Getting hold of a classic film is no tough task these days, for those who are ready to take the illegal route. Digitally restored versions of most of these gems are available online, if you know where to look for. Yet, those who take the trouble for the same, agree that the charm of watching these films in the original 35 mm prints is quite something else.
The 21st edition of the International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) has dedicated the night slot at Sree Theatre for screening the classics in all their glory. Titled Night Classics, the package will bring to the audience five of the much-loved classics.
Top on the list is François Truffaut’s Jules and Jim , hailed as one of the masterpieces of the French New Wave. The film, set during the advent of World War I, depicts a 30-year relationship involving two men and their shared lover, Catherine. Unable to choose between them, she destroys everyone by holding on. The film daringly questions some of the basic assumptions about human relationships and offers a vision of an alternative kind of relationship.
Robert Bresson’s Pickpocket , inspired from Fyodor Dostoevsky’s ‘Crime and Punishment’, follows Michel, a young pickpocket who spends his days working in the streets, subway cars, and train stations of Paris. As his compulsion grows, however, so too does his fear that his luck is about to run out.
Swapnadanam
Representing Malayalam cinema in the package will be K.G. George’s masterly debut work Swapnadanam . The psychological drama is on a young doctor caught in a unhappy marriage to his cousin, going through a mental breakdown haunted by the memories of the woman he was in love with, during his college days. The film, released in 1976, was a commercial success too.
Jean-Luc Godard’s tenth film Pierrot goes Wild is about a jobless and unhappily married Ferdinand, who decides to run away with his ex-girlfriend Marianne. Settling down in the French Riviera, things don’t turn out the way they imagined it to be.
Japanese film-maker Kenji Mizoguchi’s 1953 film Ugetsu Monogatari , set in the 16th century, revolves around two peasant couples who are uprooted as an army sweeps through their farming village.
The IFFK has had special sections for digitally restored classics in all its editions, but this will be the first time that a whole section is dedicated to the screening of original prints. The prints have been procured from the British Film Institute, the National Film Archives of India and elsewhere. The screenings will be at 9 p.m. on all days.
