Beyond gizmos

Movies can be robotic, all technique and wizardry, but they are, more often than not, lifeless. Though the Calcutta Film Festival had plenty of these, there was a sprinkling of simplicity that seemed beautiful, says GAUTAMAN BHASKARAN.

CINEMA steeped in technique often loses its soul. Most film- makers today get so obsessed with camera angles and background scores that they tend to neglect plots and their narratives. It is not rare to come across a director who believes that digital effects and splashes of colour can effectively camouflage a weak story or even bad acting.

The Calcutta Film Festival, whose sixth edition ended recently, wore this attitude literally on its sleeve. Whether it was Latin America or Europe or Asia, movies from these regions looked like collages of gimmickry. In fact, they reminded one of Ismail Merchant's remark some months ago. "Cinema is no more a story. It is magic and mayhem". Mrinal Sen echoed the same sorrow in Calcutta, when he said that the medium had lost its essence, its life.

A classic example of this at the Festival was Nagesh Kukunoor's "Bollywood Calling" (admittedly a vast improvement on his first effort, "Hyderabad Blues"). He tries pulling a farce out of the cans, but slips and sinks into the very system he wants to ridicule. His preoccupation with technique bores a viewer; a few frames later, even a great actor like Om Puri seems annoyingly caricatured (what else, but as a South Indian). And "Bollywood Calling" flounders with its merry set of cliches. An American star comes to India to work in a film, but gets distracted by the one-night stand he has with his heroine. It's all predictable after that, and who cares.

Not the producer, not the director, not the actor. Soumitra Chatterjee, Ray's favourite actor, feels that cinema has lost its simplicity, and thereby its beauty. Machines have taken over man, and what appears on the screen are shallow images that try and tell unidimensional tales.

There were several of this kind at the Festival. Even the one that opened it was no exception. Eliseo Subiela's "The Adventures of God" from Argentina is a trifle too mechanical, almost surreal, to tug at any heart.

"Ties and Ropes" from Luxembourg was intriguing with its high- tech sophistry: when a father wills his wealth to his handicapped daughter, it arouses the demon in a few others. It was not difficult to guess how the plot would run thereafter, but the tendency to jazz up the setting with a hundred unnecessary little things was irritating.

The Festival, however, had its share of excellence. The retrospectives, whether of Aravindan (his last, "Vaasthuhara", shot in Bengal was shown as well) or of Luis Bunuel or of Godard pepped up the days and the nights. They were top craftsmen, yes. But they were also engaging story tellers, who extracted the best from their stars and created memorable pieces of celluloid.

Apart from the retrospectives, there were some greats. Australia's Paul Cox may not be in the same league as Bunuel or Godard, at least not yet, but his "Innocence" was almost a masterpiece. Two old people meet in a railway station to rekindle memories of a beautiful relationship they once shared. They fall in love all over again to the consternation of the woman's husband (who has enslaved her in a loveless marriage) and the man's daughter. Bare to the core, Cox gives us no frills, no unwanted details, and leaves a lot unsaid. Is that not how cinema ought to be, more to see and feel, rather than to hear and fret over? Ever so wonderful is the way Cox mixes up images - of the past and the present - with fine dexterity and without a shadow of confusion.

Another delightful work came from Tibet. Made by a Lama, Khyentse Norbu, "The Cup" attempts to present the other side to a Tibetan monastery's austerity. Boys will be boys, so what if they are training to be monks. Their latest craze is soccer, and their bash at the game, albeit through a television set that they acquire after a series of misadventures, is frowned upon by the disciplinarian heads. Norbu's work is not just refreshing at a time when the medium is drowning in a pool of gizmos, but is warm and touching. And, above all, gripping, despite its stark frames.

There was humour too at the Festival. "Me, You and Them" from Brazil by Andrucha Waddington was subdued hilarity. Darlene is tired of the unaffectionate old man who gives her a home and his name to her child from an earlier encounter. So, she decides to get pregnant again, this time by a passing labourer, and she gives him shelter in return. The threesome soon become a foursome, when her husband's cousin troops in to claim Darlene's love. Shorn of pretension, the film with patches of vibrancy was adjudged the best at Karlovy Vary.

Ricky Tognazzi's "Making Love" (the title attracted the wrong crowds) from Italy might not have won any such accolade, but it was melodious and deeply moving. Set during the war, it talks about two friends madly in love with their violin, with the music it produces. Handled with prowess, "Making Love" works on many levels. The love story between a Jewish pianist and one of the violinists heightens the horrors of Nazi tyranny, and as the picture runs its course, it offers bitter-sweet moments of poignancy. Hard to erase from the mind.

Spain's "The Girl of Your Dreams" by Fernando Trueba was another attempt at capturing wartime romance. Penelope Cruz as Macarena catches the eye of the notorious Nazi Propaganda Minister. She cannot return his affections; they are for her director (who is making a film - in the film - with her as his lead star), who is married, but, worse, terrible in bed. Laced with ingratiating wit, which takes the sting out of all the tragic turbulence engulfing those on the screen, Trueba's work is spirited and often flies with a certain lightheartedness that Spanish cinema is known for. However, the last scene - on a foggy air tarmac - is a lift from "Casablanca", with even the director-character trying to look a Humphrey Bogart!

Also a case of inspired copy, Tom Tywker's "Run Lola Run". He turns out to be Germany's Kurosawa, whose magnificent "Rashomon" captures, as we all know, several versions of a murder. Tywker gives us three variations of a heist. Lola is in a dilemma when her lover needs 1,00,000 marks to keep a criminal gang off, and how the couple do it has been cinematographed with saucy speed. The work may have borrowed a certain thematic visualisation, but it is, otherwise, slick and absorbing.

Iran's "Son of Maryam" (by Hamid Jebelli) and Britain's "Ratcatcher" (Lynne Ramsay) tackle equally distressing situations, although the protagonists here are children. Jebelli's Rahman is called upon to save a life in a church, and Ramsay's James has to live with a terrible guilt. Both pictures rely on neatly tailored scripts, rather than technical wizardry, to achieve style and substance. This is precisely what made them - and some others - endearing. And the Festival escaped from complete mechanical madness.

(Concluded)

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Section  : Entertainment