orders were given to forcibly remove "half-caste" children from their families. It was a disastrous, racist policy that brought about the misery of the so-called "stolen generations".

In "Rabbit-Proof Fence", Australian director Phillip Noyce gives us a perceptive, uplifting drama that highlights - and overcomes - that racist policy. Having been forcible separated from their natural mothers, three girls - Molly (Sampi), Daisy (Sansbury), and Gracie (Monaghan) - escape from the Moore River Native Settlement, presided over by AO Neville (Branagh).

With an epic journey ahead of them, the girls set out to find their way back home by following the rabbit-proof fence that stretches across the Outback. Cutting back and forth between the children's journey and Neville's increasingly desperate attempts to capture them, Noyce's sensitive dramatization swaps angry politics for emotional sympathy, concentrating on the plight of the children instead of ranting against the authorities.

By highlighting the realities of this hidden genocide (unbelievably, the policy continued until the early 70s), "Rabbit-Proof Fence" stands as a powerful, worthy testimony to the suffering of the stolen generations.

This screening is supported by : HOLLYWOOD DVD SHOPEE , NSR Road, Coimbatore ; Ph 4382331 , : 98416 58466

Phillip Noyce

(born April 29, 1950)

Noyce was born in Griffith, New South Wales, and began making short film at the age of 18, starting with Better to Reign in Hell, using his friends as the cast. He joined the Australian Film & Television School in 1973, and released his first professional film in 1977.

After his debut feature, the medium-length Backroads (1977), Noyce achieved commercial and critical success with Newsfront (1978), which won Australian Film Institute (AFI) awards for Best Film, Director, and Screenplay.

Noyce worked on two miniseries for Australian television with fellow Australian filmmaker George Miller: The Dismissal (1983) and The Cowra Breakout (1984).

Miller also produced the film that brought Noyce his greatest acclaim in the United States — the thriller Dead Calm (1989) which turned Nicole Kidman into a star. His greatest commercial success to date has been the Tom Clancy spy thriller Clear and Present Danger (1994) starring Harrison Ford.

Noyce achieved great acclaim in Australia for the "stolen generation" picture, Rabbit Proof Fence, which won the Australian Film Institute Award for Best Film in 2002.

Naaivaal Film Movement honours pioneers of Tamil cinema

Unsung Heroes

M. Senthamizhan’s documentary tells you who the real pioneers of Tamil cinema are..

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The invite had a long list of questions. Sample this: ‘Did you know that a man from your city travelled throughout the country 100 years ago to screen films? Do you know the interesting trivia surrounding Variety Hall Road? How did films initia lly pull in the crowds?’

Who could resist these? So, we promptly parked ourselves at Hotel Tamil Nadu for a documentary film screening organised by Naaivaal Film Movement. The film Pesaamozhi (Silent Language), directed by Chennai-based M. Senthamizhan was to provide answers to all those questions. And, it did.

The documentary traces the journey of Tamil silent movies, the masters behind them and seeks to crack riddles hitherto unexplained. It is sprinkled with interesting nuggets, interspersed with observations and opinions of experts.

In 1905, Swamikannu Vincent, a draughtsman in the Railways from Coimbatore, bought a projector from a Frenchman in Tiruchi, to become South India’s first exhibitor.

And, this was to cause a dramatic change in the entertainment arena of the nation. He set up a touring cinema that went around small towns and villages in the country. In fact, he went as far as Rangoon, Peshawar, Lahore and Mumbai with his touring cinema.

Crowd-puller

It was a hit among the public. There were no tickets. Instead, it was barter system: the audience emptied a bag of grains for viewing a show. As the films were silent, a storyteller explained them to an astonished audience. He was their god. They ensured all his requirements were met.

Unfortunately, storytellers were to wane into nothingness when the era of silent movies ended with the birth of the talking movies.

Says film historian Theodore Baskaran: “Cinema brought about a social revolution, because unlike drama, the audience were not discriminated against. Anyone with an anna or two could watch them. However, this easy access to the public brought about nonchalance among the intellects. Victoria Public Hall was close to Sudesi Mithran’s (newspaper) office. But, not one film review was written by Bharathiar in 20 years.” This is why, there is nothing l eft of Coimbatore’s son Vincent, except a road named after the theatre he built: Variety Hall Road.

Similar fate encountered greats from other parts of the State such as Marudhamuthu Moopanar, and Nataraja Mudaliar who produced South India’s first silent movie Keechaka Vadham (1918).

Kittusamy, who runs the Welcome Saloon opposite Delite Theatre recalls how as a seven-year-old he saw his neighbour Vincent choosing a car from an assembly lined up at his house.

Nuggets

Another neighbour narrates how during Vincent’s funeral, the city experienced aalankatti mazhai. Director Senthamizhan’s fine touches throughout the film command mention: Be it a naked village boy gaping at a row of bullock carts or offbeat snapshots from the film shoot itself!

Senthamizhan calls for concerted efforts for garnering all possible details about these heroes who remain unsung in the annals of the Indian film industry.

If you have details on these heroes, or want to purchase the DVD (Rs. 250), contact the director at 98412-74384.

Sound bytes

Theodore Baskaran (Film historian)

“During the time of the touring cinemas, there were breaks between scenes, for the projector to cool a bit. To keep the audience engaged during such breaks, wrestling, comedy and concerts were introduced. These, perhaps, were the harbinger to the incongruent song, fight and comedy tracks in films today.”

Paavendhan (Researcher, Tamilology)

“Most of the records on films in the country give details on actors and directors. However, many fail to understand that theatre history, exhibitors, studios, and even the audience are very integral to the film industry. And, this is why we find very little details on these, even on the internet.”

Paamaran (Columnist)

“The recent celebration of Tamil film’s platinum jubilee took into account the first ‘talking’ movie Kalidasan (1931). This is a painful pointer to the fact that even the film industry and the Government have forgotten the doyens of the Tamil cinema, who had screened/produced silent movies since 1913.”

M. Senthamizhan (Director)

“Silent movies were ignored by the intellects in the State, who believed that a medium (silent films) that drew innumerable crowd could be of little consequence. This may be one of the chief reasons why none of the 130-odd Tamil silent movies or their documents remains today.”

Courtesy : The Hindu , Metroplus dated 30 07 2007.

02nd September 2007 : Magendran's Uthiri Pookkal

Uthiri Pookkal

A Film by J.Magendran
Tamil ; Year : 1979
Run Time : 143 minutes
2nd September 2007 at 5.45 pm
Venue : Ashwin Hospital Auditorium
Call : 94430 39630

Uthiri Pookkal is based on a short story by Pudumai Pithan,. It portrays village school head Sundara Vadivelu’s life , his lust and his arrogance. The sadistic character of Vadivelu portrayed by Vijayan is unforgettable. Fascinating characters, excellent performances make this movie a memorable one. Mani Ratnam said in a Hindu interview , “In ``Udhiri Pookkal'' the scattered images made fantastic poetry. If I get anywhere near what Mahendran did in ``Udhiri Pookkal'' I'll be a happy man.” That sum’s up the greatness of this movie.

Uthiri Pookkal and Tamil Cinema

Tamil cinema has completed 75 years. Tamil Film Industry holds an important position in film production in India . According to available data from Film News Anandan’s book, number of Tamil films produced till 2003 is a staggering 4003 . This figure does not include dubbed movies from other languages. Again from 2004 to 2006, another 241 Tamil films have been made. But how many of these films can be counted as ‘real cinema’ or ‘ good cinema ‘. Sadly, the number will be in single digit for any serious cinema lover. Very rarely , one or two film makers defy the existing norms and make memorable movies in Tamil despite all the odds. We must be ever thankful to them. Magendran happens to be one and his Uthiri Pookkal is one such film – a rare masterpiece.

J.Magendran

Born in 1939 in Tamil Nadu . Magendran's first film (as director) ‘Mullum Malarum' was released in 1978. Then Uthiri Pookkal was released in 1979. Magendran has directed 11 films till 1992. His recent project Saasanam, with funds from NFDC is yet to be released properly. It is very hard for any original, talented filmmaker to survive in our Tamil Film Industry. Same has happened to this wonderful, talented original director. Magendran has almost disappeared from the scene and is almost forgotten.

To read this part in Tamil , please use Internet Explorer Browser.

தமிழ் சினிமா

"நல்ல சினிமா என்பது நல்ல புத்தகம் போல என்பது என் கருத்து. நல்ல படங்களைப் பார்த்துதான் படம் சம்பந்தப்பட்ட என் அறிவை வளர்த்துக் கொண்டேன். எனது அறிவு புத்தகங்கள் படித்து வந்தது இல்லை. ஷேக்ஸ்பியரையும் , சார்லஸ் டிக்கன்ஸையும், ஆஸ்கர் வைல்டையும், டென்னசி வில்லியம்சையும், ஆர்தர் மில்லரையும் நான் படங்கள் வழியேதான் பயின்றேன். ஏனென்றால் எனது இளமைக்காலம் படங்களின் யுகமாக இருந்தது. ஆனால் தமிழ் சினிமா அன்றும் இன்றும் அதே கீழ் நிலையிலேயே இருக்கிறது. நமது சரித்திரப் பெருமையையோ, நமது மண்ணின் கலாசாரப் பெருமையையோ அவை எடுத்துச் சொல்ல முன்வந்ததில்லை. அதைப்பற்றி நமது தமிழ் சினிமா ஏதாவது பேசியிருக்குமேயானாலும் அவை வெற்றுப் பம்மாத்துக்களாகவே
இருக்கின்றன. "
- ஜெயகாந்தன்
நன்றி : http://www.tamilcinema.com/

Hindu write up by K.Jeshi on Konangal's 19th August tribute to Bergman & Antonioni

Masterminds in action

Contemporary filmmakers Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni explored the dynamics of human relationships and redefined cinematic language in a vocabulary, all their own. K. Jeshi writes on Konangal’s tribute to them

Photos: S. Siva Saravanan

Bibi Andersson

“My creativity is terribly childish … it is a dialogue with my childhood,” says Ingmar Bergman in a recorded interview. For those who love Bergman, his work is poetry. He deliberately wipes a couple of lines in-betwee n so that you can fill in the blanks and enjoy the poem. The European master directed theatre and opera for 60 years and penned 50 original scripts. He passed away on July 30 in Sweden, and the void left behind is hard to fill. His films are completely personal and deal with the complexities of human mind and search for answers. Konangal Film Society made the tribute a memorable experience. Bergman’s classic, The Virgin Spring (1960) that fetched him his first Academy award, and the masterpiece Persona (1966) were screened at Kasturi Sreenivasan Art Gallery. A documentary on Bergman brought him closer to his fans.

Towards enlightenment

Liv Ullman

Adapted from a 14th century Swedish legend by screenwriter and novelist Ulla Isaksson, The Virgin Spring affirms faith, humanity and atonement. Bergman narrates the conditions in the transitional era of the Middle Ages. It begins with Karin (Birgitta Petersson) and Ingeri (Gunnel Lindblom) who are sent to church by their mother (Birgitta Valberg) and father (Von Sydow), strict Christians.

Ingeri is jealous of the attention lavished on Karin and tricks her naïve stepsister into continuing the journey alone. Karin encounters two herdsmen who rape, and kill her. A boy is witness to the crime. Eventually, the girl’s father takes revenge and as penance, vows to build a church. “He juxtaposes contradictions and opposing views only for our interpretation and intellectual progress,” says D. Anandan, film buff. He shows two levels of violence — the physical one of the herdsmen and the human meanness between the sisters, a reminder that we are always under threat of such violence. Another film buff said the film raised the question, ‘Should I believe in God or not?’

“It captured the conflict between religions and the way of life then,” said Rajeev Kamineni of Oxford Bookstore. The cinematography of Sven Nykvist captured the ruggedness of the polar country.

Persona, considered one of his central works on Modernism, explores an encounter between two women — Elisabet Vogler (Liv Ullman) , a successful actress who has become mute during a performance of Electra, and sister Alma played by Bibi Andersson (Alma means soul in Spanish and Portuguese), the nurse who cares for her. Bergman had said: “Persona saved my life — that is no exaggeration. If I had not found the strength to make that film, I would probably have been all washed up. One significant point: for the first time I did not care in the least whether the result would be a commercial success...”

Noted film critic Susan Sontag had called it “Bergman’s masterpiece”. Though the film has been variously interpreted, critics agree that it explores the intricacies of the doctor-patient relationship, in particular the phenomenon of transference. While Elisabet is ostensibly the patient, her silence suggests a reversal — in psychoanalysis the doctor is silent and the patient speaks. Thus Alma might be seen as the patient and Elisabet, the silent analyst. The interpretation that the two are the same is shown in a famous shot, the juxtaposition of Alma’s and Elisabet’s faces to form one image. The prevalent use of single camera shots throughout film helps the audience study the characters’ faces and the extremely tight close-ups illustrate the theme of psychological deconstruction.

Studying minds

When Pon. Chandran of Konangal said: “As the movie progresses, we start wondering if Alma is the patient,” many in the audience agreed. “His filmmaking is a blend of cinema and theatre; one complements and supplements the other beautifully. In Persona, he exposes the conflict between the inner complexities and outside appearances.”

The face is the index of the mind and the film captures this, said another film lover. “The compassion they share is so strong that one person loosens up to accommodate the other inside her to give peace,” he added.

D. Anandan pointed out that as said by Susan, the director merges reality and fantasy seamlessly. “He withholds the signals; so it becomes insufficient to read the film.” He sees the ending as another state of nothingness. “Elisabet creates a void with her silence and Alma falls into the void, and enters a fantasy world. Finally, both are cured and get back to work.”

Reality check

A few hours after Bergman’s death came another blow to the film world; the death of Italian Michelangelo Antonioni, one of the distinctive filmmakers of the 20th century, known for his ‘neo-realist’ style. In Blow- up (1966), Antonioni’s protagonist, an emotionally isolated, light-eyed star photographer Thomas (David Hemmings) shoots pictures in a park. When he blows up and interprets his pictures, he discovers a dead body in the frame. A m urder has taken place, but when he goes back to investigate, there is nothing there. Carlo Di Palma’s camerawork, setting and editing rhythm lend stylish elements to the film. A tennis match in the finale became a reference point of 60s cinema. “A group of mime artistes enters the film, and two of them mime a tennis match with the rest cheering. Suddenly, the imaginary ball bounces off court and the photographer throws it back. Antonioni challenges the audience to re-examine the world around and understand reality,” says Rakesh S. Katarey of Amrita School of Communication.

K. Jeshi

Courtesy : Hindu Metroplus dated 25 08 2007

We thank all the film lovers who participated in the full day tribute to the masters, Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni on 19th August 2007 at Kasthuri Srinivasan Auditorium.
We thank the press and all our well wishers for all the support.

Do share with us your feed back on the screenings and discussions. Mail us to konangal@gmail.com

On 19 th August 2007 , Konangal pays full day tribute to Ingmar Bergman and Michalangelo Antonioni

Rest in peace, dear auteurs

Konangal will host a full day tribute to Bergman and Antonioni with their films on Sunday 19th August 2007 from morning 9 .45 to evening 6.30 at Kasthuri Srinivasan Auditorium , Peelamedu , Coimbatore.

When ‘immortals’ die
The passing of Ingmar Bergman in Sweden and Michelangelo Antonioni in Italy only hours apart of each other on the same day, July 30, left a vacuum in the film world that cannot be filled for decades to come. They straddled world cinema like colossuses—two of the top 10 filmmakers of all time.















Ingmar Bergman
14h july 1918 - 30th July 2007

Bergman and Antonioni were among those who redefined cinematic language in the 1950s and thus gave birth to the art film. Now that they’re gone, those who are left of that generation of golden pioneers, Andrzej Wajda of Poland , Manoel de Oliveira of Portugal, that perpetual iconoclast Jean-luc Godard, standing along with Eric Rhomer and Claude Chabrol .

Click here to watch this video tribute to Ingmar Bergman




















Michelangelo Antonioni
29th Sept. 1912 - 30th July 2007

Their deaths came only a few months after the passing of the godfather of American independent filmmaking, Robert Altman, adding to our considerable sorrow. Bergman and Antonioni explored similar themes, each using his distinctive film vocabulary. Again and again each returned to the same themes, elaborated on the same topics, elucidated the same problems.

Click here to watch Bergman talks about Antonioni

Their exploration of the dynamics of human relationships can hardly be equaled. They found the malaise of modern society rooted in either lack of faith, loss of identity, or noncommunication among humans—and while Antonioni traces this mostly to alienation and ennui, Bergman directly puts the blame on the absence, if not the death, of God.Bergman could be philosophizing but Antonioni was the more cerebral, the master of modernist complexity, the “hero of the highbrows.”

We will be screening Bergman's much talked about films , Virgin Spring and Persona and Antonioni's masterpiece, Blow Up .

Blow Up

Year :1966 ; Run time 111 minutes

"The photographer in Blow Up, who is not a philosopher, wants to see things closer up. But it so happens that, by enlarging too far, the object itself decomposes and disappears. Hence there's a moment in which we grasp reality, but then the moment passes. This was in part of the meaning of Blow Up"
—Antonioni On Blow Up

In the hip culture of 1960s London, Thomas is a famous fashion photographer whose disillusionment is reflected in his expressionless, mannequin-like models. His technical directions have no meaning - they only serve as a means to fill the silence. He is constantly surrounded by people - celebrities, groupies, mod scene acquaintances - but is emotionally isolated. He weaves through drug parties and casual sex with the same pervasive mechanical detachment that he shows in his work. Perhaps, his only source of true intimacy comes from his brief meetings with an ex-girlfriend who has since married someone else, and can only offer abbreviated words and exchange enigmatic, knowing glances


Thomas secretly takes photos of a couple he sees embracing in a park. Through a series of blow-ups of the many exposures he snaps, he find clues to a murder. Taking a new direction with a new language, setting and editing rhythm, Antonioni makes an intriguing statement on the ambiguous nature of the film medium itself. Neither a portrait of Swinging London nor a bona fide thriller, Blow Up questions the maxim that the camera never lies and sets out into a virtually abstract examination of subjectivity and perception. Carlo Di Palma's camerwork leavens the brew, while the film's finale—a ballless tennis match—became a reference point of the 60's cinema.
Click here to watch 'Blow Up' trailer.
Click here for 'Blow Up' photo shoot session !

Like many of Antonioni's films, Blowup is a parable of answered prayers: the idea that the distraction of wealth and fame cannot fill the void of loneliness, nor substitute for a soul's unrequited passion


The Virgin Spring

Year : 1960 ; Run time 89 mins. ; Swedish with English subtitles

One of the few films that Ingmar Bergman directed but did not write. Oscar winning Bergman classic The Virgin Spring begins with Karin (Birgitta Petersson) and Ingeri ( Gunnel Lindblom )being sent on a journey to church by their mother (Birgitta Valberg) and father (von Sydow), who are very strict Christians. Ingeri is jealous of all the attention lavished on the spoilt but innocent Karin and tricks her naïve stepsister into continuing the journey to church alone. Karin soon meets two herdsmen (Axel Düberg and Tor Isedal) and a boy (Ove Porath), and offers to share a meal with them. However, events quickly take a horrific turn.

Adapted from a fourteenth century Swedish legend by screenwriter and novelist Ulla Isaksson, The Virgin Spring is a harrowing, yet ultimately affirming portrait of faith, humanity, and atonement. Using chiaroscuro imagery that interplays light and shadows, Ingmar Bergman reflects the process of spiritual illumination in the transitional era of the Middle Ages where mysticism, amorality, and paganism coexisted with the period of intellectual, artistic, and religious enlightenment.

Persona

Year : 1966 –Run time 85 minutes – Swedish with English sub titles.

Persona is often considered to be Bergman’s masterpiece and is often described as one of the central works of Modernism. Bergman himself claimed that this film ‘touched wordless secrets only the cinema can discover’. Persona is arguably Ingmar Bergman's most challenging film. Elisabeth Vogler (Liv Ullman) is an accomplished stage actress who, in the middle of performing Elektra, ceases to speak. Sister Alma (Bibi Andersson), the young nurse assigned to care for her, learns that there is nothing physically or even psychologically wrong with Elisabeth - she has simply, consciously decided not to speak. Alma (the name, not accidentally, is the Spanish word for soul) describes her initial impressions of Elisabeth as gentle and childlike, but with strict eyes. She takes Elisabeth to the attending physician's remote summer house to facilitate her recuperation. At first, the two seem ideally suited: a talkative, candid, and inexperienced nurse, and a sophisticated, enigmatic, and silent patient. They take long walks, bask in the sun, and read together. It is obvious that their isolation has cultivated a sense of intimacy between them, albeit one-sided.

Click here for Persona video clip

Persona is a provocative, highly cerebral, and artistically complex depiction of human frailty, cruelty, and identity. Bergman uses minimal composition and extremely tight close-ups to illustrate the theme of psychological deconstruction. You may note the prevalent use of single camera shots throughout the duration of a scene. The lack of camera movement forces us to study the characters' faces. Persona, after all, as the title suggests, is not about who the person actually is, but the different identities, or facades, that the person projects.

Screening at Kasthuri Srinivasan Auditorium , Peelamedu , Cbe.
9.45 am to 6.30 pm on Sunday 19th August 2007.
Age limit 18 years. For refreshmnets and lunch Rs.50
You are welcome to contribute more and support our efforts in popularising good cinema.
Call :94430 39630 Email : konangal@gmail.com