29th Nov 2015; Aki Kaurismäki's LE HAVRE

LE HAVRE

A film by Aki Kaurismäki

2011 / Finland-France / Runtime 93 minutes

5.45 pm / 29th Nov / Perks Mini Theater

Le Havre is a a perfect, deadpan, impishly optimistic fairy tale from the great Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki. Le Havre offers the director’s usual humour, pitch-perfect acting and compassionate message.  It is set  in the French port city where many of the cargoes are human: illegal immigrants arriving from Africa. The film's hero, Marcel Marx with no plan in mind becomes in charge of protecting a migrant African boy from arrest.

 

The movie's other characters are all proletarians from a working-class neighborhood. We meet Marcel's wife, Arletty (Kati Outinen), who joins her husband in his scheme. Marcel and Arletty are long and happily in love. They cherish each other. Childless, they care for the boy and enlist others in the neighborhood to hide him from Inspector Monet.

 

Filmed in a high, nostalgic style that gives its setting the gleam and romance of another era, "Le Havre" is a movie composed entirely of fantastic faces. Another classic Kaurismäki characteristic very much in evidence is his vivid and idiosyncratic use of color. Working with his regular cinematographer Timo Salminen and French set designer Wouter Zoon, the director does wonderful things with a pastel palette and loves to put unexpected visual accents where you least expect them.

 

This movie is as lovable as a silent comedy, which it could have been. It takes place in a world that seems cruel and heartless, but look at the lengths Marcel goes to find Idrissa's father in a refugee camp and raise money to send the boy to join his mother in England. Finnish film maker Kaurismaki  has set his story of timely issues and timeless values in the French port city of the title.  (Source:Internet)

 

Aki Kaurismäki

Aki Kaurismäki was born in Finland in 1957. After graduating in media studies from the University of Tampere, He started his career as a co-screenwriter and actor in films made by his older brother, Mika Kaurismäki. His debut as an independent director was Crime and Punishment (1983), an adaptation of Dostoyevsky's novel set in modern Helsinki. He gained worldwide attention with Leningrad Cowboys Go To America. Kaurismäki has been influenced by the French directors Jean-Pierre Melville and Robert Bresson. He  has tried and managed to stick totally to the inseparable realities of the real world.  His minimalist style is all his own (and that of the great cinematographer of all his films, Timo Salminen); he never entered the Finnish Film School (as he was suspected to be "too cynical").

Much of Kaurismäki's work is centred on Helsinki, such as the film Calamari Union, the Proletariat trilogy (Shadows in Paradise, Ariel and The Match Factory Girl) and the Finland trilogy (Drifting Clouds, The Man Without a Past and Lights in the Dusk). His vision of Helsinki is critical and singularly unromantic. Indeed, his characters often speak about how they wish to get away from Helsinki. Some end up in Mexico (Ariel), others in Estonia (Shadows in Paradise, Calamari Union, and Take Care of Your Scarf, Tatjana). The setting of most of his films is the 1980s, or at least contains elements from that decade. Kaurismäki is, in fact, almost single-handedly responsible for rejuvenating the failing Finnish film industry in the 1980s with a series of highly original comedies made with his brother Mika. Over the past twenty years, Kaurismäki has become one of the pre-eminent auteurs of international art cinema, fusing minimalism and melodrama to poignantly depict the hardships of Finland’s blue-collar class.

8th Nov 2015; David Lean's BRIEF ENCOUNTER

 

BRIEF ENCOUNTER

A Film by David Lean

1945 / UK / 86 minutes / B&W

5.45pm; Perks Mini Theater

Brief Encounter is about average and perfectly genuine people in an average and perfectly genuine situation. Here love, more than the grandness of life in total, is the cause for dramatic tension and identification.  Laura Jesson is  happily married.  A chance meeting with Dr. Alec Harvey (Trevor Howard) sends her emotions reeling. She loves her husband; they don’t have any  domestic issues. But this brief encounter becomes something she never could have imagined. Indeed, she probably never dared. 

The story, set in pre-war England, 1938, is told quite sensitively through a series of flashbacks, with the same scene opening and closing the film (with a short addition included to finish it off.) The action centers almost exclusively on Laura's point of view, her eyes and facial expressions communicating a full range of emotions as she experiences her midlife whirlwind.

Brief Encounter is also a beautiful film to watch. Shot by Robert Krasker (who would photograph Carol Reed’s The Third Man (1949) and Luchino Visconti’s Senso (1954) – two other gorgeous looking movies), the images only add to the dream state of the characters. For Laura, this is exactly what’s it’s like – a dream, a fantasy. But can it be real,  or is this love only to be a fleeting one? Will she eventually just wake up? Either way, it’s extraordinarily romantic.

Touching, emotional, accessible and realistic performances are delivered by the two main, middle-aged characters. Brief Encounte is  one of the great romantic films of all time, with a very downbeat ending. The screenplay was adapted and based on playwright Noel Coward's 1935 short one-act (half-hour) stage play Still Life and the film  maintains chaste minimalism.   ( Source: Internet)

 

David Lean

David Lean is one of the most popular and well-known of British film-makers.  He was the  chief editor of Gaumont British News until in 1939 when he began to edit feature films. In 1942 Noel Coward gave Lean the chance to co-direct with him the war film In Which We Serve (1942). Lean first directed adaptations of three plays by Coward: the chronicle This Happy Breed (1944), the humorous ghost story Blithe Spirit (1945) and, most notably, the sentimental drama Brief Encounter (1945). "Brief Encounter" was presented at the very first Cannes film festival (1946), where it won almost unanimous praises as well as a Grand Prize.

After  Great Expectations (1946) and Oliver Twist (1948) he returned to prominence again with the prisoner-of-war drama The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957). It won seven Academy Awards. Lawrence of Arabia (1962 is often considered Lean’s finest film. It was followed by Dr. Zhivago (1965), a love story set against a backdrop of the Russian Revolution and the romantic Ryan’s Daughter (1970),  both exhibiting the grand scale, lush cinematography, and breathtaking landscapes that had become the hallmark of Lean’s work. His last film, A Passage to India (1984), based on the E.M. Forster novel, was regarded as his best work since Lawrence of Arabia. Lean was knighted by Queen Elizabeth that year, and in 1990 he was awarded the American Film Institute’s Lifetime Achievement Award. At the time of his death, he was preparing a screen version of Joseph Conrad’s novel Nostromo.

25th Oct 2015; Zhang Yimou's RAISE THE RED LANTERN

RAISE THE RED LANTERN

A film by Zhang Yimou

1991 / China/ 125 minutes /

5.45pm / 25^th Oct 2015 / Perks Mini Theater

http://konangalfilmsociety.blogspot.in/

The film takes place within the gray stone and tile walls of the Chen complex, where the master lives in the central house and each of the four mistresses has a house of her own opening onto a central courtyard. Much of the action takes place on the rooftops, which link in a labyrinth of passageways and stairs, and include an ominous little house where, it is said, women have died--but in the past, of course.

The first three mistresses live in uneasy balance when the heroine Songlian arrives, and she becomes a catalyst for trouble. She learns that when the master selects the mistress he will favor for the night, a red lantern is placed outside her house. (The man who has the duty of announcing the nightly position of the lantern is puffed up with drama and importance.) 

The lucky mistress then receives a foot massage and is allowed to determine the menu for the next day. There is great competition to be selected, and Songlian eventually discovers intrigues within intrigues--even learning that she cannot trust those she thinks are her friends.

We know that rape is a crime of violence, not sex, and "Raise the Red Lantern" illustrates that, because these women are all essentially being raped as an effect of their position in a male-dominated society that holds them as economic captives. So the movie wisely focuses not on the sex itself, but on the situation that regulates and values it. 

Strange, how these women bow so completely to their situation, the will of the master, and to the "customs" of the family. There may be a feminist message here, but it is concealed well within the surface drama of the story."Raise the Red Lantern" is told so directly and beautifully, with such confidence, with so little evidence of compromise.

(Excerpts from Roger Ebert’s review)

  

Zhang Yimou

Zhang Yimou is an internationally acclaimed director working in the People’s Republic of China. He is one of the most prolific, versatile and significant of these Fifth Generation directors. His signature as a filmmaker is a storytelling mode dominated by visual display, especially of his female stars. This display is part of a complex picture of generation and gender in Zhang’s work that reaches back to debates on Chinese modernity in the early 20th century.

Zhang was born in Xi’an in 1951 . 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 directorial debut, Red Sorghum (1987), was also the first Fifth Generation film to capture a domestic mass audience and it catapulted him and his star, Gong Li, to local and international fame. It is widely recognised that Zhang’s visual imagery redefines the politics of Chinese self and identity. In the first decade, this imagery focused on the sexual power, reproductive continuity and spectacle of the female body onscreen.

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. 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. (From Senses of Cinema)

4th Oct 2015; Hitchcock's NORTH BY NORTHWEST

NORTH BY NORTHWEST

A film by Alfred Hitchcock

1959 / USA / 136 minutes / Col

4th Oct 2015; 5.45pm

Perks Mini Theater

http://konangalfilmsociety.blogspot.in/

  

At over two hours and ten minutes, this is one of the longest Hitchcock films, but it is action-packed all the way, from the opening scenes to the finale moments. The film opens with images of busy New York crowds rushing to make bus, train, and taxi connections, even as Saul Bass’s famous kinetic titling sequence is overlaying the opening credits and Bernard Herrmann’s driving music is ringing in the background.  

Cary Grant plays the suave and cultured Roger Thornhill - a twice married, twice divorced Madison Avenue advertising genius who finds himself inexplicably caught in a web of intrigue when he is mistaken for an international spy. Suddenly, Thornhill's tidy life is turned upside down.

As is the case with many of Hitchcock's films, including Rear Window and Vertigo, the director sets up his hero as the only one who knows the truth. His story is so preposterous that no one else believes him without a great deal of convincing. Another Hitchcockian element evident in North by Northwest is the idea of turning an "everyman" into a detective. Thornhill must use clues and intuition to unravel the complicated plot that has put him on the run from the police with his life in danger.

The iconic crop duster sequence where Roger Thornhill (played by Cary Grant) is terrorised by a crop-dusting plane is one of the most emulated action sequences in Hollywood history. The hallmark of North by Northwest is the way in which Hitchcock develops tension. There is only one scene in which we are given information that the protagonist is not privy to - when the camera takes us into a government office to shed light on Thornhill's situation while adding deeper layers to the mystery. In fact, it's the complexity of Thornhill's trap and the seeming impossibility of getting out of it that builds suspense.            (Source: Internet)

ALFRED HITCHCOCK

He was known to his audiences as the 'Master of Suspense' and what Hitchcock mastered was not only the art of making films but also the task of taming his own raging imagination. Director of such works as Vertigo, Psycho, The Birds and The 39 steps, Hitchcock told his stories through intelligent plots witty dialogue and a spoonful of mystery andmurder. In doing so, he inspired a new generation of filmmakers and revolutionized the thriller genre, making him a legend around the world. His brilliance was sometimes too bright: He was hated as well as loved, oversimplified as well as over analyzed. Hitchcock was eccentric, demanding, inventive, impassioned and he had a great sense of British humor.

His success followed when he made a number of films in Britain such as "The Lady Vanishes" (1938) and Jamaica Inn (1939), some of them which also made him famous in the USA. David O. Selznick, an American producer at the time, got in touch with Hitchcock and the Hitchcock family moved to the USA to direct an adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca (1940). It was when Saboteur (1942) was made, that films companies began to call his films after him; such as Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock's Family Plot, Alfred Hitchcock's Frenzy.He retired soon after making Family Plot (1976).In late 1979, Hitchcock was knighted, making him Sir Alfred Hitchcock. On the 29th April 1980, 9:17AM, he died peacefully in his sleep

  

19th & 20th Sept : JAPANESE FILM FESTIVAL

2nd Aug 2015; Shivendra Singh Dungarpur's CELLULOID MAN

CELLULOID MAN

Documentary by Shivendra Singh Dungarpur

2012 / India/ 164 min

5.45pm / 2^nd Aug 2015/ Perks Mini Theater

Celluloid Man screening is part of Thamizh Studio’s  2015 Lenin award function. Sri. P.K Nair will be receiving the 2015 Lenin Award at Chennai on Aug 15^th 2015.

Celluloid Man is a tribute to film archivist and  cinephile extraordinaire  P.K. Nair, a man whose childhood fascination with cinema finally led to the creation of the National Film Archive of India. In a country where film preservation was once regarded as irrelevant, Nair's has been a long, hard fight to preserve precious fragments of India's film heritage that would otherwise be lost forever.

Comparable to France's late, great 'man of cinema', the noted film archivist Henri Langlois, Nair has also influenced generations of Indian filmmakers by introducing them to new worlds through the prism of cinema. Featuring wonderful clips and interviews with many Indian and international filmmakers, this award-winning documentary is both a portrait of a man's passion with film and a love letter to cinema itself.

The film is a deeply personal and nostalgic take on the life of P. K. Nair, the man almost wholly responsible for what is now known as the National Film Archives of India (NFAI), in Pune. And through the journey of the film, we also understand what true passion for cinema is; how someone can be so devoted to collecting and archiving films for posterity, because he understands what very few people do – that perhaps films offer the most comprehensive and indicative representation of the times, even if most of the films he collected and archived were ‘fiction’.

Shot by some of the foremost cinematographers in India - names like Santosh Thundiyil, K. U. Mohanan, Mahesh Aney, Vikas Sivaraman, Kiran Deohans and the likes – the film also looks at Mr. Nair’s life through the eyes of the some of the most respected names in Indian cinema; a number of them being former students of Mr. Nair from the Film & Television Institute of India. Through rich anecdotes and little stories that highlight the man’s tireless work and the result of it – prints of tens of thousands of film from across the world stored, the work of great masters worth many times their weight in gold - the film is a heartfelt ride that is inspiring and humbling at the same time.Celluloid Man will move you, and will reinforce the fact that cinema is life.                                                  

 (Source: Internet)

Shivendra Singh Dungarpur

Shivendra Singh Dungarpur (born 25 August 1969) is an award-winning filmmaker, producer, film archivist and restorer. Following a successful career as a maker of ad-films and documentaries, he has established the Film Heritage Foundation in 2014.Shivendra Singh Dungarpur belongs to the royal family of Dungarpur State in Rajasthan. After graduating from St. Stephen's Delhi, he joined Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) at Pune. After that he started Dungarpur Films in 2001.

Shivendra Singh is a patron of the British Film Institute and was a donor for the restoration of Alfred Hitchcock's silent film, The Lodger: A Story of the London FogHe facilitated the restoration of the Indian film, Uday Shankar's Kalpana (1948), by Martin Scorsese's World Cinema Foundation, that was premiered in the Cannes Film Festival Classic section in 2012. In 2013, Shivendra collaborated with the World Cinema Foundation again for the restoration of the 1972 Sinhalese film "Nidhanaya"

Shivendra's first feature length film was the 2012 documentary Celluloid Man, a film about P. K. Nair, India's pioneering film archivist who was the founder-director of the National Film Archive of India. Shivendra began filming the documentary in 2010 and it was completed in May 2012. The film premiered at the Il Cinema Ritrovato Festival in Bologna, Italy on June 26, 2012.

19th July 2015; Pawel Pawlikowski's IDA

IDA

A film by Pawel Pawlikowski

Year ; 2013 / Country : Poland

Black & White / Run time : 83 minutes

19^th July 2015 / 5.45pm

Perks Mini Theater

Set in the Poland of 1962 and composed of austerely gorgeous black and white images, Pawel Pawlikowski’s "Ida" could fit right into the "Masterpieces" series. Main protagonist  Anna (Agata Trzebokowska) is an 18-year-old orphan who was raised in that convent. 

When she is preparing to take her vows, her Mother Superior insists that first she meet her one known relative. That is an aunt, Wanda (Agneta Kulesza), a former prosecutor with a high Communist Party rank whose dissolute life of smoking, drinking and bedding men stands in stark contrast to the ascetic existence of her sheltered niece.

Aunt Wanda tells her that her real name is Ida (pronounced Eeda), that she is Jewish and that her parents were killed during World War II. Aunt and niece drive back to the village of Anna’s parents in an effort to discover how they died and where they were buried. Although this quest is central to the narrative, "Ida" is anything but plot-driven. It’s a film of moments, observations and moods.

Few recent films can claim a visual approach as striking as that which cinematographers Lukasz Zal and Ryszard Lenczewski give "Ida." Filmed in the unusual, boxy aspect ratio of 1.37:1, and most often deployed in static long shots, the film’s images sometimes suggest Vermeer lighting with the color taken away, and the compositions manage to seem at once classical and off-handed, with the subjects often located in the screen’s two bottom quadrants. The effect is to draw the viewer’s eye into the beauty of the image while simultaneously maintaining a contemplative distance from the drama.

Ida, starting as a woman of unquestioned faith is forced by circumstances to embrace the complexity of who she is, and the question of the film is not whether this knowledge will change her but how and how much. There are no easy answers to the riddles life poses, none at all.

(Source: Internet)

Pawel Pawlikowski

A literature and philosophy graduate, with extensive post-graduate work at Oxford on German literature, Polish-born Pawel Pawlikowski started as a documentary filmmaker in British television. His second feature, Last Resort (2000), earned him international critical acclaim at numerous festivals, including Toronto and Sundance, and won the 2001 British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) award for "Most Promising Newcomer in British Film." His next film, My Summer Of Love (2004), won the Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film at the BAFTA Awards in 2005.

In 2011, he wrote and directed a film loosely adapted from Douglas Kennedy's novel The Woman in the Fifth. On 19 October 2013, his film Ida (starring Agata Kulesza) won the Best Film Award at the London Film Festival. "Ida" won the 2015 Academy Award for Foreign Language Film on February 23, 2015.