Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
Thiruvananthapuram
Warped minds, tormented souls
|
Twelve films from Afro-Asian and Latin American countries will vie for honours at the Seventh International Film Festival of Kerala, to begin in Thiruvananthapuram on March 29. PRAKASAM K. UNNI offers a preview
|
From ``Ekti Nadir Naam'
Many of the feature films entered in the competition of the Seventh International Film Festival of Kerala, to be held in Thiruvananthapuram from March 29 to April 5, deal with warped minds and ravaged souls continually yearning for stability and sustenance in a pitiless impersonal world.
Twelve films from nine Asian, African and Latin American countries compete for the top prize, Suvarna Chakoram, which carries a purse of Rs 10 lakhs. Other prizes to be given are a Rajata Chakoram, with a cash component of Rs 3 lakhs for the best director, a Rajata Chakoram with a cash award of Rs 2 lakhs as Special Jury Prize for excellence in any area of filmmaking, and an Audience Prize, carrying a purse of Rs 1 lakh, to the director voted the best by delegates to the festival.
The films will be judged by a five-member jury headed by the veteran Hungarian filmmaker, Marta Meszaros, who, perhaps, has made the most powerful statement ever on celluloid against Stalinism. The other jurors are the German director, Reinhard Hauff, the Japanese filmmaker, Kohei Oguri, the Sri Lankan director-writer-journalist, Tissa Abeysekara, and the Assamese actress-director Santwana Bordoloi.
The International Association of Film Critics (FIPRESCI) would give a prize to a film adjudged the best by its jury chaired by the internationally-acclaimed British film critic, Derek Malcolm. The jury would also have Andrea Martini, film critic from Italy, and Prabodh Kumar Maitra, Calcutta film critic, now compiling an encyclopaedia on Satyajit Ray.
There are three films from India in the competition, `Shesham' (Thereafter) and `Danny', both in Malayalam, and `Ekti Nadir Naam' (The Name of a River), in Bengali. `Ekti Nadir Naam' is a take-back to a Ritwickian world reminiscent of the master's films such as `Subarnarekha', `Meghe Dhaka Tara' and `Titash Ek Nadir Naam'. An attempt to question and define terms such as `refugee' and `home', this film uses elements from theatre, dance and folk representations. This film by Tanzanian-born Anup Singh had won the Aravindan Puraskaram for the best film this year.
Of the two films from Brazil, `To the Left of the Father', a maiden film by Luiz Fernando Carvalho, touches on a topic widely considered taboo -- incest. Andre is a Lebanese migrant in Brazil who leaves home following an incestuous relationship with his sister. When he is brought back into the family, the expose of his incestuous past vitiates the atmosphere with tragic consequences.
Dead men tell no tales, but the protagonist in the Brazilian film, `Posthumous Memoirs' by Andre Koltzel, writes a memoir after his death. The film is based on the book, `The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas', by a renowned 19th-century Brazilian novelist, Joaquim Maria Machado De Assis. The following quote by the narrator of the novel gives insight into the spirit of the story: "Be aware that frankness is the prime virtue of a dead man. The gaze of public opinion, that sharp and judgmental gaze, loses its virtue the moment we tread the territory of death. I'm not saying that it doesn't reach here and examine and judge us, but we don't care about the examination or the judgment. My dear living gentlemen and ladies, there's nothing as incommensurable as the disdain of the deceased."
Akihiko Shiota, a Japanese director who has done films exploring teenage minds, has directed `Gaichu' (Harmful insect), a film, said to have been roundly booed during its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, 2001, for its theme that had apparently abraded the moral sensibilities of a section of the audience. The story revolves around Sachiko, a 13-year old girl, whose nascent sexuality is preyed on by adult males. She ends up maladjusted to the life around her. Female sexuality, which is pulled in conflicting directions by modern values and the bounds of tradition, is the theme of `Fatma', a film from Tunisia by Khaled Ghorbal.
Need for companionship is the theme of `Taxi Un Encuentro' (Taxi an Encounter) from Argentina. The film by Gabriela David is about a smalltime car thief who is `civilised' by his chance encounter with a girl, wounded and abandoned following a gunfight between her parents.
`Soif' (Thirst) from Morocco, set in a village where water is scarce, develops into a metaphor for a thirst for freedom, expression and to reach out.
Imagine a pickpocket finding a photograph of his wife in a wallet he has just stolen. This happens in `Pickpocket', directed by Linton Semage from Sri Lanka. In this film, which shares the name of the 1959 Bresson masterpiece, the pickpocket, fuelled by jealousy, pursues with almost mordid obsession the person who had kept the photo in his wallet.
`Karmen Gei' by Joseph Gai Ramaka, tells the tale of a sexy, seductive woman who attracts people to her like moths to a flame.
She represents an unbounded animal spirit burning out her life tragically in an African concrete jungle.
This film from Senegal is based on an adaptation of an opera by Georges Bizet.
It is replete with brilliant colours and vibrant music in tune with the tenor of the theme.
The lone entry from China, `Orphan of Anyang', is about the members of urban society marginalised by the economic changes of the last two decades in China.
Revolving around characters such as a prostitue, a gang leader and an unemployed youth, the film is laced with strands of comical irony.
The competition also features first-time feature filmmakers.
This doesn't diminish the serious nature of the festival.
After all, Bergman and Satyajit Ray too were first-timers once.
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
Thiruvananthapuram
|
