11th Jan 2015 ; Ann Hui's THE SIMPLE LIFE

A Simple Life

A film by Ann Hui

2011 / Hong Kong / 118 mins

5.45 pm /11th Jan 2015

Perks Mini Theater

http://konangalfilmsociety.blogspot.in/

"A Simple Life" paints portraits of two good people in gentle humanist terms. Here is a film with the clarity of fresh stream water, flowing without turmoil to shared destiny. No plot gimmicks. No twists and turns. Just a simple life.

The life is that of Ah Tao, who was orphaned during the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, spent her entire life in the service of four generations of a Chinese family, and is now the servant of the only family member still living in China. He is Roger, a movie producer. They have a settled routine. Ah Tao suffers a stroke, and Roger  takes charge of her care.

She doesn't complain. Throughout the film, she resists his money, protests that his presents cost too much, tells him to spend more time at his job and less on his visits to her. This despite the fact that she literally has no one else in her life (all the members of Roger's family now live in America).

We see that although they have never articulated it, they have become dependent on each other. She raised him from infancy. When we meet his mother, she seems perfectly nice, but there isn't the same unspoken bond. Neither Ah Tao nor Roger is demonstrative; But they care. The movie has an emotional payoff; It expresses hope in human nature.

(Excerpts from Roger Ebert’s review )

Ann Hui

One of the most important figures of Hong Kong cinema, Ann Hui was born in Manchuria in 1947 and moved to Hong Kong when she was five years old. She studied English language and literature and comparative literary studies until 1972, then spent two years at the London Film School. Upon returning to Hong Kong, Hui became an assistant to the veteran director King Hu and then joined TVB, where she directed serials and documentaries on 16 mm. In 1977, she joined the ICAC (Independent Commission for Anti-Corruption) and made seven TV episodes for its drama series, two of which were banned from airing because of the sensitive subject matter. She then joined the government TV network RTHK in 1978 and made three featurettes for the series Below the Lion Rock, The other two films were Huyue de Gushi (The Story of Wu Viet) (1981), which was screened at the Director's Fortnight of the Cannes Film Festival, and Tuo Pen Hu Hai (The Boat People) (1982), an Official Selection at Cannes and Best Film at the Hong Kong Film Awards.

Hui left television and made her first feature film, Feng Jie (The Secret), in 1979. Zhuang Dao Zheng (The Spooky Bunch, 1980) was her venture into a popular genre in Chinese literature and film, the ghost story. Quing Cheng Zhi Lian.  Ke Tu Chin Hen (Song of the Exile) (1990), which is somewhat autobiographical, won the Best Film prize both at the Asian Pacific Film Festival and Rimini Film Festival. Hui executive producedYim Ho's The Day the Sun Turned Cold (1994), Best Film at the Tokyo International Film Festival.

28th Dec 2014; Woody Allen's THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO

THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO

1985 / USA / 82 mins

5.45pm/ 28th Dec 2014 /  Perks Mini Theater / Coimbatore

The best thing about the movie is the way Woody Allen uses it to toy with the very essence of reality and fantasy. The woman- Cecilia -  in the movie is played by Mia Farrow as a sweet, rather baffled small-town waitress whose big, shiftless lug of a husband bats her around. She is a good candidate for the magic of the movies. Up on the screen, sophisticated people have cocktails and plan trips down the Nile and are recognized by the doormen in nightclubs.

 

Everything about Cecilia (Mia Farrow) is tinged with melancholy, including the time - the depressed 1930's - and the place, a drab little New Jersey town where even the sunlight looks gray. 

One day, after going through a bad patch at the diner and with her husband Monk, she is sitting in the Jewel Theater, watching something called ''The Purple Rose of Cairo'' for the umpteenth time, when the film's handsome, four-square juvenile, a pith-helmeted character named Tom Baxter (Jeff Daniels), steps down from the screen and into Cecilia's life.

 ''The Purple Rose of Cairo'' is pure enchantment. It's a sweet, lyrically funny, multi- layered work. The movie is so intelligent. No one in the whole movie speaks with more complexity than your average 1930s movie hero—but the movie is filled with wit and invention, and Allen trusts us to find the ironies, relish the contradictions, and figure things out for ourselves. While we do that, he makes us laugh and he makes us think, and when you get right down to it, forget about the fantasies; those are two of the most exciting things that could happen to anybody in a movie. (Source: Internet)

 

Woody Allen

Woody Allen is one of the most well known and respected names in the movie industry. His career of being a writer, director, actor and producer spans over 30 years and still thrives.Woody Allen was born on December 1, 1935 in Brooklyn, New York, As a young boy, he became intrigued with magic tricks and playing the clarinet, two hobbies that he continues today.Allen broke into show business at 15 years when he started writing jokes for a local paper, receiving $200 a week. He later moved on to write jokes for talk shows

Woody's theoretical directorial debut was in What's Up, Tiger Lily? (1966); a Japanese spy flick.  His real directorial debut came the next year in the mockumentary "Take the Money and Run." He has written, directed and, more often than not, starred in about a film a year ever since, while simultaneously writing more than a dozen plays and several books of comedy.

While best known for his romantic comedies Annie Hall (1977) and Manhattan (1979), Woody has made many transitions in his films throughout the years, transitioning from his "early, funny ones" of "Bananas," "Love and Death" and "Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex But Were Afraid To Ask;" to his more storied and romantic comedies of "Annie Hall," "Manhattan" and "Hannah and Her Sisters;" to the Bergmanesque films of "Stardust Memories" and "Interiors;" and then on to the more recent, but varied works of "Crimes and Misdemeanors," "Husbands and Wives," "Mighty Aphrodite," "Celebrity" and "Deconstructing Harry;" and finally to his film of the last decade, which vary from the light comedy of "Scoop," to the self-destructive darkness of "Match Point" and, most recently, to the cinematically beautiful tale of "Vicky Cristina Barcelona." Although his stories and style have changed over the years, he is regarded as one of the best filmmakers of our time because of his views on art and his mastery of filmmaking.

7th Dec 2014; Koreeda's Like Father, Like Son

Like Father, Like Son

A film by  Hirokazu Koreeda

2013 / Japan / 121 mins

5.45pm/Peks Mini Theater

http://konangalfilmsociety.blogspot.in/

 In contemporary Japan, the echoes of old Japanese gender culture lingers like a ghost, with the added layers of corporate pressure, sometime self imposed. But Hirokazu Kore-eda's focus here is on the theme of fatherhood, coupled with the theme of parenthood as a biological or nurturing drive.

The film begins with a clean palate, straight lines, neat apartment and absence of chaos as the Nonomaya nuclear family skates through life, balanced on the edge of workaholism. Ryota Nonomya (Masaharu Fukuyama) is a talented architect with a large firm, his wife Midori (Machiko Ono) in captivity as the mother at home, their 6 year old son Keita (Keita Ninomya) content in the safety of their comforts.

We meet that other family, the Saikis, a happily disheveled  shopkeeper (a devoted father) and his take away food shop waitress wife. They have three kids, the 6 year old Ryusei (Shogen Hwang) the eldest. This movie deals with an important  settlement happening between these two families. The contrast between the families' lifestyles and paternal attitudes plays on the dilemma facing them. Sensitively performed and directed, Like Father, Like Son is a series of acutely observed insights into its themes and its social setting, as well as a close study of human nature faced with some complex issues that go to the heart of our natural genetic urges.

The film won the Cannes Jury Prize and was nominated for Best Picture by the Japanese Academy, among a raft of awards and nominations including several from the Asia Pacific Screen Awards held on the Gold Coast.  

(Source: Internet)

Hirokazu Koreeda

Japanese auteur Hirokazu Kore-eda was born in Tokyo in 1962. Originally intended to be a novelist, but after graduating from Waseda University in 1987 went on to become an assistant director at TV Man Union. Sneaked off set to film Lessons from a Calf (1991) is first feature, Maboroshi no hikari (1995), based on a Teru Miyamoto novel and drawn from his own experiences whilst filming _August Without Him (1994), won jury prizes at Venice and Chicago. The main themes of his oeuvre include memory and loss, death and loss, and the intersection of documentary and fictional narratives. 

In a short period of time, Hirozaku Koreeda has gained a solid reputation as one of the most significant figures of contemporary Japanese cinema. His oeuvre is currently comprised of eight films including his television documentary work with TV Man Union, Inc. and his narrative films (After Life, Maborosi) which reflect the contemplative style and pacing of such luminaries as Hou Hsiao-Hsien and Tsai Ming-liang. He has become a cinematographic tightrope walker who almost unnoticeably switches between fictitious and real territories, between narration and invention, the private and the public.

2nd Nov 2014; Nagraj Manjule's FANDRY

 

FANDRY

A film by Nagraj Manjule

2013/ Marathi with English subtitles/ 103 minutes

2^nd Nov 2014/ 5.45pm/ Perks Mini Theater

This is  not a story of adolescent love, nor is it a satire on the haves and have nots. Yes, there are a few funny incidents in the film, but they are hardly worth laughing at because the jokes are always against the backdrop of the shattered dreams of the downtrodden. Everyone has a right to dream. And everyone aspires for, desires a better life.Fandry is the story of Jabya's dreams, his impossible, one-sided attraction towards an upper caste girl from his class—the right to education has put them both in the same classroom, but it has done nothing to erase deep-rooted social prejudices.

The symbolism of the final kill and carrying of the pig’s carcass in front of portraits of the very social reformers who fought against untouchability such as Savitribai Phule and Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, is just one of Manjule’s angry flourishes.

 

As is the token respect to the national anthem—a slap on the face of a state that doesn’t value these people but extracts unquestioning loyalty from them anyway
 

 

 Manjule tells his poignant tale with elegance, capturing the beauty of the rugged countryside in Maharashtra, the simple dialect of the community (which the younger generation is trying to shake off), the picture of absolute poverty. It’s all so real, it breaks your heart. Most of the actors are non-professional (including the director himself), with the notable exception of Kishore Kadam who blends seamlessly with the rest of the cast.

Fandry is a contemporary film on a subject that should have become history by now. Unfortunately though there are people in shining India who are still treated like pigs and there seems no end in sight to their suffering. Manjule makes a fervent appeal to the humanity we seem to have left behind somewhere.   

(Excerpts from the essy by By Y.M.Deosthalee  http://www.filmimpressions.com/home/2014/03/essay-fandry-and-the-question-of-social-inclusion.html )

 

Nagraj Manjule

Nagraj Manjule is a National Award-winning Indian filmmaker and screenwriter known for his first short film Pistulya. He hails from a small village in Maharashtra and has written and directed his first Feature film called Fandry. He is a writer and a poet and has published a book of poetry in Marathi called Unhachya Katavirudhha which won very prestigious award called " Bhairuratan Damani Sahitya Puraskar. At the 61st National Film Awards, Fandry won the Indira Gandhi Award for Best First Film of a Director while Somnath Awghade was awarded with best child actor prize. And also his First Short Film Pistulya won Best First Non-Feature Film and Special Mention For the Suraj Pawar at 58th National Film Awards.

Born and brought up in Jeur Tal village in Karmala taluka, a small town of Solapur district in Maharashtra, Manjule has closely seen how one has to struggle while getting an education if one belongs to a poor, backward family of a rural India. He has pursued his M.A. in Marathi literature from University of Pune, followed by Masters in communication studies from New Arts, Science and Commerce College, Ahmednagar

His first National Award winning short film Pistulya is a reflection of his 'felt experience',[1] Thereafter he made his debut feature film, Fandry in 2014, which was commercially released in February 2014. Fandry' literally means pig in the Kaikadi language, spoken by nomadic Kaikadi tribe, which is considered untouchable in Maharashtra and film deals with the issue of caste system-based discrimination.

He is one of the important poets in Marathi literature in the last decade. His collection of poems 'Unhachya Kataviruddha' has received a very warm welcome in contemporary Marathi literature, and book won very renowned 'Damani literary Award', also praised by the stalwarts from Marathi literature.

26th Oct 2014; De Sica's TWO WOMEN

TWO WOMEN

A film by Vittorio De Sica

1960 / Italy / 97 minutes

26^th Oct 2014; 5.45pm / Perks Mini Theater

http://konangalfilmsociety.blogspot.in/

Based on the novel by Albert Moravia the film explores war from the perspective of a woman and her young daughter as it is a story of motherhood as well as a coming of age story for her daughter. Set in World War II during the rule of Benito Mussolini, the film explores a woman and her 12-year old daughter trying to hide from the horrors of war by traveling from Rome to the Northern Italian mountains.

It’s a film that showcases what women go through in war as they endure many of its horrors where a widow tries to shield her daughter from these moments where the two become part of a group of refugees seeking shelters in the mountains. They befriend a former professor with Communist ideals. 

The film’s screenplay does have this unique structure where the first act is set in Rome as well as Cesira and Rosetta walking towards the mountains when their train is forced to be stopped. The second act is set in the mountains and in nearby villages while the third is about Cesira and Rosetta trying to return to Rome when the Americans arrive to liberate Italy.

"Two Women" is a remarkable slice of life and show the great acting ability Sophia Loren possesses. Very rarely are beauty and talent merged in one character. Evidently, the purpose of this account, as originally written by Alberto Moravio and adapted by Cesare Zavattini for the screen, is to represent the disaster of those people—and, indeed, of Italy—who thought the war was a matter of playing it cozy and making do.

 The indication of Allied soldiers committing the devastating rape is the ultimate bitter dramatization and comment upon the tragedy of the war. De Sica's direction has the qualities of fullness and momentum that are familiar and so compelling in his films.

(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 when he 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.                                                                                     

5th Oct 2014; Alexander Payne's NEBRASKA

NEBRASKA

A film by Alexander Payne

2013 / USA / 115 min

5.45pm; 5th Oct 2014 ; Perks Mini Theater

http://konangalfilmsociety.blogspot.in/

 

Filmmaker Alexander Payne is quite gifted at capturing speech in transit, the way conversation is contoured by the rhythms of the road. On the face of it, Nebraska is no exception – it’s about the relationship between a father and son, Woody Grant and Dave Grant, played by Bruce Dern and Will Forte, who take a road trip from Billings, Montana to Lincoln, Nebraska, to collect a million dollars that Woody thinks he’s won on a lottery sweepstakes. 

 The movie focuses on the quixotic quest of a senile and alcohol-addled Korean War veteran Woody Grant. Nebraska is one of the few films you'll ever see about the commandment to honor your father and mother. David is a big-hearted son who has empathy for his father.

“Nebraska” taps into a lot of universal truths while telling a story about the kind of ordinary people not often showcased in movies. Shot in beautiful tones of black and white (and silver and gray), “Nebraska” is steeped in nostalgia, regret and bittersweet moments. Yet it’s also a pitch-perfect cinematic poem about the times we live in.

In many ways, “Nebraska” hews to the classic buddy road-picture, with the mismatched Woody and Dave setting forth on a journey of mishaps, chance encounters, hilarious high jinks and — of course — filial bonding.

(Source:Internet)

Alexander Payne

Born on February 10, 1961, in Omaha, Nebraska, filmmaker Alexander Payne is known for such critically acclaimed film as Sideways (2004), The Descendants (2011) and Nebraska (2013). His mother was a college professor and his father ran a restaurant. While his parents hoped he would join a respected field, such as law or medicine, Payne graduated from Stanford University with degrees in history and Spanish literature.

After university, Payne attended the University of California, Los Angeles' prestigious film school. From the very beginning, he aspired to become a director. Starting with His 60-minute thesis film, The Passion of Martin (1989) he continued to make remarkable films. Staying true to his beliefs, he directed and co-wrote About Schmidt (2002) with Jack Nicholson in the title role as a retired widower searching for meaning in his life which won prizes and accolades.  In 2012 he received three more Academy Award nominations, this time for his film The Descendants (2011)—Best Director, Best Screenplay based on other material and Best Motion Picture. In 2014, Alexander received another Academy Award nomination for Best Directing for his film Nebraska (2013).